Dead Heart Beat

It had been twenty-four years since she had last seen it, but the place still looked exactly the same. Were the people? Melissa wondered. The smell of hot soapy washed plastic trays mingled with the smell of fatty tasteless cafeteria food. It was as nauseating now to her grown up stomach as it had been to her 12 year old stomach then. Standing here in line feeling ashamed and embarrassed among the chattering, she couldn’t help but think of being twelve standing in a similar line in this very spot.

               It was lunchtime and the large crowd made her nervous. If she wasn’t so hungry she would have gone straight to a table and stuck her head in a book. But as it was she hadn’t eaten since the stale dinner roll she had the previous night and she was very hungry indeed. So hungry that she would thankfully gobble up the mushy food served to her for free. Her stomach was at odds with itself; growling in hunger even as bile tried to work its way up her throat.

She wasn’t shy. She was mortified. Anxiety ate at her from the minute she woke up and got on the bus, to the moment right before she stepped off the bus and walked the rest of the way home, the closest thing to happiness swelling in heart for the few moments that she felt free. At home she might not feel exactly happy, but she was afforded the luxury to simply exist. No staring. No crippling anxiety. Just exist.

She was short but hunched in an attempt to make herself all but invisible. It didn’t work. A shrill outburst of a laugh drew her attention from her shoes to the girl in the line next to her. The girl’s pasty white pudgy piggy face lit up with cruel delight under the strands of her stringy dark hair as she turned to her friend behind her and whispered. Both girls giggled harshly and turned their attention to Melissa. They gave her an up and down smug glance before going back to their whispering. It had all happened in an instant. Melissa went back to studying her shoes hoping that her look at the girls had miraculously gone unnoticed. She recognized the one girl. Jessica. They had a class together and had spoken at least a few times out of necessity and Melissa never had any reason to believe that she was disliked by her.

Moments later she was seated at a table reading while eating to avoid talking to the other girls at her table. It didn’t work.

“Jessica told Rachael you stuff your bra,” said one girl.

 Melissa just shrugged and went back to reading; an attempt to not betray her indifference to such a crazy bit of gossip, with her flaming flushed face. She didn’t stuff. She started going through puberty years ago and the fact was she was developing more rapidly than her parents could keep up. Her bras from a few months ago no longer covered her and made for a lumpy uneven chest. The constant need to adjust herself as discreetly as possible was just a fraction of the cause for her anxiety. She envied the flat chested. She was too shy and sad to mention needing new things so often to her parents whom were having work troubles. Gym classes that involved running were hell. She wore baggy shirts and hoped for the best. A year later she wore baggy shirts for another reason. Boys started going through puberty and thought nothing of shouting lewd and down -right disgusting things to her about her chest.

That was the beginning of a life of ridicule and set the stage for a life fraught with terrible decisions.  Did any of those people know? Did any of them care or wonder what their words had meant? Melissa would’ve guessed: no. They were children and children did such things. Melissa herself would’ve said that she never thought of those things, but that was a lie.

Twenty- eight year old Melissa sat in the back seat of her own car, in the dark, in a strange city. The slam of her front passenger door still echoed in her aching head. She tried to lift her head, but her neck was a rubber band. The pass few moments rolled in a reel of horror in her head in a constant loop.

She had been in the driver’s seat, her boyfriend in the passenger seat. She had risked a lot to come meet him, hours from her safe quiet home. He said he needed her. Had cried on the phone. He was scared. So she came. In a short time what had been a dramatic gesture of true love and friendship on her part had turned into him yelling nasty things at her. Calling her pathetic and worthless. She had felt like ice. Who was this person? Frozen in shock she sat and listened as he called her a fat snaggle-toothed bitch. Finally she snapped and screamed in his face. She had no time to react as his hand flashed out and grabbed her throat. His other hand had gone up to grab a handful of her hair which she had taken great care just hours earlier to style for him. He repeatedly slammed her head face-first into the center car console, screaming for her to shut up. The moment he had let up, she crawled into her back seat. Would he kill her? Did she care? Why was her life like this? After telling her he wanted to make love to her and create a baby, that that was what he needed, he was so sorry, he was lost….he swore and left slamming the door.

Presently her attention was caught by a teen with thick wavy hair that fell long past her belt. With a flip and a quick few snaps of a hair tie, her hair was a perfect neat bun. Melissa was surprised to see other girls with that exact same style and couldn’t help but think about the many times her school peers had told her she needed to thin her hair out, chop it to shoulder length, and flat out call it ugly. Now her hair was buzzed in a militant cut. There was no hair left for people to ridicule and nothing for anyone to grab a hold of.            

Her mind became a haze. A lifetime replayed in her head in the time she stood in that line. It started with being made fun of and at times gawked at for her hair, lips, complexion, teeth, body, and clothes. It grew into unhealthy relationships which she despised but felt scared to get out of for fear of being alone in a world that hated her. A world obsessed with looks. She was in a cage built from the hateful words of children that probably no longer even knew her name.

 Finally she broke out. Or at least she had tried. The man who found her unconscious and bleeding behind a dumpster had been called a hero in the local paper. A year later and his name still occasionally came up in the media while she had become a ghost. Dead in every way but literal.

She put out her tray to the kitchen volunteer. The volunteer smiled a dazzling smile as she handed the now full tray back to Melissa. Melissa gave a close-lipped smile (she must never show those imperfect teeth) that was as empty as her soul. The volunteer didn’t see the evil spirits that lurked in her head, the terrifying shadows in her eyes. And that was the best Melissa could do for humanity. Her heart was beating even though she was dead. She kept years of pain hidden inside of her child-sized body, away from humanity so they could keep feeling good about themselves and that was all that mattered.