There Is No Dream

Every morning when Mary woke up there was a moment when her mind was blank. She did not remember who she was, or where she was, or why. But she always did remember sooner or later, and it was always the worst moment of her life.

Sleeping was her favorite thing to do. If she could, she would sleep all day. But she woke up achy and hungry and anxious, and those usually got her out of bed.

When they didn’t, the thing that never failed to do so was a full bladder. She just couldn’t sleep if she had to pee.


It’s so stupid. She thought that a lot. She thought it so often that it became one word – itsostupid – and sometimes she said it aloud involuntarily, under her breath, like a tic.

It’s not stupid. There was a little rational person in her brain who always said that. The person who was calm and objective and scientific. Pain releases endorphins. It’s a natural high. Like running.

Well, not exactly like running.

She’d read that about endorphins in an article printed in the local newspaper; one of those pieces designed to terrify well-meaning mothers. The article explained that self-injury was becoming more and more prevalent in these troubled times, especially among teenaged girls. It listed warning signs and gave advice on how to start a conversation with your daughter about self-esteem.

Mary wasn’t a teenaged girl. She was a grown-up girl.

She’d recycled the paper straight away: shoved it down in the can under the flattened box from a thirty of shitty lite beer. She told Ricky the neighbors had stolen it. That night he turned all of the neighbors’ assorted lawn ornaments to face the door, “So when one of them comes out to steal our paper tomorrow, they’ll feel judged by those stupid little fuckers.”

Mary was glad that was all he did. Johnny probably would have done the flaming-bag-of-dog-crap-on-the-doorstep thing. But Johnny started dating a girl who had her shit together, and now he lived with her in a sweet little apartment that always had a seasonally-appropriate wreath on the door.


Mary was a grown-up chronologically and a girl in most other ways.

She lived in a two-bedroom house with Ricky and Will, and also Braxton, who had been crashing with them for more than a year now. He never had rent money, but he was the only one who knew how to make anything other than cereal and instant coffee. Mary had the smaller bedroom to herself.

Their house looked exactly like four hygienically-indifferent young adults lived there. The boys’ room was disgusting. Mary’s room wasn’t disgusting, but the floor was barely visible under the spread of her possessions. The living room furniture was starting to permanently smell of spilt beer and lazy sweat, and the kitchen turned weak stomachs.

But the bathroom was clean. Mary cleaned it almost every day. It was the only domestic task she knew how to do and liked.


Sorrow radiated from Mary’s skin. It wasn’t dark. It lit her up. A strange and cruel light; unnatural, sick – but glowing, glowing, glowing.


She had a shoebox hidden in the back of her closet. It wasn’t really a shoebox; it was one of those nice shoebox-sized boxes you got in craft stores. There were angels on the lid. Behind the little slip of plastic, Mary had put a label that read “Receipts”. That was the sort of thing real grown-ups cared about.

Mary’s friends wouldn’t be fooled by such a label. They would know she didn’t even have a bank account, let alone the fiscal responsibility to keep receipts. But they also wouldn’t snoop in the back of her closet. The label wasn’t for them.

The box held a pen-knife, a few loose razor blades (“HEAVY DUTY”), a hand towel, a bottle of water (three-quarters full), and a tube of scar cream.


Once Mary tried to count her vices: alcohol and indolence and blood and day-time television and prime-time television and late-night television and sandwich cookies and Will.

Will was the one who started it. They came back from the bar, silly with drink, and stood in the living room, and Will leaned in to kiss her goodnight. They did that sometimes. But it wasn’t a peck on the cheek; it was a kiss, with lips and tongues and taste, and when they broke apart they both just laughed and went to separate beds.

Mary was the one who continued it. She slipped into his room one night when the other boys were out. She crawled into his bed and woke him up with touching. They fucked in darkness, with no words, just breathing and flesh, and afterwards his fingers danced up and down the length of her spine.


It was almost always in the bathroom, when the others were asleep, or if they were all out of the house. It was like meditating; like prayer. Time didn’t work like it should. She stopped thinking. She just felt.

