We’re drinking small beers in a Spanish bar, there is people in the room but I am not sure I could remember them. There is an AC/DC record playing and he is telling me he liked them, I have no comprehension about them and wonder if the ten years in between us are like a vacuum of lost moments we are never going to get to share. I am starting to feel trapped, to feel unsure.
He is so nice to me, too nice, its starting to scare me my mind is going into overdrive ‘please don’t think I am a good person, please don’t think I can give you what I don’t have’ it’s time to leave, he is asking me if I want to go back to his apartment. I find myself agreeing even though my mind is elsewhere.
We’re in his apartment, hardly talking, hardly touching. I’m lost.
He puts a CD on and I am falling, we are standing there, holding one another, barely moving but I feel like we are dancing. I’m listening to the words of Nitin Sawhney and losing myself. His asking me if I mind if he doesn’t hurry, he wants to make love to me – how can he know that I am cold inside and nothing can melt me. He is reaching inside of me, finding something to grasp that is not real. I cannot stop him looking for what is not there, I do not know the words to say to tell him to keep his feelings, to be like the rest and look and see all that is lacking. I’m holding onto the music ‘inside my head I can be anything…’
He is making love to me, I am responding but there is always something holding back. This gentleness is too much for me.
We’re falling asleep, like a fallen angel he is looking at me in the dark, stroking my face. He cannot see my tears I just want to sleep and forget, always I want to forget.
Its morning, my resolution is hard, he is waking me wanting to make love to me. I cannot respond, my mind is not so much blank but bleak… the winter has set it. I’m nothing but cold. He guesses I don’t want too, but he is trying to persuade me, he thinks his sweetness, his openness, he’s feelings are enough to change my mind.
I’m laying there, wishing he would stop, he keeps trying, he is acting with compassion, wanting to make love to me – I feel like I am being raped all over again my mind is another place, with another man, with someone who hurt me, who made me colder than I already was. He is gentle but all I feel is someone else’s hand on me, someone who tore my life to pieces, a monster I cannot forget.
He stops, gets ready for work, I can see the confusion in his eyes, he feels like he has gone to bed with someone who is pure sunshine and woken in the middle of the coldest winter.
His leaving, I pretend I am sleeping. I get up and leave, careful not to leave any piece of me in that apartment, I stand at the door with tears in my eyes and tell his absent spirit that I am sorry, I am sorry but I cannot change.
I’m driving, the miles between my home and Malaga, as the miles pass I feel myself relaxing, I’m alone, driving through mountains, wishing I could stop time and stay there. I want to get out of the car and climb to the top and sit and be. My fingers are curling the rosaries hanging from my dashboard I’m praying for a sign, anything that lets me know I can feel, that I am human.
500 miles later I arrive, I have listened to the CD he gave me last night so much that my speakers in my old car have blown.
Everything seems fine, I paint on my smile and for three days I stay with my sister it seems ok …
We’re drunk, words are coming, she is shouting, I know I have said something wrong – I always do – my mind is going over and over, her words are stinging me. I want to go home, but I do not know where home is.
I’m texting him, telling him I want to come home to him. I need something to believe in even though my heart knows its not reality I am chasing. Its half four in the morning and I’ve had too much to drink but I am in my car driving back, the miles pass so slowly, my tears are drying, the anger is coming, then the hurt, the confusion, the guilt, the awareness that I always fail.
I’m resolute I will never speak to her again, I’ll never look back.
I’m home, he is waiting but I do not go and see him. Instead I lie in my bed of broken dreams and dry eyed I wait for sleep to take me.
I have no money, no job, I cannot pay my rent he is calling me but I am going further into myself I know this is not what I want.
I’m drowning …
And I cannot swim.
The Forgotten Girl 