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Pretty
Girl
by
Erika
Dusen Tamindzija
You
know boys. All pretty girls do. You were born with the knowledge
of boys in your blood, an understanding surpassing instinct and
perhaps of spiritual dimensions. You know the difference between
what they want and what they will admit to wanting. You know how
to give it to them. And you know how to make them fall in love.
It’s
really not that hard. He says something funny and you throw back
your head, laughing, arching your back ever so slightly and
bringing your fingertips up to the soft part of your skin where
your neck meets your left ear. Then, while your body is still
shaking, you lean forward, looking at him, eyes shining, lips
parted in a big smile. You let him experience a second or
half-second of that, just enough time to allow him to believe
that a connection exists between you.
Powerful
as that eye contact is, it’s not the real trick; no, the
real trick lies in the breaking of eye contact –
suddenly, swiftly, blushing as if you are exerting physical
resistance to some strong attraction. Boys love to think they are
conquering you.
It’s
a useful, if dangerous, talent. It may get you who you want and
what you want, but you get so used to doing it, you realize that
you’re using the same moves, the same lines, the same
gleaming eyes on boys in whom you have no interest. And by the
time you’re aware, he’s already in love with you and
you have to break his heart.
When
you are just 14, you and your sister spend a week with your Aunt
Susan and her husband up at their lake house. You and your sister
spend all day in your bathing suits, splashing in the water and
working on your tans. Whenever you look up, you see your uncle
watching you.
He
follows you into the house one day. He compliments you on your
tan and, though you haven’t asked him to, he wraps a towel
around your shoulders. He lets his hands pause over your small
breasts, and you can feel his breath on your neck. It makes you
very uncomfortable, but you are afraid that telling him so will
only make it more awkward. You know if you say it out loud, it
will become real.
“You’re
so pretty,” he whispers in your ear. Then he slides his
fingers beneath the towel to the soft pink of your breastbone.
When
your aunt walks in looking for a towel for your sister, he jumps
away. You know by the guilty look on his face that you were
justified in being uncomfortable. You run to your room, leaving
wet footprints in the hall, and let him deal with your
stone-faced aunt.
Later,
you hear the front door slam as your uncle, taking the first step
in what will become a quick divorce, leaves to spend the night at
a friend’s house. Your aunt comes up to your room to talk
to you. She sighs. “You’re going to have to be more
careful, honey. Pretty girls always have to be careful.”
You are embarrassed and upset, yet part of you is tingling with
excitement. This is a power you did not know you had.
Being
pretty gets you things: the best summer jobs, the occasional good
grade, access into stores five minutes after they have closed,
and boys, lots of boys. Their eyes are always on you. When you
catch them looking, most have the decency to look away, blushing,
but some just continue to stare, as if it is their right to do
so.
Those
are the boys you like best.
Many
boys try, but you reserve your virginity for someone special. Jim
is two years older and has been accepted to Georgetown on full
scholarship. He dreams of revamping the UN, and you think he
might actually do it. Like all the others, he tells you that he
loves you and, though you don’t believe him, you let
yourself pretend.
You
make love for the first time in his room. You lie on his bed
while he is kissing you and look up at the swimsuit model poster
above his bed. It hurts more than you expected and you are
embarrassed and disillusioned. Still, you are glad it is over.
You know the next one will be easier.
You
enjoy having a boyfriend. It feels like a relief to belong to
someone else, to use that as an excuse. Most boys don’t
take it well when you say you’re just not interested. But
then you realize that you’re not really interested in your
boyfriend either. In fact, you never were.
When
you finally break it off, he says nothing. You wish you could see
his face, but you are two time zones away and are forced to
imagine his brown eyes brimming with tears, his hands twisting
and untwisting the phone cord.
Finally,
he speaks, his voice unwavering. “I just hope, twenty years
from now, you’ll look back on this as the worst decision
you ever made.”