It hurt – it always hurt – but it was a good kind of pain. It was release.

And reality would come back, weeks or days or hours or moments after, and she would panic about scars and the weather. And she would hate herself for doing it, and the only thing that could calm her down was to cut again. She could never get ahead. She was always losing.


Mary liked the cold. Real cold; not just cool weather with a gentle breeze. She liked that cold could turn rain into something soft and pretty and magical. She liked that when it was cold people wrapped themselves in layers of cozy bulk so you could only see their face, which was the most important part, anyway. She liked the way cold air felt: how it seemed cleaner in your lungs and how it woke up your skin and made you feel alive.

She longed to move somewhere that got cold, but knew she never would.


“What are we doing?” Will asked one morning.

“We’re eating breakfast,” Mary said. She knew what he wanted, but couldn’t bear to give it to him.

He knew too. “We’re playing house,” he said.

They were speaking in strong tones in soft voices, because they didn’t want Ricky or Brax to hear.

Mary shrugged. “What’s so confusing?”

“Well… I mean, can we see other people?”

“Do you want to?” She stopped breathing for a moment.

“I don’t know.”

“Fine,” said Mary. She brought a spoonful of cereal to her mouth. “Do what you want. I don’t care. I’m not your mother.”

He stared at her. She softened.

“We’re still friends. We’ll always be friends, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”


One night Mary was watching TV with Ricky and Brax, and Will came home with a girl, and they went straight to the boys’ room and Ricky and Braxton fell asleep on the couch and Mary stayed with them out of sympathy, but really she wanted to see when the girl would leave. And she didn’t leave until the next morning, but Mary didn’t watch her go because she was lying on the bathroom floor, picking off fresh scabs.


Mary fucked strange boys too.

It wasn’t bad. She always turned the lights off before undressing, so they never saw the scars. They just assumed she was beautiful, and she let them, and it felt good. It didn’t matter that it was always too quiet and that their bones dug into Mary’s and that sometimes she had to fake an orgasm just to get them off her. Sometimes she liked that part, because the walls were thin and Mary was real good at faking orgasms.

And sometimes she still crawled into Will’s bed, but only if she was drunk, and only if the lights were off, and only if she left right after and returned to her own room.


Mary saw snow in real life for the first time when she was eight. It was Christmas snow too, which made it all the more special. They were visiting her aunt; it was just after she and Mary’s mother had made up and just before they’d started fighting again. Mary made snow angels all over the lawn; she’d seen it done on TV and was thrilled to discover she could achieve the same results herself.

At night they drove slowly down suburban streets to see the lights. Mary had seen Christmas lights before, of course, but never like that: hanging from the eaves of roofs blanketed with snow; making spots of color that shone through the white-topped shrubs. Everything was quiet – like a very peaceful dream.

Ever since that, Christmas decorations without snow lost any beauty they’d once held. It was like trying to listen to a song in a noisy room. The lights were ineffective when the world stayed colorful and chaotic even in winter.


Mary was trying to convince herself to get up.

She had to pee. She hadn’t had to pee when she first woke up, but she definitely did now. It was getting uncomfortable.

Times like these, Mary wished to be a boy so she could just pee into a bottle and not need to get out of bed. Later in the day she’d be disgusted with herself for that; but lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, longing to remain horizontal, peeing in a bottle seemed like it would be nice. She was sort of hungry, too, but she was pretty good at ignoring hunger.

Just get up, she told herself. It’s pointless to lie here like this. It wasn’t like she was getting any pleasure out of it. There were better things she could be doing. And it would be such a relief to pee – but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Nothing bad would happen if she just got up and slipped into the bathroom. Probably no one would even notice. And she could just go right back to bed, and it would be so much better than lying here with a bladder full of urine.

But she was still just lying there. She turned on her side for a while, which helped her ignore her need to pee, but that couldn’t last forever.

If you wait much longer you’re going to piss yourself.

