Anita

ANITA

Anita lay down on the soft, damp grass and closed her eyes to begin remembering him. She inhaled the rich, dew-filled, green grass beneath her and its smell reminded her of their time in the tent. They had put up that tent in the wind and rain, not sure but not caring, if it would hold up all night. They didn’t think of such things back then when they were free and light. They had only needed one another. They had been in that tent, entwined together, warm, safe, and loving and that was all that mattered. She felt his arms, smelt him all around her, heard his voice whispering to her.
“I love you.”
She breathed in the words and rolled them around. I love you. I love you. I love you. She heard him speak those wonderful words, his mouth close to her ear, his breath breathing the words as he spoke. I love you. I love you.
I. Love. You.
She rolled the words around her mind, letting them roam free to wherever they wanted. Letting them resonate carefully, gently, in her mind, around her head, filling up all the space inside. They bounced gently around each part of her mind until all her thoughts were of I love you. She began to allow the words to move from her head, down her neck, from where they raced into her body, uncontrollably. They wanted to be everywhere, to fill her. I love yous rushed down her arms to her fingertips and down her body to her legs and feet and toes and made them tingle because of the words he loved her with. Racing around all through her, those words, humming and buzzing just under the surface of the skin, so it felt like she was glowing. Glowing with his words. His words of love. Expressed so freely and so intently. And there they roamed, fast and flowing, beneath the skin, creating a layer of energy that made her warm and protected from the damp grass, allowing her to stay there for hours, enveloped in his safe love.
As always, when the buzz of the words was flowing freely, she began wiling the very words to bury down, deeper than the surface. To bury down, furtively, and take the buzz and the love further down to where it could, and where it would, reach her. If only it could find its way deeper. She urged herself, gently and slowly, to feel the words, to experience the meaning, deeper down than the surface. To receive the love he had so freely given her. Just to believe and to trust and to appreciate that love, where she needed it the most. To open herself to what he was saying and to let what he had said, reach her. To reach her just once, just for a moment, all the way down inside, where she was hidden. Silently waiting to be reached.

The silence continued until she could not concentrate any longer. She exhaled loudly, letting go of her desperation to have his words penetrate her, and all around the dewy grass soaked up her sigh until it disappeared, silently.
Anita lay still. The ground had turned damp again and her lover was gone. She was left only with the reality of her impenetrable frame. She was trapped, it seemed, inside this impassable casing, built to protect her core from exposure to such dangerous words. She could not force herself to feel it but she knew, she sensed, that if that love he had felt could only touch her, however briefly, she could then rest. Today, her heart just wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t reason. Again. She simply had to hope that one day it would come. One day.
Anita opened her eyes and propped herself up to bring her thoughts back to the park. She wiped her hands, slightly wet from the dew, on her red dress, now dirty and soiled from constant wear. He had given her the dress on a sunny day in a September, many years ago, as a present. A present for trying so hard, he had told her. It was at a time when, for a spell, she had been feeling better. And, he had been right, she had tried hard. She’d smiled more, trying to be less serious and more cheerful. She hadn’t asked questions about everything he did. She hadn’t checked on him. She’d believed his words. Even inside she had believed them, almost. For that time, she had contained herself. Contained her thoughts. Her roaming thoughts. Her destructive thoughts, he had called them. They’d felt happy, for that time, happier than they had been since the beginning. She had struggled into that bright red dress the moment he had given it to her, feeling overjoyed, overwhelmed that she had done something right. She had pleased him. And this pleased her. That night they had danced, in their front room, under the stark light bulb with no shade. And he had looked at her, into her eyes. Pierced her. Nearly. He had nearly been there. He had ever so nearly reached inside and touched her. And in her red dress, being held by him, having him watch her, she had felt pretty and bright and fresh and new. More certain than ever that her heart would allow him in. But then the cat died and the bad feelings had started again.

