Jyvur Entropy's Blog, page 11

WWW Weds: Amish Baking and Shifter Romance

Yeah, yeah, I’m done sad-posting (for now) and here is a weekly meme posted.

As always, it is hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

What Did I Recently Finish Reading?

I’ve never been so disappointed by a book. For years I’ve been saying Paul Tremblay is my favorite writer of all time.

Look, writers, go ahead and make your books political. Long as you know your book becomes a little less universal to the human experience when you do that.

As political as my obnoxious ass is usually, I don’t make my books political. I usually make an effort to give my characters different ideologies than me. I mean, not always, but even when I do a self-insert thing, the point of the book isn’t to push a political agenda.

If the point of your book is to push a political agenda, then it’s not really a book about the human experience; it’s a book about a particular ideology. Basically, you can’t be surprised if people from the opposing ideology don’t vibe with the book.

So Tremblay is free to make his book political. But since I don’t agree with his politics, I didn’t like the book.

This book was so fun to read through (in addition to recipes, there are lots of little footnotes and bits of information about the Amish lifestyle.)

I just baked my first recipe from the book. White bread! I vlogged while baking bread and I will put that video up soon. For now, here are the pictures.

My loaves of bread….definitely don’t look like the picture on the book [image error]

What am I Currently Reading?

I’m reading an arc of this contemporary second chance romance. I’ve read a few books by this author before and always enjoy her books. It released today if you need a short, cute romantic beach read.

Still making my way through this behemoth. I’m finally starting to get into it. I’m especially invested in the female POV character. I hope she does pull off her heist.

I’m also still reading this holiday resort collection of shifter short stories by Zoe Chant. Some are better than others. Right now I’m reading a story where the male is asexual and the female isn’t. Personally I just don’t see how they can make that work. I’ve been in a sexless relationship in the past; it’s a terrible feeling. It’s awful when you’re attracted to someone and want to have sex with them and they don’t want you in the same way. It sours the whole relationship. You try and just ignore it and think ‘it’s not a big deal’ and maybe it’s not a big deal for a while, until suddenly it’s a huge deal and you’re confessing crushes just to get them to leave you so you can finally go out and get fucked for the first time in years.

Look, I’m just saying…I’m not feeling this relationship mismatch. People who are not asexual should be with people who can meet their needs, because the need for sexual intimacy is important.

What Am I Reading Next?

This is an arc that I still need to read and review! Very angsty romance and it comes highly recommended to me by several writer friends.

Indie Book Release: Contemporary Romance

A year ago Michelle Reilly made what she thought was going to be the best decision of her life. She moved away from everything she knew and took a new job in a new city. Turns out she was wrong.

Now all she wants to do is move back home and back to the life she left behind. But it’s been a whole year, things have changed and her friends have moved on. When she runs into Alex Foster, an old flame who is miraculously still single, she begins to think everything can work out the way she wants.

But Alex has a secret too. Michelle’s life is crumbling around her and the guy she’s falling for is hiding something. All she wanted was to go back to normal but she’s learning that unfortunately once you leave you can’t go home again.

This book will be released tomorrow: July 28th. It is currently available for preorder here.

I was lucky enough to receive an arc of this book, so I’ll have a review posted shortly.

I have read several other books from this author (most recently the Discovering Desires series written under her Lucy Luscious pen name).

Everything I’ve read by Emerald is always sweet, sexy, with a light but very fun steam factor. If you’re looking for something romantic with just a taste of light smut, she’s definitely the writer to check out.

amazon | goodreads | author’s website |

Contemporary College Romance: FREE!

The book language of love (which I read and reviewed an audiobook version of back in April) is free in ebook format on amazon right now

You can get the whole sweet low-stakes romance for free by clicking here

Also, if y’all are looking for an easy to way to get free amazon books every day of the week, I highly recommend subscribing to the bookspry newsletter. I literally get alerted to free books every single day of the week. It’s awesome. You can check out bookspry here (also, it’s a great tool for authors: it gets me hundreds of downloads every time I book a slot in that newsletter).

This book used to be under the pen name Ruby Kiss. The author is now using the pen name Emerald Aonghusa.

Costume

In 6th grade, one morning, I walked into school and burst into tears.

Nothing out of the ordinary had happened that morning. My mom had told me to go find her cowboy boots and she had so many shoes and they were all piled up and strewn about her room. I took too long to find them. She came in ripped me off the floor by hair, slapped me in the face, called me a useless shit and told me to get out.

