Falling asleep, it turns out, is going to be a task.
The boat isn’t huge. Even with my door closed, I can still hear Four and my mom knocking around in their bedroom. They’ve both had too much wine and it makes Pearl’s laughter pitchy.
I groan and bunch up my pillow around my head to try to block out the sounds. No luck.
Then I remember—bingo. My Walkman is tucked into the wooden shelf that holds my belongings. I pluck it out and open the player, popping Donovan’s mix in it. Then I slip my headphones over my ears, flop onto my back, and press play.
Immediately, hard smashing drums and wild guitar riffs blow my ear drums. Smashing Pumpkins. Tool. The Pixies. If Donovan were a sound, this CD would be it. Angry and cynical, but beautiful too. I’m surprised there’s no My Chemical Romance, but I guess that’s too “mainstream” for him. Donovan always has to be slightly left of the beaten path. The sounds are like a bruise, blue, purple, with streaks of sunset red. The familiarity of it is comforting, even if the noise is raucous and chaotic, and I close my eyes to it.
The track changes. The bass is low and heavy. The beat of the drum matches my own pulse. The singer’s voice is dark and obsessive.
I feel my mind drift. I imagine I’m back in the belly of Healing Touch. The dishes are piled up in the sink. Only this time, we let them sit. Jason’s tall frame traps me between himself and the kitchen counter. Those impossibly blue eyes don’t leave my gaze. His hand goes to the side of my face, but I don’t pull away. I let him trace his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Open,” he says, and I part my lips.
He crooks his finger inside the warm cavern of my mouth. My eyes don’t leave his, not once, not even as I suck the digits, sliding my tongue against his long fingers.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells me. “A beautiful, filthy girl.”
In my fantasies, Jason is equal parts reverent and dirty. His removes his fingers from my mouth and pushes them underneath my dress inside. He dives his hand without flourish inside my panties and pushes his fingers against my slit, which is already dripping wet for him.
He makes a noise, like a laugh, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “Is this for me?”
“Yes,” I whimper.
“You are desperate,” he sneers. He’s teasing me. Belittling me.
And in the safety of my dark fantasies, I spread my legs for more.
“You’re trouble,” he says. “And trouble has to be broken.”
When he pushes inside of me, he breaks me.
Are you broken? Are you broken, Kenzi?
“Kenzi.”
My father’s voice. The car stalled, engine growling.
His black eyes. His hand outstretched. “Get in the car.”
I don’t want to. His breath, his clothes, his whole car smells like liquor. Like someone opened up a bottle of scotch and just dumped it over the seats. There are spiderwebs of red veins around his eyes. He hasn’t shaved in days and his beard is uneven, patchy.
The passenger side door is open, but I don’t go towards it. I stand in the uncut front lawn of our house. I don’t want to make these decisions. I’m just a six-year-old with a backpack.
“You love me, don’t you, baby?”
I nod. My voice is stuck in my throat.
“Then get in.”
I don’t know what else to do. I start to walk forward—
“Kenzi!” My mother’s voice now, a wail behind me that stops me in my tracks. She grabs my backpack, pulls me backwards, and launches herself forwards towards the car. They talk for a minute—angry, rapid adult voices that blur in my ears. Then he calls her a sharp word and slams the door shut.
“Don’t do this!” she shouts. “I love you, John! I love you!”
But his wheels scream on the asphalt and the car takes off. My mother gets halfway down the road before she stops chasing him.
That’s the last time I see my father. His car will slide off the road that night, killing him and injuring two others.
My mother collapses on the lawn and cries. Her I love yous haunt me, even now.
This is what love is, says the primordial ooze of my six-year-old brain.
Love is what a man bribes you with to get you into his death-car.
Love is the strongest woman I know, brought to her knees, helpless and wailing.
Love is a child, alone, scared.
This is what love is, and I don’t want any part of it.
My tiny fingers turn to fists. I dig my nails into my palm.
“Wake up,” I say, gritting my teeth. “Wake up.”
My breath catches in my throat. My heart is pounding, my blood is screaming, and I blink at the low ceiling, the V-shaped walls, and struggle to remember where the hell I am.
I’m on a boat. In the ocean. My father is dead, and he can’t get me here.
My hands have fisted in my sleep. Slowly, I unclench them.
I’m still trying to breath, still trying to slow the adrenaline rush coursing in my veins, when there’s a soft knock on the door.
“Kenzi?” Pearl opens the door and steps inside. Her hair is pinned up to her skull and she’s wearing a silk robe.
My mother has moved up in the world. She’s traded the phrase “I love you” for “where on Long Island do you spend your summers?”
It’s worked out pretty well for both of us.
I still have the headphones half twisted around my head, and I untangle them and shove the Walkman to the side.
Her eyebrows knit as she looks at me. “Are you alright?”
I nod. My tongue feels thick and it’s hard to peel it from the roof of my mouth. “Sorry,” I say, “was I…making noises?”
I shout in my sleep, sometimes. But she shakes her head. “No. I just…had a strange feeling that you needed me.”
My heart gets tight in my chest, but I say nothing.
She motions to the bed. “Room for one more?”
“Yeah.”
I scoot over. Pearl slides into bed with me and puts her arm around my middle.
“It’s us against the world, darling,” she murmurs.
She smells like wax and coconut oil. I feel suddenly exhausted, like I’ve just come back from the trenches of war. I pass out in her arms, against the rise and fall of her chest.
