Chapter 3: Domestic Displacement
There's a reason we're scared of the dark.
It holds a truth you can't find anywhere else.
That's probably why I took to hiding in the closet.
I hated the dark, so when my mind was confused and loud I would punish myself with it, thirsty for whatever truth I never found there. And my parents never found me. They never looked and I thought that maybe one day I would rot away in the back of my closet, too apathetic to pull myself from the deep's claustrophobia inducing embrace.
I assumed everyone else in the world had these cramped emotions but reckoned that most every one of them didn't hide in their own hearts like cowards.
In five years my family had moved three times. My sister was about to move on to her last year of middle school just as I prepared for the upcoming final year of high school.
My mom had made a smooth transition from stay at home mom to stay at home pyramid scheme business queen, with a corner market on makeup, purses and totes, kitchen ware, and gossip. She was kind and had always handled me with kid gloves, never saying anything if she didn't know what to say which, with me, was often.
My hair was sunflower blonde, my complexion pebbled with freckles that could, on days, camouflage my acne and, on other days resemble it. My eyebrows were heavy and my eyes wide and there was a perpetual tone to my expression that could occasionally win me the children's menu at restaurants. My sister, Drew, despite being four years younger than me, never seemed to have this problem. In fact, it was often asked how much older she was than me. We had both inherited dad's Irish curls but hers were brown and mine were wild and never brushed and seldom tamed and, since she was old enough to use a straightening iron, she did.
Whenever we'd be out, people just knew that I was my mother's daughter because I guess I look just like her, but I never saw it. Maybe I could never see past the difference in our intentions.
Mom was everything she was because she tried and I was everything I was because I didn't and she would never understand that. Allow me to alter that sentiment… I was everything I was because I helped myself to a portion of the eccentricity that implied there was distinction to whatever my difference was… and that I might find solace in not really being able to help what I was… but if my mom could try and make herself what she was, well she supposed I could, too.
I call it my Cinderella face. There was nothing that a hint of effort and a movie glamor makeover couldn't fix but until that was a priority I couldn't seem to care. Maybe I saw it as a virtue then, although I'm not sure if I do now.
I crawled out on the carpet into the middle of the floor. I stared at the ceiling, spread eagle on the carpet.
This is normal.
This is normal.
This is normal.
The ache in my chest was swallowing me and the sensation was spreading from my lumping heart down my arms like electric lead through my veins.
The ceiling fan whirred, whipping blades blurred, a pulse.
How did every other person in the world handle living?
It wasn't physical, but my body was eating itself alive.
No one was going to find me.
Ouch.
I sat up, wincing at the concept and my flexing spine. No one in the world had time for so much self-inflicted drama, and that included me. If nothing else, I didn't have enough substantial woe to deserve it. Even so, I couldn't shake the feeling of my own being curdling.
I heard mom call me and Drew down for our family's daily attempt at recreating a Rockwell painting. Normally she would never have to call me because I spent all of my time at her heels chattering for attention, hoping that my annoying disposition might be reflected upon fondly and a noted absence when I went off to college. As it was, it wasn't even a noted absence today.
Our golden retriever, Buddy, prepared himself under the kitchen table to beg. Only dad ever fed him and mom had stopped tossing the reprimanding glances.
"Guess what, Mom?" Drew started as my mother was the last to bring her plated food to the table.
"Can we pray first?" Dad interrupted.
My sister pursed her lips and obliged as we thanked God for the food and our health and I wondered why we were so thankful for ourselves to be blessed when God hadn't bothered to equally bless others and we were basically thanking God that we were his favorites and I liked God, but I had never liked that.
"What was that?" my mom picked up where God was forgotten as soon as he was remembered.
"I got the highest final GPA in my grade!"
"Really, that's wonderful, sweetie!" Dad beamed and I felt really far at my end of the table. I prodded my meal, hoping it would get to my stomach without me having to exert any effort to get it there… and then I remembered how many people weren't lucky enough to get food… and then my fork was still too heavy to make it to my mouth. But I couldn't understand that instead of emphasizing my problems, the feeling seemed to drown them.
"Elizabeth, you're not talking very much this evening."
I wasn't sure how long I had forgotten to exist and searched for the time only to remember that there was no clock in the kitchen, there never had been, and I didn't actually know when we had sat down. My brain swam and realized it was both the swimmer and the pool and tried to stop, but all you can do in that situation is tread water.
"Calvin asked me out today." I watched me from a few inches behind my eyes. I shook it off. "Calvin almost asked me out."
"Really?" Drew piqued.
"Almost?" Dad clarified.
Everyone knew who Calvin was; I had told them about the boy I liked and had even pointed him out to Mom at a school event, once. All she had remarked was that he wasn't very attractive but I saw the hidden smile when she turned away, a faint twinkle in her eyes that said 'finally'.
"No, yeah, he said he was asking me out 'for a friend'."
"Who's the friend?"
"No, Mom, there was no friend."
I was so used to my family half-listening to me that I never realized that they only half-listened until I received their full attention and all of the concentration was nearly alarming. I hoped this wasn't what all conversation with people were like.
"Did you think that it might be possible that Calvin was the friend?"
"What?"
"Confessing your feelings to someone is hard. Maybe he was trying to test the waters."
Asking for a friend.
No.
Where had I heard that before? I had heard my mother say that before, to me.
"There was a friend. There was this other guy who asked me out just after… For a bet. There was this other guy and his friend and they weren't there with Calvin but it still happened. One of the guys bet five bucks I wouldn't say 'yes' if I were asked out. So his friend asked me out."
"Who got the five bucks?" Drew mustered.
I ignored her and shoved my first bite of food in my mouth.
"So this guy who asked you out is Calvin's friend?" Dad was talking with his fork, each of us sitting on either long end of the oval table.
"Well, I wouldn't assume I'd never get asked out in my life and then twice in ten minutes."
I was tired of the food and the conversation, dull and long and tedious and the feeling of hunger that food couldn't fix.
"I don't believe in coincidences."
There was some finality that might have granted me leave from the table but I had rolled around in my own words so much that I felt stuck to the whole situation like Velcro.
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