❝ to the bone ❞

I can still hear him.

If I’m quiet enough, if I press my ear against the walls of my bedroom, I can hear his footsteps, his humming of hymns as he makes his way towards my room. When I lie in my bed at night, between the buzzing song of crickets and cicadas outside of my bedroom window I always leave just slightly ajar, I can see his silhouette standing at the end of my bed before I blink and realize that it’s simply a poorly shaped shadow and the figment of my imagination coming to remind me. I close my eyes and roll over with my face pressed into the pillow, waiting for Dawn to stretch her fingers across the horizon and soothe a finger across the slope of my exposed thighs. Mama would come into my room to wake me, tell me to take a bath, and get ready for church.

I always dressed in white for Sunday mass. He liked me in white but you liked me in white as well. You’d smile every time I came into the church, following closely behind my mother and father as they greeted Reverend Hall — that beautiful, paled piece of raised skin against your honeyed cheek and narrow jaw shifting slightly with the pull of your lips. I wanted to kiss it, to trace my finger over the edges of it, to tell you I loved it, that horrific scar.

But he smiled at me too. “Good to see you, Ada. I’m happy you’re here.” Reverend Hall placed his hand on the small of my back, his thumb pressing circles through the cloth of my dress. His smile kept secrets, secrets only kept between me, him, and God. His looks whispered of the handsome man he once was. His hair still thick yet graying at the sides and around his hairline, wrinkles forming from his narrowed nose and curving around his thin, rosy lips from all the years he’s spent smiling at me. He held his bible in his large, paled hand; the same bible he read to me as I sat in his lap as a child, listening while he expressed to me the importance of purity — all while he twisted the purity within me.

I offered him a smile as well, brief and placid before moving on and my gaze found you once more. You had turned your back on me, listening to Mr. Williams — your father — speak to you and your brother. My father guided me to our usual pew towards the front of the church in front of the altar.

Reverend Hall stood at the podium as he did every Sunday morning and addressed the church. “The Lord is good, is he not?” And while a chorus of hums and “yes”s and “praise Him”s echo off the walls of their poor, little church house, weathered down and rotting from the inside out from the constant rain and perpetual, never-ending Georgia heat; I was just looking at you from across the way. You didn’t seem all that interested and you never have. You’d rather be with your studs and bitches despite the beasts attacking you when you were young. That’s how you got that scar along your cheek and the vicious bite marks across your arm.

“Father stresses purity. First Timothy chapter 5, verse 22, ‘Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.’” Reverend Hall glanced down at me. Me in my pretty, white dress matched with lace-trimmed socks and mary jane shoes, me the image of purity in a town like this, me, the girl of which he ripped the flowers from the garden bed of childhood.

He loved me like this. Pure. The white against my dark skin, my wide, innocent eyes looking up at him. He loved standing above me, loved looking down at me, loved me. 

And I hated him. He dirtied me, defiled me — me. My purity, my perfection, my godliness. He tried to take that from me. But divinity can not be extinguished. It is eternal.

After a sermon, hours long, and even longer songs of worship, church was over. That meant me and Mama would spend the rest of our day cooking after church dinner. Papa would be in the living room, leaning back in his recliner with a beer in hand, calling for a sandwich and getting increasingly irritated by the minute.

“Mama, could I go to the Williams’ for a little bit? I wanna see if Ruth can come to dinner.” I tugged on the back of my mother’s skirt while she took her church hat off of her curled head. “Fine, but you stay away from them dogs, ya hear? I don’t want you comin’ home with no bites on ya arm. Them damn mutts vicious.” Mama never liked the Williams’ dogs. All them bully breeds, muscled-up pits, Rottweilers, all the sorts. They were fighting dogs. The Williams bred them, best in the state.

I was already out the door by the time she let out her last words, still in my church dress and my pretty Mary Janes I didn’t want to scuff up but I was so excited to see you that I didn’t care.

We lived in a small town. Population all of 100 some people. The Williams’ ranch was about half a mile down and the walk was marked by tall grass and powerlines. Cicadas sang constantly, day and night, all hidden between the shadows of Magnolia trees not yet bloomed.

Your land was often muddy, wet, full of boot and paw prints. The air seemed to get all the more humid, mosquitoes trying to land on any piece of exposed flesh. I always appreciated mosquitoes. They were in and out before you knew it with only an itchy bump to mark their existence. The best way to leave a mark is in discomfort. The grass was always half-dead and I never understood how you and your family managed to keep the few cows and goats you had. 

