Ready

Tigger warnings: self harm, suicide, suicide adulation

READY

Katharine Daniels

 She was outside and waiting by the curb when he pulled up. Climbing into the passenger seat, she pecked him briefly on the lips before buckling her seat belt. “Good morning to you too,” Matt grinned as he took his foot off the break. “How went the night?”

 She sighed, avoided looking at him. “I only cut twice” Carly murmured, touching her thigh in remembrance. Matt winced and scowled, glancing sideways at his girlfriend. His hands left the wheel for a moment as he pounded his right fist into his left palm. “Damn it! This is just too much! I can’t stand this for you. I just want to…take the pain away. I want you to find peace.”

 “I know. Me too.” She knew that his anger wasn’t directed at her, but instead at the entire situation. The direction in which both of their lives were heading. She was quiet for the rest of the ride to school and Matt decided to just let her be. She would talk more when she was ready. He found a parking spot and turned off the engine. Carly turned to him, her voice like a feather floating on his ear. “I think I’m ready” she breathed softly. He turned and looked at her, his hand reaching wistfully towards her face. She didn’t flinch; never with Matt. Her trust in him was implicit. He brushed a strand of frizzy red hair from her beautifully freckled face. His smile was slight but full of emotion. He could see the mist in her eyes and knew how hard she fought to evade the tears that threatened to well there.

 “Want to skip?” he asked. She nodded. “I want fries.”

  Senior year in high school. It was supposed to be the time of their lives. Matt, extremely tall, awkward and ungainly. Not exactly unhandsome, but slightly off-kilter in the looks department. His hands and feet were too big for his body, a few old acne scars decorated his cheeks. Thick black hair, worn long in an attempt to cover his enormous ears. Girls giggled into their palms when he and Carly passed them in the hall. His feet and nose were huge too; they knew what that implied.

 The boys, on the other hand, knew for sure. But they weren’t telling. They took it as a personal affront, especially the jocks. They had all seen him in the shower after gym. They tried not to let their gaze wander to the magnificent penis that they each thought they themselves should have. They never talked about it, but they admired him and hated him at the same time.

 They all wondered if Matt and Carly “did it”. How could they not, when he was endowed with such an amazing, artful piece? Once, and only once, had a foolish junior asked Matt about his sexual experiences with Carly. The boy had received a different version of the gentle hands that Carly knew. Matt didn’t hurt the kid; at least not much. But the imprints of his hands where they clamped the boy’s upper arms lasted close to two weeks. “Never talk about my girl like that. Never.”

 Carly, then, was the other side of the coin. Petite, pretty in a fresh scrubbed way, she wore no make-up. Her ginger hair frizzed and flew wild about her face and she never thought to corral it. A sprinkle of freckles splashed across her face and Matt adored each and every one. Even on the warmest days, Carly would be dressed in long sleeves and pants. There were too many scars in too many places. Gym was an elective for seniors so there were no shared showers or sparse gym suits for her.

 Quiet and shy, she usually walked with her head down, unless she was looking up at Matt. He treated her with tenderness and care. She knew without a doubt that he would never hurt her. He would die first. He would hold her gently, loosely, so not to aggravate the cuts that would find their way to different parts of her body every few days. Stroking her wild red hair was a favorite thing; it calmed them both. His own pain diminished when he held her, kissed her, stroked her. She was his heaven in a world of misery. The year before, Matt had been diagnosed with cancer.   His chemo was hideous. The second round finished just six months before. She had helped him keep up with schoolwork, encouraged him to eat, and tried to convince him that his ears were really not that big when he lost his hair.

 Even after a chemo treatment, exhausted, extinguished, he needed his daily fill of her. To breathe her in was to breathe in life. Her hair smelled of sage and citrus. Her eyes a mossy sea of green. He was easily lost in the sweet musky forest that was Carly. What hurt him the most was her pain, not his own. She had loved her mother so.

 Suicide. Such a big word to contain only seven letters. A word usually spoken in strained whispers rather than right out loud. The cutting began shortly after Carly discovered her mother’s body, hanging by her father’s belt from the ceiling fan. Carly had been fourteen. The pain of the razor blade was far more tolerable than the agony of her mother’s loss. Along with that loss was the feeling of abandonment, of betrayal, of mistrust for anything or anyone other than Matt. He was the only person that she knew she could rely on. They had upgraded their friendship to romance about a year before, and wondered what had taken them so long. They had kissed, touched, and stroked each other. They had not yet experienced intercourse but had come close. They discussed it often and agreed that they wanted the time to be just right. They both needed to be ready. She knew that he would never abandon her or abuse her trust. She knew that he would never leave her. He had told her so and Matt never lied.

