Page 57 of Notes About Vodka

The distant hum of the city fades, giving way to the gentle rustle of leaves and the rhythmic lapping of waves against the shore. Holding her close, I feel an overwhelming sense of calm and connection, as if in this moment, nothing else matters. Just Laura and me.

I pull her even closer, my fingers slipping under Laura’s sweater as I stroke them up and down her spine, delicately caressing the slightly raised scar. I love that she’s comfortable enough to let me touch her. I can only imagine, but after everything she’s been through I thought she would be more hesitant.“What happened?” I ask as I press a kiss into her hair, my fingers still tracing the scar that runs up and down her vertebra. I probably shouldn’t ask this soon, but when she wears those dark, gauzy dresses on stage, I can’t help but notice the silvery pop against her pale skin.

Laura’s breath hitches slightly as she pulls back just enough to meet my gaze. Her eyes, reflecting the starlight, hold a vulnerability I haven’t seen before.

“It’s a long story,” she begins softly, her voice trembling just a bit.

“Well, I have all the time in the world, and since we are comfortable. What happened?” I ask again, “No judgement, but did someone do this to you? Was it an accident? I just want to know so I know how I can helpif ever needed.”

“No... No one did anything to me. It was technically, well, genetically, my own doing. It wasn’t an accident. But it started in middle school. Around puberty my spine started to curve over. I tried back braces but they were just uncomfortable. Then, a year after high school, I got really sick. It started with what I thought was just a bad flu, but it turned out to be spinal meningitis. I was in so much pain I could barely move.”

She pauses, her gaze drifting as she relives the memory. “When I went to the hospital, they discovered something a bit more serious that was just a funny curve. I have Ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that affects the spine and causes severe pain and stiffness. Before I knew it, I had two missing vertebra and a major spinal fusion to help reduce some of the symptoms. The worst scar isn’t even from the doctors operating on my spine, it's from where they had to deflate my lung to get to the arthritis on the inside and scrape it out. But then, if you really want to know, there’s more than just that long, horrendous thing.”

Laura’s fingers graze a scar on her neck that I never noticed, her touch gentle, almost reverent. “They also had to remove a cyst from my neck that got entangled with my lymph nodes.” Her fingers trail to the neck of her sweater where she pulls it down, revealing her chest where another long scar sits.

“And when I was just five, they had to repair a hole in my heart. The right atrium was pumping blood backwards. The surgeries were intense. Recovery took a long time, and I had to adjust to new realities each time. It was rough—I had to learn to walk again, how to read again. Not being able to feel my legs for months after the first spine surgery was terrifying, but it made me stronger. Needing a second surgery to fix the first one, that was painful. Losing my ability to read was even scarier though but thank goodness for Harry Potter. I reread every novel again and again until I was back to my old accelerated reader self…. I know that I’m now rambling, but I guess I need you to know that I married Sam just before the spine surgery, for his insurance so I could have the surgery. He turned out to be useless, jobless, broke. I had to rebuild my life on my own, get a job with insurance, have the surgeries, and then, decide to move onward without him. One of the reasons I moved to New York, to start fresh.”

“And these?” I ask as I gently push her sleeves up, turning her hands over to expose her forearms. Laura tries to pull back, but I keep my hold steady, softening my grip. My imagination goes wild with only one possibility to why she has these. “Laura, I want to understand all your scars. Even the ones I can't see.”

I rub my thumb over the long, deep gashes.

My beautiful Laura, why would you do this to yourself?

“I’ve made a lot of bad decisions, Val. Before Sam, I moved in with my dad when my mom first moved to Connecticut with her new husband. I couldn’t stay with my grandparents because they were moving to Florida. When Daddy got remarried, it was an even bigger nightmare. He...did things to my stepmother and stepsister when he would drink. One night… I, uh, well, I was scared that I was next.”

“Why, what happened?”

