Page 41 of Wrap Around
Silas nods. "Me too."
He looks like he wants to say more, but I look away, focusing on the winter wonderland outside the window facing the side lawn. Everything seems peaceful and quiet when blanketed in a heavy layer of frost and snow. If only I could get some of that to drapeitself over the restless thoughts swirling around in my mind. I just want to have a nice holiday with my sister and niece… and the man that used to be my best friend, without the weight of what I did hanging over us.
Silas is focused on getting a snack ready, putting some different meats, cheeses, fruits, and nuts onto a wooden board. While he's distracted, I take a moment to look at him, really look at him, setting aside my bias and anger. And I see it. I see the way he holds tension in his posture. I see the darkness under his eyes and the stress pulling his expression taut. He looks older than twenty-one. And while many could blame that on being a young parent and how hard he's worked to get to where he is, I know it's more than that.
When his eyes flick up to mine, he holds my gaze for just a few seconds before looking away again. For the first time, I don't interpret his gaze as taunting. I can see his desire, but in a different light. There’s an ache that feels similar to my own. A deeply emotional want, and the guilt behind it. His guilt doesn't feel the same as mine, but there's a pain there that I understand on a visceral level. I see it. Maybe I always have, but I refused to recognize it. I refused to let myself admit that he might be hurting as much as I am.
I think of what Lily said, the words that have been repeating themselves in my mind since the party.
"He needs to know that he has people who will love him no matter what.”
What did she mean by that? Surely he knows she loves him deeply and always has. He seems to make friends just as easily as he always has.
It's the way she said it that gives me pause. It felt like she was hinting at something. Like there's something he's hiding from the rest of the world. A secret part of himself that she not only knowsabout, but understands and supports. Like she knows that he's…No, that can't be it.I have to be projecting or something. Because that wouldn't make sense for her to know about that part of him. Because if he confessed, wouldn't he have had to tell her about me? She definitely doesn't know that. No one does, no one except for Silas. And he said he wouldn't tell anyone my secret. At the time, I assumed that he meant it as a compromise: I won't tell if he doesn't. It’s only now occurring to me that, for all of my anger and fear and mixed up feelings about Silas, I still trust him enough that I've never once questioned the possibility that he might tell my secret. And not just because he might be protecting his own, it's a trust built upon a lifetime of friendship. A steadfast thing that's still strong despite the betrayal that broke me.
Does it mean anything though?
I want to be the person Lily says he needs. That friend who has his back under any circumstances, who can love him for who he is, no matter what. But I also want so much more from him that I don't think I'm capable of being his friend. Not a true friend, anyway. How can I be his friend if I'm too weak to resist the pull I feel towards him? Even when I hated him, I couldn't resist. What will happen if I let myself care about him again?
Sometimes I look back on that day at the lake, and I try to reframe it in my mind. If we'd been acting on nothing but curiosity, if the kissing and touching had been purely experimental, I think it wouldn't have hurt as much. I would have still been mad that he messed around behind my sister's back, sure. But I wouldn't have felt that bone deep betrayal. As much as I want to make this about Lily, like I'm protecting her interests, I was more upset that he didn't want me the way I believed he did. Because the moment his lips touched mine, a new world of possibility was opened. I wasn't merely kissing a boy and confirming something about myself that I'd always been afraid of. I was kissinghim. Silas. And that kiss felt like confirmation that he loved me, too. That kiss set an entirelynew future in motion. It was an unspoken promise that we were moving towards a new beginning, one with hope and happiness, and leaving all the fire and brimstone behind us. It was confirmation that I wasn't weak or wrong. That all those days of fasting, of working to prove my devotion, all the pain and torment, were over.
The truth is, he never promised me anything. Not in words.
Because I'm just as weak as my father believed me to be.
I've never been strong enough.
The ache in my knees pulls me out of a restless sleep. I stare at the ceiling, willing myself to breathe and let the dream fade. Reaching down, I brush my fingertips over the smooth skin on my knee, reassuring myself.
It's taken me years to realize that the pain isn't real, that there's no actual injury or swelling. No divots or scars on my skin to show the origin of my discomfort.Psychosomatic pain, the team therapist had said. She'd also told me that it wasn't all in my head, that the painisreal, despite there being no physical reason for it. The memory of pain, and the relationship between mind and body, is complex, she said. That never did make sense to me. How can something that isn't real be real? It's either there or it's not. I don't get it.
