All We've Ever Known

The last thing I heard, before Macy shoved me away from her, was the sliding glass door fly open. Macy jumped off of the lounge chair, scratching the back of her neck and attempting to pull off an innocent, unsuspecting look that could throw off her incredibly shocked brother.

“Alex…?” he whispered in disbelief. His eyes locked on mine and I couldn’t look away, though I wanted to more than anything.

“Hey, Paul…” I muttered in response, finally tearing my eyes away from his and glancing down at my shoes. I could see Macy shift uncomfortably in my peripheral vision.

“What’s going on here, Mace?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing…” she replied uneasily. “Uhm, we were… Just about to leave, so… I’ll talk to you later.”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me past Paul, through the living room, and out the front door. She grabbed her purse off of the counter before she left, and once she was outside, she rummaged through it for her phone.

“Shit…” she mumbled. “I left it in there…”

“At least now he can’t call you,” I shrugged, following her outside. “I’m really sorry he caught us. I would’ve planned this more carefully if I used my brain for once…”

“No, no,” she sighed, shaking her head. “How would you have known? It’s fine… I just… I don’t know where to go now.”

“It doesn’t even matter,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards my car. I drove away from her apartment and through the city until I found a quiet spot just outside of the city limits. It was a tiny field, no bigger than the size of my living room. It was rather plain – but there was a small picnic table towards the woods that was secluded and quiet.

“How do you even find these places?” she said sighing. She took a seat at the table and buried her head in her hands. “I live here and I didn’t even know this existed…”

“I don’t know…” I shrugged. “I just saw it, so I pulled over.”

“I still feel really bad about your brother…” I muttered after a couple moments of silence, sitting down on the bench beside her.

She shrugged and replied, “It doesn’t really matter, I guess. He’s just not going to be happy when I get home. It’s nothing I can’t handle, though…”

“I get that he’s angry, but why? He knows me!” I asked, scratching at the chipped, dark red paint on the table.

She looked down and said, “I mean… We don’t exactly have the best track record. And he’s been more protective of me than my own mother… I just… I don’t have good luck with relationships.”

“Is he worried?”

“Probably…” she answered. “He has every right to be. I’ve gone crazy too many times over things like this.”

There was silence, and all I wanted to know was what she was thinking. She was always thinking, always analyzing. She was always worrying and predicting what could happen, and after springing this surprise on her, she was probably having a small mental breakdown.

“Macy, are you okay with this? Honestly?” I asked quietly, sheepishly looking up at her. She smiled slightly and stayed silent for a moment.

“Of course I’m okay with this,” she finally replied. “I’m just… I’m so scared.”

At the last part, she dropped her eyes and her voice had a slight desperation to it. At that moment I was scared. Here was a girl who seemed so broken and so confused, and here I was just waltzing on in, possibly destroying everything she’s worked so hard for.

“Macy Lynn, I’m not going to hurt you…”

“I know, I know…” she sighed. “I just… I haven’t been with anyone since… Well, since a while ago. And that really didn’t end well. I’ve never been able to… Warm up to anyone since then.”

I paused. Deciding to go against what I had promised myself I slowly asked, “What happened to you, Macy?”

She looked down, unable to meet my gaze. She shook her head slowly, her walls slowly crumbling. I could see the way her lip quivered slightly, how she constantly tried to tuck that one piece of hair behind her ear. She was getting upset and I knew it. I needed to know, though. I needed to know what happened to her.

“A lot,” she muttered, still looking down. “A lot of shitty things.”

After I didn’t respond, she continued, “I… I got into a terrible, abusive relationship after we broke up. But… I guess, it wasn’t a relationship… He only gave me drugs if I stayed with him.”

“Sounds pathetic of him…” I observed quietly.

She shrugged and replied, “Not really. In a sick way he was smart… He controlled me that way, and there was nothing I could do about it – I needed the meth. I’d do anything for him, just so I could have it…”

My eyes widened as I recalled a conversation I had with Kara when Macy left my house that night of the party in March. She had told me about her time with the mysterious guy that I currently wanted to beat into oblivion. It made me sick to my stomach picturing her giving herself away to that filthy human being. Hearing that from Kara, and then sitting in front of the girl it actually happened to were two totally different feelings. I felt terrible and guilty, and as I watched her pick at her scabby cuticles, it broke my heart entirely. The girl I had grown up with, the girl I used to know better than anyone, had been so utterly used to the point of destroying whatever dignity she had.

“Alex, it was terrible,” she whispered, burying her head in her hands. “Everything. Everything was terrible. I was a broken mess who needed drugs and I did anything to get them. I still feel so utterly ashamed. How can you even love me?”

She was fully crying by now, and I was a little unprepared. I was never good with dealing with crying people, and Macy was no exception. She never cried – crying drew attention, and Macy hated attention more than anything. Seeing her crying now was like witnessing a lamb being slaughtered – the same feeling I had when she cried about her miscarriage. I moved myself over slightly and draped an arm reassuringly around her shoulders.

“Macy, you have no reason to be ashamed. You were just going through a hard time…” I said soothingly, leaning down and kissing her hair.

“I just… Wish everything had been different,” she said, lifting her head. “I wish I had done normal teenage things instead of wallowing in my own self-pity. I wish I had enjoyed myself more instead of destroyed myself.”

There was a silence in which she collected herself. She wiped her eyes and sat up straighter, wiggling free of my arm that held her shoulders.

“But I can’t change any of that,” she said, seemingly more to herself than to me.

“Macy, I don’t care what happened to you, I just care that you’re okay now. I want to… I want to know you again. I used to know every detail of your life, and now… There’s things that have changed, and I want to know.”

She nodded and muttered, “And you should know… I’m just… Scared it would turn you off.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head and answered, “Never mind… I suppose you’ll know eventually.”

I looked out across the tiny plot and stayed silent. I wasn’t going to pressure her into saying anything she didn’t want to say. Clearly this relationship was going to go slowly, and I didn’t really mind. I had to earn Macy’s trust, not demand it. If I wanted to know her, I’d have to be patient. Looking back on that now, I never really knew what I was getting myself into - I never realized that that idea that had seemed so simple at the time would be so far from it. I never realized that being with Macy would be more difficult and more of a life lesson than anything I had been through.