   They sat in a booth in the corner of the restaurant, looking at each other, not smiling. He rubbed his thumb in circles at the base of hers while he waited for her to talk. The order of fries arrived and Carly automatically reached for the salt shaker before sampling them. A pause, a shake of salt, a deep breath. Then she popped a fry into her mouth. Her lips made the shape of an O as she registered the burn from the hot oil. Then she laughed. The pain felt good. “Yeah, I’m really, finally ready,” she told him after she swallowed. He blinked twice, thinking about what she was saying. He sucked in his breath, afraid that if he let it go she might change her mind.

 Oh God! He had waited for this for so long! They had spoken about it so many times, considering what it meant for them as a couple as well as individually. He wanted to make her his and his alone. No question in his mind that it would be good for himself. It was Carly that he was concerned with. He wanted whatever was best for her. It was her call.

 They had been friends since Kindergarten, growing up on the same block and sharing the same classroom. They played together in Carly’s yard or in his, deep into the summer nights. Bike rides, walks to the store, card games, hide and seek. The sound of the frogs peeping in a nearby creek was the noised that the stars made when they twinkled.  Each was the other’s rock; also the other’s joy. And when one of them hurt, the other also felt the pain. Friends for so long, they saw each other through devastating changes.

 Matt shouldered the tough times as best as he could, considering his own set of circumstances. His cancer was always on the back burner for him. Carly always came first.  She found some release when she began to cut herself.   Her father never knew about the cutting. He had little time for his daughter, throwing himself into his work in order to offset the loss of his wife. Carly looked too much like her mother for him to handle well.  They could never tell anyone. If she were taken from her home, Matt feared that he would lose her forever. And so they had sworn an oath, to be together always.

 Then, barely a year after Carly’s mother died, Matt was diagnosed with cancer.   His chemo was hideous. The second round finished just six months before. She had helped him keep up with schoolwork, encouraged him to eat, and tried to convince him that his ears were really not that big when he lost his hair. “The cancer’s back,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. She didn’t really look surprised. Her eyes wet, she just nodded. “They want me to do another chemo, but it will really only give me a few extra months. I just don’t want to do it, Carly!” When his tears began, she began sobbing in earnest. “I know, baby…I know.”

 “So what are your thoughts?” Carly asked him. “Like, how can we arrange this? Where should we go?” She was excited, frightened, an entire spectrum of emotion at the same time.

 Matt looked thoughtful, a touch of a smile in his eyes. “So, I was thinking…my car. We could go up to Eleanor’s Point. You know, we could look down and pretend to see your house.” Carly laughed. Whenever they had a make out session, they would go to Eleanor’s Point. She would always imagine that she knew just which obscure light in the distance was actually her house. The young woman sighed. She had so many good memories with Matt. But so many horrid things also. Like suicide and loss.  Like cancer and chemo.

 “Then we’ve got to do this soon! Before you get too sick. I want to do this, Matt. I want to be yours. Forever. Nothing will ever be the same…after.”

 “No. How could it be? I just had to wait until you were ready.”

 The view of the town from the top of the Point was amazing at sunset. They watched the sun go down behind the hills and slowly the little lights below began to appear. Yep, that one right there. She knew as well as she knew her name; that was her house. Matt’s voice was soothing and concerned. “You can always change your mind,” he said. “I won’t hold it against you.”

 “I know. No. I really want to do this.” He backed the car into a copse of trees facing the overlook. The music was on, the air conditioning was blowing softly. He kissed her. Slow at first, gentle. She snuggled into him. Then: “will it hurt?” she asked him.

 He frowned. How could he honestly answer that? “Maybe. But not for very long. Then it will just be beautiful!” He kissed her again, slowly, longingly. She smiled against his lips and murmured. Then his hands were in her hair, stroking her face, her fingers clutching his upper arms in desperation. He unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. “God, I love you!”

 “I love you too.” She was breathless. “Let’s do this! Make me yours! I’m ready!” He kissed her again and whispered her name. “Yes,” she whimpered. His arm around her, he pulled her face into the crook of his neck and breathed her in. Sage and citrus. Then he plunged his foot hard on the gas pedal and the car soared across the lot. Carly screamed once when they were airborne but kept her face buried tight into Matt’s body. He was still stroking her hair. 

 Neither one of them knew when they hit bottom. There was no pain. Blackness. Nothing. Forever. It was beautiful.