break my back

one. it's early morning. i'm sitting in the kitchen and i am eating a fish sandwich. selkie's face is as white as the milk she pours into her bowl of cereal. „i had another bad dream tonight.“

two. the concept of „making love“ had always bothered me. i just never really understood how putting a penis into a vagina was supposed to produce that complicated chemical process happening between two human brains.
selkie insists that we turn off the lights and close the curtains every time we do it. she claims it's because of the neighbors, but i know that she really just doesn't want me to see her stretch marks, and i think she knows that i know too. one time she confessed to me that she thinks of f when we have sex, and at that point i could have told her that i think of f too when we have sex, but instead i just rolled over and pretended that i didn't hear her.
maybe love has to exist in a relationship before you can make it.

three. “i'm in the woods, basically, and i'm caught in a bear trap with both legs, and i'm just bleeding and bleeding and then i hear people coming.”

four. i remember the day selkie got married. she still keeps a picture framed on the fridge, it's the one of us, me, her and franklin. she's scribbled out f's whole head in black sharpie, but you can still see parts of his face if you squint really hard. the whole picture is kind of hilarious in an unintentional and twisted sense, because this was supposed to be the happiest day in selkie's and franklin's life, but i'm the only one whose smile is actually genuine.
selkie once told me that she'd wanted to have a white princess wedding ever since she was five, and then there she was, standing in a backyard in her 150 dollar off-white wedding dress with a rather obvious bump underneath, looking like a trailer trash barbie doll in her fake smile.
i know for fact that if it had been up to her, there wouldn't have been a bump, and if it had been up to franklin, the dress wouldn't have been off-white, and if it had been up to both of them they wouldn't have stood in this backyard in the first place. i also remember that selkie cried during the ceremony, and so did her mother, but for entirely different reasons.

five. she pauses to shove a big pile of wheaties into her mouth. they're the honey frosted kind, but it's not like she'll keep them down either way. “they were coming to get me.”

six. f had told me once that he wanted his ashes to be scattered over the sea in the rain, but instead he was going to be buried on a bright summer's day. i remember that day surprisingly well, the pastor's speech about ashes to ashes and how all those accidents happened in god's will, selkie in the same black dress which was now stretched out across her stomach, the casket sealed shut, the pitiful looks people were giving the two of us, selkie crying on the way back home.
i don't really remember the next few days after that, and i don't remember the day the rain finally set back in either.
i don't remember waking up to selkie in the next room screaming that her contractions set in, driving to the hospital with her crying in the backseat, her being wheeled into the emergency room, me waiting an hour, two hours, four hours, until the weather had gone from gray and rainy to black and rainy and a nurse told me to go home. i remember selkie and the woman behind the reception telling me about these things, but i don't remember living them. the only thing i do remember is the day after, the IV stuck in selkie's arm, her face so white that it made the hospital gown and bedding look gray and how tears formed in her eyes when she told me that the baby didn't make it. i like to pretend that this is all i remember from that day, but the truth is that at that point, she just looked so lost and lost and lost that i just leaned in and kissed her. not even in a sexual way. just kissing it better.
as-fucking-if.

seven. “i can hear them getting closer and closer, and some of them are screaming my name, and then they're right in front of me but i still can't see their faces.”