After that, I went to my room and tried to fix my hair. I brushed it and put in these clips that were shaped like yellow Volkswagon bug cars. I put on lipgloss and my green sneakers and a blue dress that didn’t match the sneakers at all, but I liked the way they looked.

I walked in and thought ‘everyone here thinks I’m the girl who sings so well and always get a chorus solo and made the paper that one time. Everyone here always tells me how nice my singing voice is. Everyone here always says ‘wow, you read so many books’ and they don’t know me at all. They don’t know that my mom hates me and hits me and they’d be really disgusted if they knew that.’

And I had this moment where I felt like: who am I? Am I the girl at home who is a useless shit/dumb fuck/retard/shithead? Am the one who has a nice singing voice and who danced with Ray at the Halloween dance in a 1950s dress and all the teachers said, aren’t you two cute? Who am I? And I saw my reflection in the display case by the front office and I saw my own green eyes and big stupid car clips and I couldn’t stand that I was supposedly inside of this body and I didn’t feel connected to it all.

I was immediately hysterical. Like instantaneously. I walked into the building and being in the building all at once I felt like I had no idea who I was or whose body I was inside of. I became so panicked. I hyper-ventilated and cried in the office. My face became really puffy and turned purple.

Of course people asked me what was wrong. I didn’t know what to say. Nothing was wrong. Not exactly. Not any one thing. I didn’t know how to explain that the way they all paid attention to me and cared was upsetting me more. At home I was the disgusting awful person who wouldn’t dare cry openly like that. If I wanted to cry, I went into the closet and put my shirt sleeve in my mouth. So I wouldn’t bother or upset anyone. But at school, everyone would stop and comfort me. What was this? Which part of life was the real part of life? Which me was the real me?

Eventually I stopped crying. The receptionist gave me a glass of water and I went to class.

My 6th grade teacher noticed my face was puffy and purple. She asked me if I was okay and I shook my head no. She asked what would make me feel better. I asked if I could read a book in the hallway and she said yes.

I read Where the Red Fern Grows. I sat on the floor with my back pushed up against the wall.

I wondered if anything would ever get better.

I wondered if life would ever stop feeling like parts of it weren’t real and if I’d ever stop feeling like when people like me it’s only because they don’t see me and I’m wearing some kind of costume, but there’s not a real person inside.

I think I just wish she was sorry. I wish she felt bad. I wish she felt bad enough to be nice to me and not always tell people I’m crazy and bipolar and cause so many problems.

I mean all I ever did was destroy the house and hurt myself. I didn’t do the sorts of things she did. And nobody in my family calls her bipolar. It isn’t fair and I don’t think I’ll ever stop being angry about it.

Nerve

One of the times that my grandparents intervened, I was nine.

They had this idea that I was the one getting the worst of the physical abuse. I wasn’t. It went Mary, me, Carly. Mary got the worst of it.

But when my grandparents stepped in and took me away from my mom, she didn’t fight them and I didn’t correct them.

Well, I should have. I should have said, “Take Mary too. She annoys Mom even more than me.”

But I didn’t.

My grandma said, “the guest room will be your room.”

I couldn’t believe it. They told me I would live with them from now on. I cried because I didn’t know what else to do. Then I sat on the floor of the guest room and brushed my American Girl doll’s hair. This was before my grandfather started to hit me, before he ever hit my grandma in front of me. Nan and Papa’s house was a safe place. I sat there and brushed my doll Samantha’s hair and I won’t lie, I didn’t even think about Mary. I was so so happy to be someplace where everything was safe and okay.

The next few days were wonderful. I rode my bike outside and felt…well, there isn’t a word for the way that I felt. There just isn’t.

Mom called crying and wanted to see me. I went back to my house that weekend. I was supposed to go back to my grandparents’ house on Monday.

My mom sat on my bed and pleaded with me. “You’re really that scared of me? You really don’t want to be here anymore? Really?”

And she looked so heartbroken and I didn’t want to make her feel so sad.

I said, “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know? You love me right?”

I nodded and stared at my lap.

“So say you’ll stay here. You’re my kid, you should be with me.”

“Maybe…”

“What do you mean maybe?”

“Well, maybe as long as you stop getting mad and hitting us.”

Her smile fell. Her face turned to stone. She stared at me like she was so angry.

“You’re saying you’re going to hold this threat over my head my whole life?”

