All of Her: Chapter Twenty-Two

I don't go back to the apartment. Not even to pack everything when I find someone to take over my lease. I move in with Clark for a short time, unable to face the sympathy in my mother's face or the overwhelming sadness when I'm alone.

"Until you get back on your feet." he says, as he helps Noah and Kevin carry my stuff into his spare room. I sit in the middle of a pile of boxes, my knees pulled up to my chest and staring out the window. I stay like this for several days before Clark drags me out of the apartment for dinner. I have taken up smoking French cigarettes since Annabelle's death. Before we eat, I insist on standing outside the restaurant for a little while swallowing lungfuls of poison. Clark doesn't try to stop me, though he clearly wants to. Maybe he believes I'll stop on my own. Maybe he doesn't think it is his place to tell me what I should and shouldn't do.

I eat sparingly, much to his chagrin. When he thinks I'm not looking he slips an extra spoonful of whatever onto my plate. I, in turn, pretend not to notice this growing mound of uneaten food and continue to push it around my plate. He tries to engage me in conversation, but I have nothing to say. Nothing that I want to say. Nothing that I could bear to say. He eventually gives up and takes me back to his apartment.

Once we are inside I kiss him. He resists at first, but I know he hasn't had a steady girlfriend since me. I need the contact. And, in the end, he doesn't refuse. He is as gentle as he has ever been, but it doesn't really matter. I am too numb to really feel the difference between gentle and violent. I don't even orgasm, though I fake it splendidly. I didn't want to, I just wanted to feel something, skin on skin. Feel someone inside of me, a part of me.

While Clark is at work, I visit her grave. I lie beside her, watching the clouds chase the sun across the sky. I talk to her as though she was alive. I smoke. I watch mourners and lollygaggers march like ants through the cemetery. Loud wails and badly sung hymns become normality to me. I don't eat or even cry anymore. I just sit and smoke. I strain my ears for anything that may come from the corpse lying beside me. I have lost all sense of reason.

It is on one such day that Jae finds me. I don't see him, puffing on my cigarette completely zoned out. It isn't until he is next to me that I realize someone is there. He sits down and rests his elbows on his knees.

"When did you take that up?" he asks, nodding toward my cigarette.

"Maybe I've always smoked." I reply, taking another drag.

"You have never smelled like smoke and you never take a break to smoke when you are at the bar."

"You are observant." I say, mockingly. I stub out my cigarette and lay back on the grass. He lays back as well, propping his head up with his hands. "But maybe I am just really good at hiding it."

He just shakes his head, then turns to look at me. His eyes search my face, for what I'm not sure.

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"Because I have no where else to go." I say, simply. I have lost my job at the book store, though my boss said she would gladly take me back once my life gets "straightened out." I have lost Annabelle. I have lost my sanity. I have lost my self-respect. I have lost my hope.

"You could come with me." he says, sitting back up. His back has grass clinging to it and he runs a hand through his hair to dislodge the tiny pieces stuck there. He never seems to smile anymore, I wonder if I have destroyed him like I seem to be destroying everything else. He stands up, dusts off his backside and turns to me, one hand outstretched to help me up.

I don't take his hand, in fact I lie there and pretend to not see him. I stare into the endless sky, pretending I am on a cloud drifting away from everything here. This doesn't stop him. He continues to stand there, one hand outstretched. He looks like God reaching out to mankind, but I am too lazy to reach back. Isn't that the way of religion?

I don't know how long he stays there, waiting for me to acknowledge him. I don't sit up until he has given up and walking away. I stand then thinking I might follow him, maybe try to take back everything. Maybe I could make the attempt. He stops, as if he senses my conundrum, turns and looks at me. He let's a small smile float upon his Cupid's bow lips.

I turn away, though. I know the smile has faded as quickly as it appeared and I can't stand to think that it is my fault. I run to my car, careening like a drunkard on roller-skates. I go to a tiny bar a couple miles from the cemetery. The owners are capitalists, profiting from grief. They have a small dance floor, flashing lights and eclectic taste in music. I drink a shot of tequila to quiet the storm inside me and then I dance until my heart threatens to burst. I feel as though I was buried alive, though I am too tired to fight for air.

