This piece was originally published in Quarto’s 2022 Spring Print.
Illustration by Rawan Hayat
Content warning for substance abuse and violence.
I don’t think anything looks bad on you.
*
I cried all the way to your apartment that night in late August. The air was just beginning to grow cool as summer faded into fall and sunsets turned deep orange and the whole world seemed to breathe deeply and slowly in unison like a chest rising and falling and rising and falling and descending into sleep steeped in sticky molasses and warm honey. My dad was in the basement folding recyclable cardboard into neat squares and ripping egg cartons into quarter-sized pieces when I left. I took his car without asking. The engine light was on and one of the headlights was out, but you were alone in your apartment crying so I dug my heels into the carpet and pressed on the gas pedal before anyone had a chance to stop me.
I’d only seen you cry twice in the eleven years that I’d known you. The first time was in sixth grade after Social Studies class. I remember the hallway smelled like sweaty track uniforms and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread. You pulled me aside to tell me something—you said it was a funny story about your dad, he’d done something crazy again. That was the first time I’d heard the word cunt. I didn’t know what it meant but I knew it wasn’t something fathers should be calling their daughters. You said he was drunk, and not the kind of drunk your grandma got during Sunday night dinners with Wheel of Fortune playing in the other room. He was drunk drunk. You knocked him out that night with a punch and then locked yourself in your room. The knife that you kept under your pillow stayed by your side all night, but you didn’t have to use it. Your dad slept on the tiled floor downstairs in a pool of sweat and whiskey and only moved when you tripped over his arm on your way out the door to catch the bus the next morning. I wanted to hug you in that moment—I wanted to take you to my house where my mom made baked chicken and lima beans and my older sister braided my hair on picture day and my dad slept on the couch and didn’t get drunk and showed his love for me through his absence. You would be safe there, just like I was.
I hugged you when I got to your college apartment that night like I should have done in our middle school hallway. We walked around North Philadelphia smoking and crying about expectations and incongruities and boys disguised as men and drug addiction disguised as a spiritual awakening and sore throats and dark urine and pregnancy tests in the woods behind my house. And I confirmed what I knew at twelve years old which is that I loved you in a way that made me high and I loved you in a way that made my nose drip and my vision blur when I laid in bed alone in New York City and tried to imagine a world without you in it.
*
The moonlight illuminated the whites of your eyes as we walked along the train tracks heading towards the city. It was the end of January and our cool breath mingled with the smoke tumbling out of our nostrils like stratus clouds or spiderwebs or cotton candy being spun at the carnival in hypnotic loops. We climbed up to the overpass through dry weeds and frosted thorns with broken beer bottles and empty cans of spray paint under our feet until we found a spot to sit and watch the stars. This is how we’d spend our nights in a liminal space of wintry solitude, concealed by the darkness of the night and held up by sturdy concrete slabs. Every once in a while a car would pull up to the train station and our hearts would race. We’d clutch one another’s mittened hands and tuck our noses to our knees, each of us willing the other to check for red and blue lights. Some nights we’d run, ripping our sweatpants on jagged wire and tripping over loose rocks. Other nights we’d hide, press our bodies firmly against the wall and listen to the sound of our heartbeats in our stomachs until the lights disappeared and the stillness returned. When I got home, I’d drop my clothes behind the lawnmower in the garage and rub my car air freshener on my wrists before creeping upstairs past my dad on the couch. Looking back, we’d refer to this time period as “the dark winter.” We’d wish we had done things differently. Except not really.
*
Your dad said he would cut your tattoos off with a knife when you first told him you were interested in body art. Today you asked if the raven on your ribcage looked out of place. I don’t think anything looks bad on you.
Brigid Cromwell is a senior at Barnard College studying English and film. When she’s not waxing poetic about her sixteen year old chihuahua, she enjoys making collages out of lottery tickets and CVS receipts. You can find her writing on Instagram @brigidcromwell.