Safe. So Safe.
Symone Knox, “Introspective”
By Amber Morrison
I sit in the bright blue room, and the ceiling lights shine down on my translucent skin as goosebumps travel up and down my arms. My thin gown barely covers my pale legs. I move my body around to get comfortable on the scratchy paper bed. The blonde nurse told me to wait a few more minutes. Her words were sweet, but her eyes told me exactly what she thought: No surprise with this one. Girls like her always end up here. My patience thins while I wait for her to return and get rid of the future I didn’t want.
How did I let it get to this? We were safe. So safe.
I let the thoughts of how I got here swarm my mind--my curly-haired boy who left the smell of cigarettes on my clothes after our late-night hours together. I never could help myself when it came to him. He had a way of making me feel safe from the outside world, although at times he was never safe with me. When I wasn’t with him, I yearned to feel his fingers in my hair and his lips on my skin. I longed to hear his voice drown out the loud ones outside my bedroom door that always managed to hurt me even when the door was closed. I wished to use his body the way he used mine. I let myself say those three words back to him late at night so we could be closer--skin to skin--and his warm hands could remain on my cold body. I couldn’t say “no” to him, not when he was there for me at the times when the two people in my home were not. I couldn’t say “no” when he said, “Protection won’t work for us, babe. We shouldn’t use it. We would be closer if we didn’t. We would be one.” I couldn’t say “no,” even though at times I wanted to. I thought of him as the future I wanted, when I knew I was never his.
How did I let myself get sucked in? I was safe. So safe.
My thoughts go to my childhood and how it also led me here today. I think about my parents, who married so young because they had to. My mother was about the same age as I am now when she made the opposite decision, her love for my father so intense that she had to find a way to keep him when she knew he wanted to find ways to escape. I think that’s why my father resorts to liquor, the poison entering his body with his hope that it’ll erase the pain of his past choices. I think about the way my dad shows me affection with words thrown at me through closed doors, “Night, Chloe. Don’t piss off your mother too much tonight. Love you.” I think about how as soon as he closes that door, my mother comes for me with raised hands and harsh words, the pain of her childhood pushed onto me, and her words the same: “You ruined my life, Chloe. You ruined my future.” If only she had the same choices as I did as a teenager. If only she were able to let go of the toxic things in her life. I probably wouldn’t be in the same position as them now, allowing toxic things like a curly-haired boy with a mouth that tastes of cigarettes into my life and into my future.
How did I think I could ever be more? I was safe. So safe.
The kind nurse comes back, her face wearing a thin smile. She puts on gloves, and snaps them on her wrist as if she is getting ready to perform major surgery. She says to me: “Lay down sweetie, and put your legs up on here. You relax, now. It’ll be over quick and easy. I promise.” As I do so, another nurse comes in with the same thin smile. She tells me she is here to comfort me because she saw no one else is. She holds my hand as the other nurse begins. One second my feet are up and it is cold, so cold down there, and then another second it is over. The nurse whose hand is in mine says, “It’s over now sweetie.” The other nurse tells me that I can begin to dress, and that I can move on with my life, and that the future is no longer something I didn’t want. Before I leave, I notice their eyes looking me up and down, speaking through nonverbal cues: She’ll be back here soon enough. Girls like her come back and make the opposite decision to keep toxic boys.
No, I won’t be back. I can let go of him. I can let go of those toxic things. But then my phone rings, and his name pops up on the screen. My heart skips a beat, or two. I click the green answer button, and his voice whispers in my ear, “Hi babe.”
How do I let go of the one person that makes me feel safe?
I feel safe with him. So safe.