Part Three: Child

Like a baby, your face is red and covered in dried tears and snot. I softly touch your hot, rough cheek, scalded by my hard palm.

We’re both covered in sweat, and the lamp flickers once. Even in the dark I can make out the blood from the vessels I broke, and I see that they’ve begun to pool beneath your skin, under the lines and scars of your thighs. I reach to hold you, and, in response, your limbs tighten against your body. My eyes then glance at the lines on my own stretching arms, and, for some reason, I stop myself.

My heart is no good, so I pull my body up and onto my feet. Part of me wants to leave, but instead I find myself turning around and kneeling beside the bed, slowly raising my hand, wondering if I should touch you because I’ve already touched you enough. My lifted hand pauses, breath held, but I remember the way you used to smile, so I place it on your head just like before. You don’t react, but neither do you pull away, so I watch your ribcage rise and fall as I stroke your hair.

There was always something about you. Maybe it was the feeling of your fists clinging to my pants, or the way your grip would then tighten in mine, but I’m not sure. Back when your mother insisted on being around when you visited, your body was smaller, almost shrunken to nothing, as if to make up for the pain you caused her for being born. The bigger you grew, the more you tried to hide your body, until she decided you really were just nothing but a bad mistake and decided that she no longer wanted to be your mother. Once you started to crawl, alone, into the back of the car I borrowed from Mom, I would put in one of my favorite CDs, and in the rearview mirror I’d see you looking out the window, kicking your legs to the beat, until we arrived home.

For years I wouldn’t see you smile, that is, until you were in this very room, staying over for the night for the first time, and I was nineteen years old.

At that memory, my hand stops, and you squeeze your legs to your chest. You were so quiet back then. My room is safe, so I always kept you in here. We listened to the music you picked out from my collection, and you drew in my old school notebooks while watching me play video games. You liked to draw pictures of what you saw on the screen, but instead of my character, you would draw me. Sometimes I like to look back at ones where I’m holding a gun and protecting you from people—or maybe they’re monsters, but I guess it’s the same thing. Everyone else had scribbled faces while we wore smiles.

Sometimes you had a little gun too. It was cute.

I take my hand back and lean down to sit you up, steadying your body. With your hand in mine, I pull you to your feet, and I put your glasses on before mine. You avoid looking at me, but you don’t put up a fight and there’s not much more I could ask from you anymore. Your hand clutches my forearm, your untouched skin pressed against my scars, and we step out of my bedroom and into the dark hall.

I lead you into the bathroom, guiding you to the toilet, expecting you to sit, but you don’t budge. Gently, I hold your arms and lower you over the toilet, watching your toes curl in, thighs shaking. I’m confused by your hesitance until you give in and lightly set yourself down. You tighten your legs, but I hear air expelling from your body, down where it was torn open.

You smack my palm away and cover your eyes. I place my hand on your shoulder and just like that you start shaking and your mouth bursts into a sob. Unsure of what to do, I stand there, blank-faced, because this time your tears don’t give me the same kind of excitement they usually do. I’m still until you scratch yourself, and I crouch down and try to stop your hands from mangling your face.

“My-my stomach hurts. And—It just—You br-broke it. Down there... I can’t—“

Your body squeezes, and, through your sobs, I can hear something wet falling into the toilet water. You shove me, and I fall on my ass. You scream at me to get out, so, silently, I leave, and you slam the door behind me, the loud bang ringing in my ear, conjoint with your erratic cries.

I can still hear you sobbing when I make it back to my room. My heart beats in my chest as I slip back on my boxers, and I walk back to the place I know that you now hate. I gather the mess of sheets and replay what had just happened in my mind. Maybe it was the look on your face when your body couldn’t hold it in, the way your scrawny limbs pushed me, or the humiliation over your newly broken body, but I just can’t help it. My face contorts into a smile, cheeks squeezing the tears back into their ducts.

It’ll probably be alright, but it’s hard not to imagine your pouting lips, spiteful gaze, and red flushed face if I surprised you with a pack of diapers. It’s a little funny, I’ll admit: the way you get so embarrassed about everything, like the time you tried on a dress at the store. The dress was tasteful and mature, something you’d expect at a job interview, which is exactly what you were looking for. Despite that, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at how thin and boyish your legs looked, each like a Twizzler with a knot tied in the middle. I recall when I stopped laughing, though, when an older woman, well-dressed with nails sharp and fresh from the salon, crossed her arms and glared at me. My hands fell back to my sides, and I held my head down low, fists tight. You glanced back at her, and I couldn’t remember the face you wore because I couldn’t feel anything but anger. All I know is that it was a kind of look you never give to me, and you decided to get the dress anyway, all because someone else made you feel like you had a chance. I still paid for it despite everything because I still loved you, I guess.

I left the store right after, and if you hadn’t caught up with me in time, I think I would have left you in the parking lot, because nobody gets it. Not even you.

I scoff, holding in the wetness in my eyes, and roll the bedsheets into my arms.

