Small in His T-Shirt

1

I run my finger over the surface of an old dressing table—dust, silver thimble—and perch myself on a precariously wobbly stool. I stare into the mirror, into its wonky rendition of myself. It has a cloudy, greenish hue and its circumference is freckled with dark spots—a few of which are superimposed on my collarbone—and I’m unsettled by the ashen face that glares back, the purple beneath her eyes, the eeriness of her white dress. It’s the mirror. Even the sunlit bookshelves behind me have lost their glow, the grass has lost its green, and the sky has lost its blue.

“Are you interested?” She’s got red lipstick on her front teeth and I’m tempted to compensate for this little piece of vulnerability by purchasing something.

“Just browsing,” I say instead, rising from the stool. I hover for a while, arbitrarily picking up teapots and spoons and the occasional saucer. I open a cabinet door and pretend to examine the hinges. I nod and smile as I move on.

I step beneath a blue gazebo and into the shade. There’s a patch of blue sunlight by my feet, across the books, where I open a weather-beaten novel. The spine is slack but there aren’t any pages missing; and there’s writing inside the yellowed cover, on a yellowed page. Merry Christmas, it says, from Jake. It’s odd to have a little piece of his life in my hands, a little piece of his life with a label on its back. Discounted. The gun’s on the table.

The vendor looks over at me, just a glimpse. Dark eyebrows over green eyes. He looks to be at least a decade older than me, despite the patterned overshirt, the skater shoes, the studs in his ears.

“Have you read this?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

I pick up another book as I contemplate his voice—smoke, rust, wood—and there’s a lethargy in my fingers as I flick through it. I can hear the pages turn, the twittering of a bird. I find myself trying to look absorbed, and I’m suddenly aware of my posture, my stomach, my bitten fingernails. I manage to read the blurb and an inscription on the title page.

If you’re Faustine,

I’m the fugitive.

Please notice me.

Love, Jake.

I read it twice and I’m intrigued by this small piece of someone else’s vulnerability.

“I’ll take this one,” I say, and I cringe at my cadence. I leave feeling stupid and ugly.

2

I pull on a pair of socks and drag myself into the living room. The book’s on the coffee table; the red-purple cover is illuminated by the sun, casting a red glow over its pages. I pick it up. Please notice me. The handwriting is kind of sinister. It quivers, it trembles and even the loops remind me of nooses. I shove it into my bag and pull the housekey off the nail. I thought of nothing but those green eyes last night and the night before last; do they belong to Jake? to the fugitive? I’ve got a narrative in my head, an unresolved conflict.

I manoeuvre my way through the small crowd hunched over tables, hunched over suitcases. I crouch down by one and I’m aware of the many legs around me as I performatively scan the blurb of a novel I’ve already read. I recognise the vendor’s knees, his hairy legs, his shoes.

“Did you enjoy The Invention of Morel?”

I look up. Green eyes against the blue gazebo. “Yeah.”

There’s a grumble of thunder as he digs through a suitcase and fishes out a book. “You might like this.”

I neglect to read the title. I’m transfixed by the blonde on the cover, the blonde in blue embraced by the black shadow of a man. The water colour fabric of her dress gives her an innocent and whimsical touch: a child in a woman’s body. I realise I’ve been staring too long and quickly accept it, handing him a coin.

“I better go,” I say as the rain picks up.

“Do you have an umbrella?” He pulls a lawn chair back beneath the gazebo; it’s already freckled with raindrops.

“No.”

He rummages through a backpack as the rain begins to drum against the gazebo.

“I could have sworn,” he mumbles.

3

White noise of rain. Static cloud of grey. There’s a girl across the grass with an umbrella, half beneath the open sky, half beneath a drooping gazebo. She laughs as gushes of water strike the top and slide down each rod. I can’t hear her. It’s silent laughter. It’s a silent film.

“Here you are,” he says, handing me a paper cup. The steam rises like incense.

“Thanks,” I say, and I can smell the coffee, the rain, his cologne.

He returns to his seat and scrolls through his phone, the lines on his face illuminated by the screen. I open Hayes’ In Love and read the same page twice. I peer up a few times; not once do I catch his eye. I can’t read when I feel like an inconvenience.

“I’d better go,” I say, rising.

He jumps up and gestures at the rain. “Where to?”

I look around stupidly, performatively, and he pulls up a chair beside me.

“I didn’t get your name.”

“Nora, and yours?”

“Jake.”

I’m sure my eyes light up.

“Nora, let me drive you home.”

I mumble something about inconveniencing him.

“I feel like an inconvenience too, sometimes.”

*  

We duck out from beneath the gazebo and run for his car. Rain hits me in the face, the eyes. Jake arrives and unlocks the driver’s seat door, hops in and reaches over to unlock mine.

