My Heart Insists It’s a Runaway Freight Train
I could tell her it wasn’t an accident. But those words in my mouth feel like a freight train crushing my innards with its velocity, and the moment I release them, they’ll run over everything good outside of me too. I’m not sure I’ve done the right thing, bringing up my dad. At all. The extended cut of my life is ready for viewing, but the ugly truth of how that story plays out feels like an over-the-top black and white melodrama with the train tracks, the villain, and a rope to tie me down while we await the train that’s going to kill me. Except I’m not a hero. My dad and I are both villains in this tale, and I wonder which one of us the train is going to take out first?
Dr. B would ask me, “Why are you holding back?”
If I say those words to Hannah, and the way she looks at me changes, I know it will be me.
I’ve only admitted the truth—that the accident wasn’t an accident—to a handful of people: my parents, my therapists, Abby and Gabe. I’ve never committed to telling any of my girlfriends this; even the shit about my dad has been told in short vignettes without sound and fury. Detached. A quick acknowledgement of what was so that—should questions arise—I’d have an escape hatch: “Remember. I mentioned it.”
I used to tell myself that was all that was necessary. Offering up those painful truths serves no purpose but to highlight pain. Except I see now what those same girlfriends meant when they accused me of holding back. I wouldn’t drop the wall low enough to let them understand the vulnerable me hidden behind it.
Hannah isn’t my girlfriend, but fuck, I think I’d like her to be. Only jumping right in to sleeping with her feels like more of my same methods of operation: connect to the physical but leave the rest out because it’s too difficult. Stick with what’s easy. Except I don’t want to lose her. Already did that. And I don’t want to be watching her move in with the next guy six months from now, telling me I wasn’t enough, that I didn’t give her enough.
But admitting this horrific truth to Hannah—my dad, the car crash, who I was before therapy—makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of a one-inch precipice, back to a raging blizzard, clinging to a cliff face with bloody fingernails, and I’m about to lose my grip.
“What is it?” She breathes the question more than asks it.
I sift through all the explanations in my head trying to find the words around the shame of it but hear Dr. B say in my head: “Seth, you must own this story. Use it as a point of empowerment. There is no shame in being your authentic self, and as difficult as that time of your life was, rewriting your story to hide those scars dishonors the boy in you who needed help.”
I take another deep breath.
The sudden warmth of Hannah’s hand on my arm offers me comfort. “You’re cold,” she says and draws the comforter up and over us. “Tell me,” she says from under the cocoon we’re suddenly inside.
It’s as if she knew exactly what I needed—a way to block out the rest of the world and exist in suspended animation with just her. But I can’t tell her everything. As much as I want to, I can’t. I can give her the truth about my dad. A starting point.
“My dad used to hit me and my mom.”
Hannah lays a hand on my arm and offers a reassuring touch. “I remember when he was arrested.”
I don’t say anything else because the memories are awful, and I’ve only been able to put them together after a ton of time and a ton of therapy. The night of the car crash, before he was arrested, unfurls in my mind like an antique movie on 8mm film. Our turning point. I’d already been hurt after a fight with Gabe. My dad had fallen off the wagon—again—and he’d tossed me across the room for fucking up his feel good, for standing up to him, for refusing to do what he said. There was screaming, breaking new ribs on top of those that were already broken. I’d landed on a table that broke under me. Unable to catch my breath. Mom screamed for him to stop. I stumbled from the house, got into my truck, and drove away. The last thing I remembered was turning the wheel and allowing myself to drift into oncoming traffic, which makes me even worse. I’d been willing to take someone out with me. Unforgivable really.
But that victim visited me while I was in the hospital and extended his forgiveness, just like Gabe had. I seem to be the only one who’s fucked up trying to forgive.
Hannah is silent, waiting, and I imagine it’s because she’s afraid to break the spell and keep me from talking, because where I’m taking her is so horrific. Her fingertips move lightly across my skin, offering a nurturing touch. “I’m here.”
