Sculpted Memories

He slowly sat down in the center of the room, his footsteps still echoing from the corners of the brick walls. The room was large, rustic, simple. A fireplace sat in the corner, across from the door. Just in front of it was a worn wooden table with two mismatching chairs. The floor was old and wooden, creaky and fragile. He sat in the very center, his back to the door, letting the fire warm his pale face. The tan bag sat in his lap, but he was reluctant to open it. The thought of unzipping the top, and peering into her life was so personal, so invading, and so wrong, it made his chest hurt. But he slid the small metal tab along anyways, feeling each tooth separate. He reached his long fingers in, hesitant again, but burning with curiosity.
His fingers made sharp contact with an edge of paper, he hissed and pulled back a little as the thin material sliced through skin. He reached his hand around it, and pulled out the leather bound diary. The pages were worn, dirty, and torn. There was an old elastic hair tie around it, holding the secrets closed. He carefully snapped it off, and opened the first page. It was blank. He flipped through the diary, and only on the last page, did he find words. What was written shocked him, and he wished he could forget. The words were hateful. Disgusting and obsessive and out of control. The numbers are strange, but he can guess what they mean. 150 (granola bar) + 90 (banana) + 300 (protein shake) =540. But he was eager for more; for more secrets, for more harsh, mysterious words, slicing into his brain like the edge of the paper into his fingertip.
He sucks the blood off his pale finger, closes the book. Now that he’s started looking, he can’t stop. He feels as though he’s invading her life, but like a moth pulled to flame, he keeps going. Even as he burns his fragile wings on the scorching items, he continues. His tender fingers grasp a cold ring, and he pulls it out to inspect. It is a ring, as he felt it was, but it’s small. It wouldn’t fit her anymore. The silver would cut into her flesh and cut off the circulation. The design catches his eye: three intersecting circles. A trinity. He slips the breakable metal onto his pinky finger, where it comes to a sudden halt above his second knuckle. He leaves it there as he reaches in for more.
He looks around him, paranoid that she’ll walk in at any moment, but the house is empty. The room is empty, and he is alone. This time his hand comes out with a small plastic elephant. He smiles, chuckles to himself as he fingers the smooth acrylic. It was a cheap gift, a small, meaningful item he’d given to her once. And she’d kept it, she’d kept it and she’d kept it secret. He kisses the place where the two halves of the model were melded together, and places it back in the bag carefully.
Immediately his fingers are drawn to the fourth item, which he snatches up quickly and rubs between his fingers. The soft fabric of the ribbon catches on his calloused finger pads, but doesn’t rip. The pink is faded and old, beautiful. He smiles softly, the corners of his mouth poking uncertainly at his cheeks. He carefully ties the ribbon around the strap of the bag, and reaches back in.
His moth wings clasp the tube, and he pulls it out, curious. It’s an amber pill bottle. Full of white capsules; not a single one has been ingested. He carefully reads the label. He never would’ve guessed that she’d need these. Of course she refused to take them, he thought to himself, she’s much too stubborn. She dealt with it on her own, and he can’t help feel proud and ashamed at the same time. A mixture of emotions runs through his lungs, changing as he breathes.
The bottle rattles as he places it gently on the bottom of the bag, the pills spilling against each other frantically. He knows he doesn’t have much time left before she’ll be back, but he reaches back in anyway. His rusty hands need to hold onto something else; his paper heart flutters painfully. There are only two items left. The first one is simple: a makeup bag. In it is concealer, foundation, and blush, to paint on what should already be. To mask herself.
The second is a medium-sized stuffed animal. He pulls it slowly out of the bag, carefully, for it is so old he feels the stitching might unravel. The ears of the small yellow dog are worn thin: clear indentations in the middle where he pictures her rubbing it between her fingers. The fur is clotted together, matted, and dirty. He lifts it to his face, touches the soft fur to his cheek, and inhales. It’s not a bad smell, but it isn’t good, either. It’s old, musty, loved, slobbered on. He can smell it all. As he hugs the wilting plush against his face, he feels a hand on his shoulder. He’s been caught.
There she is, in her converse, tights, skirt, and band T-shirt. She looks whole, healthy. For a minute, he thinks he’s in trouble, but she just stares at the bag for a long moment before turning away. She turns the stereo in the back of the room on, and starts to play one of her favorite songs. He carefully places the stuffed animal snugly within the lining of the bag, and sits at the bare wooden table, elbows on the worktop. She sits across from him, leaning back in a relaxed position, stomach stretched, and looks at him for a long while. He feels the urge to explain himself thundering in his head, but as he opens his mouth, so many words bubble to the surface that it gets clogged, and none come out. He flounders.
“I’m sorry,” He settles on, meaning it. Still, she says nothing, studying him. “I didn’t mean—“, he stops. He wants to speak the truth, but the lie tumbled out of his mouth, scathing the tip of his tongue. The soft music fills the silence until it’s overflowing, the notes overlap one another and soon they are both drowning in the song, in the silence between them. He takes a deep breath and starts again. “I had to. Or, I felt I did. I couldn’t help it… I had this access to a secret, a life, a world. How could I pass that up?” His voice sounds raw to his ears, his throat is having a hard time opening around the words.

