A Different Kind of Beauty (2 page)

And then one day, everything changed.

I went to him, and his eyes were different; he barely looked at me. At first I joked, trying to bring him back to me, but his face remained stoic and stiff. And then, his words tearing into me like fish hooks, he said flatly, "I don't think this is working out anymore. I think we should end it."

It hit me like a slap. I reached for words, but for a long time, I found none. In my silence, I reached for his hand, and he pulled it out of my grip. Boring into me with hard, uncaring eyes, he said, "Don't."

Finally, my voice emerged from the pinhole of my throat, barely more than a whisper. "What are you talking about?"

"We need to break up."

Even the second time, the pain was the same as if he had balled his fist and thrown it instead.

First, I begged him to take it back. It couldn't be true. How could he promise me forever, only to snatch it away so viciously? I pleaded with him to tell me it was a mistake, because I knew that he couldn't have meant it. But he persisted.

Next, I begged for an explanation. I had been blindsided; if I was losing him, my entire world, it had to make sense. I had to know what I had done to push him away, when only days before we had passionately discussed our future. I needed a reason, at the very least, but the ones he gave made so little sense that I can't even remember them now.

Finally, I begged for mercy. I wept passionately, and clutched my chest, and offered him the universe if he would only love me. But he stood stolid, with not a hint of emotion on his precious face.

In the end, he spoke the words that released me. His voice tight with frustration, he snapped, "Don't you get what I'm saying? You're not the one. I'm not happy. Okay? I'm not happy with you."

In an instant, I gave up my hopeless, desperate pleading. It was one thing to beg for happiness; it was quite another to beg him to be miserable for me. He deserved better than that. I fell silent, and I let go. A moment later, I was leaving his house alone, hating myself for whatever inadequacies pushed him away from me, sure that I would never see him again.

I spent six days in the womb of my bedroom, choking on the placenta of my own sadness. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was complete and utter loss. On the seventh night, I fell into sleep without weeping, what seemed a monumental accomplishment. But months later, when my heart finally seemed to be stitching back together, when I had found the job and the apartment and the real, adult life that I was so proud of, the cell phone on my desk started to vibrate. The text message that came through was from him.

Who was I to ignore it?

There was a time that I couldn't see Jesse in person, the wounds too new and raw, but there was no denying the warm affection I felt the instant I read his words. He didn't apologize; he didn't take it back. He told me he was worried about me. He asked how I was. He told me about the apartment he had rented. I pretended that my heart hadn't been shattered. I accepted his offer of friendship. At first it was hard, but every kind of pain changes with time. Mine became bearable. Soon we were in constant contact without ever seeing each other. Somehow, we maintained the bond that had always existed, before anything else between us. It only made sense to cross the scarce blocks between my new apartment and his, and when I did, it was like meeting him for the very first time. Everything had changed. I came back just in time to watch him fall apart.

***

The first time Jesse vomited blood, I was the one that he called.

It was well after midnight, and I was still half asleep when I picked up the phone. In an eerily calm voice, he told me that the bleeding had started while he was puking. He told me that it wouldn't stop.

I tried to be as calm as he was as I told him I'd be there soon, then I hung up the phone, and I called 911. Next, as I wriggled into my clothes in the dark, I called his mother. I told her to go to him, and I didn't have to explain why. Then I crossed the night, as quickly as I could, the first one into his apartment. The one to find him in his blood spattered bathroom, with his ghost white face, and his horrifying red lipstick.

***

He’s dying
, the doctor said.
He'll die if he doesn't stop
.

***

There are three memories of Jesse that stand out the most in my mind. The first was that moment in the bathroom, when I was sure that he was going to die. Dressed in pale jeans and white t-shirt that would never, ever wash clean, I pulled his still form into my lap, amazed at his feather lightness; the boney thinness through his cold skin.

In those few moments of silence, I was sure that I had come too late. But when my first scalding tear landed on his cheek, he started to cou
gh, weakly, his eyelids fluttering, and I was given a second chance.

Holding his precious face in both of my hands, I said the words that I hadn't voiced since he left me. I told him, "Jesse, I love you."

His eyes blinked open, and he smiled as he recognized me. He said, "Lindsay," and a moment later he was limp, sleeping coldly on my knees. Only when the paramedics came did he speak again, screaming my name as two strong men strapped him down and carried him away from me.

The second was the day we found a small grey mouse in the basement of my parents' house, stuck to a glue trap and struggling violently. I stood lookout as he stole up the stairs with the rodent under his sweater, and together we slunk into the garage, speaking to each other only in hushed tones. I held the trap still as he worked painstakingly slowly to free the mouse, using stolen vegetable oil and his long, gentle fingers.

After what seemed a breathless eternity, when the mouse's head and shoulders were almost loose, he pulled too hard and he broke its neck. The silence was abrupt, and it was deafening.

He stared down at the rodent in his hands. He was fifteen years old, and for the first time in nearly a decade, I saw him give in to tears. I watched with mute fascination as he continued his work, holding the tiny body in his strong hands, the tears dripping from the point of his chin and adding lubricant to his gruesome task. He didn't stop until the corpse was free, resting in his palm as he tossed the trap to the floor and mashed it into the concrete with one foot.

That night was the first time that he wrapped his body around mine, and only now do I wonder if he was contemplating death as he swept away my virginity.

