The Lump

This is fiction I wrote several years ago.

She turned on Blue’s Clues for them, and made sure they each had a drink and a snack. One was sinking into the recliner, and the other stretched himself out across the sofa.

“Can you guys be good for just a little while so Mommy can take a shower?” she asked, with a hint of warning in her voice.

“Ok, Mommy.” They turned their attention to their snacks and started singing along with the TV, “We’re all looking for Blue’s clues…”

She smiled and walked to the bathroom, knowing there would probably be a mess or two to clean up when she got out. She left the bathroom door cracked open, in case they needed her, and turned on the water for her shower. She stepped out of her clothes and removed her hair clip and glasses. She tested the water, and seeing that it was warm enough, stepped in the tub.

As she started getting her hair wet, she began her usual routine of racing thoughts. She remembered she had to sign up her older son for soccer today, and get the water bill paid. She saw the caulking in the tub needed fixing, and made another mental note to get that done this week. As she poured out the last drips of shampoo from the bottle, she was reminded that she was out of shampoo, soap, and rice. Rice? Where did that thought come from?  Oh, now she remembered. She wanted to make rice for dinner last night and realized, halfway through cooking everything else, that she didn’t have any.

She sighed and took a deep breath. It just never ends, she thought.

She looked up at her shower card, the one that reminded her to do monthly breast self exams. There was a circle to punch out for each month, and she noticed she hadn’t done her exam this month yet.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” she muttered to herself. It was all a matter of routine, really, so she could tell her doctor she actually did them. She never expected to find anything there. Sometimes she thought she was too healthy – maybe if she was sick, she could get a break!

She moved the fingers of her right hand slowly over her left breast, feeling all the way up to her underarms, and gently circling the whole breast, from the outside in. As she continued examining herself, her thoughts ran back to the weekend’s events, turning over in her mind the various friendly exchanges she’d had.

She moved to her right breast, feeling gently all around with her fingers flat, just as the card said to. I really need to get the kids some new jeans, she thought. They all have holes in—

What was this? Her fingers stopped. She was sure she just imagined what she felt. She gently ran her fingers over the same spot, and there it was again. That spot was harder – and it didn’t move. Tears sprang to her eyes.

Don’t panic, she thought. It’s probably nothing. Most of the time it’s nothing.

But she couldn’t help it. She remembered her earlier thought about wanting to be sick. She remembered the hundred mundane details that all the sudden didn’t seem so important. She remembered watching her father cry when the lumps in her mother’s breasts started the slow process of killing her.

She wiped a tear away, and turned off the shower. She took a deep breath and grabbed the nearest towel, carefully drying herself while trying to avoid that breast.

She couldn’t keep it in. She shut and locked the door, turned on the bathroom fan so the children wouldn’t be able to hear, and she sobbed into the towel.

It never ends, does it? Maybe I was wrong, she thought. Maybe it does.

Falling.

I heard somewhere (or maybe I read it) a long time ago that you fall for someone because of the way you feel when you're with them - not necessarily just the way you feel about them. I think there is a lot of wisdom in that.

When I'm with someone who doesn't really make me feel good about myself, it's hard to maintain interest or desire. We all want to be loved and cherished and adored a little bit, right? So when we do that for someone else, and it feels as though it's either not noticed, or not reciprocated, or both, we start to wonder if it's worth pursuing any longer. And the older I get, the less willing I am to give myself away for nothing or close to it.

It's a real shame, because sometimes two people are a great fit, but somehow one or both just do not know how to make the other feel significant.

Dunno...can't figure it all out tonight, I guess.

Odd Bedfellows

She was often surrounded by people and yet, somehow, the loneliness was crushing. How could such an invisible thing cause such a strong reaction, not just in her mind but in her body as well? Nothing worked right anymore – her appetite dwindled to nothing, her muscles ached, she was so tired but could never sleep. Betrayed by even her own self, she lay there on the bed, weeping silently.

She glanced at her phone on the bedside table. Text messages flashed on the screen. Her friends were concerned. But she couldn’t bring herself to read, let alone answer. She could guess what they said.

“I can’t breathe. This lawsuit is killing us.” She knew she needed to be there for Mary, but not today. It wasn’t in her.