You
are silent but you know that, as much as you might miss him
tonight when you lie alone in your bed, you will never regret
leaving him. He too is silent, but you stay on the phone a little
longer, knowing that it is the last time you two will ever talk.
You
sit in the library’s private study area, concentrating
intently on the book before you. Marko sits down next to you and
asks in a loud whisper what you are reading. While you loathe to
be interrupted, his warm breath on your ear sends shivers down
your spine.
You
bend the cover forward to show him the title: Pride and
Prejudice. “It’s for school,” you say
flatly, hardly bothering to take your eyes off the page.
“Hm.
Is it good?”
You
are not sure how to answer. While you enjoy much of the book, you
find yourself rolling your eyes at Darcy’s heartfelt
confessions. You suspect you might be too rational for romance.
You wonder if such books are really meant for women like Jane
Austen: less attractive girls without the experience to know what
men are really like.
While
you are musing, Marko leans in closer and slides his hand slowly
up your skirt. Without looking up from your book, you open your
thighs.
Daniel
is different. His sister is best friends with your sister, so you
knew him for years before you finally notice his green eyes and
dimples and how he cracks jokes when he is nervous. He is often
nervous around you. But he is dating some brunette underclassmen
and you just started meeting the captain of the soccer team in
the locker room after school lets out. You know Daniel could be
yours if you really wanted, but it doesn’t seem worth the
trouble.
You
and Daniel end up going to the same college and see each other
almost every day. You are delighted to find that his presence
helps keep boys at bay, and you use him as a shield long after
things fall apart with Captain Soccer. You know your presence
scares off other girls, but he is still dating that brunette and
doesn’t seem to mind.
One
day you are watching a movie together in his dorm room and
suddenly he is kissing you. He kisses your nose, your neck, your
ears. His kisses are slow and warm and make your fingertips
tingle with electricity. You want more.
Afterwards,
in the flickering light of the television, he strokes your cheek
and whispers that he likes you – really likes you –
and always has. “I don’t know where this is going,”
he says, “but right now I’m happy.”
He
leaves, and you spend hours remembering his words, his touch.
You
carry on the affair for months. You didn’t realize you
could feel passion like this. It frightens you. It frightens him.
Sometimes, afterwards, he tells you he can’t do this
anymore. You find his resistance amusing. He is already lost, and
you both know it. He kisses your forehead and in that moment you
realize that you are lost too.
One
night he calls you to tell you that his girlfriend found about
the affair. You feign concern, but you are secretly happy that
you will no longer have to sneak around. You think you two can
finally have a real relationship. But you are wrong. He tells you
that the two of them decided to work things out and that he can’t
see you again.
You
say you understand because you think you do. He and his
girlfriend have been together for years. It is the logical
choice. You can tell he is relieved that you are being so
reasonable.
After
you hang up the phone you sit alone on your bed for a while,
waiting to feel something. Eventually, after you have given up
and pick up your things to go to the door, it hits you. It starts
behind your ribcage and twists down through your stomach and then
lower, to your knees. You have to sit down again. Then it moves
back up, through the stomach into your throat. Your eyes sting
and you begin to cry.
Oh,
you think, so this is how it must feel.
After
that, it is never the same when you know you have to break a
heart. You cannot help remembering that pain when you see their
eyes well up or hear them slam down the receiver. You wish you
could take that pain away from them.
You
start out with little cuts. Pin pricks really. One for each boy
with whom you’ve shared your bed. One for each heart you’ve
broken.
You
never let anyone know. It is your little secret. When the cuts
are new, you wear long sleeves. But you are a fast healer, and
the red gashes soon turned into fine, pink lines.
Your
date sees them and points, his brow furrowed quizzically.
“Cat
scratches,” you say.
He
looks at the lines and decides to believe you. Nodding, he tells
you, “I’m a dog person myself.”
During
sophomore year, just for fun, you do them in alphabetical order.
Aaron was an engineering Masters student. Brad was a frat boy
with sweaty hands. Craig sat next to you in English. David worked
at the gas station right outside town.
