My mind, sharper than a hawk’s talon,
s t o p p e d
when you regurgitated betrayal.
(I just swallowed.)
My eyes didn’t blink
in disbelief.
They saw your many truths.
And instead of taking flight,
my heart–
both victim and traitor–
caged me still to you.
Image source: Dawn Derman Art via Etsy
Staring at her hands to avoid the jurors’ intrusive eyes, she spat out answers. Each word bitter and heavy on her tongue.
A guilty verdict would surely dig a needle in his arm. So she swallowed the truth and set herself free.
He waited for an hour, a painful hour. And during that painful hour, he reread the note in his mind 227 times. Two hundred and twenty-seven!
Meet me at Wal-Mart 2nite—school supplies aisle.
He agonized over it. Maybe he should have made it sound more like a question. Meet me at Wal-Mart 2nite? Maybe he should have said Target instead. Margret Ann’s family probably shops at Target.
He paced among the back-to-school clearance leftovers, willing her to show up. Margret Ann may not have said “yes” exactly, but she hadn’t said “no” either.
When he finally saw her bouncy red curls and eight-year-old swagger turn the corner by the spiral notebooks, he shoved the pink gel pens behind his back. Waiting until her red Converse with the rainbow laces were just inches from his flip flops, he presented them like a bouquet of fresh carnations.
These are for you.
Eight Years Later
He waited for an hour, a lingering hour. Because that’s how long it takes high school girls to get ready.
So even though she said Pick me up at 7:00, he sat with her parents through Wheel of Fortune AND Jeopardy.
Margret Ann’s parents weren’t quite sure what to make of sixteen-year-old Toby Malarky, frozen on their couch with the best posture they’d ever seen. His favorite shirt ironed crisp and tucked into his “nice” blue jeans. Hair slicked to one side, school-picture-day style. Cologne overdosed by about two and half pumps.
When Margret Ann finally came down the stairs, pink lips the color of those gel pens in his memory, all the air Toby held inside his whole body seemed to get vacuumed out in an instant.
(Still) Eight Years Later
He waited for an hour, an indecisive hour. Before texting her after that first date.
He’d heard his buddies say, Don’t call her for at least three days, Malarky. At LEAST three days.
But they didn’t say a damn thing about texting. So Toby wrote, revised, erased, and rewrote texts for 60 fat minutes before settling on one identical to his first draft.
2night was perfect.
U r perfect.
<3 Tobes
Margret Ann danced around her pink bedroom before flinging herself on the bed, giggling with glee.
Ur perfect 2. xoxo -MA
Two Years Later
He waited for an hour, a panicked hour.
Sweat ran down his face like condensation on a Coke bottle. He wiped it away with the cloth napkin every chance she looked away, but she wasn’t looking away enough. She hardly ever looked away.
Margret Ann prattled on about Yale or Georgetown or even NYU. Five acceptance letters had arrived just that week. Her freshly-painted pink fingernails flew through the air with every animated word.
Toby couldn’t focus on her excitement. He nodded and smiled and munched on the most expensive meal he hoped he’d ever have to pay for. But all he could think about was the ring in his pocket, the question on the tip of his tongue.
After one hour and four courses he cut her off mid-sentence and blurted it out.
Margret Ann, marry me.
Immediately, he wished he’d made it sound more like a question.
One Year Later
He waited for an hour, a terrifying hour. Smack-dab in the middle of First Presbyterian. Standing by the altar with two best friends by his side, Toby’s insides bubbled like a pot about to boil over.
At first they said she was just running late, but as minutes swelled into half-hours, he knew it was something else. He saw concern and pity beginning to fill the eyes of the guests.
Staring up at the rafters of that old sanctuary, Toby willed her once again to appear. With his mind racing and face growing hot and pink, Toby pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. His fingers flew over the keys; he knew what she needed to hear.
Margret Ann, you don’t have to do this if you’re not ready just yet.
I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.
<3 Tobes
Minutes passed. You could hear a pink gel pen drop in that airy church.
And then you could hear the soft buzz of a phone vibrating. Toby took a deep breath and looked at the text.