That thought was what finally pushed Mary to roll herself out of bed and stumble over to the door. If she wet the bed, she’d have to wash her sheets; a project too exhausting to contemplate.

Once she’d gone to the bathroom, Mary decided she might as well have some breakfast, seeing as how she was up. She was pretty sure there was leftover macaroni in the fridge.

Brax and Ricky were on the couch in the living room; if they heard Mary walking around behind them, they didn’t acknowledge it. Mary’s eyes flicked to the door to the boys’ room; it was open and the light was off. It didn’t seem like anyone was in there.

Mary thought about that while she ate. Will left for work obscenely early in the morning and got off early in the afternoon – he was usually back by now. And usually he said something if he was going anywhere besides work, because he was always hoping Mary would come along. He’d stopped outright inviting her, but he told her most of the time and kind of gave her this look so she’d know she could come if she wanted.

When she was done eating and had rinsed out her bowl, Mary stepped into the living room, her curiosity overtaking her. “Where’s Will?” she asked.

Brax turned around to look at her. “Mary,” he said, grinning, “what day is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She blushed a little, even though it was perfectly normal for her to be unaware of the date and everyone knew it.

“Go check the calendar.”

Mary shuffled back into the kitchen and found the page-a-day calendar stuck to the side of the fridge. There it was in big bold typeface: “DEC 24”.

“Oh,” she said softly; then again, louder, when she re-entered the living room. She’d known Christmas was coming up soon (there were holiday specials playing on every channel), but she hadn’t realized it was coming this soon; she’d thought she had at least a few more days.

“Will went home to his family’s,” said Braxton. “Come sit.” He patted the seat between him and Ricky.

She felt tired and really wanted to go back to bed, but she sat down anyway.

The time went by in strange gulps. Mary had difficulty focusing on the television; she found herself staring blankly in its direction without noticing the program. The day passed like that. The boys got up every once in a while and returned with snacks and drinks that they offered to share with Mary; she’d take a bite or two, little sips – she wasn’t really hungry.

Ricky was all excited to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, but then he fell asleep about forty minutes in. Brax started snoring a little while after.

Mary kept watching. The commercials really bugged her; they were too bright and loud as they reminded her about last-minute sales and special extended store hours. It was jarring to go from the black-and-white of Bedford Falls to a grinning blonde woman and a new car affixed with an oversized red bow.

Shortly after there was a run on the bank, Mary stood and went to the bathroom.


She dragged the razor across her thigh; not too long and not too deep. Well, deep, but she’d gone deeper.

She was sitting in the empty bathtub. Sitting in bathtubs always made her feel safe. It made cleanup a little easier, too.

It stung like burning. She could feel the warmth pulsing out of her as she pressed her cloth over the incision.

When the bleeding had slowed some, she lifted the rag and cut another line across the first. She’d made an X. Again the spot was covered for several minutes.

Mary repeated the process so she had three lines all intersecting at a single point. Like an asterisk. Like a snowflake. Not a very pretty snowflake.

Her forearms were tingling.

She didn’t know if there was an actual physiological reason for it, or if it was all in her head, but different places felt different to cut, and arms were the best of all. The most relief. They were also the hardest to hide.

The razor was pressed very gently into the skin at the crook of her elbow. She was still considering.

Just one, she thought. Just one and I’ll feel better. Her arms didn’t look great anyway; what was one more mark going to do? Just one.

If I’m only doing one, I might as well make it count.


WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

“Mary? Mary!”

“Are you sure she’s in there?”

“Mary, open the door!” WHAM.

“Maybe she went out.”

“What, through the window? The door’s locked from the inside.”

“Well, maybe she just fell asleep or something.”

“C’mon, she couldn’t sleep through this. Mary!”

“If she doesn’t want to let us in…”

“I’m going to kick the door down.”

“This is crazy.”

“She could be hurt or something. What if she slipped and hit her head on the sink? What if she’s lying in there unconscious right now?”