eight. when we were in high school, we would sit on the riverbank just out of town, just the three of us. we would lie back onto the grass and just talk about everything, because it's not like there was anything better to do. it was one of those days of us just sitting there that franklin and selkie eventually happened.
years later, we eventually returned, and even though it's kind of hard to pinpoint in retrospect, that was more or less the day when franklin and selkie ended.
we were sitting underneath the same old birch tree that still had our names carved into it from years earlier, selkie's black dress spread out across the grass. we just sat there and talked for a while, just like back then, about life and life after high school and whatever else people who haven't seen each other in a while might discuss (even though we all still live in the same town). it was only after we've stopped the small talk that selkie lowered her voice and said that she might be pregnant. i looked down at her stomach, there was a very slight bump below the velvet of her dress, and so i congratulated the both of them. franklin swallowed, discreetly, but still loud enough for me to hear it, and selkie said that she was going to name it alice if it's a girl and joshua if it's a boy.
my memory is kind of fuzzy after that, but i do remember the early evening hours, we were still sitting in the same spot and selkie had said that she'd be back in a little while (but i don't remember why). that was the exact moment when franklin and i began – if you can call it that. i remember how he moved closer until i could feel his breath on the back of my neck and how his arms wrapped around me. how his lips brushed against my ear when he told me that he couldn't do this for much longer. that they would probably have to get married soon. that he was tired of living a lie. and how much he wanted me. whether we could do something. to be honest: yes, i wanted franklin. and so i said yes. again, i don't really remember what happened after that, but only a few hours later we were back at my house, and only half an hour after that he had kissed me one last time.
only half an hour after that, i turned up the hot water and started scrubbing at my skin, at every single part of me that franklin's lips and hands had touched.
to be honest: yes, i wanted franklin. i wanted him to fuck me like they do in porno films. fuck me until i can't breathe, fuck me until i scream, until i cry, fuck me so hard that i can't walk for days. i wanted to feel his teeth sink into the back of my neck, i wanted him to whisper all those dirty things into my ear, i wanted him to make me come so hard that my vision goes blurry. and he did.
to be honest: yes, i wanted franklin. but not like this.
i only got out the shower when the hot water ran out and my whole face was rubbed red and raw.

nine. “one of them raises his gun and pulls the trigger, and then i wake up.” at this point, i could tell her that she should probably see a doctor about this. or that everything will be fine eventually. i say nothing.

ten. the rain set in a few days before it all ended. in retrospect it was kind of prophetic, almost ironic, but back then we didn't think much of it. it was an ordinary night and franklin had come over again, i remember feeling his wet body pressed against my back (but i was never sure whether it was from sweat or from the rain), and i remember after, him buttoning up his shirt and saying that selkie was probably waiting for him. “my wife is probably waiting,” that's what he'd said, he never called her by name anymore. nothing out of the ordinary.
i remember turning up the water and scrubbing at my skin. nothing out of the ordinary.
then the phone call from selkie, her saying that f hadn't come home yet and that i knew how scared she is of ghosts, and that's the point when my memory begins to speed up. i remember getting dressed again and driving down to selkie's and franklin's house. thinking back now, i probably should have noticed the wrecked car in the ditch somewhere around the woods, but i didn't.
i knew how scared selkie was of ghosts, and so i just kept on driving. i remember arriving to selkie crying, i remember telling her that everything will be fine, i remember just holding her for a few minutes until she stopped shaking. i told her once again that everything will be fine.
i remember kissing her on the forehead. kissing it better. as if.
i remember selkie opening the door. a police officer saying he's sorry to inform her that her husband got killed in a car accident. selkie breaking into tears again. the officer's reactions going from “miss, please try to stay calm,” over “please calm down,” and “you need to calm down, miss,” up to “you have to calm the fuck down,” and me telling him that it's probably best if he leaves her alone for now.
i remember selkie falling asleep on the sofa after her eyes ran dry and i remember turning up the hot water and scrubbing at my skin.

eleven. selkie asks how my night was. i could tell her that i didn't sleep all night again. that i considered taking the gun she keeps under her pillow and just ending it. i say “oh, the usual,” and take another bite from my fish sandwich.

twelve. when we were kids, selkie and i would sit in the branches of the highest tree in my parents' backyard. we'd feel like we were the rulers of the world and this was our castle, and somehow the idea of that made the rest of the world and the rest of our lives seem a little less scarier. it was one day when we were ten when selkie knocked at my parents' door, book bag on her back and a bundle of clothes under her arm, asking if she could stay for a while. my parents didn't ask any questions and so she did, and it wasn't until the next day that i found out why. we were sitting in 'our' tree again, and that's when she told me that her mother had to be put in the hospital. that her father had left town. that she couldn't stay at her own house anymore because she's scared of ghosts, and that's when she hitched up her skirt and showed me the bruises and burn marks all over her legs, and the gaping wound slightly below her right knee. i remember running my fingers across it, asking her if it hurt a lot, and her asking me to kiss it better. and so i did.

twelve and a half. people in town say that i only love her because f is dead. that's not the bad part. i know that they can't know the whole truth about him and me. i know that it seems like selkie is just another distressed widow and i'm just another year-long friend trying to comfort her. that's not the bad part. the bad part is that i know they're right, and selkie probably does too.