The third was the night that we saw the moths from his front porch. We were only children, fascinated by the insects' heavy, bobbing paths. As we watched, they emerged from the darkness and were drawn to the light; they flew into street lamps, bashing themselves over and over, until they fell to the sidewalk, dead and still. We ran to the lights when we saw them drop, horrified to discover their fate.

Taking matters into our own hands, we found a butterfly net in my bedroom and then hurried back to the street. Very gently, we netted the moths as they approached the lamps, carrying them into the backyard, where we were sure they would be safe.

But every time, they would bob back to the street on their feathery wings. They would return to the lamps. They would kill themselves against the lights, and no matter how many times we tried to save them, they always came back.

Please
, he begged,
we’re only trying to save you
.

And there was nothing more frustrating than seeing them coming back, over and over, killing themselves. No matter how many times we tried. No matter how hard we fought for them.

***

After an eight hour shift, I walk back to his apartment. I make my way up the stairs, moving slowly, my feet feeling heavy. I knock on the frame when I reach the door, and he doesn't answer. Testing the knob, I find the door unlocked. I let myself inside, but the living room is empty; the kitchen
, too. With a nervous fluttering in my stomach, I shut the door behind me, and quickly cross the room to his bedroom. Through the open door, I see him stripping the sheets off the bed, and I sigh with embarrassed relief. His thin arms are shaking with exertion, and with silent, morbid fascination, I watch the strain and pull of his wiry muscles. There is a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Jesse?”

He straightens sharply, staring at me in alarm. His eyes are glazed. He is drunker than he usually is at this hour, and my relief is short lived. The sheet he holds before him is stained red, a spatter, and it makes my stomach clench. I check his face, study his lips for a sign of blood, but his hair is still damp from a recent shower; I'll find no sign there.

“What happened?”

He coughs into his fist, a rasping sound. His eyes clench shut with pain. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Jesse,” I whisper miserably. I can think of nothing else to say. His throat is
hemorrhaging again.

He balls up the sheet and tucks it under his bed, something I know he would never do if I weren't watching him. He holds out one hand, reaching out for me across the room. “Lindsay. Come lay with me. I don't want you to leave, but I'm too tired to sit up tonight."

I feel the tears building behind my eyes, but I don’t want to cry. Who knows how much time we have left. Misery can't be his last memory of me. I slip out of my coat, leaving it on the floor beside my purse. He lies down on the bare mattress and I crawl in after him. I lay down close, not quite touching, and he pulls a clean sheet over us. When he breathes, there is a rattling in his chest, but it clears when he coughs.

After a quiet moment, he asks me
,
"Do you remember all those kids we knew were going to peak in high school?"

I stare at the ceiling, listening to my heart beating in my ears. "What do you mean?"

"There were those kids, and we just knew that when we came back to visit in twenty years, they'd still be the same people, doing the same things that they always did and working the same minimum wage job they got before graduation."

We judged them all so harshly. We were sure that their lives were destined to be meaningless. We were hopelessly cruel; hopelessly proud. "Yeah, I remember."

"I'm one of them, now,” he says. “I never made it out."

I try to placate him. "You could never be one of them."

He sighs so deeply I can feel the mattress shift beneath us. "I can't believe this is my life," he whispers.

“Please stop,” I murmur gently.

“You should go to school,” he says simply.

“Will you be paying for that?"

“You should go to school, and meet a nice guy, and get married and start a career and have babies.”

I used to imagine what our children would look like. His eyes, of course. His hair. My nose, my chin, maybe my lips. The girls would have my lips. The boys would have his. “I’m a feminist," I say jokingly, hoping to turn the conversation somewhere light. "I don’t believe in having babies.”

“You’re impossible.”

I ease closer to him, awkward at first, but then I gingerly rest my head on his chest. His arm creeps uncertainly around me, and we exist together in a strange state of mingled comfort and unease.

After a moment, I can't help but speak. “Jesse?”

“Hm?”

"Why did you leave me?" This is a question I have never found the strength to ask. At first I'm afraid he won't answer, but then he says in a small voice…

"I was scared."

It is not the answer I've expected all this time. "Scared of what?"

He struggles for a moment. "Of all that I felt for you. We've been friends forever. Literally forever. I just didn't know what to do when it was more than that. And then everything got so serious… We were barely eighteen years old and it was like our entire lives were already planned and scripted. I couldn't do that. I loved you, but I thought I needed something that I could only get without you. I had all these big dreams…" He sighs, and then says bitterly, "I've clearly done so well at making them all come true." He squeezes my shoulder and kisses the top of my head, but his touch is like a brother's. "I know how wrong I was now, Lindsay, and I'm so sorry for what I put you through. It's always been you. But it's too late now. I ruined everything."

"You didn't ruin anything, Jesse."

"Of course I did," he says, his voice too tight for the casual tone he's trying to adopt.

"What are talking about?"

"I ruined my life, Lindsay. I've disappointed everyone, or at least everyone who actually mattered."

"None of us are disappointed in you."

"Of course you are. You should be
. I know I am. I ruined everything I could have had with you, and I did it so spectacularly that I know I'll never get another chance. I screwed up so bad in school that I ruined any shot I had of going to university, and I know my mother is disappointed in me. I never even made it out of this city; I've never done more than work on the goddamned assembly line. I'm nothing. I'm everything I swore I wouldn't become, and I hate myself for it. I know you're ashamed of me. I know my mom is ashamed, my family. And I know I've never met my father, but I'm sure he'd be ashamed of me, too."

His words can't break my heart, but they work their way through my bloodstream, leaving hot, barbed clusters in each ventricle and atrium.