Prologue - Eden
Bruises, cuts, and broken bones. We all experience them growing up, a way we learn about consequences, and pain. They paint the borders to our experience and frame our understanding of the world—a way we learn our limits, our morality, our mortality.
Except, I learned I didn’t have consequences. I didn’t have limits. I got to make pain my medium and practiced its strokes.
At first, I just thought it was because I was special. I’m not sure who put the idea into my mind first. Coming from my parents seems implausible, they aren’t ones to ever unnecessarily flatter. I do know how I learned about being special. I’m a kid, a nanny is reading this picture book about a dancing Giraffe that everyone makes fun of, until they all realize how special his dancing is. It is a stupid book. Being special meant people didn’t make fun of you at all. That you could make them afraid to. That it was better to be a hungry panther than a dancing giraffe.
It didn’t take me long to learn that I wasn’t special. Not yet, anyway. If I want to be a panther, I’d have to grow my claws and practice being a huntress. No. I’m not unique. Something else keeps me from repercussions of my choices. By then, I think it’s because my father is simply good at his job. He always looks so important in his suits, people fawn over his business cards like they’re gold trophies—a prestigious law firm had its merits. It’s the power of a name, a knowing look, an implied request. My mother wields it even better than he does. She’s his second wife, and I often wondered why he bothered given how little we see of him. But its another business transaction, an agreement between two consensual adults… and then there’s me.
But it isn’t just the job, not exactly. Handshakes become whispered conversations as I put my ear to the door. They’re late night texts where I see the glow of the screen in a dark room. The real truth is that everyone has secrets, and the more connected you are, the deeper they seep, and I wasn’t the only one in my family who doesn’t worry about consequences. My father doesn’t, spending more nights away than at home. My mother doesn’t, flitting from one project or business venture to the next, inevitably leaving each worse than when she found them. My uncle doesn’t worry about the consequences when he corners me alone one Thanksgiving, breath smelling like bourbon and eyes glued to the hem of my skirt.
And that’s when I learn another lesson–some secrets weren’t meant to be shared. Not ever. Opening them just lets the toxins spread.
Spreading through connections—Familial, social, professional. Connections to other people are like poison. Sometimes quick, sometimes slow, but it always ends the same, in sickness or in death. My family was sick, the poison in our veins as undeniable as our name. Traurig. It means sad. Gloomy. Unhappy. Who in their right mind would make that their name? But here we are.
Bruises, cuts, and broken bones. The injuries are always to keep me safe from them. An antidote.
My first bruise I think is in kindergarten. A boy in my class wants to trade me a kiss for a candy. I don’t remember what it was, just that I wanted it. I grab the fat on his arm so hard and twist, not letting go until I get a candy in my pocket and he gets nothing. I watch the splotch at the bottom of his sleeve grow for the next week, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
The first cut was in third grade. Her name is Jasmine, and we sit up in a Mesquite tree. She says we will be best friends. All I know in my childish mind was that best friends tell each other everything. I can’t share my secrets. She can’t know. So, I push her out of the tree. They come running as she bleeds while my legs swing in the air. I perch like a panther, and I remember how free I am above them all, out of reach and untouchable.
The broken bone is at twelve, when my doubles partner Tamara can’t hit a single fucking drop shot then sits next to me, huffing like it isn’t all her fault. I still remember the sound when my racket cracks over her pinky, splayed out next to me like a worm. At least her cast doesn’t cost me a trophy again.
Broken hearts come later, and are not nearly as satisfying. Never worth the commitment or time. Weeks or months of fake smiles, fake moans, fake everything and never worth it in the end. Unpredictable and messy, anger instead of the cathartic hurt in their eyes. There’s no lingering satisfaction. You can’t see the bruises on a heart or the scars on a soul, if such a trite thing exists.
And a broken body… Well, it’s not until the summer between high school and college that I’ll bury a body. I do it because sometimes, there’s a rot burning in your veins and your mind and it makes you feel more alive than you thought possible. Because sometimes, the antidote is its own sort of slow death. Because sometimes, holding that kind of secret for someone is worth it.