I drive slowly back to Clark's apartment. I feel like I am a wound rubbed with salt until I am raw. I park the car in the lot of the complex and I sit there, my cheek resting against the steering wheel. I stare out the window and wonder why I even wanted Annabelle. I wonder why she has such a hold on me, even though she is gone. It doesn't matter, because I can't ever have her. She has been eternally lost to me. I couldn't save her. I can't even save myself, what made me think I should try?

I pull myself from the car, feeling like I'm crawling away from the wreck of my life. I don't go into the apartment. Instead I wander the streets, chain smoking my fancy cigarettes, looking for something, anything. I don't even know what I'm looking for. I catch a glimpse of myself in a window, it makes me stop. I hardly recognize this reflection of myself, she is so different from the girl I used to be. A cigarette hangs from her mouth, her shoulders are hunched as though she were curling into herself. Her hands are stuffed into the pockets of her jacket and her hair is a dull blonde  in a mess of a chignon. Her eyes hold so much sorrow that I can't look her full in the face. It is hard to believe that this woman is me. We are nothing alike.

She looks worn from all the self-imposed tragedies, all the self-inflicted wounds. They aren't visible on the surface, but we both know they are there. I shake my head at her, she does the same. I pull the cigarette from my mouth and watch as she does the same. I touch the glass, but immediately recoil from her and begin to run. For a moment it was Annabelle in the glass and Abra had disappeared completely.

I run until I am too out of breath to continue. When I stop, I collapse to the sidewalk and cry. No one notices, no one stops to ask what is wrong. Its like I've already disappeared. I've become an invisible speed bump on a sidewalk.

He grabs my hands from my face and pulls me up and into his arms. I don't even have to look up. I know who it is. I just cry, two invisible people adrift in a sea of endless faces. He takes me to a cafe and orders a white chocolate mocha for me. He looks terrified as he presses the cup into my shaking hands. Its like he has seen a ghost or maybe he has seen what I've really become.

"Why is it," I say, once I have stopped sobbing and have taken a sip of my drink. "that you always know where to find me? Always know when I need rescuing?"

He smiles, a watery one compared to when we first met. He takes a sip of his drink and reaches across the table to hold one of my hands. His eyes dart across my face, searching for something.

"I don't know where to find you." He says, simply. He shrugs slightly and takes another sip of his drink. "Have you ever heard Plato's explanation of soul mates?"

"That we were once multi-limbed and Zeus split us in half?"

"Yes. Maybe it is that you and I are soul mates. My ability to find you again and again is because you draw me to you. Because you are my other face, the other half that makes me whole."

"Do you honestly believe that?" I ask, looking at our entwined hands.

"You asked for an explanation."

"You could be stalking me." I say, maliciously. I don't believe he is, but I am beginning to feel like a rabid dog, attacking anything near me. He is quiet, not defending himself. I'm not sure if that should make me nervous or not. After a few moments I mumble an apology for being so rude. He still doesn't say anything, his hand still holding mine.

We are quiet for a while, him still holding my hand. I don't resist, I don't try to pull away.

"Sometimes," he says, quietly, not looking at me. "when I run into you, I think I have found my other face. I think I've been lead to you by the half of my soul that begs to be whole. You won't let me in, however and then I begin to think that I am just in a dream. Dreams can be so deceiving when you believe you are awake."

He pauses a moment and then looks up at me, his eyes sparkling and dancing to some music I do not hear.

"I so want you to be my other face, Abra. The little time that I have spent with you has only made me want to spend more with you. I don't want to just sleep with you and then let you go. I couldn't. I want you to be with me, I want us to be whole, be one, and not broken anymore. I want you. I want to help you. Help you save yourself from this spiral you are in."

"I'm not worth saving. You should save yourself the pain and get out now, while you still can."

"I'm too far in to escape now." he says, taking a sip of his drink. He looks at me then, staring into my eyes until I am forced to look away. He grabs my other hand and holds them, gently, on the table. "Let me decide whether the pain I may or may not experience is worth it. You are worth saving, stop saying you aren't. Let me in, Abra."

"You'll be sorry you even tried." I say, pulling my hands out of his grasp. I stand up, thank him for the coffee and walk out of the cafe. I light a cigarette and puff angrily, determined to make us both as miserable as possible.

I return to the apartment to find it empty. There is a note from Clark that I don't read. I dress up and even use make-up. I style my hair for the first time in a long time. I stare at the girl I've become with a grim determination, a grim appreciation. She tries to smile at me, but I turn before she can. If I see her smile, I will break down, because it will be a broken smile. I am determined. It is too late to turn back from what I've become. I'm in too deep now.

