I can’t sleep. I can’t settle down.
And now I see him eating a banana like it’s the best thing he’s tasted. I see him and I curled up on that chair, me on his lap and him reading knock-knock and Dad jokes.
I see him guarding me from the cold water in the shower, which was cold because of my flushing the toilet. I see him, standing over me, then lifting me up to rescue me when I got bit by a snake. I see him carefully walking a too-full cup of steaming tea to me, being so careful not to spill it that he seemed boyish.
I choke on a sob and decide I can’t just lie here anymore.
I can’t. So, I drive to my sister’s place.
***
Amelia moved in with Rick when they got engaged last year. They live in a swanky townhouse in a nice gated community. It’s four floors, brownstone style, and everything inside it is white. It’s annoying how white everything is. Amelia’s colorful so it isn’t her. She said she’ll redecorate after they get married.
Rick, her fiancé, comes out just as I’m about to knock on the door, in sweats and carrying a gym bag.
“Ivy. Hey. Are you all right?” His hand lands on my arm.
I recoil. “Uh, Is Amelia home?”
“Yeah.” He pulls the door wide, looking concerned, and gestures for me to go ahead of him.
“Amelia?” he calls out.
I’m not Rick’s biggest fan. I think he’d be the type to cheat just to prove he can still get some tail. I don’t like the way he looks at me, and I said it to my sister one night over drinks when I’d had too much heavily alcoholic punch, when a few of us were trying to stage a relationship intervention with her, but she just shrugged it off.
“It’s just because you look like me, but twenty pounds lighter and you’re a blonde. He wouldn’t cheat. It’s just like imagined role play.”
“He ever ask you to put on a wig? A blonde one? If he does, don’t walk, run,” I advised and laughed.
She didn’t laugh. She went uncharacteristically quiet. I got the impression I struck a nerve.
I never brought it up again; neither did she.
Today, I’m pretty sure that’s genuine concern on his face, but I’m also guessing Amelia has been chewing his head off while she worried about me. I spot her over on the big white couch with nail polish in hand, her foot up on the arm of the sofa, and a phone to her ear. The minute she sees me she says, “Gotta go, Mom. Ivy’s here. I think you better come over.” She drops the phone and runs to me.
I fall into her embrace bawling.
“What did he do?” Amelia demands. “Do we call the cops? Want Rick to go beat the shit out of him? What?”
I look at Rick, standing there in his muscle shirt and sweatpants and I laugh, but it’s a bitter and weird laugh. Rick couldn’t land a punch on Tyson.
Rick frowns at my reaction.
I shake my head and wave my hand at Rick. It’s not that my sister’s guy isn’t strong looking. He’s average height, but he works out and has a six pack and some guns. He’s one of those guys that puffs his chest out when he talks about his workout regimen. Truthfully, though, Rick is a bit of a dick and he’s a mouthpiece that I get the impression wouldn’t deliver on a promise to beat someone up. None of us in the family or our friend group are crazy about him, calling him Rick the Dick behind Amelia’s back, but Amelia loves his fat wallet, his fancy cars, and the fact that he proposed in a ridiculously romantic yet cliché (to me) way, during a baseball game on the Jumbotron.
I know she loves being engaged, loves planning a wedding, and she jokes that he’s her ‘starter’ husband.
That’s the problem. We’re all sure that the day after her big, fancy wedding, she’s going to deflate and be ridiculously bummed out with her new reality.
“What happened?” she repeats.
“I just – I…”
I can’t talk about what happened. I can’t.
And I can’t talk about who and what Tyson is.
Not just because of that thing about not telling outsiders, because I liked all those people, too, and I know they were concerned about what happened to me. It isn’t their fault. I know that he had some supernatural reaction there that maybe he had no control over, but I also know I’m not okay with it. That said, I don’t want to hurt any of them. And that’s besides the fact that I could get put on a kill list if I said a word, putting myself and anyone I told at risk.
And also, I’m just not ready to talk about it. I don’t know if I can even tell anybody what happened. It’s bad enough it happened. Having people I love, people who love me know about it, too?