“He was just a mean drunk. One time, when I was little, I was skating through the kitchen in my socks–”
Her hand squeezes my arm, and I know she’s thinking about us earlier.
“I’d been imagining I was a hockey player, moving the puck for a score. I’d been yelling, pretending to be the announcer and the crowd all at the same time–” the words die away, but then I take a deep breath and continue– “He didn’t like it when his television time was interrupted sober, but when he was drunk, he wanted blood for it.”
Hannah doesn’t say anything at first, instead pulling me close. “Oh, Seth.”
I adjust and wrap my arms around her, swallowing.
“I didn’t know.”
“I hid it, and he hit me in places it was easy to hide. No one knew.” Which is a partial truth. Abby and Gabe knew, but I’d kept it from everyone else and punished both of them for trying to help. I’d gotten so good at avoiding being seen. Hiding in my clothes, eventually in lies, in my humor. There are lots of ways to misdirect and offer people a more palatable version of ourselves.
Her arms tighten around me. Vibrations from her body move through mine. I grasp her face, and my thumbs discover the tears on her cheeks.
“Why the tears?”
She leans forward and kisses me, but this is a different kiss. It isn’t wrapped up with desire, but rather empathy, a desperation to impart her emotions, her support. Her hands are on my cheeks, her fingers in my hair. Then she pulls away. “How did you do it?”
“Not well. I drank, partied, and acted like a jerk. I was on my way to becoming him.”
Her fingers remain in my hair, moving through the locks. She’s working through what I’ve told her, and I’m tense, worried, and afraid that sharing this part of the truth might have been enough to end things before they’ve even begun.
“When I was let into your room at the hospital to say goodbye,” she says, “I begged you to stay.”
I draw away so I can look at her, the familiarity of her words hitting my heart with melodic notes I remember. Except I was in a coma. How could I? It’s hard to see her in the darkness of our cocoon, so I focus on the feel of her hand in my hair, the sound of her voice, the sensation of her legs entwined with mine in this world we’ve created for the time being.
“I remember I told you that you made a difference in my world, or something like that…” Her voice drifts a moment. “But it wasn’t until I told you that, that I understood how true it was.” She takes a deep breath. “Maybe you made mistakes then, but you did what you could with what you knew. And–” the word catches in her throat a moment, as if it’s trying to move through her emotion. She adds– “and we all make mistakes.” A sob breaks through. “We all have them–”
I pull her tighter and understand her meaning, but emotionally can’t reconcile if she understood the darker mistake, she’d still recuse me from my own culpability. I don’t. But her words make me see how my life might have impacted someone I thought so peripheral to me then. That I didn’t know I was important to someone else because I didn’t feel important to anyone.
“The night my dad died,” she starts but stops.
I touch her hair, allow my palm to drift over the silk and wait for her to talk, wondering if she’s going to open the door for me.
“I was out partying with my friends. I’d forgotten my phone. The next morning—when I got back to my dorm room—there were all these messages.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I tell her and pull her closer.
She snuggles in, her arms around me. “Even so.” She sniffs. “It doesn’t take away how easy it is to blame myself for not being there.”
It feels good to be allowed inside her world, and I’m struck with how sharing my vulnerability has allowed me to glimpse hers. My heart expands in my chest with the awareness, and I shift, drawing closer to her and pressing a kiss to her head.
She sniffs, and her fingers leave my hair. I feel her move, and I think she’s looking at me. “When I was seventeen, I had a gigantic crush on you, Seth Peters.” Her fingers skim my skin. “Everyone else did, too, so I refused to admit it to myself. Besides, I couldn’t imagine that you would ever notice me. But that day—in the hospital—when I thought I was going to lose you, I stopped lying to myself.”
I run a finger from her cheek down her jaw. “I didn’t know.”
“I still have a massive crush on you, Seth Peters,” she whispers.
