The Game

Floating between something and nothing was a dangerous game, but it was her favorite game. For years she flipped between identities- a stick floating in an ocean of ideologies- but each time she began to felt happiness, something would come and hit her like she was a deer on a country road, and she was left sitting in the dark. 

You deserve it, you know, her alter-ego would snide, making a face of disgust and she knew that she did deserve it. She deserved every last bit of it. 

She wasn’t like this until she got involved with men. She was late to the dating game, but when she arrived, she was expecting the romance and chivalry of her grandparents. A nice boy would catch her eye in class, he would walk over to her, and he would say “hello.” 

“Hello,” she said back to her dream, “what is your name?”

From there, they would be inseparable. They would get married after a few years of living together, starting with a mattress on the floor and eventually, they would buy their own apartment. Then, they would buy a home. They would have a dog and a cat and live happily ever after. 

But she dismayed to find that happily ever after is just for fairytales. She droned on and on about this fairy tale love. Every man who showed the slightest interest would become her next prince charming. Then, she would end up on the cold tile of her bathroom floor, crying because he wasn’t very charming at all. 

It wasn’t just the men. Her friendships weren’t stable either. She planned parties and helped her friends move, even when she was sick. She took them to their appointments and took them out to eat. She would give them money that she didn’t have when they were down on her luck, but still, she found herself isolated and alone. 

Every so often she would find another latch. Someone who would become obsessed with her and she felt with her soul that the latch was the one. Platonic or romantic, it didn’t matter because whatever love she was feeling suddenly became the purest form. It would last a few months, or it would go on for much too long, after the latch had broken. She never learned from it. The endless cycle was stuck on repeat. 

You should know better, her alter-ego said, we’ve done this before. 

But each time it was like every new person wiped the slate of her memory clean. “Who am I?” she would ask, and then she would turn to them and say, “I am whoever you want me to be.” 

Simon was just like the rest. Tall, long and thin, gaunt, almost sickly, yet when she looked into his eyes and saw that they were dark, she told herself there was a speck of light. 

Abuse me, her alter-ego shouted from the rooftops of the city amidst the dangling holiday lights, the sirens and the salty air. 

It took him an hour to convince her to kiss him. When she did, her skin lit with fire. She pressed herself into him. I want more, she thought to herself, pressing herself so hard up against him that she felt they may melt into one person. Two parts, two people, finally whole together. 

Later that night he used her body with such a tenderness that she forgot how to breathe. 

“Quiet,” he whispered, but she wasn’t even aware that she had been making noise because for the first time someone’s body fit inside of hers, perfectly. It was as if they were made for each other. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back. He flipped her over and looked into her eyes. 

“It’s alright,” he told her, “I just don’t want my roommates to hear.” 

He asked her to stay and she was shocked. 

Don’t stay, her alter-ego told her, but she shut her up. She crawled back into bed, wearing nothing, and laid next to a stranger. 

He got on his phone and opened it to a picture of a girl. 

“She just asked me to come over,” he said, showing her the photograph. 

“Well you can go if you want,” she giggled. She didn’t know why she giggled. 

“No, you’re prettier,” he told her, “this is where I want to be.” 

She smiled and drifted to sleep. When she awoke around 6 am he had her locked between his legs. She unwrapped his body from hers and got out of bed, hoping to sneak out before he noticed. 

He woke up and looked at her. She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. 

“Text me when you get home,” he said. 

“I will,” she answered. 

As she left his apartment, she felt like she was walking on a cloud. She heard the click of her party heels and felt the heave of her chest as she struggled to breathe, but in the best way. She felt completely satisfied, full, for what she thought was the first time in her life. 

We’ve felt this way before, her alter-ego chided. 

“No, we haven’t!” she bellowed in response, “he’s different. Don’t you feel it?” 

When she opened her apartment door, she ran right to her bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror and she rosy red and glowing. She started the shower and closed the bathroom door, needing to feel the warm pressure of the shower head on her shoulder muscles. She didn’t know why she felt tension after such a wonderful night, but she supposed that it was normal for women to feel tension after a sexual encounter; after all, he couldn’t cure every ailment of her body in one night. 

