326684: Memories

[achaya]

I’m five and cuddling with a stuffed panda almost as big as I am. Not that’s really much of a feat – I was a small girl, thin-boned and wide-eyed. The panda was a prize from popping balloons with oversized darts at a carnival. I bury my nose into its chest and smell caramel apples. I’m happy.

Eleven and twitching in one of those blue plastic chairs elementary schools always seem to have in abundance. Officer Renning is talking about the dangers of drugs to the class. I wrinkle my nose and shift uncomfortably in the hard chair.

//Why would anybody do drugs?// I wonder. //It’s just stupid.//

I don’t really pay attention to the rest of the program.

Fifteen. Leighton and Greg wandered off to some remote corner of the apartment, leaving me alone to watch Tomorrow’s Nobodies with John. He passes me the joint he’s been holding since the show started. I thank him.

I think I’m the only fourteen year old on the Greyhound. My headphones are up to eleven, blaring MSI backtoback with Duncan Sheik. Eric sends me a text.

\\What^?\\

He asks. I laugh, lean my head against the window. I text back, wonder if it’ll make him smile again like the last time I was there.

\\Coming to meet you. Get Sean off the couch, that’s my damn bed.\\

I’m eight and I’m cold. Halfway through the morning I realize that skiing is not for me. Instead, I spend time falling into the snowbanks on the sides of the bunny hill. Not because I can’t stand up; I just like feeling the light snow cover my face. By the time I go into lunch, I’ve decided that I’d rather spend more time under the snow than on it.

Ten years old and I haven’t developed my fear of needles. My cousin Lisa and I are wandering around the mall and she drags me into a small boutique with earrings in the window. A Birthday Gift, she tells me as two girls hold piercing guns to my ears. The needles only pinch a little.

I smiled.

My mother didn’t when she saw.

I cry at thirteen. I curl up in the big oak tree and cry cry cry thick salty tears drowning the branches below me making my skin feel tight and stretched and make it stop make it stop…

Jaime finds me. He climbs up. I look so small next to him, big camp counselor next to mousy little me. He asks what’s wrong, a first since I came here. I tell him just about everything, except for maybe that I want to run Sam Jonesey up the flagpole because he’s such an ass. He pats my shoulder and nearly falls from the tree. I catch his wrist. He helps me down from the tree and we never speak of the incident again.

Eight years old. Caitlin holds my hand and guides me through the park. I watch two women walking in the other direction, holding hands. I ask why and Caitlin says that They Like Each Other. I didn’t get it.

I’m fifteen, sprawled out on a bed making out with one of my best friends. Her name is Sarah. I think I get it.

One o’clock. It’s naptime for six-year old me, but I Can’t Sleep. So I grab a book from the pre-school shelf and lie down. Teacher Melissa goes out of the room and I take it out from under my stomach. The words run together after a while, but I can still understand them. I can see what they want to tell me. It makes me happy, but drowsy. I fall asleep on the book.

I walk up the stairs to the office humming. I’m eleven, I’m brave, I’m not afraid of needles, no sirree! Hum hum hum, dat dah da. The doctor sits me on a swivel chair instead of the counter. He must be new. I don’t know this. I figure this out when he attempts to give me a shot. The needle goes left when my arm goes right.

Shhhk. One small red line. Blood, I notice. My arm muscles tighten.

Shhhk. Two.

Shhhk. Three.

Three tries before he actually Gets It Right and gives me the vaccination shots I need.

I walk down the stairs with a fear of needles.

I’m three years old, celebrating my first and last Christmas. I rush down the stairs, cold bare feet outside. The carrots I left outside are gone

//The reindeer must have ate them//

I’m proud of myself for being thoughtful. Then I realized I forgot to leave Santa cookies.

My parents went out a lot when I was seven. I never liked the babysitters much, though. I was crafty, I was precocious. I was obstinate and odd. I hid in the closets to scare Them when they came over. One time I hid ten minutes before she came…I never heard the door close. An hour later I walk out of the closet and find the police in my house.

Fifteen and paying for another hole in my ear. This time in my cartilage. The shop is small and white. Pretty sterile. With a lot of needles. I Don’t Like Needles. The bottom drops out of my stomach and I shut my eyes as I hoist myself up onto the counter.

I can’t see it it’s not there I can’t see it it’s not there…

I try to relax but every time I do small red lines dance in front of my vision and I don’t like it. I feel sick. There are mirrors everywhere.

The needle goes through my ear quickly. I feel the metal sliding through my skin quickly. Quick quick quick.

It feels pretty alright.

I’m six. I can barely reach the kitchen counter yet but I’m cooking anyways, throwing things together in Mama’s giant glass mixing bowl. Like a six year old. Bananas, flour, milk, butter, eggs…Red 40 food coloring…

I get rushed to the hospital for food poisoning.

Apparently, I’m allergic to Red 40.

Fifteen, sleeping alone. Sophia, Devin, Ethan, everyone else is in the guest room – there was No More Space Inside for me to sleep there. I felt safe. Then He came into my room in the middle of the Night. I’m still a small girl, a small scared girl who can’t defeat a 250-pound giant. I get on the next Greyhound home.

It takes me a week to Tell Someone, Anyone. By then, the evidence is all gone. Charges are dropped.

That didn’t hurt, though.

My Parents Not Believing Me did.

They still don’t believe me.

I never figured out how I would End This Project. I just figured it would keep going and going and going until I died and then there would be nothing left to say.

This is the End, up until now.