In Body I Trust Read online

  But Emmett insisted. They exchanged phone numbers so they could plan to meet up for a walk with the dogs the following day.

  Amelia didn’t know if the words that were about to come out of her mouth next would be a mistake or not. Either way, the comfort she found in their conversation was enough for her to pull the trigger.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  Emmett looked at Amelia with endearing eyes.

  “One of my delusions is that I believe I’m being monitored at all times. I accept it as a fact and cannot convince myself otherwise.

  “But I also know how ridiculous and unlikely it is. Or like my hallucinations—I experience them as part of reality, but I also know that no one else can see them.”

  Amelia didn’t understand, which Emmett must have read by the look on her face.

  “What I’m saying is that you, Amelia, are real. You are 100% human just like me. You are not some contradictory belief or conspiracy. You are valid and deserve to be treated as such by every person you allow to enter into your life.”

  Her heart beat faster and her armpits began to sweat profusely. It wasn’t out of fear or anxiety this time. It was pure and innocent adoration for another human being. Someone who saw her and had her back, even when she wasn’t looking. Her guardian angel, her patron saint of lonely souls.

  “Would it be okay if I hugged you?” Amelia asked. She didn’t realize she’d started to cry. Without saying a word, Emmett smiled and opened his arms for a hug. She hadn’t experienced physical touch from another person in months. It was warm and comforting, even with his slightly pungent body odor from sitting in the heat wearing a long sleeve flannel. Amelia didn’t care.

  She dried the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. Amelia looked down at her phone in the grass to check the time. They’d been sitting outside long enough to get burnt from the Denver sun. The Mile High City. One mile closer to the sky.

  “I think I’m going to head inside before my translucent skin starts to fry. Thank you again, Emmett, so much.” If Amelia had to choose one quality about herself that she liked, it would be her sincerity.

  “Anytime,” Emmett said, going in for another hug to say goodbye. “Here is the first of your daily reminders that you’re a wonderful human being.”

  Amelia pulled back to show her gratitude with a smile. She pulled out her keys, unlocked the main door, and let Luna take the lead up the stairs to the third floor.

  The minute she entered her apartment, the world decelerated around her. Everything moved in slow motion again, like a sloth attempting to make its way across a branch. Within seconds of being alone, the little monster had suppressed every ounce of positivity she’d just experienced. She wanted to fast forward to the part where she’d be asleep again, away from her lonely world.

  She looked down at Emmett’s book sitting on the counter. The cover showed a young man’s face wearing sunglasses. Clearly it wasn’t Emmett, but rather some stock photo his publisher had chosen. It didn’t match his anarchist vibe or depict the shaggy mullet he had prior to moving on his corner of Capitol Hill over seven years ago. He’d said he hated the picture, but Amelia loved it. It was a portal into his world. A world other than her own that she could dive into as a distraction. What better time to start reading it than now?

  There was a tinfoil-covered bread pan on the counter next to Emmett’s book. Amelia lifted the foil, exposing an entire loaf of banana bread. She’d forgotten that she’d made it a few days ago. It was still fresh, as proven by the waft of the decadent pastry taunting her nostrils. She’d baked it with good intentions, but like her groceries, she’d never gotten around to eating it.

  Amelia grabbed her bowl and packed it with whatever weed she had left.

  If only my neighbors knew my true reason for smoking.

  Some of the residents of her building attached a stigma to smoking weed despite it being legal in Colorado. Maybe it was generational. Retired couples shot glares of harsh judgement in her direction when she walked by. The looks made her self-conscious and indicated that they didn’t like her.

  Her neighbors didn’t know she got high because she wanted to give herself a break from the constant, self-induced pressure. They didn’t know she was only trying to calm her anxiety and allow her body to finally eat. People tend to judge what they don’t know. They create their own narratives instead of reading directly from the source. She’d have to stealthily smoke her bowl in the corner of her balcony, basking in the shame that triggered her need to smoke in the first place.