“Okay. Okay. Just do it.”

BANG.

“What the hell…?”

“No –”

“Mary!”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”


Mary ran her hand over the dressings on her left arm for about the millionth time. Thick, white, and clean. A nurse had seen her doing it earlier and given her a dirty look, but she was alone now. The woman she was sharing the room with had been in surgery all morning.

The door opened and Mary looked up. It was not a nurse and it was not her roommate. It was Will.

He stared at her with wide eyes and she stared back. Then he spoke in a broken voice: “Mary.”

She began to cry. Not the attractive kind of crying like in movies: it was bawling; her mouth contorted and her chin wrinkled and her nose running and pitiful wails escaping from her throat.

He came over and stood for a moment beside her bed. Then he climbed in and pulled her into his arms, against his narrow chest. He kissed her hair.

Mary tried to speak, but she stammered and choked on her words. It went on like that for a long while, and then she finally managed to say, “I w-w-wasn’t trying to kill – to kill myself. I wasn’t.”

He ran his fingers back and forth across the skin on her arm that wasn’t covered by the bandage. “Yes you were,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why. I don’t know why because the world would miss you so much.”

She’d cut down her arm, not across. She sobbed. She knew he was wrong. She knew he was trying when he shouldn’t. She wished he would let her go.

“Everyone loves you, Mary,” he said. “Everyone and everything. The sun and the moon love you. The grass and the flowers love you. Airplanes love you, and June bugs, and fireflies, and empty coke cans in the gutter. And the possum that lives behind our house and the leaves and the trees. And me too, Mary; I love you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said; over and over again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”


The boys hovered around Mary anxiously when she returned home. “I’m fine,” she told them. “They wouldn’t have let me out if I wasn’t okay.”

“Come on, you know that’s bullshit,” Braxton said. “They let you out because you don’t have health insurance.”

“Well I’m telling you I’m okay,” said Mary.

They didn’t believe her. All three of them jumped from their seats when Mary stood and went to the bathroom. “You have to let me pee,” she groaned.

“Leave the door open,” said Braxton.

“Fuck you,” said Mary. “I’m not an animal. I’m not going to let you watch me pee.” She sighed when they continued to stare at her and slumped her shoulders, dropping the hostility. “I won’t do anything. Honest.”

“At least don’t lock the door,” said Will – there was pleading in his eyes.

“And if you’re in there for more than five minutes, we’re coming in,” said Ricky.

“Three minutes,” said Braxton.

“Fine,” Mary mumbled.

She finished peeing within thirty seconds but didn’t flush; instead she started quietly searching the bathroom for razors.

It wasn’t that she wanted to cut right then – she just wanted to know if she could or not. Brax had told her they’d pulled the bathroom apart, and she wanted to see how thorough they’d been. That was all.

Apparently they’d been very thorough: every one of Mary’s stashes was cleaned out. They’d found the blades in her makeup bag, on the ledge where the plastic of the shower met the wall, taped behind the toilet tank; they’d even gone and found the one at the bottom of her box of tampons and the three folded into sanitary pads; places she’d been sure they’d never dare investigate.

When she had checked everywhere, Mary flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and left the bathroom.


The four of them fell asleep in the living room that night, leaning up against each other on the couch. Around three Mary woke up and spent several tense minutes extricating herself from between Will and Ricky. She crept to her bedroom. She hadn’t been in it since she’d been taken to the hospital.

She didn’t close the door all the way for fear they’d hear the click. By the yellow light of her bedside lamp, Mary changed into a pair of pajama pants and a ratty old sweatshirt. Then, trembling slightly, she nudged open the door of her closet.

Her eyes found it right away. The box marked “Receipts”. It was just where she’d left it, right next to her only pair of boots and half-covered under a silky green scarf she’d never known how to wear.

“Mary?”

Mary jumped and stumbled over a box of tissues left carelessly on the floor but didn’t fall. Will was in her doorway.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing – nothing,” she said quickly. “I just… It’s been a while since I slept in my own bed.”