“No, I just meant-“

“You’re saying if I ever even raise my voice a little, you’ll be running back to Nan.”

“No, no…” I tried to figure out what to say. She did a lot more than yell and she knew it. This was after the time with all the cuts and welts on my arms. As much as she tried to hide it, my grandmother saw the scabs.

“If that’s what you’re gonna be like, then maybe you should live with Nan. Maybe we don’t need any kind of relationship. I’ll tell you this much, I’ll never look at you again if you do this to me. If you ruin my family.”

I believed her. I believed I was ruining everything. I felt crushed that she wasn’t going to change. She’d admitted as much.

But I couldn’t let her hate me.

I told Nan and Papa I didn’t want to live with them.

There was a social worker who talked to me. I told her I fell.

She turned my arms over and looked at all the scars from the cuts.

“Jennifer, you can tell me the truth. My job is to keep kids safe.”

I didn’t tell her the truth. Neither did Carly. Neither did Mary.

There was a file, but that’s all there ever was. A file. Some check-ins.

You know, sometimes it feels like nobody ever tried to help me. But it’s not the truth and if you hear me talking like that don’t believe me. People tried to help me and I didn’t cooperate.

I could have cooperated. I could have done better. I could have made something happen.

But when I finally had the chance to, I didn’t have the nerve.

I’m still like that, I don’t have the nerve to do anything real.

dotdotdotdotdot

It’s so much work to be better. It’s very hard. It’s constant effort. And you do all of that controlling your thoughts, not letting yourself think, for nothing. When life is bad, it’s so so bad and when life is good it’s just eh.

I think if a lightening bolt struck me and I died only one person would really care. And it’s very sad for him that he would care. It’s very sad for him that he’s so attached to me. I don’t think he sees the real me because if he did he wouldn’t love me so much. The way that I put other people up on a pedestal and think they can do no wrong, that’s what he does to me. Nothing is ever my fault. I never mean it. I try my best.

Well, I think he’d be very sad for a while and then he’d get over it. I estimate it would take him somewhere between 18 mos to two years to get over it.

Then he’d end up with someone much better than me.

He annoys me so much lately, because he’s always trying to make me feel better and I don’t want to feel better anymore. You know that everyone thinks I just love to wallow and nobody gives me any credit for all the years I tried. For all the days I put a big stupid smile on my face and pretended I care about anything that’s happening.

Yeah, I didn’t try. Not even a little. That’s what people think. Because nobody else is with me in this. Nobody else feels all the days that I went out into the world and it exhausted me to smile and everything felt so dead and heavy and I thought ‘I can’t stand to do this for another second, not for one second’ and I kept doing it anyway.

I tried and tried and tried and I spent years never talking about it or asking for any help, but now I am, so you know. I don’t know.

Everybody knows people who talk about are faking it. for attention. everyone knows that people who are REALLY in pain just go off quietly and kill themselves. They don’t make a nuisance of themselves about it. They just go and do it. Once a person kills themselves, that’s how you know their feelings were real. You never know until that.

My feelings don’t matter because these are the ramblings of a crazy person.

If I died, I think a lot of people would just think it was funny. I think a lot of people want that to happen.

I think my family would sigh and go “Oh well. But she always had problems.”

But what do I know, I’m just fucking crazy.

I don’t matter. I’m not real.

And it’s immature and impolite to put all of this out here for everyone to see. It’s the sort of shameful, embarrassing stuff you cover up and tuck away. You show it to doctors, in boxy little offices, while you sit on a firm couch and shuffle your feet over commercial carpeting. That’s the only right correct proper way to do it.

Nobody else wants to see it. Nobody else wants to hear it. It’s so rude of me to make you all see it.

Well, why should you want to see it?

You can’t help me. You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.

And I guess it’s true that I don’t want to be helped.

I can’t understand what I’d be helped FOR. What is this FOR? What is it that makes all of this worth it? I can’t think of a single thing to look forward to. I can’t think of a single thing that would make all the work, all the getting better, worth it.

I can’t think of anything I want in life. I can’t think of anything that would make this worthwhile.

People like to get really cheesy and say “love.”

And then other people like to show off how intellectual they are and say “love is just a chemical reaction” as if everything we ever feel or experience isn’t a chemical reaction, as if they really just figured some shit out.

Well, chemical reaction or not, I like love. The idea of it anyway.

But there’s the idea and then there’s how it actually is.