I haven't gone back to see her as much as I was supposed to. Not since I almost blurted out too many truths about a certain ghost from my past showing up and blowing all the peace of mind I thought I’d built to smithereens. She’s too good at getting me to talk about things I'd rather forget. But everyone on the team is supposed to check in with her regularly, and since my blow up on the ice, it’s been a condition of my placement on this team. So Iwon't be able to put it off much longer. I'm worried about what, if anything, Silas has told her about our relationship to each other, considering she routinely checks in with any new players to help integrate them into the team. Will she ask about him? Does she already know about what we did? Back then, and more recently?
A spasm of pain radiates from my knee into my hip, making me wince. I get out of bed and pace around the room, doing some squats and stretches to work some of the stiffness out. I know this is thein my headkind of pain, and not left over from my injury. It’s a different kind of pain.
It's not real. Let it go.
It would help if I could let go of the dream I was having. It was more like a memory than a dream, although there were aspects of it that I can rationalize now as being exaggerated. Like my father looming directly over me. That’s how it often felt, sitting in my place on the front pew of the church with the rest of our family. During certain sermons, I always felt as if he were staring into my soul, speaking directly to me rather than to the congregation as a whole.
"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts," he said, holding up the open, worn bible in his hands as he paced the front of the church, only to slam the book down on the pulpit. I flinched, and he saw it. I felt his eyes on me like a physical thing, like something hot and thick was being poured over my skin. It held me in place while nausea bubbled inside me.
"It isn't enough to go to church, to sit here every week in your Sunday best. That isn't what makes you a good person. A good person, according to His word, is one who lives truth, who seeks salvation by actively burning the wickedness from inside themselves. Goodness is not a feeling or a state of being, it is warfare against the Devil" His voice rose and fell with conviction, green eyes boring into me like he could see every wrong thought living in my head. "You must kill theDevil inside you every single day. Beat him down with the Word. Lash him with the whip of repentance. Drown him in prayer. Starve him away as you fast in supplication. Your every thought, every action, is a movement either for or against the Lord!"
He marched across the raised platform again and pointed at the thick, faded book. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" he quoted, knowing every word of the scripture by heart.
"The flesh is a liar and a traitor. It whispers wickedness in your ear and dares you to call it love…" his voice tapered, but the meaning grew louder. He spoke directly to the weakness inside me, and the pit of my stomach felt hot and heavy, weighted down with the truth of my own wickedness.
"If you coddle your weakness, protect your secret sins, let your thoughts turn to the flesh?" His voice lowered to a murmur, and the congregation leaned in. I did too, even though I wanted to get up and run out. "Then you turn your back on He that would raise you into the light. You let yourself sink into the darkness. Your weakness is your own demise."
I didn't want to be weak. I didn't want to give in. I wanted to be a good person, the kind of person my father could be proud of. I wasn't fighting hard enough.
"The Devil plants his seed in silence, when no one is watching but God Almighty," he said, and looked out over his flock. His eyes landed, once again, on me. "That shame? That discomfort you feel? That feeling is God, guiding you to the truth. He gave you free will, but he also gives you warnings. He gave you a road map," he exclaimed, holding the Bible up with two hands, high enough that it felt as though he might bring the heavy tome down on top of my head to hammer me into the ground. "The question is, what will you do? Will you fight with prayer, with pain, with discipline? Or will you let your shame fester in secret? Are you truly good? Or are youjust pretending?" He paused, the weight of his words heavy on the congregation.
"He knows the difference. And so do you."
My fingers ached from how hard I gripped the bottom of the pew. I felt sick, and I tried to avoid his direct gaze. But I heard him. I heard every word. And every word felt like it was meant for me. The way my neck and face burned with shame and recognition left no doubt to my father or anyone else that might have been paying attention that the Devil had already gotten inside me. He could see it in my eyes, even if he never said it outright.
So many days, weeks, months were spent in prayer, begging God to release me from my torment. And I fought in whatever ways I knew how. I fasted, spent hours praying until my knees were bruised, found small ways to inflict pain on myself whenever the bad thoughts crept back up. Exercise and exertion became part of my penance, a way to burn the evil from me. Our parent's go-to punishment whenever my sister or I got in trouble was to make us kneel on dry rice to pray and reflect on our actions. It became a nightly ritual for me whenever I started to rationalize my feelings. It worked for impure thoughts of the sexual type, but whenever I thought too much about the way I felt when he smiled a certain way, the way my chest inflated so much I couldn't get a full breath, I couldn't feel the pain.