“Okay,” said Will softly after a moment. “Do you mind if I sleep with you?”

Mary rubbed her arm. “I don’t know…” she said. Everything was strange now.

“Just sleep,” said Will. “That’s it.”

“All right,” said Mary, and they climbed into her bed. His skin was cool against hers, like her mother's hand on her forehead when she had a fever.


Mary regained the boys’ trust slowly but surely. A month after leaving the hospital, Mary discovered they were out of coffee and told Ricky she’d run out and pick some up.

“What, by yourself? I don’t know…” He bit his lip uncertainly. Will and Brax were usually the ones to grant permission for this kind of thing, but they were both out tonight. Ricky didn’t look happy to have to be the one to make the decision. “Maybe I should go with you,” he said.

“Aw, Ricky, I don’t need a chaperone to buy coffee. C’mon, it’d be silly for both of us to go.” He didn’t look quite convinced, so Mary added, “I’ll get you Swedish Fish. You love Swedish Fish.”

“Well…all right,” he said finally. “You promise I won’t regret this?”

“I promise,” Mary said.

Ricky wouldn’t expect her back for at least thirty minutes, but Mary was confident she could stay out longer than that – Ricky worked on the road crew and always came home bone tired; he was sure to fall asleep within ten minutes of Mary’s leaving.

It wasn’t like she was looking for trouble or anything; she just needed a little time alone.

Mary went to the convenience store and dutifully picked out a jar of instant coffee and a bag of Swedish Fish, and also a bottle of Nair, because the boys wouldn’t even let her have a safety razor to shave her legs and Mary had almost finished her last bottle. Few things made Mary feel as gross as having hairy legs.

On the same strip as the convenience store was the town’s only bar. It was mostly patronized by locals, but there were generally a few people there who were just passing through; strangers looking to eat, drink, and socialize.

Mary stared at the door for about a minute before deciding to go in.


The house was quiet and dark when they got back – Mary and her companion: Justin or Jason or something with a “J”. He was cute and tall and he kissed her hard as they stumbled into Mary’s room. Justin or Jason searched blindly for the light switch, but didn’t find it – you had to stick your hand behind the dresser; visitors never located it on their own, and Mary didn’t help.

She shut the door behind them and then staggered into J’s arms. She wasn’t drunk but felt like it; she was drunk on lust, on the thrill of being desirable. He was eager to get her clothes off; had her top stripped before she really noticed. She pushed his hands away from her pants so she could remove his shirt. Giggling, Mary next stepped out of her jeans, lurching in the dark over a pile of magazines and a pair of sneakers. When she returned to J she greedily pressed her body against his. It was one of her favorite things about sex: the feeling of all that skin on skin. Sweat trickled down Mary's chest and sides, mixing with the slick perspiration that coated J. He deftly unhooked her bra and Mary pulled it off and tossed it aside; she threw her arms around J’s neck and tilted her face up to kiss him.

All of a sudden the door opened. Like guilty teenagers, Mary and J jumped apart, Mary screaming. The light from the living room was pouring through the doorframe, past the silhouetted intruder, and Mary’s hands could not adequately cover everything she wanted to cover, because there were scars and marks everywhere, all over – her legs and arms and stomach and hips and even her breasts, spanning the spectrum from faded white to pink to deep, angry red.

J looked from the man at the door to Mary, all hunched over and trembling. She had started to cry. Justin or Jason or whoever the fuck he was lifted his shirt from the floor and walked out of the room without a word. A moment later they heard the front door slam.

It was Will, of course. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Mary looked up at him and then away; she couldn’t stand his gaze. He’d never seen her like this: nearly naked, all her scars exposed. Her chin quivered.

Will crossed the few steps to Mary and gathered her shaking form in his arms.

“I didn’t mean to disappoint you,” Mary whispered.

“You could never disappoint me,” said Will. He spoke right into her ear, his cheek pressed against her. “I’m just happy that you’re okay.”