english story -A Pretty Girl

[katyt]

There was a time when I’d see something beautiful and feel this urge to have it. I’d think up ways to make it mine or imagine who I’d want to share it with. And if I saw someone beautiful, I’d believe they were stronger, more special—just more than me.

But now, when I look at beautiful things, I see waste. I see time slipping away, hours and days fading into nothing. Photos that bring back no memories, faces that don’t quicken my pulse anymore. When I look at beautiful people, I feel almost sorry for them. They have so much farther to fall, so much more disappointment ahead when that final glow fades from their cheeks, when the light in their eyes dims. When their lovers look at them with no spark, no thrill left. When every kiss tastes like dust, every touch burns, and each word strikes like a blade to the heart and a sickness in the gut.

When I pass the elderly on the street, I feel a kinship. They may be fifty years older, but I’ve been where they are. I understand them. When I see the young, though, I feel lost. What in the world could make anyone laugh like that? What could make anyone care so deeply, so wildly? I see their happiness, their carefree abandon, and it feels like something I only read about in a book or saw on a screen. It feels like it happened to someone else—not to me. I was never loved like that, never touched like that. I never felt that way.

I’d give almost anything to feel that first spark under my skin again. Almost anything to hear him call me “honeypie” or “dollface,” or to hear the one who called me “sugar.” And especially the one who simply said my name as if it was more sacred than any prayer. When I see the young, with the condensation from their iced lattes dripping onto their tanned legs, I feel him tugging my thong down my hips, the fabric sliding over my skin, slipping past my knees as I step out—bare, open, and ready.

But I always push it away, bite my lip, and keep walking.

I ache in my very soul to hear the sounds of male laughter, to feel a drunken finger push my hair out of my face, then hook my chin and pull me in. The one who called me Sugar used to wait until he was nearly too drunk to stand, then push me against the bathroom sink and have me. His curly hair in my shoulder, biting my breast. I don't even remember most of it, just having a throat too sore to protest when my best friend would pull me from the mattress on the floor. She'd help me on with my pants and cardigan, shove me into her car, and never say a word. Her shame was equal to mine, and we kept each other's secrets. Such friendship is so rare, it may as well be considered impossible to find. But naturally even she disappeared from my life just as easily as the rest, especially when the love of my life told me he fantasized about her. I could never see her the same way as before, after picturing him entering her, even if it was his sick daydream.

Sometimes I pick up the box, the one we all have somewhere hidden in our homes or garages or storage units. The one with the dried flowers, cards, letters, mixed tapes, stuffed animals, dirty photos, anything he or she might have left behind. I have letters that I read. Text and email transcripts. Some horrible poetry. I bring this box out when I need to cry and can't, but now it doesn't work for me anymore. I read the letters, wonder if their wives have ever seen some of the shit I've written, and try like hell to cry or feel or anything. And I can't. I picture the sex. I picture the cocks. And I can't feel. I can't cry. Not until I remember that I wasn't good enough for a single one, and every one of them left me. And this time won't be any different. All the letters, all the texts, all the emails, all the clothes and stuffed animals and ticket stubs and CDs... I'll just have more of them when it's finally over.

When I see a pretty young girl with sad eyes, I want to slap her in the face. She's beautiful. She can do anything. She has hope. It's too late for me. It's too late for most of us. But this pretty young girl, she can still make it. And yet, I know she has so far left to fall. So much more hurt left to feel, before it's all over. But since she doesn't know that, I let her hope. The way others let me hope. Let it be my turn to let you down, pretty girl.