She lifted her shirt off over her head and felt the contours of her hips as she slipped off her jeans. Her skin looked brighter, her body looked thinner, but when she trailed her eyes down the contours of her flesh, she stopped, shocked. 

On the inner corner of her thigh was a black spot. She rationalized it. It was probably paint, or dirt, or some fuzz. She opened the shower door and stepped in, allowing the warm water to engulf her. She took the washcloth she had set aside, wet it and doused it in soap. No matter how hard she scrubbed, the spot would not wash away. 

“What is this?” she asked her alter-ego. 

What do you mean? He’s taking you, the alter-ego answered. He’s done this before. 

When she got out of the shower, she put on a pair of dress pants and a blazer and she left for work, just like she always did. She hoped that no one would notice the black spot on her leg, and she knew that no one would, unless her body was spilling ink. An ink stain, she thought, would be an inconvenience.  

She continued to see Simon in a casual way for the next few weeks, though, she started to notice a pattern. Each time she left Simon’s apartment in the early morning, the spot on her inner thigh got a little bit bigger. Within a month, it looked intentional, as if she had paid an artist to permanently mark a black hole on her skin. She worried about the spring, and summer, when it wasn’t cold, and she wouldn’t want to cover up. 

I told you so, her alter-ego would chide, but she ignored her. 

After a while, Simon began to take her on dates. He would stay at her home and by the third month of their love affair, he had a drawer where she would lovingly tuck away the clothes that he left in her apartment. She bought him his own shampoo, groceries, and laundry detergent. She was happy to play wife and he was happy to take advantage of it. 

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he whispered into her ear as she drifted off to sleep one night. “I love you.” 

She perked up and turned to face him. She leaned down and planted a soft kiss on his lips. 

“I’ve been waiting my entire life to hear you say that,” she sighed, half-moaning the words. 

She fell asleep on his chest that night listening to his beating heart. She awoke around dawn and ran to the bathroom. She sat down on the toilet and let her eyes drift around the room. Then, it caught her eye. She looked out of the corner of her eye into the bathroom mirror and screamed. She got up, without wiping herself off, and faced her fear. There, reflecting back at her, was her face, yet it wasn’t her face. There were two black holes where her eyes had once been. 

“But I can see out them and I can feel them when I rub them,” she said to herself, feeling her face. Yes, her eyelids felt like flesh, but there was no color, and no light. It looked as if her eyes were harrowing darkness. 

She felt arms wrap around her stomach as he approached her from behind. 

“It’s early baby,” he said, “You’ve been in here for a while. Are you okay?” 

“Do my eyes look different to you?” she asked him.

“Green, as always,” he said. 

She knew her eyes were brown and always had been brown, yet she was more concerned at the fact that when she looked in the mirror, all she found were black holes. How could he not see it? She felt him kiss her on the cheek, and then he took her hand and pulled her back to bed. 

“We’re both off today, so we’re not leaving this room,” he whispered. She drifted back off to sleep, hoping that it was all a bad dream.

They woke up again around noon. She immediately felt for her eyelids, which were still there. She opened the camera on her phone and gasped again when she saw what had happened. 

The darkness had not only overtaken her eyes, but her entire torso. She threw the covers that entangled her with him off her body. She couldn’t bear the sight of him. 

She ran to the bathroom, turned on the shower and again, viciously scrubbed her body until she could feel her skin begin to burn. It was almost as if she was trying to peel him off her. She got out, wrapped herself in a towel and looked again; she was complete darkness. 

She peaked out the doorway of the bathroom and saw him begin to stir. 

He won’t know you’re like that, her alter-ego told her, he can’t see you. 

“What do you mean he can’t see me?” she wanted to scream. 

`She came out of the bathroom and tried to put on clothes as quickly as she could, for fear he would see her and realize that she was nothing. 

The clothes covered the emptiness the best that they could, but still, anyone with eyes could see that there was no girl there. 

“Good morning,” he mumbled from the bed, looking at her. “You look nice today.” 

She felt tingles of anxiety run up her neck. “I do?” 

“Yea, is something wrong?” 

“No, nothing is wrong, I just realized that I made plans with a friend today to go to lunch and I’m going to be late. You can stay here,” she told him. “I’ll be back in an hour.” 