You
have it down to a science; you wait until you get your period.
Somehow you find it easier to break up with guys when you can
feel blood trickling between your thighs. Still, you know that
Evan, who brought you roses on your second date, really cares
about you and it makes you extra nervous. You decide to cut the
jitters out of you. You still feel horrible, but at least now
it’s a calm horrible.
You
vow no more than six per year.
Your
older sister is a feminist. She is worried about your
“relationship patterns.” She tells you to slow down,
to take a break between boys now and then. You want to listen to
her, but it is so hard when there are always so many boys waiting
to be next.
“You
don’t need a man to make you happy,” she says,
rolling her eyes, but you know she has had some boyfriend or
another since she was 15. Her indifference seems to make her
irresistible to the male sex. You wish you could be like her. You
can feign love but never indifference.
But
you are even prettier than your sister.
You
graduate and follow your sister to Chicago, where you take a job
at the Stock Exchange. That’s where you meet Ryan. He
smells faintly of evergreens and on your first date he holds your
hand through the whole movie. For almost a year you pretend that
this could be something, this could go somewhere. But deep down
you know you will leave him. You knew it as soon as you met him.
Eventually,
you break up with Ryan because he will not say he loves you. At
least, that’s what he thinks. You know he does love
you, that he is just frightened by the enormous significance of
the word, of the responsibility it entails. And you use that
against him.
He
thinks it is his fault. You imagine him crying himself to sleep
at night, cursing himself for ruining the best thing that ever
happened to him. You have a strong feeling that in six months
he’ll be back in your life, begging you to give him another
chance. But you’ll tell him that he’s too late;
you’ve moved on.
You
always move on.
You
look at yourself in the mirror, at that blond hair, those hazel
eyes, those high cheekbones. Even your tears don’t mar that
perfect image. You look vulnerable. And there’s nothing
more attractive than a vulnerable girl.
You
know you don’t deserve to look like that, not after you
hurt him so much.
You
bring the knife to your skin carefully, pressing just enough and
then a little more. You watch as the blood runs red across those
white arms, as it drips onto the bathroom tiles below.
It
doesn’t hurt, not really. It feels good to see it on the
outside.
You
pour yourself into your work and land promotion after promotion.
Your sister tells you she’s so proud to see you succeed in
a male-dominated field. She doesn’t realize how easy it is
for you to blend into such an environment. Everyone at the
exchange is too busy to see you as a pretty girl. They hardly
notice you’re a girl at all. It’s just numbers and
reports and analyses, and you meet those needs quickly and
efficiently.
You
find you have little time for a relationship. Occasionally, you
pick up guys in bars and take them home. It’s not exactly
dating, but at least it temporarily fills that dark void inside
of you.
You
run into Daniel at a bookstore. He is on a business trip. He is
wearing a wedding ring. You think that makes him safe. You think
that makes you safe. But he can still make you laugh and his
dimples are more attractive than ever. You have only been talking
over drinks for half an hour when he tells you he loves you, that
he had never stopped loving you. His words made your head spin.
You
find yourself back at his hotel. Surprisingly, you have never
been a young lover in a hotel before. There’s something so
exciting, so adult about the whole thing. When he touches you,
you think that it all finally makes sense. All those boys. All
that pain. All those things you read about in novels.
You
meet him for breakfast one week later, when he is back in town.
He is already sitting at a table, brooding over black coffee. You
know as soon as you see his face that it is over.
During
the three hours it takes to say goodbye, the two of you actually
make jokes. And laugh. But during that last hour you are quiet
for long stretches at a time because really there is nothing more
to say, no conclusion to come to except that you probably
shouldn’t see each other again, and neither of you wants to
say it.
He
tells you, “If this were a novel, we’d get to be
together.” You try to smile.
When
you part in the parking lot, he actually says, “See you
later.” You know he means goodbye, but you stare at his
back as he walks away and hope.
