Twin Rivers

I sat curled up in the corner of the bathroom, cigarette in mouth, hands tightly gripping my ankles. I could hear the sounds of the restaurant through the door. The sounds blended together and reminded me of the steady hum of the chainsaw I had used earlier that day to tear down a tree that’s branches were encroaching on the offices of a local law firm.

Fuck. Why now? My life was finally getting back on track and now she was going to storm back in and ruin it. I stood up, taking a long drag as I examined my face in the mirror. What a mess. It’s true: smoking really does make you look older. I was only twenty-five and my face already looks like its seen three decades worth of bar fights. I examined a scar on my left cheek and realized just how pathetic I actually looked. I can’t let her see me like this. I’m not the Jeff she remembered. She would never believe the story behind this scar.

The memories of that night flowed back into my head every time I saw that scar in the mirror. I remembered the smell of the street that I had found the drunk girl on. The group of men that surrounded us at the street corner, their clothes, bodies, they were all blurs now but their faces still stood out. I remembered telling them that I just wanted to call her a taxi. I looked down at my fist and I remembered the pain that shot up my arm as I punched the closest one in the face and screamed at the woman to run.

Vanity was a luxury long forgotten. My trips to the mirror always dug up some excruciating memory that I’d rather not relive. I rubbed the back of my neck. Thank God that scar was in a place that I’d never have to see.

There was a knock at the door. “Can I have some fucking privacy?” I said to whoever was on the other side. No answer.

I washed my hands and opened the door. She burst through before it was open even a crack, throwing me against the wall and pressing her body against mine. Our lips found each other again with no problem at all. Even after nine years, they still knew all the steps to the dance. “I can’t.” I said, opening my eyes. All this time had passed and she still looked the same: big brown eyes, soft brown hair, mascara that ran down her cheeks, and facial trauma that was consistent with a fresh beating. I got choked up just looking at her.. I rubbed the mascara off one cheek with my thumb when she opened her mouth.

“Moms dead.” She uttered, trying to maintain that jaded unaffectedness that had always defined her when we were growing up. It was odd: I rarely ever saw her cry but I always saw the twin black rivers that her makeup left on her face. Now, after telling me the news about my mother, I was seeing the river’s source.

Even though it didn’t make much sense, Elyse reminded me so much of my mother. Mom also tried to suppress her emotions. Because of this, Mom wouldn’t talk very much. She was very astute and almost an omniscient presence in our family. I remember one morning, walking home from elementary school; I tried to save a lizard that was in the middle of the road. A car sped by before I could get to the lizard. The sharp popping sound of the lizard’s body being crushed made me physically sick. I cried the whole way home, pausing for a few minutes outside the front door to wipe the tears from my face. Fully composed, I walked inside and past the kitchen where my mother was. Before I could get to my room, Mom beckoned me. “Jeff, come here, baby.” I walked slowly into the kitchen. She kneeled down and put both hands on my shoulders. “You saw something die, did you, honey?” My sudden rush of tears was her confirmation. “Shhh honey, listen. There are tons of things worth saving in this world, baby, you just can’t give up when you feel powerless to help something or someone. We just have to try and save what we can.” I hugged her and asked her to not tell my father that I had cried.

Dad was a completely different story. I’m not even sure how my mother and father met; they were so different. Mom was the one always taking us to museums and the movies while dad sat at home working on projects in the basement or watching television in his cushy recliner. Despite playing almost not part in my life, he was great for the occasional bit of advice. “Be very assertive, Jeff.” He instructed me when I asked his advice about a girl. “Don’t forget though, women need to be respected. Don’t let me ever hear of you treating a woman with anything less than total respect.” Those little nuggets of wisdom were what I craved from him. It was more than what Elyse got, however. Her and my father barely ever spoke.

Here she was now, though. Elyse: my sister. I wasn’t sure I’d have to see her again. I had almost completely buried those memories in the past, wadding them up in a tight ball and hiding it somewhere in my stomach. Now they were being unraveled. I looked up at Elyse after realizing I had been staring down in deep thought. Her expression as I stared into her eyes was the same one she had as she picked me up from school nine years ago.

