Sunburn

by Chloe Michelle Howarth

What she was checking, I know, was how I would react to having her so near. My heart sinks, because I liked it. It has been some time since I felt that sort of magnetism. Long ago, when I realised I could not fully fall in love with Martin, I decided never to fall in love again. Something as small as Geraldine leaning towards me could spark a fire in a person as fragile as I am. My life is sufficiently confusing without adding more feelings to it.

This is the thought that comes to me when I am trying to sleep at night, when I am on my own too long. Why don’t you try this one without me? Why don’t you stop breathing, Lucy? Why don’t you see how well you get on without water or air or me?

Even saying Susannah’s name feels unfair. She isn’t my thing to talk about. Now she is free, I should let her stay free.

There isn’t anything left of me but the useless blood my heart keeps circulating. You can have all of it, if you want. I have no use for it now.

The smell of his aftershave when he passes makes me feel safe, it makes me feel like a child.

Susannah was just a fleeting agony that I was learning to repress. Now I feel the way I did the day I left Crossmore. Tonight I find myself looking for her scent in the air, her touch in the pillowcase. It’s a strain to find meaning where there is none. It’s such a teenaged thing to do, why can I not stop doing it?

It’s hard not be demolished by the thought of her, because I live in a body that has loved her and I see with eyes that have witnessed her. She is part of my muscles, my tissue, she is unforgettable. Presumably, if she ever remembers me, it is only when she catches a perfume that is vaguely familiar, and it takes her hours to recognise it as mine. I bet she laughs because she hasn’t thought of me in a long time and then puts my memory away again, folded up in a drawer in the back of her mind.

If only I wasn’t a perpetual teenager, I might get used to being without her. I might have listened when she told me that she wouldn’t be satisfied to stay a secret forever. The earth deserves to know her, she is too bright to hide. Heaven and Hell should know her. We should all be versed in the joys and sorrows of her. I did this to myself. I was selfish. I was not proud enough.

The feelings I have for her only exist as long as I am in her bed. When I leave, they disappear, both the good and the bad. It’s cruel, but my history has proven that I am cruel – cruellest of all to those I make love to. Given time and proper attention, perhaps Geraldine would show me her sensitive side, and my impressionable heart would probably give way to it. But Susannah keeps on sending her letters, and so I don’t have proper time or attention to give. This small link to her makes everything I do day to day feel inconsequential and imaginary; those letters are reality, nothing else.

The curve of your shoulders, the colour of your eyes, the sound of your sighing. These are distant things I have remembered and misremembered so many times that I no longer have a truth for them. It has been so long, and still I could have died today when that woman said your name.

How could I focus on anything when she sends letters like this? When she says she is still mine? How must it have felt for her, to let go of God, and the guilt, and everything that burdens us?

Even when I deny him, he is loyal. There are plenty of women down in the pub who would gladly take him home, and yet he is glad to spend the night in our touchless bed. I could withhold my body forever, and still I don’t think he would leave. It’s as though he has an unshakeable faith in me.

I don’t mind where you go next, or where you’ve been before, as long as when you read this, you stop and you’re with me. I don’t care if that’s selfish. I am selfish, you must know that by now.

Look at the colours of her. Look at all the colours of her world. There is not one shade of me. She looks so happy. She is standing on a porch, under the arch of the canopy, propping a dark wood door open with one hand, kicking one foot to the camera.

How he must have felt to look up at her there, framed by the canopy and arch of the door, lit up by the porch light and the late purple sun, with lizards running round her feet. How I must look, half-dressed in the ensuite, staring at this photograph. If she knew. If anyone knew.

the reason I’m not happy is because I keep giving myself to people that I don’t care about.

It’s very easy, trudging through the jungle. After trudging through a year with you, everything is easy.

All I’m doing is trying to love people. All I need is the right kind of love back.

The water is scalding, caustic, endless, and scrubbing my skin, I know that it would take an entire ocean to wash her off me.

Now I have woken him up from his dreaming, and he sees the girl that he adores so fiercely is different than he thought. And still he lets me cry on him and holds me like I am important. Still he loves me. He is still Martin. I am still Lucy.

All the time I spent trying to find myself, I was being somebody that I am not. I was born perfect, and every step I took brought me further from that. Now every day I am closer to being that girl again. I want to be that girl here. I want the full version of myself to exist under the pale skies of Crossmore. I want to feel blessed by the serenity of the wasteland again.

I might be delivering it to nobody, but at least it will be gone from me. I just want her to know all those things that I couldn’t tell her before. If she knows them, I might know some peace.

I used to think it would always feel like an inconvenience, or at best, a numbness. But it feels good. I like it more and more.

Standing at her door, I don’t feel the way that I used to. There is no guilt, no fear. I don’t care if anybody sees me here, looking for the love of my life. I want to be seen here. I want the world to see me with her. I want them all to see me setting myself free. I put the letter through the door. I knock. I walk away.