Page 88 of On Merit Alone
This wasn’tthe first time I had to talk about my life since everything went to shit so many years ago. There were obviously homes I’d needed to talk to—social workers, doctors, nurses, coaches, therapists, and the list goes on and on. But back then I’d said everything so many times I was numb to it all. I didn’t think about it actively because I was too busy trying to forget it, so the words were detached and rehearsed, and they lacked feeling because that was the only way I could survive retelling them.
But now… Now it had been so many years since I’d told somebody. So many years since Ihadsomebody to tell. And with the growing of my walls came the space and the room to fully sit with my reality. The reality that I had already lived through all the love I was ever going to receive. I had outlived all the very special people in my life, and I was destined to live the rest of it holding onto the one thing that lived on through the generations. An orange ball.
I knew that about myself—about my life. So why was it suddenly so hard for me to face that fact?
Did it have to do with the soft light of warmth I felt whenever Ipictured a certain smiling face? Had I gotten too close to it? Forgetting that one day the light would run out just as it always did. One day soon, since he was thinking about quitting basketball.
This was all my fault. It was my own fault for letting him in deep enough that decisions that had nothing to do with me could hurt me. It was my fault for caring so much about the way I’d made him raise his voice at me that it stressed me out to the point of sickness. It was my fault for word vomiting my every emotion out the first chance I got after having them pinned up for so long.
It was my fault. So why, as I looked up at my parents’ photos and my grandparents’ next to them, did I feel like blaming them? I hated being mad at the only people who’d ever loved me. I hated it so much it made me turn that anger in on myself.
How dare you leave me turning into,how dare you not be grateful for the time you had? Why did this happen turning into,why can’t you be happy with what you got?And please come back turning into,accept your fate.
Yet right now, as I compared the way I made Ira look at me in the parking garage to the stunned way he looked at me today, I wondered something new.
Why the hell did you have to make me this way?
Everyone lost people. Many lost just as much as me, if not more, and still they learned to live and love and let life in normally. They learned to be a part of the world again. Learned to make their own way.
But not me. What waswrongwith me?
A banging at the door made me jump. I buzzed at the sound of it. I knew who it was without even looking. How he got my address, I had no clue, but I also didn’t care much.
He was here, and that was causing a whole complicated flood of emotions within me.
I said so many mean things to him. I’d reacted terribly to himconfiding in me. I’d been such a bad friend, and yet, here he stood looking for me anyway. People didn’t do that for those they didn’t care about. People didn’t go out of their way for just anyone. I knew that, yet the prospect that he might care about me now terrified the shit out of me.
Because what would I do when he stopped caring later? He would go back to his parents, who he called every morning. Or his sister, who has always been his role model. Or his real friends, who treat him normally and nothing like how I made him feel in the parking structure. He would go back to them and I would go back to… no one.
Back to basketball and myself.
And after getting the smallest glimpse of what life looks like with more than just me and the ghost of others playing a game they passed onto me, I was terrified to go back to just basketball and myself. I didn’t want to go back. Even if I knew I had to.
Another bang on the door literally had me jumping out of my skin. He was being so loud. So urgent. Like hehadto find me. There was no need for that. There was nowhere else I could possibly be but alone at home. Again.
I opened the door to a frantic looking Ira. He was glowing too many colors as he panted in my doorway, his cheeks gaining a rare red. As soon as he laid eyes on me, he stepped my way. I stepped back, my breath hitching as a wave of emotion struck me so deep, I could hardly see.
He held his hands up, showing me his palms. Promising without words that he wasn’t going to hurt me. I didn’t believe him, I couldn’t believe him.
Because itallhurt.
Eventually, one way or another, it was all going to hurt me. I shook my head, warning him away and he pushed out his own shuddering breath. “Mer.”
“Don’t call me that,” I whined.Grandpa called me that.
“Sweetheart, please?” he pleaded.
A tear escaped and I cast a glance to my family’s photos for help. I begged them silently for a path to follow, because if they didn’t show me, I would end up falling weakly into the strong arms in front of me.
In the end, I don’t know what did it. I don’t know if it was the soft touch of his hand on my cheek, or the slow way he eased his body around mine, pulling me into his arms as if he couldn’t move too carefully. Like I’d break if he made a wrong move. Or even the low murmur of his familiar voice saying, “I’m sorry I’m so damn late. I’m here now.”
It could have been one or all of those things, but something about the presence of Ira sent me over the edge.
My knees weakened as a dam opened up in my soul. It let out more than just tears, but sobs of pain and anguish and years of loneliness too. With my face pressed into his throat, my hands balled into his shirt, I held onto whatever stability Ira provided as I fell apart.
“Easy, baby,” Ira murmured, his breath puffing onto my face as he leaned down and pressed his cheek against my forehead. Wrapping his strong arms around me, he banded me up close and walked us into my apartment. Using his foot, he kicked the door shut behind him.
I hardly thought I was standing upright as wave after wave of it hit me, knocking me down each time I tried. It felt like all physical function had left me. The only thing that was keeping me upright as Ira walked us deeper and deeper into my apartment was the steadiness of him—Rocking me; stroking my shoulders; whispering into my hair, “I got you, Six. I’m here.”
