Maryse Meijer - Heartbreaker - Stories

Later a friend or relative called asking how I was and he said Well she’s at that age. Weird diets and always aching for a fight.

I slunk around the kitchen doorway and stared at him.

I have to go now, he said. Lucy’s trying to give me the creeps.

He hung up, turned to me. You feeling any better? he asked. I hissed. He handed me a glass of milk.

* * *

In the months before I turned thirteen I was transformed. The muscles stood out on my arms; my bones sharpened and stretched. All over I became hard, like the rocks I dug out of the riverbeds and smashed against the branches. We arm-wrestled on the porch. He pretended he was letting me win.

Out in the fields I tore my clothes to shreds. I stayed out all night; he kept the porch lights burning and let me sleep until evening. When I shuffled out of my room for dinner he wanted to play cards. I yawned into my elbow and looked at my hand, playing for spades no matter what the game was. Finally he gave up, gathering the deck and grumbling You can’t just make it up as you go along, that’s why there’s rules.

I crammed the last sausage into my mouth.

You gonna dry these dishes? he asked as he washed them; licking grease from my fingers I nodded yes, but as soon as he turned his back I slipped out the door, hungry for the dark, the house bright behind me as I ran.

* * *

I could have done it with my mind. Tools were beneath me; they were things that any creature could use, and I was no longer bound by human laws. I could have done it from far away, while he was sleeping, in a split second. But I wanted him to see it coming.

Oh, that’s a big knife you got there, he said, swinging in the hammock. It was midnight; he’d been waiting up for me. I crept toward him, the porch light cutting either side of the knife I held so tight in my hand.

That knife’s not for playing, honey-Lucy.

I am grown , I wanted to scream. I know what are toys and what are not. I came close to him, close enough to see the wrinkles squeezed out by the corners of his eyes as he smiled.

I lifted the knife. He leaned way back to look at me, his not-daughter who had suddenly grown so tall, and in the dark rooms of his pupils I saw that I, too, had become dark.

You love me, he said, and reaching for my face, he touched his knuckle to my chin. I raised my face as high as I could, but his arms were long and he stayed touching me.

He was never scared of me. Even then. He watched as I brought the knife down.

* * *

Afterward I went from room to room, touching the things he had touched for the past thirteen years: one by one every object shattered and broke, snapped and collapsed. The couch, his chair, the bed, the broom. The television spat glass and smoke. The curtains turned to dust. Back on the porch I laid his body on the boards, and I dissolved the hammock, burst his bottle of beer. The house had black eyes for windows, a hole for a mouth; then it, too, was gone. At last I reached for him, and he ran through my fingers like molten gold, glittering my palms with ash.

* * *

I have no eyes anymore, or eyelashes. There are no more shirts, or bellies, or breath, or birds, or blood; there are no seas, or sheets; there are no animals, and there are no masters of animals. These things are gone, along with the rest of the beauty of the world, which I despised, and only I remain, reigning over all I have unmade, the last bad daughter, free of all proud fathers.

There’s a party at Melissa’s. The door is open and some people are sitting on the porch steps drinking vodka shots from plastic cups. Natalie gets a beer from the cooler and sits on the couch in the living room. Some guy is standing in front of the only working fan with his shirt puffed out over it, and when he sees her looking at him he raises his cup and smiles.

What’s up? he says.

Natalie shrugs. I don’t know, she says. Nothing.

* * *

After two beers she walks home, her toes blistering in her shoes. It’s nine o’clock but it’s still hot and the sky is bright purple. Boredom is like a virus wrestling in her stomach and her jaw aches from what the boy at the party did to her, taking his time; she almost fell asleep. She wonders if her neighbors have any weed they will give her.

On her street she sees Frog riding his skateboard, smiling his stupid smile. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with him exactly that he smiles like that, like a dog, at everything and everybody, even when someone is calling him Faggot or Freak or Frog, or messing with his skateboard, threatening to kick his ass.

Hey Frog, she says. Remember me? Natalie?

Yeah, yeah, he says, blinking like he has something in his eye. Hi!

How are you?

Good, he says. He gulps when he talks, his lips wet and open. She lifts the hair off the back of her neck, then lets it drop back down again.

It’s kind of late to be out skating, she says.

I have to practice, Frog says.

For what, the Special Olympics?

He blinks.

Can you jump off that curb? she asks, pointing to the end of her street.

Yeah! Frog shouts, and he takes off, his sneaker pushing hard against the concrete, flipping the board up and over; for a moment he is in the air, his arms flung out, the board spinning below him, and then both he and the board land together.

Did you see? he shouts from the end of the street, breathing hard.

Yeah, she yells back. That was really good.

You want to try? he asks, skating back. She shakes her head.

I have to go. But I’ll see you around, okay?

Okay, he says, Bye, and she can feel him watch her walk away.

* * *

She is starting her sophomore year again because she missed too much class the year before and flunked out. Sitting at the scarred wooden desk, she feels giant, overgrown, though she is the same size as everyone else. She has to be asked twice to give her name in Spanish class. When people talk it’s like trying to hear something underwater. From her desk she can see the portable classroom buildings where they have the special ed for Frog and the wheelchair kid and the girl who got burned and wears a hat all the time. If Natalie fucks this year up maybe they’ll put her with the freaks and she can drool and eat Goldfish crackers and play with puzzles all day.

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be retarded? she asks Melissa in the cafeteria line.

No, Melissa says, but I bet it would suck. I mean, right?

I guess, Natalie says, taking a package of chips from a basket, then putting it back. But maybe you’d be too stupid to know. Maybe it’s just like being a little kid your whole life.

You can’t be so stupid that you don’t know you’re retarded, Melissa says.

Good point, Natalie says, and laughs.

* * *

After school she stops by the 7-Eleven. She sees Frog’s mom getting a drink from the fountain machine. Natalie stands right next to her, going through the magazines, but Mrs. Hoff doesn’t turn her head. She watches as the woman, overweight in a defiant sort of way, takes her change and her cigarettes and her Big Gulp and walks out to the parking lot, sucking up soda through the straw.

You can’t read those if you’re not going to pay for them, the man tells the girl.

I have money, Natalie says, angry, taking a magazine and dropping it on the counter. She looks out the window in time to see Mrs. Hoff get into her car, the skirt of the woman’s dress catching in the door when she slams it shut.

* * *

She ends up at Frog’s house an hour later. She knocks, loud, then stands back on the porch with her hands on her hips, chewing gum. Mrs. Hoff comes to the door and sticks her head out.

Yeah, she says, her eyes sleepy, a cigarette between her fingers.