Deciding to invite Vee into my bed wasn’t a decision at all.
It was a need – as pressing as the need for food when hungry or sleep when sleepy…
…or the urgent need to take a breath when underwater for too long – as I had been for so much of my life.
He was right where I wanted him to be, although he was practically a stranger – but somehow a familiar stranger that I’d known before.
Vee held me for the longest time afterward, staring into my eyes. I couldn’t look away – I could barely blink.
He sat up, though I didn’t want him to. His warmth was now a part of me – his moving away was like the top layer of my skin slowly peeling away. He began to speak words I didn’t want to hear – not right now.
“There’s a part of you I can’t reach – a door I can’t open. What’s behind it, Val?”
I didn’t say anything for a long time, although my mouth opened, closed, and opened again. Finally, Vee sighed and further distanced himself by moving to the edge of my bed. I imagined another layer of skin shedding- the cold was unbearable.
“You don’t trust me.”
I could have turned the same statement back on him because I didn’t even know his real name. But I didn’t.
I sat up, opened my mouth, and let words spill out because I was afraid to be alone again.
I wasn’t completely lost in him, though. He was asking for my secrets, but I kept the stuff that I couldn’t say buried within. Instead, I visited a part of my past that felt safe and permitted him to join me there.
“I had the kind of mother who wanted to fix everything wrong with the world.
Everything was a cause…everything was a protest.
One week, she was protesting poverty…
The next it was predatory lending, gentrification, or protests against corrupt business practices…
…and even global warming.
On the surface, it was noble. She was well respected in the community; everybody loved her –
But I just wanted her to be my mother.
She pulled me out of public school and homeschooled me as just another form of activism –
But she was never really present.
There was always a call to the mayor or a rally that she needed to organize.
She was eventually killed doing what she loved – standing up to adversity at a so-called peace rally.
Everyone considered her a martyr. She was revered, but all I felt was anger because she left me while fighting for something that, in my head, she felt was much more important than me.
My dad worked a lot. He made money to support us while my mother was out saving the world. He was all I had after she died, but I barely knew him. I spent so many years longing for a relationship with him.
Long story short – in a way, I raised myself, and I think at times that’s why I don’t even know who I am -”
I add one last part to conclude my story, but I don’t say it out loud. The only safe place for it is in my head—
‘and it started way before my change.’
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