You
go home and carve his initials into your forearm.
Because
you have too much to do at work that week, you plan your
breakdown for the next weekend. You push it all from your mind
and think about spreadsheets and the price of corn. But when you
wake up on Saturday, you are already crying.
You
cry so hard, you give yourself hiccups. You cry so hard, you make
yourself throw up. You drink vodka. Lots of vodka. You do it next
to the toilet so it’s easier to throw up.
When
there is nothing left in your stomach, you rise slowly, steadying
yourself on the sink. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the
mirror and lean in to look at your reflection more closely. Your
blond hair is tangled, your hazel eyes are bloodshot, and you
have bruises under your eyes. This is far past vulnerable.
As
a rule, you don’t cut when drunk, but the pain is
unbearable. You pick up the razor next to the sink and crush it
underneath your heel. You remove a blade from its broken plastic
handle and press it into your skin until that pain is all
you can think about You begin to feel dizzy but you focus only on
the pain. The last thing you see before you pass out is your own
face, rushing toward you like a terrible ghost.
Your
parents and sister are sitting next to your hospital bed when you
wake up. Their faces are lined with worry and disappointment. You
are embarrassed.
You
tell them it wasn’t a suicide attempt, but they don’t
listen. You try to explain how carefully your avoided your veins,
what an expert you are at keeping yourself alive, but your
forearms are wrapped in white bandages and it’s all they
see.
“You
did this because of a man, didn’t you?” your sister
asks accusingly. You don’t want to tell them about Daniel.
You tell them you have been under a lot of stress from work, but
you know they don’t believe you.
To
make them feel better, you agree to seek professional help. Your
father has done all the research. He says that there’s a
very well respected hospital that specializes in self-injury an
hour away. He says your medical insurance covers in-patient
treatment for up to 20 days. Out-patient care is covered up to an
additional 20 visits. He assures you that if any additional
treatment is necessary, he and your mother will cover the cost.
You
thank him for his generosity and for all the research he has
done. You try not to imagine him on the phone with a
representative from your HMO, explaining how your sister found
you lying unconscious in a puddle of glass and blood.
“Self-injury
is a coping mechanism,” says your therapist, a 50-ish woman
whose most remarkable features are her thick-framed glasses and
blindingly white tennis shoes. “It’s a way to stay
alive. People who inflict physical harm on themselves are often
doing it in an attempt to maintain psychological integrity, to
keep from killing themselves. They release unbearable feelings
and pressures through self-harm, and that eases their urge toward
suicide.”
You
know about coping mechanisms. You’ve read the brochures
they keep by the front desk. You know that the typical closet
“self-injurer” is female, in her mid-20s to early
30s, and has been hurting herself since her teens. She’s
middle- or upper-middle-class, intelligent, well-educated, and
often hides a background of physical and/or sexual abuse. But you
know you have never been abused. You are the abuser.
“Boys
are usually better able to express anger and pain more directly.
Girls live in a much more body-focused culture.”
Your
support group takes place twice a day in a room down the hall.
These are girls, real girls, aged 15 to 18. They are here because
they have low self-esteem. They fret about their weight, their
hair, their acne. They are pickers, scratchers, hair-pullers,
head-bangers, and burners. You do not belong with these girls
As
part of your therapy, you are told to keep a journal and document
your urges to cut. You use it to write down only what you’ve
eaten each day. One apple. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Half a Snickers bar.
“I
know what you’re trying say,” the therapist tells
you. “You want to tell us ‘Look at me. Look how much
I hurt.’”
“Yeah,”
you reply, rolling your eyes, bored with this psychoanalysis.
“That’s why I hid those cuts successfully for ten
years.”
Around
all these girls you don’t feel like cutting, not until you
meet Tom. He’s an orderly at the hospital and on his breaks
he sits at the top of the stairwell and plays the guitar. He sees
you in the hallway one day and nods. After that, you’re
surprised how easy it is to seduce a man while you’re
committed to a mental hospital. At night, you sneak him into your
room.
