Bleed (6 page)

S
ATURDAY
, A
UGUST
12, 9:40
A.M
. W
EST
C
OAST TIME
, 12:40
P.M
. E
AST
C
OAST TIME

It was the way he talked about her. The way his eyes filled up, like the tears could drown you in just one blink. The way his dimpled chin trembled when he spoke. How his voice was all splintery, slivered into a million pieces—all about her, about how much he loved her and couldn’t accept that this had happened, that he had done it.

The trial had lasted a little over two weeks. But I watched it a lot longer than that. Thanks to Court TV and my VCR, I watched every night before I went to bed and sometimes until the sky turned blue again. Some nights I just couldn’t say good-bye, couldn’t bring myself to look into those watery eyes or hear that broken voice and shut the power off. That would be like abandoning him in some way—leaving him all alone in that cold, impersonal courtroom, trapped in the TV.

I’d play and replay the tape, noticing new things each time. Like that his hair was really dark, dark brown, rather than black like all the papers said. And that he had a Madonna-like mole on his bottom lip that moved with his mouth when he talked.

The tape became fuzzy in parts. Parts where it was his turn to talk about Melanie. When he said how nothing else meant anything, including prison, or death, or whatever else they might do to him, if he couldn’t see her every day, if she couldn’t read him one of her poems.

I just never knew someone could love that much.

I look over at the armchair in the corner of my room. My clothes are already laid out. My yellow sundress—the short flowy one I’m wearing in the photo I sent him; the barbell necklace Maria made me when her tongue hole stretched and she upgraded to a size six (not the classiest piece of jewelry, but she said it was for luck and it looks kind of cool); my strappy black sandals with the two-inch heels (so I’ll be tall enough to talk to him and not feel like I’m five). The same heels that have the straps that cut into my skin and make blisters—a necessary sacrifice.

And my new silky pink bra. I unravel it from the pink-and-white-striped paper the saleslady wrapped it in, and hold it up to my chest. They’re demi-cups, with scalloped pink sheering that borders the top, and a tiny plastic clasp in between. I hope it’s the kind he meant.

I wore a bra kind of like this on my date with Derik LaPointe last year. Derik was this guy my mother fixed me up with, the son of some friend of hers. And while I never meant for him to see it, I kind of knew he would. And then he did.

My date with Robby will be different.

I manage to get the dress on, despite my fumbling fingers at the back zipper, make my way over to the mirror, and take a peek. And suddenly—even though I’ve come this far, or maybe
because
I’ve come this far—I feel sick. Like I can’t possibly go through with it.

I yank the hot rollers from my hair and flop back onto the bed, pull the covers up to my middle. I think back to how this whole thing started, with just one innocent letter.

But then there were more letters. Five and a half years’ worth. Five and a half years of him constantly asking me for my phone number. Me, forever ignoring the question. Both of us feeding into each other’s idea of fantasy and sharing our deepest secrets—how we’d meet when he got out; all of our plans for when and where; how my father lives in Santa Cruz, and isn’t that so close?

And I never really intended any of it. Mostly.

It’s almost ten. A lump forms in my chest. I swallow to try and dissolve it, but it feels like it’s only getting bigger.

What if I’m not what he expects? Or … what if I’m exactly what he expects? I know he says he loves me, but will he love me in person? And could he possibly love me as much as Melanie?

I move over to the dresser and take out the last ingredient of my outfit, the last stitch I’ve promised to wear.

Even more important than the bra, the panties are pink and silk and two sizes too small. They’re the bikini kind that dip low in the front and have accordion-like straps on the sides. I wouldn’t normally buy a pair like this, especially because they cost nineteen dollars and give me permanent wedge, but they’re the kind he wanted. I just hope the color’s right—that the pink is pale enough, but not too light. That he doesn’t tear them the way Derik did.

I haven’t told anyone about Robby, even though sometimes it’s practically killed me. Like when I came up with the idea for our Tuesday night smell-my-perfume-and-we’ll-think-of-each-other date. I
so
wanted to tell Nicole. It just seemed like the romantic kind of thing she’d have thought up. Or when I needed advice about whether or not I should even come to California.

But keeping him a secret, all mine, where no one else can touch or ruin him for me, makes it better. More romantic.

Plus, I can just imagine what Nicole would say about me pen-paling with a convicted murderer. She just wouldn’t understand.
No one
would understand. I even say the words aloud to myself sometimes, only to find that it sounds different in the air, out my mouth, so far from my heart.

I unpin the price tag and slip the panties on. The seams cut into my cheeks and thighs, as do the accordion straps at my hips. I wonder if maybe Melanie might have had a pair just like them; if she was ever scared of Robby, or just drawn to his excitement. Or maybe it was a little of both.

I try to imagine what she was thinking that day, her fifteenth birthday, just after the family party, when he suggested they take a walk up that dirt path behind the school to talk. If she played the whole breakup speech over in her head before she actually said it.

If she even saw the rock coming.

Standing at the mirror, I try to concentrate on my face, on putting on my makeup. My lipstick—Fuzzy Peach #9. But there are other faces I can’t seem to blot out of my mind. Faces of the jury when the lawyers showed the rock, still stained with Melanie’s blood. When the pictures of her head were flipped in front of them. This one woman, sitting to the right. Her cheeks, bubbling up and then exploding into a thousand puffs, like she couldn’t breathe, like she was going to pass out.