I lean forward and press a kiss to her cheek and kiss toward her mouth. “I’m glad, because it’s probably nothing compared to the crush I have on you.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
I squeeze her with a hug, unsure what to say to that. Sharing this with her has quieted the freight train, releasing a few of the cars it’s dragging, but the rest of the truth is still there, a heavy load on that track. “I don’t want to mess this up,” I tell her.
“You think sex will mess it up?”
I laugh quietly. “No. I’ve been the leap-before-you-look kind of guy, and just jump into the physical part of the relationship. It’s easier to ignore these heavier things. My last two girlfriends told me that I was too closed off. I don’t want… I don’t want to risk messing this up.”
She makes a humming noise. “So what are we going to do then?” She moves in the darkness of our cocoon, and I feel her lips near my ear. “Because I really, really want to have sex with you. I’ve wanted to since the night at the beach.”
I inhale quickly, the breath catching in my chest, expanding my crystallized lungs so that it hurts letting go of it. I grip her hips, as her leg rubs mine with sweet friction, then squeeze her tightly and press our hips together. “Hannah. Fuck.”
“Fifteen dates?” she asks. I feel her smile against my skin, and her hands work their way under my shirt, sliding up my abdomen and around to my back.
“Ten?” That sounds like so many, and I start calculating. “What’s a date? Coffee? Technically we could work in two or three in a single day.”
She laughs, her mouth against my neck.
I really like that sound. The sweet and slightly husky notes send chills racing across my skin. “Five?” My voice, on the other hand, sounds strangled and needy.
“A minimum of five dates. Okay.” Her hands spread across my shoulder blades.
Her boobs are pressed against my chest, and I resist the impulse to tilt my hips further to meet the resistance between her legs. Instead, I draw a ragged breath and disengage, moving away from her. “I’m drawing a line between us.” I swipe a hand along the sheets. I sound ridiculous. What am I doing?
She laughs again.
“Never mind. Fuck that.” I move back across my self-imposed barrier and draw her back into my arms. “Am I being ridiculous?”
She shakes her head which I feel against my shoulder. “No. I think you should listen to what you need. Spoons instead?” she asks.
“I’d rather be a fork, but okay. Spoons it is. Are you little or big?”
“Little.” I hear the comforter rustle as she turns over.
“I apologize if this spoon is sharp.”
She laughs again, wiggling her hips as she settles into me.
I groan but wrap my arms around her and smile. “Perfect.” I nestle my nose in the space between her neck and shoulder, inhaling her clean, peachy scent. “Thank you, Hannah.”
She presses in closer and makes a noise acknowledging what I’ve said.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I start awake in an unfamiliar place, it takes me a moment to remember where I am, who I’m with. Hannah’s body heat warms me, removes me from the haze of a bad dream I can’t remember. I don’t sleep well, and never have, too cognizant of the need for self-preservation and survival living with a father who liked to throw punches when he was drinking. Old habits die hard.
It’s still dark—early-morning dark when the world is waking, stretching its arms, and finding the will to leave a warm bed.
I lift my head and check on Hannah. She faces me, curled like a pill bug. Her head is pressed against my chest, and her knees drawn up, pressed against my thighs. I wonder about this position that appears like she’s protecting herself from something, even in her sleep. I move a lock of her golden waves from her face, in awe that I’m lying beside her now.
When I was eighteen and Hannah became someone I saw—which is weird to consider I hadn’t always noticed her—she became a lighthouse. I think that began in earnest my junior year. I’d been so caught up in my own self-centered drama, I hadn’t been clear about a lot of things, but I remember coaching myself with the mantra What Would Hannah Do? I’d admired her strength, her kindness and compassion for others, her integrity to stand up for what she believed in, and her comfort in her own skin. Things I’d wanted for myself and had little ability to emulate before the wreck. After the car crash, as I’d focused on the act of healing my physical body, I’d made a conscious effort to work on my emotional and mental body too.
She’s different now.
But so am I.