I had protested that day at my high school with a group of friends. We were trying to save an Oak tree that, for some reason, had been my pointless cause of the week. The tree unfortunately sat in the path of the school’s new library. My friends and I were there on the Saturday that the construction was to take place. We sat under the tree all morning, talking about the massacring of the rainforest, the ugliness of war, and the urgency of world hunger; never intending to actually do anything about it besides sit under a tree. Most of us left right when we saw the bulldozer. I left when I realized that I would soon be the only one left to take on the machine, and something told me the manic-eyed bulldozer driver would have no problem taking a game of Chicken to its limits.

I heard Elyse’s tires screech before I saw her car. She sped through the school parking lot and stopped right in front of where I sat on the curb. She was thirty minutes late. I got in. “Get your fucking license already, man.” She told me, looking through the driver’s side window. I smiled. “Thanks for coming.”

“What are you doing here on a Saturday, anyway?” she asked with what seemed more like disdain than curiosity, still staring away from me and out her window.

“Me and my friends were trying to save this tree from being murdered.” I thought about the tree as I said it, wondering if it could actually feel it’s branches being stripped and pulled off.

“A tree? You care about a fucking tree? You and your friends are small-minded idiots.” She said as she turned to look straight ahead at the road. I could see the black trails on her face and a swollen bruise.

“Mike is hitting you again?! You need to tell Dad this time.”

“You think you can actually make a difference saving a tree? You can’t. Don’t even try. There’s nothing in this world worth saving, Jeff. Absolutely fucking nothing.” She shifted into first gear and started to drive us home.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. I remember how confused I felt then. For the second time that month I had seen her with bruises and on top of that, she sounded like a suicide note. “Pull over.” I told her.

“What? No.” She said.

“Pull over!” I demanded. I got out and started walking in the direction of Mike’s house. I heard Elyse curse to herself as she drove away. I didn’t care though; all I cared about was making sure no one laid another hand on my sister again.

A twenty minute walk got me to Mike’s front door. I knocked and there he was, in all his former lacrosse player glory. He was always a pretty nice guy when I saw him and Elyse together. It was confusing to overhear, two weeks ago, when Elyse was telling Mom in the kitchen that Mike was hitting her. She said it so halfheartedly that I almost didn’t believe it myself. “We have to tell your father.” Mom said with urgency. Elyse hung her head and softly said, “He knows.”

I lowered my gaze and pointed an accusing finger. “If you ever touch my sister again, I’ll have you thrown in jail.” I told Mike.

He furrowed his brow, looking genuinely confused. “What? I haven’t seen your sister in weeks, bro. She broke up with me when she found out I was cheating on her with Darcy Huff. Maybe if she didn’t have intimacy issues I wouldn’t have had to cheat.”

“Dick. Just stay away from her.” I told him. Walking home I was almost as genuinely confused as he must have been.

I came home to the sound of my mother screaming. The scene inside didn’t completely register at first: Mom sitting in the corner, crying with her hands around her ankles, sister screaming something about molestation and wielding a knife at a father who is trying to explain himself to both his wife and daughter. “It started right after you told me I was adopted, Mom! I guess it was okay for him since I knew I wasn’t his blood!”

Elyse hadn’t seen me in the hallway yet. I wanted to just get the knife, and my father, away from her. When I tried, I startled her and the knife sliced the back of my neck.

That night, my mother found my father’s body along with a note full of meaningless words. He could have smeared shit on a piece of paper and it would have meant more to me than what he wrote.

The next night, I went down the hallway to Elyse’s room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring straight ahead but at nothing in particular. I sat next to her, taking her hand in mine. “So you’re adopted?” I asked slowly. She looked at me, deeply. Before I could stop her, we were kissing. I’m not sure how it happened or why I hadn’t stopped it immediately but eventually I broke away. The next night, I left town. I took my sister’s advice with me: “You think you can make a difference? Don’t even try.”

She was right all those years ago. Nothing in this world was worth saving. I had seen the world in the nine years since I left and it was evil.

Elyse had been lying in my arms on the bathroom floor. We ignored all the knocks, preferring to savor the moment. She sat up and stared into my eyes; almost through me. She slowly moved her lips to the back of my neck and for the first time in nine years, I felt my heart beat.