Something significant happened on a night in February, more than half my lifetime ago.
These are the details I recall:
I. There was a party at an apartment near the university where my not-girlfriend that is now deceased took me and dropped me off. I don’t know where she went or why she left, only that I was alone in the apartment with several girls (my age) that didn’t like me, and several boys (older than me) who very much did.
II. Everyone vanished into a bedroom where white powder was spilled onto a cracked mirror and a dollar bill was rolled up and passed around. I was left alone in the main living space where I began to explore, opening drawers and cabinets and doors until I found a large closet that was mostly empty. I crawled inside of it.
III. A significant amount of time passed before anyone realized I was missing – not to say that they missed me, only that my absence was eventually noticed. I could hear them asking where I’d gone, the snide girls laughing dizzily amongst themselves about “that weird girl”, meaning me.
IV. The not-girlfriend returned and was enraged when no one knew my whereabouts, at which point I called out faintly that I was there and she opened the closet door. Everybody cackled and howled, bewildered as to why I was hiding in the bottom space of an empty closet. She reached down for my hand and wrapped her arms around me, petting my hair.
V. Hours later I was by myself again, smoking a cigarette on the balcony. I leaned backward over the railing as far as I could and looked at the parking lot below. The boy who owned the apartment emerged from the sliding glass door and asked me what I was doing. I said:
“Do you ever want to jump? Not to die. Just to know what it feels like to fall.”
VI. I never stopped falling after that night. I’ve had my arms outstretched, waiting for the concrete to come but somehow it never does. I think that if I ever forget that I am falling, for even a second, I will finally hit the ground. Rationally I know it isn’t going to happen, but I’m still braced for the impact.
Still torn between cowering in a closet, and throwing myself from the railing of a third story apartment, because my not-girlfriend could not protect me from the boy that was a wounded predator who looked at me – and saw a rabbit.