Through the dark, I stumble over to the laundry room and shove the sheets into the washer. I pour in the detergent from the bottle without measuring and slam the lid with a loud, metallic bang. Normally, I prefer to rot in old sheets, but they’ve gone from musty to sticky, and I want you to sleep comfortably tonight, so that’s why I’m washing them.

I make my way to the bathroom, and the sound of the shower head prompts a satisfied nod from me, so I shuffle into your room to fetch you a change of clothes.

Stepping in, I notice old candy bar wrappers on your bed, and I smile to myself. You’re a slob just like your old man. Despite my amusement, I reach over to pick them up for you, since I know how we both also hate ants.

Next to me, I toss the wrappers into your bin, but one manages to float down into a dark corner where it doesn’t belong. I sigh, then lean down to grab it, but my eyes get caught on a glint below your bed, and, to sate my curiosity, I reach for it.

Before I know it, I’m on my knees holding a plastic box of razors that used to sit in my nightstand drawer. A few years ago, I realized they were gone, and I figured that I had gotten drunk or high one night and tossed them out and forgot about it. I never thought to check if you had them.

I open the box with familiar movements and rattle the collection of blades, all sorted into their own little compartments, and I peek into them, each razor having rusted more than the one that came after it.

Most of them look the same with varying degrees of dirt and wear—just things I had stolen from a local drugstore growing up. They’re nothing special, except for a few.

I look into the very last compartment. These are the only ones that weren’t mine—little razors from school pencil sharpeners. You were probably fourteen when I found them. I wasn’t surprised, but I felt disappointed nevertheless.

My stupid daughter, you didn’t know that I stopped all that time ago because of you. I wasted money on two empty years of therapy, and I became someone so boring I barely recognized myself, just so I could properly take you in, because you wanted to be with me. There were so many times I wanted to give up, but I kept going only because it meant that maybe I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

It was plain to see. I wasn’t dumb, but teenagers are. I saw how the marks started small, along with the way you didn’t wear shorts anymore. And I saw how you glanced at my own scars, and I couldn’t tell if the look in your eyes was disgust, fascination, or sympathy. Maybe it was all of that.

You were so bad at hiding it, so one day when you were at school, I came home early from work and rummaged through your room.

There they were, tucked away in the back of your underwear drawer, as if you thought your dad wouldn’t go through the panties I had bought for you.

I don’t remember much, other than taking the cloth wrapping your razors in my hands, dumping the pieces of metal into my collection, then slamming the drawer to my nightstand shut. It took you a while, but I knew you found out when you were quiet one night during dinner and refused to look at me.

At the time, I didn’t want you to be like me. I thought I wanted you to grow up into someone else better than me, because that’s what a parent should want for his child.

My eyes glanced over the other compartments until they land on the very first one. The blades in there have a different shape, as they were part of my mom’s disposable razors that I plucked from the trashcan, picked apart from their cartridges, and then got bent and rusted from years of use until they became so dull that they couldn’t manage to break skin anymore without leaving me crying. They’re special because I loved them dearly, because I loved my mom. I love her.

My eyes gloss over the other compartments. Useless memories of things that I just want to forget, but can’t seem to let go. Like the time half the football team shoved me to the ground and crushed my glasses in front of the girl I liked, and when she laughed, or when I followed her home later that week, only to find that she was visiting family and that she was a complete whore. Like the memory of when I pressed my ear under the frame of her window and listened to them fuck while the adults weren’t home, when she screamed her cousin’s name, which happened to be the same as mine. Like when I ran home after, tears soaking my favorite shirt, to reach for this same box, causing my collection to rattle with the shaking of my hands, which were smaller back then.

I don’t remember what it was like to be small and held. Maybe I never was, I don’t know. I just remember being sixteen, locked in my room, slicing red lines into my arms, smearing the blood, until my mom came home from places that weren’t work, covered in marks that weren’t mine, feeling alone. You weren’t there with me, and during that time you barely knew who I was. We were so far apart.

My hands reach for your blades and take one gingerly between two fingers, tracing another along the thin edge.

But now, you know everything about me, and I know everything about you. When I’m with you, it’s like I’m looking at myself when I was fourteen, like I can touch my childhood again through you, but it’s much better than it ever was. Do you feel the same way about me? I can make us young again.

I sit myself on the floor, back leaned against your bed. It feels bad, because it’s smaller than my own. It makes my body feel bigger.

I put all those feelings of wanting to be fifteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-five, or even just thirty again into your blade, and I press it against my unmarked legs, sliding across, and a line of red begins to peek through the top layer of my skin. Exposing something, maybe my flesh, maybe something more. Your razor gets caught on the hair of my legs, but that doesn’t stop me. I keep going, slicing them, cutting in, deeper.

... One slash, for the first time you fell asleep in my arms.

... A second one for your first word being “Dad.”

... And a third for when you learned how to stand, and you walked straight into my arms.

Tears roll down my face just like before, but this time it’s because I’m just so happy. I never thought that I could feel this loved in my life, especially not by someone as small as you.

We can live like this forever. We can eat and act like animals, and we can play pretend like little boys even though you’re a girl because it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. I just love you.