She didn’t really have a friend to meet, and even if she did, she knew that her friends would be able to sense the emptiness, to see her lack of skin, her lack of glow. 

She began to run. She didn’t know why. Perhaps if she passed enough people, someone would see her and yell out to her “I see that you are nothing! Let me give you something!”

Something to be, her alter-ego echoed in her head. You have to find something to be. 

She stopped when she ran out of breath. It is hard to breathe when you don’t have lungs to hold the air or a nose to draw oxygen through. She looked down. The nothingness melted off her. It left a trail. He would be able to find her if he learned to see her. She decided to run home, so that she dropped as little of the nothingness behind her as possible. 

When she got home, he greeted her at the door with a kiss. 

“I don’t know what it is about you today, but you look so nice,” he whispered as he kissed her neck. 

She felt the familiar jolt of pleasure rise in her stomach, but she was quick to draw herself away, afraid of the nothingness and how it would spread. 

He noticed her withdrawal, but he didn’t ask what the matter was. No, instead he made a pout with his lips and turned to walk back into the bedroom. 

He has got to go, her alter-ego told her. He’s doing this. Who likes this? 

“He’s not doing it,” she protested. 

And why would you listen to me now? The alter-ego responded. You never listen to me. 

“Well, maybe you should just go.” 

And the alter-ego did. Weeks went by without the voice in her head. She noticed signs that the alter-ego had been right. Each time she would come home and see him, she felt a little less joy. The color did not return. Her brightness stayed faded. She remained nothing. She was nothing. She began to embody nothing. 

“Simon?” she said one night as they were laying in bed, her with a book on her lap, and him on his phone looking at videos of cars online. 

“Hmm?” he mumbled without looking up at her. 

“Do you love me?” she asked him. 

“Yea, you know I love you,” he mumbled again, still not looking at her. 

“What do you love about me?” she pressed. 

He looked up. “You’re pretty, you’re sweet, and you’re really good in bed.” 

“Anything else?” 

“You work.” 

“That’s it?” 

“Baby, why are you pouting? Don’t cry on me.” 

But she felt the tears well up in her non-existent ducts. Don’t worry, she wanted to say to him, I can’t cry. Nothing can’t cry. 

Instead she turned over to her side. He reached around her and dragged her closer to him. 

“You’re my favorite because you’re a good girl. You’re my good girl.” 

If she had been something, a tear would have fallen onto the pillowcase below her chin; however, there was nothing. She could not cry. She was a shell, but shells crack easy. 

Another week or so later, she was in the kitchen, cooking dinner. He had gone out with some friends but promised her that he would be home. She texted him. 

Nothing. 

She waited twenty minutes and texted again. 

Still nothing.

She called him. 

His phone immediately went to voicemail. 

She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling she hadn’t felt since the voice in her head left all those weeks ago. 

Miss me yet? her alter-ego asked. 

“Why is he not answering?” 

He’s with another woman, or he just doesn’t want to. Either way, I told you it was him. 

She knew that it was him. It was as if everything came flooding back. Memories of nights being left alone, catching him texting and looking at other women, and begging him to see her for who she really was. What are my hobbies, she thought. What do I like, she asked the alter-ego. 

Well you don’t like cars and trap music, I know that much, the alter-ego told her. 

The truth was, she couldn’t remember what she liked, or who she was, or even remember the last time she heard someone call her by her name. She ran over the deadbolt and locked it. He didn’t have a key. She ate her dinner and crawled into bed. She set her sound machine to ocean sounds and fell fast asleep. She didn’t even wake when he eventually got home and banged on the door. 

When she woke in the morning, she looked in the mirror for the first time since she excepted her nothingness, and there staring back at her were beautiful, large brown eyes. 

She smiled. Her lips were pink, and her teeth were white and shiny like diamonds. She felt a tear fall down her cheek. She never saw him again after that night. He was like a ghost. He lived in her memory, but not in the real world. No, he didn’t live in her world. 

A few weeks later she was sitting in a sanitized waiting room. Psychology magazines and books about finding your true self lined the walls. A docile woman of about fifty came out to greet her. 

“Lara?” she asked. 

“That’s me,” Lara answered. 

“I’m doctor Williams. Welcome. It’s nice to have you.” 

Lara smiled. “It’s nice to be here,” she replied.