“Goddamn teenagers. I am failing as a mother!” Anna could always be counted on for drama with her daughter.

“I hate him.” Sister Connie and her boyfriend/boss.

It was all too much. She just wanted to feel good and her usual strength for those around her was more absent than water in Death Valley.

She wanted someone to ask  - really ask, and really hear – how she was doing. She wanted to be told she was pretty, worth something, desired, admired. She ached to be found worth pursuing in a real way with real words and real voices and a real touch and feel. She wanted to be more than a distraction.

And yet she held back. It’s going to hurt again, she thought. It’s always going to hurt again. She felt her imperfections earned her the injuries large and small, and never really believed she deserved more than that. She'd been told that by people she loved and respected, so it had to be at least partly true, right? It just seemed that for so many people, there was just no room for error anymore. Missteps cost much more than they should. Communication was simultaneously very cheap, and very expensive.

Drying her eyes, and begging herself for the strength to rise, she made a plan to make peace with the loneliness.

And then her phone rang. 

She dropped it in the glass of water on her night stand.

Red Faced

August 20, 2015   6:00 pm

Writing prompt, The Writer’s Idea Workshop, p. 36

Embarrassing moment in high school…


When I was in high school, I dated this guy named Mark. He was actually my first “real” boyfriend, though not my first love interest. We started hanging out when I was in 9th grade, and he was in 11th. I hadn’t been part of this group of friends before, and it being a small town, I’m still kind of surprised it happened. We just seemed to gel.

Mark took an interest in me first. He asked me out, and I accepted. Little did I know this did not sit well with the girls in the group, who were all jealous. They thought I swooped in and “stole” the man, the favored prince of the group. In this little clique, I believe the girls way outnumbered the boys. I, being a naive 14 year old, had no idea I’d done anything wrong in reciprocating Mark’s interest until much later.

At any rate, he took me on a date to his Tae Kwon Do instructor’s house, that night gave me my first kiss, and everything grew from there. Before long we were “going together.”  We made out a lot - a LOT! - but I was unwilling to go much further than hands under the shirt. I thought he was ok with this.

I found out wrong (one of many times I was wrong about many things). One evening after school, my sister Heidi came to talk to me. Whereas I was a 9th grade nerd, she was 3 years older than me and very popular. We didn’t have the same circle of friends, but she still kind of looked out of for me.

“Jessica,” she said with concern, “did you know the whole school is talking about you?” I had no idea, of course - see naive (and incredibly religious, and pre-Internet) 14-year-old. “I don’t even know how to tell you this. Did you know Mark cheated on you?”

I can’t even remember exactly how I felt. I do recall I’d felt some distance between us but I wasn’t sure what it was about  - I certainly didn’t believe he’d cheat on me.

“Angel Bottom gave him a blow job.” Now, at this point I was STILL very naive. This was pre-internet, remember? I thought a blow job=sex. As in, full on intercourse. I was crushed. I mean, once I found out what it actually was, I was still crushed, but yeah. Angel, one of my close friends in this group, filled in where I would not, and my boyfriend was more than happy to accept her charity.

The next morning I had to go to school. I was sad, upset, humiliated. The whole school knew, apparently. Even our other close friends, who had chosen NOT to tell me. My very best friend, Liz, said it just wasn’t her place (did I mention she was jealous I was dating him?). So I didn’t really want to go. But go I did, because in a high school of 90 kids, you don’t skip without your guardian knowing.

Normally Mark picked me up in his old ’75 Ford Grenada (primer gray!) on his way to school and I rode with him, even though I only lived a block from school. That morning I left before I knew he’d get there. He got to school and found me in the hall and asked why I hadn’t waited for him. I didn’t say anything, that I remember. I just put his class ring in his hand; I had it covered in yarn at the back and had been wearing it, as girlfriends did then (do they still do that? I don’t know!). There were students all around us passing this way and that, on their way to class. It was all I could do not to cry in front of everyone.

To his credit, he did seem very remorseful. And later that year we tried getting back together but it just didn’t work for very long for a lot of reasons. I probably never should have tried after that. But I’m a forgiving person, especially when it comes to someone I love, and a little part of me will always love that guy.