No two people ever love each other the same. Like Maugham’s novel. I like that book, although I like the movie better. Me! I disgust YOU! That acting is great. I tried to show that movie to a friend once and she was interested until I pulled out the DVD and she saw it was black-and-white. I thought that was really stupid and I can’t lie, I sort of thought she was really stupid after that.

So people love you more than you love them and it makes you feel bad. Or your head totally pops off and you love someone who wants nothing to do with you.

Not really though. That’s not love. It kind of almost feels like it, just in its intensity, but it isn’t. It feels worse than that. Like desperation. Like a fever. Like your insides are boiling.

So put that more in the category of love-adjacent. It has something to do with the desire for love, but it’s not love. My camp counselor, my coworker with the blonde hair, every person I ever had that WHAM!-I LOVE-THIS-PERSON feeling, it wasn’t actually love. It was too needy and feverish and desperate, like I was drowning and they were only giving me little sips of air and the more they gave me, the more I wanted and I could always feel that the more I clung to them the more they wanted me to go away.

I try not to feel too much for people, because when I feel too much for them, they’re afraid of me and go away. My longest, most stable relationships are when the other person likes me a whole lot more than I like them.

But you know, I’m just a whiney cunt. That’s all.

Because I’m married and I have a husband who really loves me. I shouldn’t need anything else.

I shouldn’t need friends. I shouldn’t need family. People my age don’t have friends.

I think I should have my own family, because then I’d have more people to love, but I’m worried I’d be a terrible mother and why bring something into the world if you can’t love it properly? Sometimes I think I could love it properly, but then I think, well I bet every woman who ever had a baby thought that.

I want one so much, but then I also think “you stupid fuck. Have you seen yourself? Don’t make a human. All you’ll do is damage it. Just go lay down and die before you make the world any worse.”

I should just shut the fuck up, sit and watch Breaking Bad with my husband who loves me, stop wanting anything else out of life and just wait to die.

Well fine. I just wish it would come a little quicker. I wish I could turn my brain off in the meantime.

Later I’ll bake bread and do laundry and try not to think. I try every day not to think. I try to fill my brain up with bullshit so that I can’t think.

I’m well aware I have nothing to complain about. I don’t care anymore. I’ll complain anyway. I don’t care about much lately.

Writing it out and thinking maybe someone else who feels exactly the same way might read it, it’s just about the only thing that makes me feel better for a second.

Talking to other people doesn’t make me feel better, because I feel bad for bothering them. If I just put it up here, everyone can pretend they didn’t see it. which is sort of what I want everyone to do. I don’t want everybody to feel like they have to be responsible for me.

It’s like I had all these years of people knocking me apart and then a bunch of years of people trying to glue me back together, and now I just sort of feel like everybody paws off! Let me just be. I want to say how I feel, but it’s not a cry for help. Don’t put me back together again. It’s too much pressure trying to keep everything in place. I’ll feel so bad when I get careless and ruin all your careful handiwork, so don’t bother. I’m a lost cause.

I wasn’t always kind. In fact, sometimes I had a lot of fun being mean. It made me feel like I was big and in control. It amazed me when I could hurt other people. It amazed me that anybody gave me that power. It amazed me that they didn’t just ignore me.

So don’t get too wrapped up in the tiny violin music. I was very mean many times.

But you know, look like this is weird, okay? It is. But let me explain.

Being mean was always fun until it wasn’t.

If people were a little bothered or a little agitated, it was fun.

But when they were actually hurt? When I made people cry? Then I felt bad. So bad. Like all this swirling awful sadness in my stomach.

In 8th grade, I turned our entire group of friends against one girl. Katie. I got her ostracized from the group. And the first day at lunch, when she sat alone, looking sadly over at us, her face red and trying not to cry, I felt bad. So bad that I can still feel that awful swirling sadness when I think about it. I think about how I hurt her and humiliated her for no good reason and I imagine how she must have felt: she’d invited me into her group of oddball theater kids because she felt bad for me, because she was kind, and I manipulated and twisted the truth and played with group dynamics, nudging here, hinting there, until they all hated her. And I barely even knew why I did it. I thought about how Katie must have felt and how she’d been so wronged, and it made me so so sad that I’d done that to someone. That this sadness hadn’t existed in the world, but then I went and created it. It was fun feeling like I had some control over the world around me. It wasn’t fun once she was so sad and so red-faced, trying not to cry, because all I could think was how she wouldn’t be having such bad feelings if it weren’t for me, if I could have been nice and been a good friend.

