Heartbeat

There are separate wishes that pop into my head at different times of the day. Every wish coordinates for ever appropriate event.

Like how I wish I was smart, for every failing grade I receive. Or how I wish I was liked more, or had more friends, or was stronger and better and remembered how to laugh.

But most of all, I wish I were a fish, so I could breathe even when I’m drowning.

The water comes up above my ears as I sit in the passenger side seat of his car. My head is aching. I can taste the blood in my mouth. It tastes metallic; the barrel of a gun.

I do not dare open my mouth. I did before and that’s partially why the inside of my lip is openly bleeding.

“You know, I’m not really the one doing this,” I hear him say. I try to hear him through the salt water rushing through my ears into my brain. I’m drowning and I can’t breathe. Soon, the windows will shatter from the water pressure.

“You are, Frank,” he tells me. “You know what you did.”

I pull my sleeves down to cover my wrists that are black and blue. I’ll have to think of an excuse for that later. I’ll tell them I slipped on the sidewalk and banged my wrists while putting my hands out to catch my fall.

“All you have to do is listen to me,” he keeps going. “But you don’t. You just ignore me like an asshole. You think it’s fun being ignored? It’s not. You hurt my feelings. You got what you should have gotten.”

The water is above my head now and plugging up my ears, but I can still hear lethal snake venom spewing out from his trachea.

I don’t stop staring at the dashboard.

“Look at me.”

I read the letters printed on a bumper sticker stuck to the glove compartment: ‘Vandalism: As Beautiful As Rock In A Cop’s Face’

“Look at me, you asshole. You look at people when they’re talking to you. Don’t be a jerk.”

I feel my head turn to face him. He looks right back. I see his hazel eyes for a moment with the black shaggy hair draping over them, but only for a second. His facial features become blurred and disappear as my head jerks to the side when the back of his hand comes out of nowhere and connects to my face. I feel half of my head explode and my teeth knife up against the inside of my cheek, cutting the inside of my mouth again.

“You’re only doing this to yourself,” he tells me. “Setting yourself up to be shoved back down. I told you to listen to me.”

I feel tears well up in only one eye, on the side that he hit me. I blink rapidly until the tears disintegrate.

I grab my backpack from in between my feet and set it down in my lap. I put my hand on the door handle and get ready to finally leave.

“Thanks for the ride…” I hear the words come out of my mouth, messy and muddled; murmured and muttered.

“Hey,” he says, just as I’m about to pull the door handle towards me to push the door open. The second I hear the word leave his mouth, my blood stops flowing. Everything freezes. Time pauses. My heart beats behind my rib cage like a rabbit running from a monster cougar. Fast and trembling.

I feel his hand and his fingers around the collar of my shirt. I feel him tug at it and I turn my head immediately. I see a blur of his face leaning towards mine and then feel the wet sogginess of his lips against mine. I do not kiss back.

Once he disconnects, he looks right into my eyes, with his face about two millimeters away from mine.

“You know I love you, right?” he asks me. I feel the weight of my head nodding up and down. “Because I do,” he goes on. “But sometimes you act like you think I don’t. I do.”

He leans in again and his lips are wet and sloppy with saliva. His tongue inside my mouth is scratchy like a cat’s tongue, scarring the roof of my mouth. He pulls away eventually and sits back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Because I do love you. A lot,” he goes on. “I’m only trying to help you.”

I keep nodding my head. I’m nothing more than a robot. This is what I’ve been programmed to do. I know nothing more than what has been calculated into my memory.

He sniffs in. He sounds like he has a cold.

“Your mom is waiting for you,” he mutters.

Outside, the night is cold and unforgiving.

I enter back into my house without a word. The lights are on in the kitchen. Mom is just finished making dinner. When she sees me, she smiles.

“Frank!” she grins. “How was school? Did you go to that party?”

I nod a convincing nod. She buys it.

“How was it?” she asks.

I shrug.

“You want some lasagna? I made it with eggplant.”

“I’m not that hungry.”

Once I’m up in my room, I close and lock the door. I can see Gerard’s car still outside, just barely pulling away, with a newly lit cigarette hanging in between his lips. I watch him drive away, feeling safer and safer with every moment that passes where he’s getting farther and farther away from me.

I can feel the water pour of my ears and I dry off a bit. I can breathe again, as my lungs clear of the salt water that asphyxiated me.

I crawl into bed once I am sure that he’s gone for the whole night. I flick the light off and my room is dark and everything is silhouetted. Underneath my covers I can listen to my own heart beat. Thump thump thump. Every second that passes, I’m getting closer to tomorrow. Closer to him.

I do not wish I was a fish. I simply wish I was drowning.

Then I could be dead.

And when I am dead, nobody can touch me.