Comfortable Madness First PDF 4-13-18

“Butter,” Mom used to say. “No one likes a weak
character. If you tried,” she’d say, “girls are supposed to be
charming. If you want to be a dancer, you have to control yourself.
Butter, people are going to think you’re a lesbian.”
When she found out Tayla and I were not just girlfriends
but, girlfriends she lost her mind. She threatened and begged and
when I wouldn’t be the girl she wanted, she kicked me out.
“Do you remember how we met?” Tayla asked.
In the eighth grade, I stopped eating for a week. I sucked
water down and I danced until my feet bled. That was how I met
Tayla. She was in the band room banging out wild tunes and I was
in the gym spinning and sweating. Her music punched into my
spine and tossed me up. I couldn’t stop. Voices told me to stop.
Colors rolled through the room in streamers and misty walls. The
floor felt too hard, too far away. I floated out of myself, but not
completely. I was terrified. I was sick and weak and I spun too fast
for too long. Everything went black. When things came back to me,
Tayla held my head. I´d seen her before. She was the slightly Goth
loudmouth. No one liked her. I avoided her because she said things
no one wanted to hear and that scared me. I didn´t want to know
what she thought of me. But just then, with my head in her lap, I
couldn’t stop staring.
“You ruined your feet,” she said. “You couldn’t walk for
days.”
“It hurts,” I said.
“I know.”
“All of the time,” I said.
Again, she plinked the keys. Even with no direction or
meaning, Tayla’s music changed me.
“Everything hurts,” I said.
She nodded.
“I’m done,” I said.
She never looked at me. She turned away.