to me it should be the other way around. Shouldn’t it? You’re a teenager. You need to talk about how you feel.”
“Oh, God …” I hide my face in the couch cushion. I can’t take the awkwardness.
Relentless, she leans in and takes my hands in hers. “Your body is sacred, Melissa. Your body is beautiful and miraculous and sacred.”
I feel like an idiot sitting here on the couch holding hands. But I let her continue because otherwise she’ll keep pestering me.
“Your body is sacred. It’s the most miraculous thing you own. Can you say you truly own anything, Melissa? Anything except your own body? A woman’s body is the most precious gift. If you give it away for free, it becomes worthless. And then the most precious, the most valuable thing you own, your body, becomes worthless. And soon you begin to feel worthless as well.”
She flips over my right hand and starts to rub my palm.
“Do you feel worthless, Melissa?”
Her question freaks me out. It’s a terrible thing to ask. Not many things people say can truly shock me. But for once, an adult, this crazy lady, is speaking the truth. For once, someone has had the guts to say it like it is. I’m both excited and upset: excited because I finally have an answer but upset at the bare-boned truth. Do I feel worthless?
Yes. That is exactly how I feel. Worthless.
And every guy I was with, every fuckin’ one of them, has stripped my soul. How did I not see that?
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Your body is sacred,” she repeats.
“You said that already.”
“Your body is sacred,” she says again, like she didn’t even hear me. She just keeps rubbing my palm.
“Okay … enough.” I pull my hand away a bit, but she holds tight and keeps rubbing, so I just let her do what she wants.
“Your body is sacred. Your body is sacred,” she says again and again, as if she were chanting, her eyes closed. My palm starts to burn. I feel so dumb, but for some reason I don’t really want to stop her, so I close my eyes so I don’t feel as stupid.
“My body is sacred, my body is sacred, my body is sacred …” she starts chanting, over and over, so that the words, the rhythm, start to go into my head. And I find myself thinking the words along with her, and they don’t sound so dumb anymore.
My body is sacred. My body is sacred. My body is sacred.
Sixty-Four
Fortune calls my cell at two in the morning. He’s called me lots of times in the past couple of weeks, but I never answer. This time I do, because I’m still awake. He tells me he wants to see me. He pretends nothing ever happened between us, that there was no fight. He doesn’t even ask me about my OD, though I’m sure he knows. He just picks up the conversation like we were hanging out only yesterday.
“I’m doing my own thing,” I say groggily.
“What’s that mean?”
“I mean, I’m on my own. I don’t want a boyfriend. I’m gonna be alone.”
“Ha! You can’t be alone.”
“Fuck you,” I say, in a joking way. I have to admit, it feels sort of nice to be talking to him.
“Come on, baby, come over.” His voice sounds quiet and sleepy and sexy. “I wanna see you. I wanna hold you, babe. I miss you so much …”
I pull my blanket over my head. “You don’t miss me.”
“I do. Really. I think about you all the time. I miss your body—”
“My body is sacred,” I interrupt him before I can stop the words from coming out of my mouth.
He laughs. “Wha’d you say?”
“Forget it.”
He starts laughing really hard. “Did you say your body is sacred?” Then he starts fake-laughing just to make me feel like an idiot. And I wonder, why was I ever into him in the first place? At first I think about explaining my words, telling him about Crystal and what happened, but then I think it’s just too long a story and he won’t get it, and why do I need to explain anything to him anyway? I’ll prove to him, to everyone, that I changed just by living my life. He’ll see that I’m not messing around with guys anymore. He’ll see that soon enough.
“Whatever. I gotta go.” I close the phone and switch it off.
Freestyle told me, “Never try to teach a pig to think. It doesn’t work,