Sometimes I wonder how other people aren’t like that. I understand being mean and I understand getting carried away, because being mean does feel good, when people are only a little agitated and bothered. But once the other person is so sad, shouldn’t everybody feel bad? When you hurt other people, it hurts you too. Except that I know other people don’t always work that way and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that other people don’t feel it when they really hurt other people.

It sounds impossible.

People can’t be talked out of feelings. Feelings don’t listen to words or logic. Feelings don’t care about the facts. I’m way too amused by that quip I just came up with. We love a twist on a favorite meme. Anyway, you couldn’t talk me out of this feeling, even though it’s bullshit. I already know it is.

Here it is: everytime someone hurts me and isn’t sorry, it makes me feel like the only reason they aren’t sorry is because I’m not a real person. It’s easy to hurt me. I have a lot of flaws. I’m very obnoxious and exhuberant. I’m too too too too much. So I deserve it when people hurt me.

Don’t bother telling me I’m wrong about that. I already know. My feelings won’t listen to anything I tell them. That’s how I feel and I can’t stop feeling it.

I guess if I know I’m not a great person, why don’t I work on it?

I want to. Really I do. I work on it sometimes.

It’s just that I used to be like mush. I used to be whoever the people I liked wanted me to be. That’s why i used to have sex with every dude who looked twice at me. That’s what they wanted me to do. I would do anything anyone wanted me to do. I didn’t care who I was. It doesn’t matter. Who do you want? Who would you love? I’ll be whoever. Tell me tell me what you want, who you want and I’ll be that.

I want to be a little better, but I’m afraid of being mush again.

Now I have a better sense of who I actually am. I still don’t exactly feel real, but it’s better than it was.

Back then, I used to stare at myself in the mirror and think, “It’s amazing that I’m really here. That face is mine. That body is mine. Other people can see me…it’s amazing that other people can see me.”

And I guess like…what the fuck does that mean?

I have no idea. I’m just telling you what I used to think a lot and I never felt very good back then. And as miserable as I am now, I do actually feel better than I did back then.

Well, look everybody, I’ll be okay. I always am.

Just ignore me, please.

Let me entertain myself by sad-posting and I’ll get over it. I always do.

I want people to know how I feel, but I also don’t want to talk to anybody about it.

I’ll figure out some distraction. I’ll find a way to shut my brain off. I always do. I’m always okay in the end.

…………………………

Well, here I am.

And yes, I still think about it.

yep yep yep yep yep.

It’s because i’m a crazy person and that means that my feelings don’t matter.

As long as everybody knows i’m fully aware my feelings are a little too much.

There was this person that I put up on a pedestal. You know? I thought he was one of the best people I’d ever come across in my life. Maybe the best person. I practically worshipped him. I thought he was so much better than me. And I wanted him to pay attention to me, yeah. But I also got incredibly nervous when he did give me any attention, because I always felt like ‘he’s so amazing, he’s so wonderful, he’s so smart and so brave and so funny, and I’m bothering him, of course i’m bothering him, so don’t bother him too much, don’t take up too much of his time.’

And eventually he said something to the effect of. ‘Hey, you’re being weird.’

And I said, ‘Fuck you’re right, I’m being weird. I’m sorry. I’ll go away. I’m gonna block you and you please block me. This should be a clean break. I’ve gotten carried away.’

And he didn’t respect that at all. He continued to talk to me with a sock puppet account. And it took a number of people telling me this, before I finally believed it, but: He made it obvious it was him, because he wanted to set me off. He wanted me to know it was him. That was the opposite of please let’s make this a clean break.

But I guess that was okay. Since I was so much more attached than he was. Because I was weird and my feelings were inappropriate and overblown. Since I was the crazy one, I guess that was just fine that he ignored me saying ‘let’s make this a clean break.’ I guess it was fine. It must be.

And my friend told him to go away. and he acted like the whole thing wasn’t a big deal.

And I really lost my shit. Blog posts and youtube videos talking about how I wanted to get a gun and blow my brains out.

Why wouldn’t I want to? A lifetime of wanting people who don’t want me. And the people who do want me, I never fully connect to. My ability to connect is broken. I’m so lonely. I’m so sad. I’m so angry. And I barely feel like I’m real. So why wouldn’t I want to push a button and turn the lights out? Why wouldn’t I?

