by
Louise Kantro
Really, he doesn't hurt her very often, once a month maybe, and there's not even any blood except in the way that a bruise is blood underneath the skin. He never hits her on the face, not since the first time.
So she has taken to wearing sweaters, even on hot days. That way nobody sees the purple stain that sometimes looks like an abstract painting, then later becomes a yellowy-gray reminder.
This time, though, everything is different.
The brightness of the sun makes her squint and, when her eyes adjust, she looks for him. How could he have disappeared? Did she pass out?
She sees someone walking across the path toward her, so she stands up, makes her face blank, and walks over to pick up her backpack, which Ben must have thrown against a nearby tree. She nods and half smiles as the girl passes her. The girl is a sophomore like her. They have the same Spanish class but have never spoken to each other. After the girl passes, she reaches for her sweater.
Just last week Dad asked, how can you stand wearing that sweater in this heat? But he didn't say anything after she shrugged and, even though she thinks about telling him, it makes her tired to even imagine what he might do, beat Ben up? Thinking about Dad with his hand around Ben's throat makes her smile. Then she feels guilty because she loves Ben, she really does, and Dad would never ever do anything so Tabloid-TV. No, he would say she was exaggerating because he wouldn't want to have to deal with it.
The first time it happened, she and Ben were at the park, leaning against the wall of the building where the park equipment was kept, talking, making out, talking, making out, the sunlight burning through the trees as the afternoon progressed, when he suddenly pulled back, what the hell are you looking at, his voice like sandpaper, and she was shocked when she felt the sting. The impact made her reel, and when she slapped her hand against the stucco building to get her balance, she felt the bumpiness, and that slap hurt more than what Ben had done.
Until the shock wore off.
Don't do that! she screamed, only inside, the way she had at Mama's funeral, carefully keeping her face blank, what a mature young lady Auntie Mimi said in her syrupy voice, and she felt good-bad because it meant she was handling it, thirteen and handling it.
Sounds pushed past the dryness in her throat and out into the air for him to hear, but he looked real upset, and she didn't want to make things worse. He shook his head, like well, if you don't know, and she backed up against the wall, her eyes down, afraid to look at him, afraid to run, afraid, too, of the silence.
Probably he said come here, baby, let me see your face, why did you have to look at him, don’t you know how much it hurts me when you look at other guys?
I was only looking at the sunlight through the leaves, but she swallowed hard so no argument would show in her eyes.
She ended up in her front yard, turning away from the late afternoon sun as she stumbled onto the front porch, key in hand, rubbing her face, and sure enough there were questions, but her dad believed her story about getting hit by a baseball, and her step-mom Janie must have heard second hand from him because she didn't ask any questions at all. Still, Janie stared, her eyes coming back to the swollen cheek the way a person would rub and prod at a chancre sore – Janie liked for everything to be neat and clean and trim like her fitness-club body – and every time Janie's eyes flicked across her face, she could feel Janie's revulsion.
She even kind of liked it, feeling something from Janie besides the nothing
her radar usually picked up.
Patting her cheek lightly, she had watched as Dad loaded the golf clubs into his Volvo and Janie hopped into her Subaru, glad they would be gone for several hours. She even started to call Ben to come over, then dropped the phone back on the receiver before it started ringing.
When Ben wanted to do it, she never said no, and she even liked having sex with him, but her favorite kind of date was watching a video with him at his house, snuggling up against him, playing with the hair on his arms or tickling his earlobe. It was nice to touch him, to be touched, and to hear his little sister and brother giggling and rough-housing. It felt like family, though after a while Ben would tell them to shut up and chase them out. Things were always better at night, whether they were at his house or in his pick-up, under the stars.
Why has Ben left her here, at the side of the boys' gym?
Usually, wherever they are, he just disappears into himself for a few minutes and, when the calming spell has settled in, he grabs her with his giant finger-tentacles, a little rough but not as rough as when he is punching or squeezing her skin on purpose. She drags along next to him, too tired to resist.
It's always the same. When they get to his pick-up, which he parks in the same spot of the school lot every day or on the same quarter block if they've gone to the park, he leans her against the passenger door. Listening to the sound of his tennis shoes on the asphalt, she tells herself that the pain will pass. After he has reached across the seat to unlock her door, she climbs in. Then his arm slides across the back of the seat, the same arm he has just used in anger. Come here, baby, and she scootches over, but reluctantly, to make him feel bad. Oh, come on, don't start blubbering, give me a kiss, but she shakes her head. He runs his finger along her neck, saying how much he loves her, and he does, she knows he does, sometimes he even cries he loves her so bad – not right then, but later, when they're lying under the blanket in the back of his pick-up, his hand in her blouse, his lips on her neck, he loves her so much, and it's not just the sex because he could get any girl. When they're making love in the coolness of the night, everything feels so right, she knows he loves her, she knows him, the way he will make love.
But today everything is different. Where is he?
A cloud passes over the sun. She puts on her sweater then takes it off again. It’s nice to feel the cool air on her arms, to not have to squint from the glare of the sun.
She picks up the backpack and looks around again, wondering if Ben is playing hide and seek. He's like that sometimes, one minute furious with her, the next playful. If he were pulling her to the car and one of his playful moods came over him, he might start to tickle her or say nursery rhymes, trying to get her to smile.
She walks slowly across the courtyard to the chain-link gate and into the parking lot, but Ben's pick-up isn't there.
She will have to walk.
Dreading the vacant look her father will give her when she passes through the living room, fearing-wanting a question, even a questioning look, aching, wishing, willing one to show in a line on his forehead, a turn of his head, she begins to walk home.
The honk behind her makes her start.
Get in, baby, quick before somebody sideswipes me, and she says, you left me there, it’s not fair, you left me there, only her lips are dry-locked.
When she shades her eyes to look up at him, she sees the sun pull tight, the rays of purple, orange, and pink spreading out in shiny rays across the darkening sky, then gather together to form a giant bursting ball of crimson that lights up the sky, then falls to the other side of the world. That's how she always thinks of it, that the sun beats down on the people in Australia when it's cool and dark outside her house. At night, alone, looking out her window at the black sky, she feels happy.
What's the matter with you, I came all the way back to find you, so get in.
As she looks at him, she can feel a small, hot sun fall inside her, leave her constricted throat, and drop into the center of her body, somewhere near her stomach.
The sky is darkening and the air is getting cool.
She shakes her head, knowing she can’t smile, but wanting to.
She looks ahead into the dusk and moves one foot carefully in front of the other, ignoring his words until finally she hears him gun his engine and peel out into the street.
Soon it will be dark.
Soon she will be safe.
She is ready now to talk, to tell.