  All she wanted was to pretend the little monster didn’t exist and take a bite of her homemade banana bread. She wanted to feel normal. She wanted to eat.

  One hit, two hits, three hits, four. She found herself on the bathroom floor.

  It was a poem she recited to herself whenever she hung out with Mary Jane. It took Amelia about four hits before she would grow faint and be unable to walk. She’d crawl from the balcony, down the hall, and into the bathroom which connected to her bedroom. The dizziness may have been from low blood sugar, the altitude, or a combination of both. Regardless, it didn’t stop her from enjoying the high.

  Each inhale swam through her like a fish through the ocean. Her breath elevated with the sensation of floating above herself. There it was. The release of shame evaporated along with any care for what others might have thought about her. All of it was now a cloud of smoke making its way through the city streets of downtown Denver. Her only concern now was to make it from the balcony to the bathroom.

  Amelia propped herself up from the chair. She put all one hundred and ten pounds of her body weight onto the frame of the doorway and successfully made it inside. She dropped to the ground on all fours and crawled like a drunken child into her bathroom, collapsing against the floor to let her tired, foggy head rest on the cool tile.

  The lights above the sink hummed as she stared at the ceiling. She wiggled out of her oversized sweatpants and baggy T-shirt, wearing only a pair of light purple underwear and a knitted maroon tank top she bought in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The weed kicked in and did its job, taking her away from reality once more. Her lifeless legs melted to the floor while Amelia melted into a memory. Her vision faded to white. She was back in South America, laying on the beach.

  The sand was beautiful shades of white, the water far from clear. The heat from the sun had made the ocean lukewarm, like unrefreshing bath water. If she walked far enough along the coast, it would lead her to a desolate area to relax. Mar del Plata was something else entirely. The water lacked transparency and the sand burned her feet. It wasn’t specifically the beach that made it special; it was the people.

  From every pier were contagious rhythms of reggaeton and salsa while the lifeguards blew their whistles. There were several moments where the entire beach became a symphony of hands clapping to a steady beat. It was like everyone there spoke the same cryptic language—a universal camaraderie—and Dominic and Amelia were the outsiders. Someone nearby noticed their confusion and told them they were signaling that a child had been found and needed to be returned to its family. If a family was missing a child, they would know where to go.

  Old men wandered the beach, shouting in hoarse voices, “Cerveza! Aqua! Coca fría!” Each one was in a uniform of white, baggy pants and a Coca-Cola T-shirt while carrying coolers around their necks. Men with the darkest skin she’d ever seen toted towers of hats and suitcases filled with watches and silver chains. Women with the smoothest complexion wore plastic billboards with poorly taped photos portraying various beaded hair designs while they roamed the beach selling their craft to young ladies.

  The beachgoers themselves were a sight like no other. People of all shapes and sizes lathered their peeling skin with oils and Vaseline, as if begging the sun to give them more. The women’s stomachs hung over their bikini lines, each one telling a story of their childbearing years. Amelia wished she could love the story of her body like those women.

&n
bsp; She watched a little boy in bright yellow swim shorts run in and out of the water. Over and over again he ran back to his family on the beach, gasping for air. Drool fell down his chest. He grabbed a bottle of water, took a sip, swished it around his mouth, and spit it onto the sand. After a few more swigs, he ran right back into the monstrous waves, begging for more.

  He came back again, as if on a schedule. This time he poured the water directly into his eyes. He was having so much fun. He didn’t care about the repercussions of his actions.

  Amelia sunk her heels into the sand to exfoliate her dry, cracking soles, worn from miles of walking in the wrong shoes. Her feet were shriveled and peeling from overexposure to the sun. But, just like the scrawny boy in the yellow shorts, she didn’t care about the repercussions of her actions.

  A message graffitied onto the concrete along one of the piers: “La tierra no es tu basura.” Which meant: “The Earth is not your garbage.” Ironically, the sand was covered in cigarette butts, scraps of plastic, and bits of half-eaten food. One giant pile of basura and no one gave two shits about it.