I’m dripping wet, my hands are puddles, and there’s a pool of water dribbling down my face, my chin. Jake laughs, and I take in his purple lips, the black strands of hair glued to his forehead, the white T-shirt molded to his shoulders.

“You don’t mind my shoes?” I ask. There’s mud on the floor, mud on the back of my calves.

“You’re alright.” He leans forward to adjust the heater, leaving a drop of water on the dial.

I pull my bag from beneath my shirt.

“Toss it in the back,” he says, and turns on the radio, leaving a drop of water on that dial, too.

Mazzy Star’s on. We sit here a moment in silence, staring at the rain and the puddles and the people. Some kind of light into your darkness, sings Sandoval, colours your eyes with what’s not there. The van begins to warm up and our breath is mist, our breath’s a sauna, our breath fogs up the glass. Raindrops expand on the windscreen before trickling over into branches; and they carry within the blue of the gazebo, the green of the trees. The tambourine starts, reminiscent of rustling leaves, and I can smell his cologne again, I can smell his damp clothes, I can smell a hint of sweat, and I could surrender myself forever to this tender hypnosis.

There’s a click as he puts on his seatbelt.

4

One small box of half-eaten pastries. Two paper cups of cold coffee. Jake’s brushing his thumb over my thigh and staring at the ceiling.

“I used to be scared of you,” I whisper.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And now?”

“No.”

He holds me over the edge of the couch, my hair sweeps the carpet. “What about now?”

I squeal and he chuckles, pulling me back into his embrace.

“Why were you scared?” His breath still smells of me and my mouth still tastes of him.

“I read the book inscription you wrote,” I say, untangling myself and rising from the couch.

“And?”

“And the ‘notice me’ bit was a little—” I sweep the pastry crumbs into my hand and escape into the kitchen.

“It was inscribed to my high school sweetheart,” he calls.

“Do you drink instant?” I turn the kettle on and snatch up a mug

from the dish drainer.

“Yeah.” His voice falters.

“Milk and sugar?”

“Milk and two sugars.”

When I return to the living room he’s already put on his shirt, his head clasped in his hands. I place both mugs on the table and he lifts his head; a strand of hair falls about his forehead and he smiles.

“Thanks.”

I sink into the couch beside him, staring at the hair on his legs as I blow into my coffee, staring at his knobbly knees as I take a sip.

“She sent it back,” he says, blowing into his. “All of them.”

5

I open the door and am met with a smile. His lips are pale, his hair is damp and he’s carrying two brown paper bags stained with raindrops.

“We’ve got two hours,” he says, and kisses my cheek. He treads water into the house—it’s glistening on the floorboards—and kneels on the carpet by the coffee table, pulling muffins from the bags. There’s a blade of grass on the carpet and another on the back of his shoe.

“They’re still warm,” he says, then looks up at me. “What’s wrong?”

He rises to embrace me, strokes my hair.

My arms are crossed and I know I’m being petulant in my stubbornness, in my mumbling and incoherence. I pout and he pinches my bottom lip, gazes down into my eyes, raises an eyebrow.

“You have to ask before you come over,” I mumble, and he chuckles, scooping me up and sitting me on the couch where he kneels between my legs.

“May I come in?” he says, tucking his head between my knees. I run a hand through his hair and wipe the raindrops onto a cushion. He plants a kiss on my inner thigh, and another, and another, and his lips climb, his hot breath lingers over my underwear, he pulls it aside.

“Touch yourself,” he says. I do, and I’m wetter than I thought. I squelch, and I’m hypnotised by my own body, I’m hypnotised by how he grows beneath his trousers in response, I’m hypnotised by those green eyes.

“Do you want it?” he says and I nod. He unbuttons his trousers and springs upright, bulging and anticipant. His thumb brushes over my neck, his fingers trace my collarbone.

“Tell me not to,” he whispers. His breath is a warm cloud and I’m disoriented.

“Don’t,” I say, and he sinks into me. I’m dizzy, I’m pulsating and my whole body adjusts to accommodate him.

*  

I’m shuddering but he’s still thrusting inside me, sweat dripping from his forehead onto my lips. He smiles as my legs shake, smiles as I push him away.

“Tell me not to come inside you.”

“Don’t.”

“Yeah?”

“Really, don’t,” I say, and he does.

*  

I showered, washed Jake from my skin, and I’m now sitting on the couch eating the cold muffin, staring through the blade of grass on the carpet. I’m trying to find the will to change out of my pyjamas, put on my socks and shoes, and go to the chemist. But I can’t find it.