“I understand… What did you think?” She looks at him stoically, unashamed that he knew her now. He pauses, not entirely sure how best to continue.

“The blank diary, the numbers.” She prompts him. He can’t say anything, he can’t taint her world with his spin. He’s almost sure he knows what they mean, but who is he to say? She sighs heavily, as if what she’s about to do will be tiring. “The blank pages are the times when I don’t feel. When I can’t write, play music, or anything for pleasure. Everything is a chore. Life is on autopilot, and the pages stay blank. No creativity, no passion, no heart.” He sits there, silent, as her words cut through him. “The numbers… I’m sure you’ve guessed. I don’t intend on explaining that one.” Her hair brushes against her cheeks, and she suddenly looks uncomfortable. He notices a red on her cheekbones, says nothing as she waits for it to go away. She sucks the air into her lungs, and suddenly he can’t breathe from the tension. She’s battling herself, and all he can do is watch as she wins and loses at the same time. His chest is tight, and he’s waiting for her to speak, to say something. She turns her sharp gaze back to him. “The hair tie around the journal is for the old me, long-haired and confident. Radiantly happy.” She pushes her glasses back up her nose, like she needs protection all of a sudden. Like her eyes see too much of the world, too many bad parts. But she’s protected by them as well.
“The ring is the religion I struggle with, and grew out of. It’s also my promise of purity. But a while ago, I decided I didn’t need a silly ring for that, and if I did, if that was the only thing keeping me pure, then what was the point? I can do the same things with or without the ring.” She notices the small silver circle around my pinkie finger, and her lips curve into a half-smile. “You gave me the elephant, but it’s not in there because of you.” Her words sting, but he knows she doesn’t mean it personally. She’s just telling it the way she feels it. “Elephants everywhere represent highest self-worth, pride, and strength.”
“The pink ribbon is cancer, since it’s affected my family and my life so much.” She doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need her to. “The pill bottle is what I refuse to take. You probably know this better than anyone. I can handle things myself. I don’t need a medicine to make me happy, because I’m not sick. Medicine is for sick people.” She trails off, and his heart aches as her voice falls. Her eyes snap back to his. “I am not sick.” She says forcefully, determinedly. Whether she’s trying to convince herself or him, he’s not sure. But he doesn’t think she succeeds with either. The fire is licking the side of her face, casting a slightly sinister shadow over her eyes.
“The makeup is who I try to be… pretty, perfect, happy. But it’s fake. I’m done with being fake.” She looks at him, trying to make sure he understands. The word bounces back at them from the corners of the room, where the memories are hidden. She looks so old, he notices. So beyond her years that she’s almost a child again.
“And the dog, Tidbit, is my childhood, my innocence, my dependence.” She looks around the room slowly, her eyes jerking from brick to brick, back to the stereo, and then here. At him. “I’m leaving. I’m only bringing Tidbit. You can keep my bag, or burn it. I don’t care, I’m leaving it behind. I’m done with being fake. I am done with that part of my life, with the makeup, with my hair, the overwhelming sadness. I’m leaving this house, it’s too full of carefully sculpted memories.” He watches her face as she says this, and he thinks he can feel her intensity, just for a moment, burning from her eyes to his. “I’m going somewhere else, and I’m going to be me. You can come if you want, or you can stay here, but I’m leaving either way.” The air is swollen as she pauses again, saturated with promises he’s not sure she’ll keep.
She stands, her skirt swaying as she steps carefully over the wooden floorboards to her tan canvas bag. She bends over, pulling out the stuffed animal. When she straightens, he knows she means this. Her face is angry, red. She picks up the bag suddenly, throws it with a force that he didn’t expect. It slams across the room, hits the brick wall, and falls to the floor. It’s gutted: there is a rip in the bottom, and the contents are spilling. He understands now that there was more in the bag than he thought. It hits him suddenly, the wall of words that she had built up in there against herself. He feels the small bird fly past his face from inside the bag. He knows he can’t come along.
“Goodbye, Hannah.” He whispers from his spot at the table. Her heavy breathing is audible. He can’t go with her. If she is really to start over, she can’t have him there. He’d been there for her whole life, he would only drag her back down to where she was, what she had been. And, he wasn’t quite ready to go forward like she was. She turns quickly, a tear skittering across her pink cheek, and opens the door. The front lawn is covered in a pristine blanket of snow. If she takes one step into the beauty, it will be gone. Tainted. But she puts one foot in front of the other. With the first step, her tights catch on the doorframe, snagging and tearing from her ankle to her calf. She continues, crunching over snow while the cold wind whips through the door and chills him to the bone. She is gone.
Her tan bag, heaped and broken, forgotten in the corner, will stay there. He knows she will never come back. He hopes that she keeps marring the snow. Maybe someday, if her footprints are still there, he will follow her.