Just Beneath

I was a tomboy when I was little, constantly coming home with cuts and scrapes. My mother would shake her head as she clucked at me, rinsing off whatever needed rinsing and slapping a bandaid over it.

I tell him I miss him. �Didn�t you break up with me?� he asks. And I have to admit that he�s right. �I know, I know,� I say. �But I want to pull the bandaid back again.� He doesn�t get it. �I love you,� I add, but he has already hung up the phone.

�Leave this alone,� my mother would instruct with each new wound. But within minutes of walking away from her, I would pry back the bandaid, trying to get a better look. And when I didn�t need a bandaid anymore, I picked at the scabs until they bled.

Later, I write a letter to him. I pour my heart out, but by the fifth draft the letter reads only, �I never want to hear from you again,� and I send it before I have time to stop myself. I�m just picking at the scab, and he still won�t see me.

My mom would always catch me. �I don�t understand it. It�s like you need to keep checking to make sure you�re still hurt.� She still says this to me, only know we both know the hurt has been isolated to my heart.

�I caused all our problems,� he writes back, days later. �Past and present.� But he must know it�s not that easy.

I have scars in places where I should not. I am permanently marked from foolish things, trivial things, because I would not leave them alone.

�I don�t care who�s at fault,� I respond. �Does it matter? If it would bring you back, I would confess to everything, accept all the blame, make it up to you forever.� I spend two hours writing down every feeling I have for him, and another forty-five editing down the list. �Okay,� the letter eventually reads. �I�m sorry all of this has happened.� I send that version. He knows just as well as I do that the truth isn�t in the bandaid -- it's in what�s just beneath.