I wrap an arm around her, and she sighs, relaxes, and shifts against me in her sleep. I move my hips so I don’t startle her awake with a stab of my morning wood. I need to pee, but I don’t want to let this moment go. It’s the fruition of what feels like a lifetime of dreaming. I’m suddenly so grateful that Jenny and Amber broke up with me, so grateful I’ve transferred, so grateful that all the steps I’ve taken have led me here.
I lie there with my hand drawing from the heat of her back and try to remember when I finally understood that I felt more than friendship for her. I don’t allow myself to return there often. I don’t like the person I was then, but for me, Hannah was always a sun.
It had to have been before prom, because I’d wanted to ask her.
It had to have been before Abby’s birthday, because I’d remembered watching for Hannah to arrive at the party.
It had to have been before the annual Basin bonfire.
Hannah remembered the homecoming float.
There was this moment at the onset of senior year, after one of my soccer games, I remember walking from the field with Carter to the bleachers. Abby, Gabe, Hannah, and Darnell, and a bunch of our other friends, had been waiting for us. We’d won, so the energy was high and their voices loud and exuberant. The group cheered us as we walked from the field. I remembered studying the group, but the face I searched for had been Hannah’s. When my eyes had met hers, and she’d smiled and waved, it felt like I could draw an even breath. Just like seeing her again in Hammill, or when she’d walked across the pizza parlor toward me. Understanding I had feelings for her wasn’t like the flash of lightning, but rather the gradual awareness that she was who I was always looking for.
It makes me consider Dr. B’s statement again about finding the right partner: “You will go ‘all in’ being completely open even about the parts of yourself you try so hard to hide.”
My bladder insists it’s time to get up, so I do my best to extricate myself without waking her. As I sit up and climb from the bed, she moans, “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.” I press a kiss to her cheek.
After addressing my morning needs, I slide across the floor through the kitchen with a smile, thinking about sock skating, a new memory to replace the old one. I can’t remember having as much fun with someone else for a very long time. It isn’t so much a surprise as a reinforcement of how I’ve always connected to Hannah.
I look for all the stuff to make coffee and get a pot going, then retrieve my phone while it brews, leaning against the counter to reconnect with the world beyond this apartment. My mom has reached out with a phone message. Gabe and Trace have texted.
I open my friends’ texts first.
Gabe: So? The scoop?
He’d been answering my text about going to spend time with Hannah.
I wait to answer him and check Trace’s message.
Trace: You good? Thought you’d be home.
I text Trace back first: All good; I’m alive. Be home soon.
Then I text Gabe: Bro. (smiley face and a thumbs up emoji).
Next, I listen to the message from my mom: “Hey. I need you to call me as soon as you get this message. Love you.”
There’s something about her message that puts me on edge. I call her immediately.
“Hey,” she answers. “Good morning. It’s early.”
I ignore the small talk and walk around the end of the counter to sit on one of the stools. “I got your message. Everything okay? You sounded a little off.”
“What? No.”
That response in and of itself feels off.
“How are you?”
“Good,” I say. I’m not one to drag out conversations with either of my parents. Because of the baggage between us, I’d be lying to say I trust either of them. But like Dr. Bethany suggested: “Forgiveness doesn’t mean the hurts magically disappear. Forgiveness means not allowing those hurts to claim space in your future.” I just need to figure out how.
“Hold on,” Mom says, and there’s a stretch of seconds when she doesn’t talk. I can hear her moving and what sounds like the click of a door. “I just needed to duck into the laundry room for a moment.”
“Is he drinking?”
It’s hard not to ask this question.
“No. No. He isn’t, but he didn’t want me to call you about this.”
“So, he went then? To the doctor?”
“Yes. His doctor is ordering some tests for him.”
“Tests for what?”
“Bloodwork and such. The usual. He hasn’t been in so long.”
“Can I do anything?” I hear the way that sounds even if that wasn’t my intention and add, “I mean—do you need anything?”
“No, Seth. I just wanted to check in. And maybe see you sooner rather than later.”
The guilt.
I don’t know that this is how she’s meant for me to interpret it, but I do.