I sleep with the first man that flirts with me at the bar. I don't resist as he leads me to his car. We go twice before he leaves me, standing in front of the bar and waiting for the next one. I drink until I can't see straight. I have sex with two more men and a cute girl with small breasts. I go home with her.

When I wake up in the morning it feels as if I have melted, like the Wicked Witch in Oz. I look over and cannot, for the life of me, remember the girl's name. She is pretty, her hair in tiny spirals, in varying colors, all over her head. Her skin is the color of dark chocolate and I feel terribly pale comparatively. I strain, but my brain refuses to remember anything about her or the other three I slept with last night. I can't even remember what the men looked like.

She stirs and I pretend I am asleep. She snuggles closer to me and sighs, softly.

"I know you're awake." she mumbles into my breast. I open one eye and glance down at her. She nuzzles me and looks up.

"You can't remember my name can you?" she says. I shake my head slowly.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Don't be," she says. "I wasn't expecting you to remember it anyway. You were quite wasted last night. So was I, now that I think about it. As it is, I barely remember your's."

"Abra." I say.

"Niya Bin." she says. "Short, and slightly distorted, for Vanilla Bean."

"Your parents named you Vanilla Bean?" I ask, stifling a giggle.

"Well, my mother loved the scent of vanilla and the way the word felt on her tongue. And my father thought it would be hilarious because of our last name being Bean. I have two sisters, so my father had a grand time naming us."

"What are their names?" I ask, my hand curling around one of her breasts.

"Coffee and Greene. Greene is the only one who can go by her first name in public. No one laughs until she says her full name. Coffee is like me and goes by a shortened, and slightly distorted, version." She laughs and mimics my hand movements, a hand curling around one of my breasts. She kisses me then, tasting like lavender and ginger.

We kiss for awhile, hands fluttering up and down each other's skin. Exploration begins in earnest and before we know it we are entangled. As we writhe, I think of Jae and having two faces. I look deep into Niya's amber eyes, searching her face as though I should recognize it as my own. Does Jae recognize me as part of him? Does he really believe that I could be his other face?

I thought David was my other half, the piece of a puzzle that made me whole. Without him, what was the point? He was my soul mate, my other face as Jae put it. At least, I thought so. But we can see where my thinking has gotten me, so far. I want to let Jae in, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid of being hurt again, afraid of being used again. Afraid of being in love with someone who sees me as a want not a need.

This whole situation, everything with Annabelle and my subsequent decent into madness, has shown me something. What was the point of all this? A revenge taken against my body, though my body wasn't the one at fault. A revenge against myself for being deceived? I haven't hurt David at all. I may have hurt Alice, the once, with my sleeping with her husband. Otherwise I haven't hurt anyone but myself. I realize that isn't true either. I have hurt all those around me, that love me and have tried to help me. You can't hold a knife to your own skin without cutting everyone around you.

I want to stop now. I want to find Abra again. I want to find out who I am after all this mess.

I finish with Niya, but I don't stay long. I kiss her goodbye and thank her for everything, before hailing a cab and returning to Clark's.

When I get there Clark is pacing. When he looks up he let's out a small sigh of relief and hugs me.

"What's wrong?" I say, slightly muffled by his chest.

"I was worried." he says, simply. Gently, I push away so that I can look at him.

"I'll be fine, now." I smile, kiss his cheek and collapse on the couch to sleep.

Instead of sleeping, however, I begin to think. Jae is drawn to me, but how am I to find him when I don't know if I'm drawn to him or not? He seemed so sure that we were meant to be together, at least for a time, but will my insecurities make it harder to find him?

Can you fall in love with someone just because you want to? It seemed so effortless when I loved David or Annabelle. There was no thought, nothing. I was in love. Is wanting to be in love with someone enough? Is wanting Jae enough to erase all the feelings still left in me for others?

Looking back on it, I remember how David and I began to forget the little things in our relationship. We didn't talk like we used to. We stopped randomly smiling at one another. We stopped communicating. We talked, but it was all bubblegum pop, nothing substantial, nothing real. I wonder if he ever thinks about those times when we genuinely seemed to love each other. I wonder if he ever misses those times, if any of them were even real. Its terrifying, actually, to even begin to think of trusting someone that much again, of putting myself out there like that again.

Is it worth it?