  It was too hot to continue sitting on the towel. Amelia jumped up and carefully stepped around the sea of people to cool off in the water, despite knowing that others would see her in a bathing suit. She was okay, though. They were strangers she knew she’d never see again.

  A chill ran up her body as the waves crashed against her stomach, a stomach she had forgotten about. Little by little, she walked in up to her chest and eventually dove all the way in. She brushed her hair, salty and wet, away from her face. She stood up to look out towards Dominic. Behind her, a wave was getting ready to break. It was as if, as a child, she’d never learned the lesson to not put her back against the waves.

  The resulting crash sent her tumbling forward and sucked her under. It was silent down below; she wondered if she wanted to put up a fight to reach the top. Saltwater shot straight up her nose as she struggled to breathe. Finally free of the undertow, she stood up in shock and gasped for air, scrambling to make sure her lady bits hadn’t fallen out.

  She looked up and once again saw Dominic. Only this time he was laughing. Salty, sandy snot dripped down her face and she burst into laughter with him. They were both laughing. Together.

  These were the moments she lived for. Simplistic and happy. Not a care in the world. No acknowledgment of her body or thoughts of self-hatred. Just happy.

  They sat back down on their trash-covered towels to dry off with very little space between them and the next family over in every direction. The boy in the yellow shorts came back. He grabbed his bottle of water, took a black garbage bag, and set it meticulously on the sand to use as a seat. This time he drank his water, admitting defeat.

  Amelia opened her eyes, a small, temporary smirk on her face. Her head still, she scanned the room until she realized where she was: Laying on the floor, admitting her own defeat. The smirk vanished, thankfully along with the dizziness.

  “Slowly,” she said out loud for no one to hear. She needed to remind herself to make gradual movements, otherwise she’d end up right back on the ground. She grabbed the edge of the bathroom counter with both hands and used whatever strength she had left to stand up. She blinked her dry eyes to clear them up, but it wasn’t helping. Unable to see, she took out her contacts and replaced them with glasses. Amelia cleaned the lenses with her shirt and looked up, catching her reflection in the mirror.

  There was only one mirror she was allowed to use in the apartment. Its sole purpose was to make sure there was nothing on her face before leaving the house. If it ever became too much, she’d use tacks to pin pillowcases or bedsheets to the wall and cover as much of the glass as possible.

  She looked herself up and down in the mirror, seeing her body grow in front of her eyes. Her thighs and calves blew up like someone inflating an air mattress. There, hanging beneath her biceps, were gallons of goop, sagging and swaying in slow motion as she lifted her arms above her head. Her body dysmorphia was taking over, only allowing Amelia to see a version of herself that wasn’t actually there.

  “It’s not real, it’s your brain playing tricks on you,” she said out loud, calling out her eating disorder just like Miranda told her to do.

  “What you are seeing is not real. It’s happening because the monster thinks you’re weak. It’s just your brain. It’s not real. That is not your body.”

  She repeated this mantra over and over until she couldn’t take it anymore. Amelia veered her gaze away and looked down towards the floor. It was better to focus on her feet. Luna laid down on the bath rug in her usual Swiss Roll position. Luna wasn’t fazed by what had just transpired. It was a regular occurrence. A part of the routine.

  Amelia grabbed her phone to text Emmett and tell him what happened—the tragically comedic irony that she almost passed out in her screwed-up attempt to eat banana bread. But she wouldn’t. Texting him would reinforce the narrative that she was a constant burden to others around her. She’d just met him and was already wanting to purge her hardships onto someone else. This was one of those situations where she’d let destiny take its course. She wanted to believe they were instantly connected on some spiritual level. That telepathically, Emmett knew when she was in distress and needed a friend.

  Her phone vibrated and lit up on the bathroom counter. She squinted at the screen, pulling her phone slightly away from her face to make out what it said.