On my way! Sry I alwys keep u waiting. xoxo -MA
Toby just shook his head smiling.
No need to be sorry, he thought. I love every horrible minute I spend waiting on you.
Beware of uninvited visitors, the slight slip of paper warned.
Sarah chuckled to herself: These fortunes keep getting weirder and weirder.
Staring out the open window, she crunched absently on the stale cookie,
never seeing the eight-legged enemy that tiptoed silently inside.
Image Source: WhimsicalPaintWorks via Etsy
We dodge the questions like two school kids playing tag, chirping “We’ll do it when we’re ready.”
“We’re saving up.”
“We’re not in a rush.”
But really, we’re just plain scared.
We see what happens when there’s nothing left to run from.
Rain on your wedding day is good luck, they cooed.
So she slipped from the chapel–bouquet in one hand, umbrella in the other–and headed for the Greyhound station. She wasn’t going to screw this up.
One-way ticket to Vegas, please.
*Image Source: From Under the Willow Tree
The summer semester before my senior year in college I took a course called Sociology in Film. That’s where I was first introduced to Love Story, a 1970s romantic drama about two college co-eds falling in love. I don’t remember many specifics from the movie, but what I do remember is a line from the closing scene. The main character tells his estranged father: “Love…love means never having to say you’re sorry!”
And that line plagued me for years. Because to me, it didn’t make any sense.
I.
Growing up I was a momma’s girl. I bonded with my mom from a young age, considered her one of my best friends throughout my adolescence and even into my 20s.
But that relationship wasn’t without turmoil. Mom suffered from depression. And when it swept up over her—all sudden and ferocious and overpowering—she’d shut herself in her room for days at a time.
In a deeply personal letter she wrote my sister and me when we were teenagers, she apologized for all those dark moments.
And I need to say I’m sorry I couldn’t be all those things that babies and toddlers’ walking falling legs desire… I’m sorry I could only be me and half the time I had no clue who that “me” even was.
That was my mother. She was the first love of my life. And this was not our only “I’m sorry.”
II.
Then there was First David. He was the boy I fell irrevocably in love with in the way only a sixteen-year-old heart knows how to do. He was the boy who promised me the world and the stars and forever. He was the boy I let have every part of me. And then he got drunk and stole those same intimate parts away from other girls on the side.
For six years First David and I bobbed and wove inside our ring of relationship. We threw punches and jabs like prizefighters—always waiting for a bell that was never going to ring. Each round ended with no victor, but plenty of apologies.
That was the second love of my life. “I’m sorry” was sewn into its seams.
III.
Later I found Second David. A quick-tempered Oklahoma transplant with a spotted past, Second David was a challenge in the same way growing a garden on a patch of earth that gets too much direct sunlight is a challenge. He was defiant and obstinate and volatile, but I loved him just the same.
Five years later, we’re still together. And more impressively, still happy. That’s not to say it’s all roses and rainbows these days. We have plenty of hunker-down, fist-shaking, voice-trembling fights. But when they’re over, we look each other in the eye and say we’re sorry.
That was the third love of my life. And “I’m sorry” helps us keep it together.
This is why the line from Love Story haunted me for so long, why it didn’t make sense through the lens of my first three loves.
IV.
But then there’s also my fourth love, my Amy.
When I was in college, I got back together with First David after one of his many infidelity escapades. Knowing none of my friends would support my decision, I lied about it. I lied about where I was going and who I was seeing and what I was doing.
After a few weeks, the buried truth bubbled its way to the surface, leaving all my poor choices and deceit fully exposed. Some of my friends shunned me; some yelled at me; some stopped talking to me.
But not Amy.
Amy had been my closest companion since middle school. We met in sixth grade but didn’t really hit it off until seventh. By the end of eighth, we were inseparable. Our friendship survived high school—even with her as a popular cheerleader and me as a reclusive nerd—, dorming together our freshman year of college, and the many years of self-discovery that followed. We never had a single fight, an argument, or even a tough moment of differing opinions.