He knew he had the power to set me off. He knew I was that upset and agitated. He told my friend that he “has no reason to acknowledge her again.”

And then he did. Again. On his stupid website. He archived a bunch of posts from this blog and podcasts I’d been on. He knew he had the power to set me off and he was trying to do it on purpose.

I thought he was the best person I’d ever met and he wanted me to kill myself. I’m sure of it. I really think he wanted that.

And if he were called out directly, I think he’d day, “She’s crazy. I don’t even care enough about her to want her to kill herself.”

But that doesn’t make sense, because a regular non-evil person who didn’t hate me and want me to kill myself wouldn’t have archived my posts months later, knowing I’m the sort of crazy that is set off by that. A regular decent person wouldn’t have done it.

I wish I knew how to stop thinking about this. I wish I knew.

I wish I could just shut up and get over it and be normal.

I wish that people understood that I’m not upset about this because I’m upset about him, not really. I’m upset about the whole terrible mess that he’s just one small part of.

I’m upset because I don’t know how to stop wanting the people who hate me and be happy with the people who love me.

It’s not even about him. It’s about my mom. Obviously.

Everything is about her.

And it’s ridiculous and pathetic and I really really hate myself.

And maybe other people should hate me and want me to kill myself. As sorry for myself as I let myself feel, maybe they should.

I’m obnoxious. I’m rude. I’m mean. I’m self-absorbed.

I lie.

There you go.

Didn’t everybody already know that? It was obvious.

I lie when I’m bragging.

It doesn’t make me feel real, but it makes me feel like the person costume I’m wearing is a little more interesting.

Back when I had a more professional job, I used to exhibit more self-control and not post my emotions all over the internet. I don’t have any self-control anymore.

I don’t care what happens anymore. I hope I burn the whole world down, because it always feels like it’s on fire anyway.

go

We’d only lived with Mom and Jose for maybe 6 months when I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I was six and Carly was three.

I missed my bedroom at Nan and Papa’s house. I missed being around grown-ups who didn’t yell at me and hate me. I missed nights after school, when Nan would cook dinner and then make a bath full of bubbles and then Papa would tell me a Princess Jennifer story and I’d go to sleep. In the little gray house with Mom and Jose, it wasn’t like that. Nobody made dinner. I would find crackers or make bowls of cereal for me and Carly. At night Jose and Mom watched Stark Trek or Mom painted and Jose played games on the computer. They mostly ignored us. It was better when they did ignore us.

I missed Nan. I handed Carly a pink pillowcase with a teddy bear on it. Carly loved teddy bears back then. I don’t know why. She had loads of them. Some bigger than she was. Every holiday, she’d get a different teddy bear and she always loved it like it was the best thing in the world, even though they were teddy bears-the most boring, unimpressive toy there ever was.

I told Carly, “Put your favorite toys and three pairs of underwear in here. Make sure it’s not too heavy to carry.”

“Why?”

“We’re running away.”

“Is that allowed?”

I told her it wasn’t allowed, but we should do it anyway. Carly shrugged and filled her pillowcase while I filled mine.

When they were done, I told her we had to be really quiet and go out the laundry room door so Jose wouldn’t hear us.

We walked down the street. I felt this incredible sense of like…”Everything is okay now. Now everything will be okay.”

As we walked, I explained to Carly that Nan’s house was too far away to go to, but we could live in the woods. We lived on this dead end street and at the very end of the street, the woods started. We got all the way to the end of the street. We stood at the edge of the woods. I looked into the dark trees. I looked down at Carly, clutching her pink teddy bear pillowcase stuffed with toys. The woods suddenly looked so ominous and scary. I realized there was no food in the woods and when it got dark out, it would be cold and Carly only had a thin sweatshirt on.

“Nevermind,” I said. “This was just a game. We were just pretending. Come on.”

We walked back home. Our neighbors were outside, a woman named Carol and her daughter who always played with Carly.

As we approached them, 3-year-old Carly happily announced, “We were running away.”

“Shhh! Quiet, Carly!”

I laughed like it was a joke and tried to hide my pillowcase behind my back, but Carly proudly held hers out like she was showing off a trick-or-treat bag.

Carol stared at us. Her face scrunched up weird.

“Let me see your bag, Carly-girl.”