“I fell in ‘love’. Stupid, idiotic young love,” Laura sighs before continuing, unshed tears filling her eyes. “Daddy caught me with my boyfriend. Needless to say, don’t have sex in your dad’s tool shed. After he beat the guy up, my boyfriend broke up with me. I was devastated. I thought I had found someone who cared about me, but it all fell apart so quickly. Can you blame him? But Daddy was so angry, so drunk, I thought it would be better to choose my own ending instead of living in his pain.”

As she speaks, her words are both a revelation and a release.I can see the weight of those memories in her eyes, and it makes me want to hold her even closer. Her courage and resilience are clear, and I’m filled with admiration for how she’s faced these challenges.

“Oh, Laura.” I pull her into me as close as I can. “Fuck. I don’t even know what to say.”

Why would she make that kind of choice?

Laura’s tears cover my shirt as I rub small circles on her back.

Whispering, I try to lighten the moment, “You know, I’m kind of mad at you,” I say, refusing to let her go when she stiffens.

Pushing her back so I can look into those starry eyes I love so much, I shrug off my jacket and pull my shirt off. Bare chested and chilled, I don’t care. Using the shirt to clean Laura’s face, I tell her, “Don’t take it the wrong way, lubimaya, and I know I can’t change your past, and I know you made those choices because you were hurting. But Laura… What if… Fuck, I’m saying this all wrong, I’m just so glad you’re here. That you are living and thriving. So that I could meet you, so that I canlove you, Laura.”

Her face, reddened from her tears, goes suddenly pasty white. “I couldn’t cut any deeper. Sitting in that tub, I was only 19. You see, when Jaxon broke it off, it wasn’t just because we had gotten caught in an extremely intimate position. Earlier that summer, he had gotten his second DUI. He was only 18. But I’ve always had a thing for the thugs, the guys that girls want to fix. So I stayed, even though I found myself being held at gunpoint as he threatened to take both of our lives, saying I made him crazy. Daddy didn’t know any of that, though. Just that Jax dropped me off at home after pushing me into the front patio window. And Daddy exploded through the front door of our single-wide trailer witha wooden baseball bat that easily put Jaxon on the gravel of our driveway.

“Sitting in that tub, I had to choose to live. I had already been caught for having sex. My boyfriend was volatile and abusive. I saw the cycle and knew I had to get out. I knew I wanted more from life. So I moved onward, found a couple of great roommates who have followed me everywhere, and kept making bad decisions.”

I start to say something but Laura puts her finger on my lips.

“Don’t talk yet Val. I’m not done.”

She lets out a long sigh, “Before Jaxon, there was Thomas Glenn, who one month after taking my virginity told me he needed to go back to his ex-girlfriend to give her a better chance. He was supposed to be a virgin too and single, but I guess not. After Thomas, and then Jaxon, I went wild. Had fun. Completed an associate’s degree I barely remember because I was always so fucked up on whatever drug I could find.

“One day I met a guy older than me who had a good job. That was right after I started to get sick. Skipper and Rhea didn’t know what to do. But I did. I called my grandparents to come visit because I needed supportive witnesses. That Sunday, my grandmother helped me pick out a cute blue dress while my grandfather spent time getting to know Sam. Monday morning by 9 a.m. we were walking out of the Lee County Courthouse, married.

“I only married Sam so I could have health insurance. I never actually loved him. It was a practical decision, not an emotional one. I was scared, and I felt like I had no other choice. I just knew I needed to figure out how to stay alive, even if it meant sacrificing my happiness and tying myself to someone I didn't love. Eighteen months later, I was in thehospital for the first surgery and Sam was in Atlanta, dick deep in who knows who.”

Laura takes a deep breath, ready to continue, but I press my fingers against her lips now, pausing her.

“Laura, stop, it’s okay, I get it. Crash baby, crash and burn, I’ll be here to break your fall. I don’t need all the details, because fuck, I’ve made some mistakes, too.”

---