Elijah was four years older than me the first time we met in Sunday school. He was young enough to influence the children’s ministry, but old enough to have a say with the adults. They called him a blessing and a savior. They said Elijah was a godsend. They told me Elijah would pave the way to my salvation.
I believed all of them.
“I know something is weighing on your heart.”Elijah wore a plain white T-shirt that rode up when he sat down, showing the waistband of his plaid boxers underneath his blue jeans.“Tell me what it is. I want to help.”
I still had some of the chocolate bar he’d given me for my birthday hidden in a coat pocket inside the closet. Instead of eating the entire thing at once, I broke off one square at a time. It gave me something to look forward to when Daddy locked me away for hours at a time.
“Would you rather I get a female leader?”He scooted the chair back and clapped his hands on his thighs, ready to hunt one down. With a smile, he said,“My feelings will only be a little hurt, but I’ll get over it if it means you feel better.”
He had eyes bluer than the bleached summer sky, long eyelashes that brushed the highest part of his cheeks when he blinked, and his hair was as blond as a tumbleweed. Elijah smelled like cookie dough mixed with just-mowed grass. It was sweet and dirty and different, and I didn’t know real cunning before him.
I only knew I didn’t want to hurt his feelings at all. Placing my hand over his, I said,“If I tell you, do you promise not to repeat a single word to anyone?”
Elijah pushed the seat back to the table and leaned into me.“It’ll be our little secret.”He slid his thumb and pointer finger across his mouth like a zipper.“Trust me.”
It took more coaxing. I stalled, started, and stopped, but before the end of Sunday school, I told Elijah about my daddy. And I told him about the night before, when my brother found out I used his razor to shave my legs and tattled on me.
“Abomination!”my dad had yelled.“Unrighteous.”
I’d spent the entire night in the closet as a result. He’d only let me out to get ready for church this morning.
Elijah listened.
He nodded.
He rested his hand on my knee under the table.
“Your daddy is a dick,”he’d said, and I laughed.“Tell you what, Cami. I’ll make you a deal. You don’t tell anyone that I cursed, and I won’t tell your dad that you told me a family secret. It’ll stay strictly between us where it’s safe. Deal?”
“Deal,”I’d agreed.
Rolling over from my side to my back like a starfish, I blink against the memory until blue eyes turn to vapor and the phantom sensation of Elijah’s hand on my knee disappears with them. It’s the morning after my birthday party, and the syrupy taste of tequila lingers in my mouth despite how much mouthwash I gargled before bed.
After a late-night shower, my hair is still damp, tangled under my head like a bird’s nest made of twigs. I point my toes against the tightness in my calves, swearing off stilettos once and for all.Never again,I think to myself as I stretch my arms above my head, groaning as my elbows and wrists pop.
And then I sweep my fingers across my mouth, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth as I remember why it aches.
A different set of eyes takes up space in my mind now, and the memory of different hands touch my body. Down my neck, over my chest, across my belly… lower, lower, a little lower.
Opening me up.
Tasting me on the inside.
Those same eyes looking at diamonds and sapphires with burning rage. And those same hands tearing the note into pieces.
“Over my dead fucking body,”he said with the tongue he kissed me with. He took the blue velvet box.“Over my dead fucking body will you wear this.”
My bedroom door creaks open, and the whine in the hinges really is louder at night than it is during the day. Dog jumps onto my bed and stares at me until I sit up. I must not be fast enough for his liking, because he growls and paws at the blankets.
“You better shut up,” I say, kicking my legs over the side of the bed. My head feels like it weighs more than the rest of my body. “Before I give you to Dog Mom. I predict matching raincoats in your future, you little brat.”
Dog trots down the hallway, craning his neck to make sure I’m following him to the door every few steps. It’s after ten in the morning, and Lydia’s bedroom door is still closed with no signs of movement from the inside. The apartment is dark, unchanged since we got home too early in the morning. We dropped our shoes by the couch, and Lydia dumped a fat stack of birthday cards onto the coffee table to be opened after we slept.
I wonder who they made the cards out to?
Turning on the coffeemaker, I grab a zip-up hoodie hanging from the back of a chair and wrap it over my shoulders like a blanket. The cold concrete bites the bottom of my bare feet, and my breath turns to clouds before me. I watch Dog run to the grassy area from our front porch, in my half-dressed state, maybe a little tipsy still, with a smile as big as the moon on my face.
This may be the most normal moment of my entire life.