Carol pulled out her toys and her three pairs of underwear, giving me a strange look the whole time.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The way she was looking at me like I did something so evil. I sat down on the curb next to Carol’s three-year-old daughter and I cried. I told her I missed Nan and Jose was scary and always yelled and Mom wasn’t nice anymore like she used to be when she visited me at Nan’s house. I told her I kept screwing up and making everybody yell and scream no matter how hard I tried to be good.

I started to tell her about how two days earlier, Jose dragged me from the living room to the kitchen, took my head in both hands, and slammed it into the kitchen floor until spots popped in and out of my vision and the bump on my head had a little blood on it.

She cut me off and said, “Stop it! Don’t make up stories.”

“I’m not!” I insisted. “Feel my head. I have a bump.”

She threw her hands up and turned away from me. “I’m not feeling anything. What happens in your house is your family’s business, and little miss, I know an exaggeration when I hear one.”

I felt deflated. Exaggeration.

I took Carly and our two pillowcases and went home.

Later that day, Jose came into the room. He looked really angry.

He told us to get our shoes on and get in the car.

I sat in the front seat with him. That was allowed back then. It was the early 90s.

He drove us to Wal-Mart and then drove all the way around the building. We were in the alleyway thing, maybe where stock would have been unloaded when the trucks came in.

He reached over me and opened my door and threw it open.

“There you go,” he snapped. “Get out.”

“What?”

“You want to leave so much. Then leave?” He glared at me. “You think I’m joking? I don’t want you. Go! Get the fuck out! I won’t go after you. Go. Go disappear. Go get yourself kidnapped or run over. Spoiled little bitch.”

I wanted to get out. I hated being around him. I wanted to get out and walk. Just walk until my legs gave out.

But I was so sure he’d hit me or yell at me more if I got out of the car. So, I didn’t.

We sat there for a while. He kept telling me to get out, that he didn’t want me around anymore than I wanted to be around. Carly started to cry a little and said, “Dad, stop. I don’t want to Jen to go.” But he ignored her and kept shoving me in the shoulder, pointing at the door and telling me to get the fuck out. Finally, he shut the door and muttered, “That’s what I fucking thought.”

This became a semi-regular occurrence, this driving me to some secluded location and telling me to get out and go.

Mom didn’t do it until I was nine, and she didn’t drive me anywhere. She just ripped me off the ground, flung me out the front door and screamed, “I fucking hate you. Go!”

It was drizzling a little bit. I landed on the wet lawn. I don’t know why I remember what I was wearing, but I do. Maybe I remember because it was a somewhat new outfit. It was a pair of overalls with black flowers embroidered all over them. It was the mid-90s by then and overalls were very stylish. Underneath the overalls, I had on a mint green velour shirt. Velour was also very stylish. Nan had let me pick out the outfit at Kids R Us.

I stood up, looked at the front door that she’d slammed shut.

I walked away from the house. I walked down the road. I didn’t get very far before her car was speeding along behind me. She pulled up next to him, nostrils flaring and screamed “Get in!”

And I got into the car.

I didn’t know what suicide was then, so I thought I wish a bolt of lightening would kill me. I wish something would come out of nowhere and kill me. I hate being alive. I bet everyone hates being alive. What are we all doing it for?

i love you

When Mom told me Jose was moving out, I was very happy. I was ten. I was hanging laundry up on the clothesline and she came outside to tell me that. I was glad he was going, because the two of them fought all the time.

He would call her fat, call her a pig, tell her she looked gross. And while Mom was so good at yelling herself, when Jose got yelling, she just sort of shut down. The last big fight they had, he threw all the laundry that was on the couch waiting to be folded all around the living room. He shouted a lot.

Jose shouted that they had too many kids. He looked at me and then he looked at Mary. He didn’t look at Carly right after he said that. He looked at me and Mary.

Mary would get upset and cry when they would fight and if she cried, they’d both turn their attention to her. So if I could help it, I’d scoop her up and sneak through the bathroom. The bathroom had a door that led into the laundry room and the second back door was in the laundry room. We’d climb over all the laundry that was blocking the door and squish through the back door. I’d take her and hide behind the big shed, so that if anyone looked outside they wouldn’t see us in the backyard. This was around the time that Mary was about two or three, so she was pretty easy to keep distracted. We’d dig in the dirt, make little tunnels and stuff, rip up grass. When the yelling stopped, we’d go back inside.