But
it’s short-lived. Your roommate, the heavy one with thick
black eyeliner, must have ratted him out to the hospital because
you learn he was fired soon after. He didn’t even get the
chance to say goodbye. Or perhaps he didn’t care to.
That
night you manage to cut yourself with the sharp edge of a ripped
soda can. You do it on the inside of your thigh, right where he
kissed you. You don’t think they’ll check there, but
they find drops of blood on your sheets and do check and after
that you’re under 24-hour supervision. They won’t
even let you go to the bathroom by yourself.
“I
know about Tom,” says your therapist. You don’t react
right away because you have already forgotten his name.
“Do
you really think you hurt him?” she asks. “Do you
really think he would want you to hurt yourself?”
You
tell her that you don’t care. That it’s not about
him; it’s about how cutting makes you feel. She looks like
she doesn’t believe you. You wonder if you believe
yourself.
You
stop talking in your one-on-one sessions. Your therapist responds
with silence of her own. The two of you sit in chairs across from
one another and stare at each other for two 50-minute sessions a
day.
Eventually,
the silence becomes unbearable. You talk to fill up the space in
the room. You talk about work. You talk about how your roommate
hates you. You talk about your aunt’s ex-husband. And
perhaps because you couldn’t stop yourself or perhaps
because you had never told anyone before, you tell her about
Daniel.
“Why
are you punishing yourself more?” she asks. “Why
isn’t your emotional pain enough?”
You
don’t know. You wish you did.
After
you have been there a little over two weeks, they tell you that
your brother is here to visit. You don’t have a brother,
but you don’t let that show on your face.
When
you sit down at the table across from Daniel, you can tell that
he expected the worst: a half-open gown, unbrushed hair, vacant
eyes. You are wearing jeans and a long-sleeved, form-fitting
T-shirt that hides your scars. You know you look great. You
always do.
You
don’t say hello. You ask, “Who told you I was here?”
“My
sister is friends with your sister, remember?” He is quiet
while it sinks in that your pain is not private. “Your
sister is worried about you. She said I shouldn’t visit,”
he continues, his words rushing out, rushing together. “I
think she thinks thatImightmakeitworse.”
You
wonder if your sister told him to stay away because he was a man
or because, somehow, she knew. You finger your shirt above the
place where you know you carry his initials, still pink and
raised. You ask him why he came.
He
shrugs, obviously unsure himself. The two of you sit quietly at
the white table. The plastic surface is scratched. You stare at
the scratches, mesmerized, until he breaks your concentration by
taking your hand in his. Your skin feels so cold in his warm
grip.
“I
want to apologize. God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t
realize that you— I didn’t realize what I was doing.”
He pauses to swallow. “If only I exercised more
self-control. But I look at you and everything I know about how
much I care for my wife just falls away.” He stares into
your face and you know it’s happening even now.
In
a low voice he tells you, “I know I’m not supposed to
say this but I think I’ll always love you.” He keeps
staring at you: at your eyes, your cheek, your ears, your mouth.
You are not sure what he eventually sees, but whatever it is, it
makes him sad. He shakes his head. “Your sister was right.
I shouldn’t be here.”
You
nod slowly in agreement. And you realize the reason has nothing
to do with your pain or your recovery. Seeing you is how he hurts
himself.
When
he gets up to leave you feel nothing but relief.
You
check yourself out after 20 days. It’s time to go back to
work, to go back to life. Your therapist is happy with your
progress, but she wants you to sign up for additional out-patient
treatment. You think of your support group, all those sullen
teenagers with dagger eyes, and decline.
You
think you will be okay. Your physical scars have healed, and it
no longer hurts when you hear his name. You will return to your
apartment. You will replace the mirror you broke when you fell.
You will get an electric razor. You will learn to live with
emotional pain without the accompanying physical pain.
After
all, you are a pretty girl. And pretty girls get happy endings.
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