“How’s everything there?” she asks, changing the subject.
I turn when I hear footsteps. Hannah walks into the kitchen. Her hair is pulled up into a messy bun, and even though she’s wearing oversized pink flannel pants and a fitted pink tank that shows off her boobs—which I’d like to get my hands on—I’m equally attracted to her regardless of what she’s wearing. Every time I see her, she looks good. I think I like this Hannah best, unguarded. “Good. I like it. I’ve got to go, Mom. I’ll call you later.”
I disconnect the call after Mom says “bye” and turn in the stool to face Hannah.
She stops an arm’s length from me, tentative.
I reach out, grab her hand, and pull her toward me until she’s standing in between my legs. My hands find her hips, the flannel soft against my palms. “Good morning.”
She moves her hands through my hair, which awakens all my nerve endings. I imagine laying her down on the floor, kissing my way down in between her legs to feast, but keep it in my fantasies. Five dates. I lean back to look at her face, but then close my eyes, relaxing with her touch as I hum with pleasure.
“That feels really good.” Dismissing any lingering worry, I tune into this moment, to Hannah’s touch, to the joy of rekindling something we both want.
She leans down and places her lips against my temple. “When I smelled the coffee, I realized I hadn’t dreamed you were here.”
I draw her down onto one of my thighs. “I loved having a sleepover with you.” I kiss her cheek and leave my mouth there.
“Thank you for staying.”
I lean back and catch her gaze. “I want to be here for you.”
She smiles, blushes, and stands. “Thanks for the coffee.”
Five dates.
“Please tell me this counts as a date?”
Hannah walks through the room and retrieves two cups, which she fills. “Cream? Sugar?”
I shake my head. “Black.”
She sets a cup of steaming coffee in front of me. “No. It doesn’t count.” She smiles. “We’ll have to work a little harder.” She picks up her cup and smiles over the rim of the yellow mug, before taking a sip.
You brought this on yourself, I think. “Do you have plans tonight?”
“I work tonight. And Jewel will be back tonight.” Her eyes meet mine. “I can therefore release you from your chivalrous knightly duty.”
I lean toward her. “What if I don’t want to be released?”
She grins and leans toward me.
I kiss her, no hands, just mouths. She tastes like minty coffee. Irish Cream.
I withdraw a fraction so I can still feel her mouth graze my lips as I say, “Can I take you out after?”
“At ten?”
I shrug. “Or make sure you get home safe?”
She grins. “I’d love to see you.” Pressing a hand against my cheek, she gives me one of her beautiful Hannah smiles that hits me like an arrow in the bullseye of my heart, causing it to sputter. “And now I don’t want to get ready for class. I just want to stay here with you.”
I give her another smile and offer her my raised eyebrows. “I could help you get ready.” I wiggle my eyebrows.
She giggles. “We’ll never make it to class.”
I laugh quietly as she disappears down the hall. After a sip of my coffee, I return to my phone while I wait. Gabe has texted back.
Gabe: WTF? It’s the freaking butt crack of dawn. Why are you up so early and sending me texts that wake me up?
Me: Why isn’t your phone set to do not disturb?
Me: And the butt crack of dawn is when all the early birds catch the worms.
Gabe: Who the fuck wants worms?
Me: If it means winning, me.
Gabe: What did you win?
Me: Hopefully the girl of my dreams.
Gabe: I want all the deets.
Me: No kissing and telling.
Gabe: So there was kissing and something to tell.
Me: No comment.
Gabe: [high five]
Me: I’ll call you later.
When Hannah and I finally leave the apartment, I open the door, laughing at something Hannah said, then notice her freeze, her smile sliding from her pretty face as she looks down at something. I follow her gaze. On the mat outside the door is the bouquet of roses Sebastian brought over, though it looks as though he smashed them. Some of the blossoms have been decapitated, petals littering the ground around it.
My insides tighten with familiarity as the freight train picks up speed once more, and I wonder again just how similar Sebastian and my dad really are?