Invisible

LETTING GO

THE MUSIC ABRUPTLY STOPS, the fall closing, bench moving. I open my eyes as I hear Aiden’s footsteps coming toward me.

“Am I really that boring?” he asks.

“No,” I say, stretching, “it’s the sofa.”

He laughs, pulls my hair away from my eyes. Then his smile fades, and I can’t comprehend what he’s thinking.

“Do you want to go outside?”

“What’s out there?”

“Nothing. It’s just… well, it’s stuffy in here, honestly.”

I nod as I sit up, stand. He takes my hand, leads me downstairs through the backdoor. A cool breeze flows through, hitting us both in the face.

“My God,” he says as we walk out onto the porch, “this place needs air conditioning.”

“Yeah,” I say as he walks toward the banister, picks up a blanket off of the porch bench. It looks like the one we took to the concert on prom night, the same one we sat on during the show. I smile at him as we walk into the backyard, Aiden spreading it out. After we sit down, he stares at me, slightly making me nervous.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, “Just thinking.”

“About?”

He shrugs, starts picking at the violets that are growing in the yard.

“I want to know,” he says after a while.

“About what?”

“Everything. I want to know exactly what he did to you.”

I give him a dirty look, my stomach fluttering. “Are you crazy?”

“No. I really need to know.”

“No, you don’t. Next thing I know, you’ll be gone, and I would rather that not happen again.”

“Emma, I promise you. I’m staying no matter what you tell me.”

“No. I can’t risk that.”

“Well I can’t fix this until I know exactly what I’m dealing with.”

“I told you not to try to fix anything. You’ve already done enough.”

“Emma…” he trails off, his eyes seemingly sympathetic, upset. “Please?”

I watch him as his eyes try me again, the same painful expression he gave me the second I told him I was raped. I sigh.

“I swear,” I say, “if you even think about leaving, I’ll have Anna hunt you down.”

He nods, smirks. “Alright.”

I bite my lip, look away from him. Honestly, I really don’t want to tell him anything, the words still bottled up, caged deep down. He tells me to take my time, as if I’m supposed to want to hurry anyway.

It takes a while, but finally I start from the beginning, from the first time he did it, how I had to tell him I loved him, how everything just fell apart from there. He listens the entire time, his eyes never shifting, never searching. Just blankly staring, focused only on me.

Once I’m done, I look up at him, try to analyze his expression. I can’t really describe it, can’t tell if he’s either pissed or upset… or both.

 “I’m still here,” he reassures me as he leans forward, kisses my forehead. He doesn’t pull away so quickly, his hands grasping my shoulders, an awkward gesture. I smile when he does finally pull away, happiness taking over.

“You know,” he says, “after you tried to kill yourself, I didn’t really want to face it. I found you, and you kept fighting back. Like, you kept screaming you wanted to die and you didn’t want to live through this anymore. I don’t know, but going through that just made me want to give up too. And then when I saw you die…” he trails off, his eyes looking away from me.

“I’m not dead, Aiden.”

“Yeah, I just can’t get it out of my head. You were dead when I left, and that’s all I see every time I look at you.”

“Well… I’m not dead now. Just be happy that I’m not.”

“Oh no, I am. It’s just… that’s why I didn’t come and visit you. You were in the hospital because of me, and that just made everything even more fucked up than it should have been.”

We’re both silent for a while, a question lurking around in my head, a question I want answered.

I take the risk. “Why did you tell me to screw off?”

He blinks, his expression regretful. “Whenever I looked at you, I saw what he did to you and how I couldn’t prevent it.”

“Do you still see it now?”

“All the time. I just figure you’re having more of a bad time with this than I am.”

 I smile. “Well, he did get what he deserved.”

He shakes his head. “No, not nearly.”

My smile fades, his stare angry and frustrated. “Look, if we’re going to move past this, we’ll have to let all of this go. You couldn’t have protected me, and I’m not going to do anything else destructive to myself.”

“You already told me you weren’t going to do anything else destructive.”

“No, I said I’d try.”

“Whatever. Still, you didn’t.”

“I will now. I’d forgotten how many people I actually have around me, how lucky I am to have them. And now I remember.”

I watch him as he stares at me for a moment. Then he lies back, looks up at the sky. It takes a moment, but I lie next to him, try to make out what he sees.

“What are you staring at?” I ask, closing my eyes.

“Just trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to do,” he responds. I get what he’s saying, his family way more religious than my family ever was.

Then again, my mother was the only one who really held that together.

“Are you getting an answer?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“It’s not always going to be this bad.”

I smile, tilt my head toward him. He doesn’t look at me, just keeps staring up, eyes searching. Then I look back up, try to see what he sees. And then I listen.

It’s not going to always be this bad.