In Love is on the coffee table, on a small pile of half-read books. Either the blonde in blue has changed or I have. I see disillusionment; I see resistance, resignation and melancholy. I can picture her opening her eyes, picture the dress disintegrating into fairy dust and falling about her feet. I can picture her standing there in a limp black dress with the sullen eyes of the world-weary. I take another bite of the muffin. The narrator has so much self-awareness that I begin to wonder what Jake related to. What did he read? What does he think he read? When you read what others read, watch what others watch, live what others live, you begin to see the origins of their beliefs, the transparency of this thing we call identity; and the enigma unravels because you can identify its source. But Jake, he seems invulnerable to the influence of anything; he lives in his own world and sees what he wants to see. In a grimace he sees a smile, in resistance he sees a game, in a girl he sees a doll, and in him I see nothing of what he’s read, of what he’s had me read, except for a gross misunderstanding.

6

One of my mugs now sits by the bathroom sink, two toothbrushes inside. I stare at it with a tinge of hostility as I rub moisturiser into my forehead, into my cheeks, over my jaw. As I run my hands down my neck, I close my eyes and inhale. I can hear the wind whistle through the window, I can hear the rain patter against the glass.

An empty bowl sits on the coffee table, a puddle of milk and crumbs inside, bits drying to the porcelain. I fight the urge to throw it in the bin but carry it into the kitchen where I scrub at the tiny flecks of cereal glued to it. Last night’s takeaway boxes are still here. I smack the faucet closed and stack the bowl on the dish drainer before dragging my feet to the balcony. I fish my underwear from the dirty clothes basket and drop them into the washing machine, then my socks which smell of his feet. I unscrew the laundry detergent and pour for too long—out of disgust, hygiene, a desire for control, I don’t know—and I can already predict a rash. I sigh and turn the machine on anyway, anticipating a new beginning: a clean, pure, fresh new beginning that overwhelms with the scent of lavender. Two of his T-shirts hang from clothes hangers on the back of the patio chair. I fight another urge; I fight the urge to peel them from my hangers and drop them off my balcony into the mist.

7

I pull a pair of blue socks over my orange ones and climb back beneath the duvet. My phone’s vibrating again and I stare at my bedroom door in silence, my muscles tensing up, my jaw clenching.

He showed up on Friday unannounced again and I couldn’t find the will to tell him how I felt. I thought I’d let it come apart on its own, unravel on its own, crumble on its own, and thus found myself in bed with him again. Before leaving, he lifted my chin with a finger and looked into my eyes. You alright? he asked. Green eyes, swamp eyes, pendulum eyes. I’m fine, I said, then I closed the door and threw his toothbrush in the bin.

He texted me today, before the ringing, the knocking, the banging.

You’re just a small bird

a heartbeat in my hands

a body yet to fly

a head that dreams of skies.

I smile at those vacant eyes,

at your tender sing-song

for I could crush your beak 

and yet I don’t;

 I could squeeze your bones into splinters,

and yet I don’t;

I could clip your wings

and yet I don’t.

For you’re just a small bird

a heartbeat in my hands

wings that don’t know flight

dreams that don’t know skies.

Where do I begin? We don’t consciously perceive the source of our hunches and thus dissuade ourselves from them, all in the name of rational thinking. My phone vibrates and I switch it onto silent. But I was right, I was right to see nooses in those loops, I was right to see something sinister in that scrawl.

I jolt upright. The banging has returned. A whining. My name. My blood cells freeze up, my pores shrink, and I’m just a raging pulse in an ice sculpture. And yet a tiny piece of me—the girl who wore nylon fairy wings and plastic tiaras—wants to open the door, to sob into his chest, to seek comfort from the source of pain himself.

But I know that it’s easier to create emotional dependency than a genuine connection. I know it’s easy to persuade ourselves that this emotional dependency is love. The knocking stops. I rise to lock my bedroom door, tiptoeing because I know he hasn’t left; I know he’s listening for the floorboards, the light switch, my breath. And yet something draws me beyond the bedroom door, towards the peephole. I see him standing there in silence staring at his phone, and in this small scene of unreality, he is unthreatening, he is vulnerable, he never wronged me.

It’s clichéd, but we’re conditioned to believe that we need a man to protect us. We see security in their age, in their height, in their arms, but they’re equally as pathetic as we are, they’re just as lost as we are, only they’ve been conditioned to navigate their way out of it while we’ve been conditioned to depend on them. Being told that you’re a saviour is a self-fulfilling prophecy, being told that you’ll be saved is too. And we wait and wait and wait for someone to save us; and they save us from nothing but themselves and the pain they cause in a vicious cycle of abuse and comfort. The knocking returns. I unlock my phone. Twenty-seven missed calls.

And the invisible threat they claim to protect us from becomes real, becomes tangible, becomes a grown man banging on our door. And yet I’m still in one of his T-shirts. It’s big, it’s safe, and I’m small, I’m so small.