Only when I’m with you do I feel happy that I’m big. I can hold you, I can hold you inside, I can keep you with me forever, and ever, and ever.

Always.

Always.

Always. Always. Always.

In this home of ours.

Always.

The shaking in my hand doesn’t stop when I lift the blade away, blood leaking from my skin, mixed with tears and sweat, dripping onto your baby yellow rug.

I take a hand and rub it in, staining it shit-orange. Blade in hand, I stand up with quivering legs.

They probably don’t look like how yours do, but that’s fine, because it’s more important your arms look like mine.

---

Before I know it, I find myself in front of the bathroom. I knock on the door, and the icy silence makes me swallow, so I reach for the knob.

It’s unlocked.

With a creak, I open the door and the lights are off except for the nightlight, and I see your silhouette sitting in the bathtub, barely filled.

“Piper...?”

My voice is quiet, and it comes out so strangely that even you look up to check that it really is me. And it is, except maybe I look strange too, because when you see me your eyes widen for a moment before lowering, and you let go of your knees.

“What did you do?” Your eyes rest on my thighs, your fingers running along the bumps of your own scars.

“Ha ha.”

I walk towards you, hoping you don’t see the razor behind my hand.

Slowly, I take off my underwear, not caring if it stains with my blood, and I slip into the tub. The water is cold, but thankfully it’s only a few inches deep, so, carefully, I sit down behind you.

You turn your body and look at my legs while I rest my chin on your shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” you tell me, as if I don’t know that.

I bury my face deeper into your sticky skin, and you run your finger along my drying blood, smooth skin tickling my pulsing hot thigh. A few moments pass, and you stop.

“Why?” You wash the blood off your fingers in the bathwater.

“I wanted us to be the same.”

“Is that why you hurt me.”

I breathe in your scent.

“Kind of. Can you turn on the water? It’s cold.”

You lean forward, and while you adjust the knobs, I look at the razor in my hand.

When you’re done, warmth slowly fills the tub, and I bring the razor in front of us. It catches a glint from the nightlight, still pink from my blood. I feel your shoulder tense underneath my jaw, and I slide my grip down your arm, stopping to hold your wrist in place. And just like that, you’re quiet again, so I whisper into your ear.

“I’ll be gentler with you.”

I kiss you on the temple, and you don’t fight me as I slide the razor teasingly across your skin.

“Dad...” Your voice is small, just how I like it.

Lightly, I press the razor into your skin, and you breathe through your teeth, but I lean into you as I see the blood form into beads along the cut. It’s short and curved—innocent and small.

“This one is for the first kiss you gave me. The one that started it all.”

I can feel the pulse of your neck against my cheek, and I hope that in turn you can feel my heart beating into your back.

I move the razor down.

“This one is for the way you look at me when we lay in bed together.”

It’s a longer cut, tapering softly at the end. It looks the way your fingers tracing along the edges of my face feels.

“And this one is for having been born.”

That cut is deeper, and the beads of blood bobble down your skin, dripping into the water below and blooming into small pink puffs before fading into nothing.

Line after line, your breath eventually steadies, and you accept each cut like a narcotic, leaning into me.

When I’m done, I place the unbent razor, clean from rust, down on the edge of the tub, and the warmth of the water coats our skin, finally feeling like something.

I kiss you on the cheek again, and to my surprise, you turn your face toward me and you press your lips lightly against mine.

You hold your arms and look at them. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I bring mine up, side by side, and we look at our matching scars.

A girl and her dad, two puzzle pieces fitting perfectly into each other.

We’ll keep each other warm forever, I think, because we only have each other, and it’s been so hard to find a way to tell you that.

I think I want to be forgiven. For everything. Because I forgive you too.

I lean into you more, hoping we never separate, and you lace your fingers with mine, our wounds, old and new, pressed together.

In pink, warm water, I hold you tight and let our shared blood warm us.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe I only love you.

I wrap my arms tight around your small body, hanging my neck, burying it into the crook of your neck. Something strange happens inside my chest, and my face grows hot before I realize my eyes are leaking onto your shoulder, dripping down your collarbone.

The water continues to fill the tub. It's starting to feel less cold, and the glow of the nightlight somehow feels warmer. The wind blows quietly through the cracked bathroom window, and I listen to the sound of cars rushing by.

Time stops when I feel small fingers running through my hair, and the sound of my own breaking breath fills the room.

My voice becomes so small that it scares me.

“Do you love me still?”

You say nothing, and your fingers answer for you as they gently twirl the strands of my dead hair, melting them together into something soft.

I don’t know what I would do without you. I probably would have been found dead long ago. My heart is strange, so I always wondered if even you could love it.

Shifting, closing our distance even more, my skin feels bad except where our blood touches, and I firmly press our tongues together, warm and metallic.

No matter what we do, our love will stay pure. I know it. And it’s all because you’re my daughter.

My child.

My entire universe, all in one.

You really were born to love me.

Stay with your dad forever, okay? You need him, and he needs you, too.

Always.