When I tried to apologize to her for lying about reuniting with First David, she cut me off before the words could even begin to come out of my mouth.
“You don’t have to say it,” she said with empathy and kindness. “I already know.”
<3.
Looking back on it now, I realize that never having to say “I’m sorry” isn’t about not screwing up. It isn’t about loving someone so much that you never hurt them, that you never let them down. It’s about understanding someone enough, trusting someone enough, loving someone enough, that those explanations are simply not needed.
Love is real. It’s flawed. There are mess-ups and break-ups and make-ups. Some loves need apologies. And that’s okay.
But the fourth love of my life was different. The fourth love of my life was Amy. And thanks to her, the words from Love Story finally make sense.
This piece was crafted as part of YeahWrite.me‘s Summer Series Silver Lounge. Thank you to three incredible bloggers (Meg of Pigspittle, Ohio, Tienne of The Silver Leaf Journal, and Rowan of Textwall) who provided invaluable feedback and pushed this post–and this blogger–to a stronger place.
I used to like flowers. Or at least I liked the idea of them since no boy had ever sent me any.
Then last year, flowers kept coming.
Roses adorning altars. Lilies dressing tombstones. Carnations saying farewell.
Now I’ll take chocolate instead.
Photo credit: Image Poet via Etsy
My mom was a writer. She was, in fact, the best writer I know. And I don’t say that because she passed away in December. I’ve always thought it and said it and believed it to be true.
That’s why it meant so much to me when she provided feedback on my writing. Despite having a public blog for the past 10 years, Mom was the only one who read anything I wrote. Or at least she’s the only one who cared enough to write back.
She sent many of her comments via email. And I saved them. Filed them away for safekeeping so I could read them again one day. So I could hear her encouraging words in my head.
Genna,
I was reading a little of your blog, and I think it is so amazing. And so YOU.
And you are one special woman on this earth. I’m glad the earth gets to share its circling with you.
I think you are a phenomenon!
Love,
Mom
Or in response to a specific piece I sent her:
Genna,
What you’ve written here is absolutely stunning–it moved me. YOU are such a gifted writer or words–a woman of exquisite depth that few at your age GET. I’m proud to be your mother–to watch your stars shine.
THANK YOU for sending me this part of you.
Mom
When Mom left, I wanted to write. I wanted to write out the grief. I wanted to write out the incomprehension. I wanted to write out the numbness. But for me, part of wanting to write is wanting someone…anyone to read.
And so I decided to give WordPress a try. I moved over my works from other blogs, started writeamuck.com, and wrote my little heart out. All while trying not to think about how much I wanted to send links to Mom–to hear her gush over it in the sweet way that mothers do.
I’d only been on WordPress for a little over a month when I noticed a small uptick in blog visitors.
I looked at the referral links; the new traffic was all coming from a single source: YeahWrite.me.
That’s when I discovered this community, the first community of writers—outside of just me and my mother—that I’ve ever been a part of.
Excited to find this gem, I set out to write my first post specifically for the Challenge Grid. Like never before, I searched for inspiration and a strong theme. And once again Mom was there to nudge me along; I wrote a post titled “the lost and the found” about losing her and how we remember.
That post was voted audience favorite that week on the grid and was later picked up by Freshly Pressed. I mention it not to brag but to say thank you. Because if I’d never found this community, I doubt I’d ever have written it.
Now I look forward to the grids every week. I’m pushed to improve. I’m encouraged to continue. And I’m inspired by reading what everyone else writes.
On the days that I long to send something to Mom, on the days that I wish she was still here to be my favorite writer and most dedicated reader, I’ll skim through the comments left for me by my Yeah Write friends. And read through new stuff by my favorite writers who blog and bloggers who write.
And it lifts my spirits. And it restores my confidence. And above all else, it makes me want to keep writing.
In sixth-grade pre-algebra, I blushed when Bobby Blackwell explained how 1 + 1 = 3. Now I see his twitchy grin everywhere…like on the stranger who forced his way inside me…or the one I’m waiting on to do the subtraction.
writeamuck 