  It was a text from Emmett. Destiny taking its course. She managed to conjure enough energy to move her fingers across the screen to respond. Too much weed and not enough banana bread. He replied instantaneously.

  EMMETT: You doing okay?

  AMELIA: Ya, I’m alright now, it’s just one of the scarier parts about living alone. I’m good though.

  EMMETT: I feel you on that. I tried to teach Kerrin the Heimlich, but she still doesn’t have the hang of it.

  He had this way of taking darkness and turning it into light. Probably because he had years of practice with his own demons. He’d learned the valuable skill of being able to turn something scary into something almost laughable.

  Amelia set her phone down on her bedside table and went into the kitchen to grab Emmett’s book. She was at ease and it was all because of a simple gesture, a text, from a near-stranger. Amelia crawled into bed and called out for Luna to join her. She sprinted up onto the bed and plopped herself down by Amelia’s feet. Amelia read until her eyes could no longer stay open, allowing her body to finally sleep. Another small victory.

  Chapter 5

  When Amelia was younger, maybe five or six, she asked her mom a question on their way to the grocery store while she bounced in the backseat listening to “Africa” by Toto.

  “Mom, why isn’t there music playing in the background of life all the time like it does in the movies?”

  “I used to ask your grandma the same question when I was your age.”

  “I wish there was music all the time.”

  That day, Amelia’s mom bought her a portable discman and the soundtrack to Grease.

  It wasn’t until she met Emmett that her reality had a soundtrack. Thoughts of him were like a montage in an indie film. Two best friends gallivanting through the neighborhood while the soft sounds of Peter Gabriel or Billie Holiday played in the background to narrate every feeling. She didn’t want to get too ahead of herself. They’d only just met. But when she looked at Emmett, she saw a glimpse of hope. A piece of herself that came out the other end of all this, thriving.

  Luna laid her head on Amelia’s thigh, stretched out like a sloppy sausage. Amelia caressed her back as she expanded her body in the most rewarding stretch known to existence. Luna was everything to Amelia. Her comfort, her companion, her savior. Amelia didn’t claim her, on the contrary, Luna marked her territory the moment they met by peeing all over her teal blue jumper. It was kismet.

  Once again, it was time for her morning routine. She blindly reached for her glasses, keeping her eyes shut, not ready t
o face the sunlight just yet. She put them on her face and rolled over to give Luna one more delicious snuggle.

  Amelia got up, made the bed, went into the bathroom, and brushed her teeth. Floss, mouthwash, contacts. Into the kitchen to make coffee. Off to the balcony for a smoke. Out into the city for Luna’s morning walk. Back home to feed Tuna Bean. Return to the balcony for cigarette number two. Rinse, wash, repeat. There was, however, something different about the day. It was Amelia’s birthday.

  She held the coffee cup with her fingers laced around the handle. Not too hot, just warm enough to sip the local roast through her lips without burning her tongue. She watched the city’s buildings wake up with the sunrise as average Janes and Joes started their workday. Windows blinked with office lights turning on, as if the world was saying it was still revolving, still moving, never stopping for anyone, not even for Amelia.

  I’m thirty.

  This wasn’t how she imagined thirty to look. Alone with a dog in Denver. No family or friends around. No familiarity to fall back on—except for her eating disorder, depression, and manic states of impulsivity.

  In high school, Amelia was assigned a project for her English class. Each student had to write a letter to themselves for when they turned thirty. She’d kept it at her mom’s house, just in case she ever wanted to revisit it. But each time she read the letter, she was more disappointed than the last. The picture she’d painted for her future self was never anything like her present.

  Younger Amelia asked her future self how life working as an editor at a magazine in New York City was like. Sixteen-year-old Amelia wanted to know how her marriage was going and if there was talk about having kids soon. She hoped there was a plan for children and building a house. A life twenty-seven-year-old Amelia undeniably believed she’d have with Dominic.