Maybe it was mean that I didn’t always take Carly with us. It’s just that Carly knew how to lay low and stay out of sight until they were done and Mary didn’t and it was easier to sneak one kid out than two. Especially since Carly and Mary fought so much. It was amazing how much Carly disliked Mary. When we were older, she tried to explain it to me once. She said that everything she was ever angry about was inside of Mary and instead of ever being mad at Mom or Jose or anyone else, she was always mad at Mary. Even though Mary was a baby and hadn’t done anything.

I’ve said that neither Carly or Mary have a relationship with me. They don’t have much of a relationship with each other either. They’ve never liked each other or gotten along. Mary was always afraid of Carly and Carly always had an irrational dislike of Mary. It was like that even when they were teenagers. That same dynamic of scowling 7 year old Carly and pouting and shrinking behind me three-year-old Mary; it never really went away. They were always like that together.

Mary said to me once, she was maybe 16, she said, “You protected me when I was really little. I remember, Jen. You always knew what to do. We were in it together. Then you went crazy and I was alone.”

She will never read this.

But

Fuck, Mary, I’m sorry. I told you then, but I don’t think I said it right. Maybe there’s no right way to say it.

I’m so so so sorry. I wish I’d been better.

I wish I had been. I’m sorry I wasn’t what you needed.

And that’s why I won’t chase after you for anything, because as sad as I am I know I don’t deserve a relationship with you or with Carly.

I love you though. I love you so much.

You were so small and cute and everyone kept forgetting about you, leaving you in the crib that they stuck in that closet and who sticks a baby in a closet anyway? I decided you were mine, since Mom didn’t want you. And don’t feel bad about that, because she didn’t want any of us.

I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it together. I was so happy every moment I could keep you distracted and silly and not noticing everything bad. It made me feel less bad. And you loved to sing with me and you loved to look at books. It was so easy to keep you entertained and silly.

And then you’re right, I went crazy, and then you broke too.

I really am sorry. I really am so so sorry that I couldn’t be better. I wish I could have been, because I love and miss you.

And she’ll never read that. Well, who knows, maybe if she did, she’d go “there’s jen being dramatic as always.”

I don’t care if it’s dramatic. I love you so much, Mary.

….

I guess if I could have anything in the world, if someone asked ‘what would make you happy in life?’ and they had some magic wand and could just make it happen, then I’d say, my sisters.

Neither of them have a relationship with me. Why should they?

I made one last ditch effort to fix things with Carly. I don’t have the heart to explain the details of that conversation. I’ll just say that it didn’t go well.

Carly is much taller than me. She’s been taller than me since I was in middle school. She’s two and half years younger, but she has a different dad than me. different genetics. Carly and Mary are both taller, both have darker skin, darker eyes, and they both have beautiful straight hair. Neither of them have curly hair like me.

I can’t really play a small violin here, but I also don’t have the nerve to tell the whole story. I’ll just say, it isn’t their fault they don’t want to have a relationship with me. It’s okay. It makes sense. It really does. I’m not easy to be around and I’ve done and said a lot of awful things.

I love them and miss them and wish I could make it all okay. But I’m not always selfish. I stay away from them. I don’t want to put them through the stress of dealing with me.

When I really miss them, I find their online profiles. Unlike me, they both use their real names online. Carly is super easy to find because she’s an indie filmmaker. She’s won small film festivals. Don’t get too excited. It’s not sundance or anything. I guarantee, you have never ever heard of her.

Then I find Mary through Carly’s profiles.

No, I don’t bookmark any of their pages or profiles. It makes me so sad to look at their pictures that I usually try not to. I really do try not to.

Carly is very goth. Her photos and films are very goth. She loves anything creepy.

Mary is artsy, but not goth. She likes to paint. She collects porcelain clowns.

Both Carly and Mary like video games, but only Mary writes fanfiction about video game characters and sketches little drawings of them.

Mary loved the wiggles when she was little.

Carly loved Godzilla and Zena.

Carly was popular in high school. Well, like…alternative popular. People liked her. She had lots of friends over all the time. But she ran with the weird kids.

Mary was quiet but well-liked. She had friends but wasn’t as outgoing as Carly.

Neither of them had the problems in high school that I did. Not with other kids, anyway.

Mary had an eating disorder. Nobody could make her eat anything and she kept on saying she wasn’t hungry. She wore a lot of baggy sweatshirts to hide how thin she was getting.

Mary loves horror movies. Really gruesome ones. Back when we still talked, she would laugh at me for not being able to handle any gore.

I wish I could make it all okay. I wish I could make it all okay.