Anita had always been left, at some stage or another. Left alone, without warning, without explanation. Never time to say goodbye or to find out why they were going. And now Cat had gone in just the same way. No explanation, the vet had said. Cat just died. Died when Anita wasn’t there so she couldn’t have helped. Couldn’t have stopped Cat going, couldn’t show how much she cared. The new kitten that he had bought her, to ease the pain, didn’t ease anything. Kitten didn’t like Anita. It only liked him. It was those two together and her alone, again.
During the days at home alone, waiting for him to get back from work, watching kitten happy in its own company, Anita had come to realise that the only way she would stay alive was to never be alone. It was when people were alone that they disappeared. They went, died, just as the Cat had. Alone. Anita was alone. Even when he came home from work, back then, he would busy himself with cooking, cleaning the house, sorting bills he said. Paying no attention to her. It was whilst they had been not paying attention to Cat, not noticing her, that’s when Cat had died. Anita wasn’t noticed anymore and she knew she would die. She wouldn’t exist once she wasn’t noticed at all. She’d had to ensure that that wouldn’t happen. He’d have to stop leaving her alone. Of course, he refused to stop going to work but he had to stay home because she started to suffocate when he left the house. She couldn’t get enough air in. She’d gasp and choke and bang on the window until he came back up the path. She couldn’t breathe unless he was near, in sight, keeping her safe, checking she was still alive.
He got angry, many times, and once he didn’t turn back up the path despite her choking and banging on the window for his help. He just kept on walking, not even looking back. Anita had gasped and wheezed for breath for hours, hanging onto the window pane, waiting for him to come back so she could breathe again. And she knew, at that time, that there would be a death that day, in that house. It was just her and kitten and whoever was left alone would die. Anita was always left alone, not kitten. And with aloneness came death. It was inevitable, it had always happened like that. Without kitten, she would die that day. She had been sure of it.
He had been sorry, later, when he arrived back home and saw what she had done to kitten. She had wept and explained how this had been the only way to keep kitten with her. The only way to keep herself alive until he got home. It was an accident. He was so good to her. He had stroked her hair, quietly on the kitchen floor, next to kitten’s body, telling her over and over, that he understood. That he would never let her die alone, without him. That it wasn’t her fault. And he put her to bed early, carrying her up the stairs like a child, into the spare room where she would be safe, he had said. He would guard the door all night, checking on her to see she was still breathing, he had promised. She had heard him lock the door, to make sure she was totally safe and secure, he had whispered through the door. Anita had laid in bed, staring at his shadow under the crack of the door, the hall light spilling around his feet. She had wanted him to be with her, in that bed, holding her and touching her but she grew so tired of crying out to him, begging him to come in and hold her, that she eventually fell asleep, alone, for days.
She was relieved, in a way, when they turned the lock and came through the door, even though they weren’t him. She had been in that room, stuck, all alone for so long that she didn’t care that they were strangers, opening the bedroom door. She lunged towards them anyway, grabbing hold, pressing herself into both of them, not letting go. Breathing them in and crying because she wasn’t alone anymore. She was safe from death, at least.

And she hadn’t died when he wasn’t there because somebody else always was. She hadn’t been truly alone for years. Even when she couldn’t see them, she knew they were always there. And they’d come, if she cried out, if she screamed, if she needed them. It didn’t matter what they did to her, it just mattered that they came. Because then she wouldn’t die.
Anita had, slowly, gradually, learned the truth about herself and about him. She didn’t blame him for what he had done. She could see, now, that he had loved her. That he didn’t want to leave her. But she could not recover. She did not want to recover. She didn’t want to pick up her life and start again. There was no point if she couldn’t take back what had happened with him. It was best to stay there, hidden.
Anita exhaled and got to her feet. She walked slowly and deliberately to the green park bench where she, and they, knew they would find her. She sat, lightly on the edge, watching a man let his dog off its lead. The dog ran across the grass and into the trees, delighted, as his ears flapped and his tongue lapped up the wind as he ran, with such freedom.
Anita felt the hand rest on her shoulder.
“Come on Anita, time to go home.” The voice was gentle and understanding. Anita stood up and took their hand, walking away from the park, resigned. Maybe tomorrow she would feel it.