You, my precious, glorious, scarred god, were in a pin outside with a heavily pregnant red-nose Pitbull. You in your boots, always caked in dry and wet mud, and flannel with the sleeves always rolled up to your elbows. Your hair is tied up into a messy bun of curls and sweat is already dripping from your hairline down your dark caramel skin. Your scars on your face and arms from being attacked by one of your daddy’s dogs.

I remembered seeing the stitches, your split open cheek and arm. I wanted to lick the blood from your wounds. I wanted to cut you open, to part your ribcage and eat your heart. I wanted to slip into your skin and wear it like a blanket to forever keep me warm and I hope you wanted to do the same. I wanted to kill that stupid mutt that dared to hurt you but your daddy took it out back and shot it first. That was when I decided I liked your father.

"Oh- Ada." You seemed to brighten at the sight of me approaching. Your skin glowed gold when you walk into the sun to meet me at the fence. "Came right on time, 'm 'bout to put Missy back in her kennel. Her puppies should be coming any day now." The dog was fat and stout with engorged pink nipples bursting at the seems to feed the pups to be. She drooled with her tongue hanging out of her mouth, panting. "Tryna take a walk around?" Your voice was so sweet, so melodic.

I smiled softly at you. "No. I wanted to see if you could come to my house for dinner." As long as I could remember, you and I have always been best friends. Our families weren't close. My family was evangelical and yours could take or leave church. My house, littered in crosses and peeling floral wallpaper, a box TV in the corner. Your house was just the same but covered in animal heads instead. You come from a family of hunters, animal people. It shows in how we present ourselves but the love was there nonetheless.

I've never told you what happened though. I know you sensed an irreversible change in me after the first day it happened but your comments were always kept to a minimum. I appreciated it. I never wanted you to know I wasn't pure for you, that I was a disgusting harlot capable of seducing this town's Mother Teresa. I wanted to be, but my thoughts were already taking a turn.

I wonder how you taste. Will you taste like salty sweat? Like dirt? Like dog? Like love? I wanted to love you down to the bone. I wanted my love to consume you whole and leave nothing left behind.

But you and I were cut from the same cloth of the universe. I knew you were just as demented as me from late night talks on the roof of your farmhouse. I had turned to you, looking away from a night sky so clear it glowed with stars, and I asked you, "Are you ever hungry? And I don't mean physically but…deep somewhere in your soul. No matter how much you stuff into your face, you can never feel it."

And without thought you said, "Yeah. It's the kinda hunger everyone has but can't feed without another person. Even then, very rarely does it go away." Your face was blank solemn and I knew our thoughts were running parallel to each other. 

Then you kissed me that night, sweet and tender at first, then harder, hungrier. It was a sin for two girls like us to kiss like this. Both of our families would have never let us see each other again. My daddy would have drowned me in holy water. I should have felt guilty but I didn’t, I couldn’t not when I tasted you. We were hidden beneath the cover of night, no one had to know.

I bit your lip so hard it drew blood. You hissed and pulled away a bit and for a moment I had worried that I had ruined everything. But you had looked me in the eyes, yours glittering under the stars and you smiled with that bloody lip of yours and kissed me harder. I tasted your blood on my tongue — tangy and metallic — and I was intoxicated on it. You bit my tongue and our life sources mingled in a way so intimate I thought we might transcend this plane of existence.

The way you were — I wasn't sure if I wanted to have you or wanted to be you. You in your silent confidence and quiet perfection. Nothing bothered you. You were holy without even trying. Was wanting to be and wanting to have so innately intertwined that one could not exist without the other? When it came down to it, I simply wanted to possess you, completely.

Your crooked grin faded. "Oh Ada, I can't tonight. Ma need my help 'round the house later on but maybe another day." You always let me down easy so I'd take your small rejections lightly. I could see in your eyes that you always hated saying no to me. I always hated when you said no to me too.

I took it with ease though I was seething on the inside. 'Your mother can wait. What about me? You're breaking my heart here.' "That's okay." I was always told I had the smile of an angel. By my mother, friends of the family, Reverend Hall as he grabbed my chin with a, "you look prettier when you smile".

"Promise you not mad at me, sugarplum?" You hold out a long pinky to me with a smile so sweet it makes my cheeks burn. I loved the way you called me endearing nicknames. Sugarplum, sweetheart, darling. If I hadn't known any better and if I weren't dissecting you from the inside out, I would have assumed that's just how you are. A lot of southern folks call everyone those kinds of names. Our southern manners and hospitality.

But I can see, you use those southern niceties to wink at me, nudge me to realize your adoration of me, your worship. You recognize the divinity within me and I see it within you as well; within your dirt and mud and sweat.

I wrapped my smaller pinky around yours and smiled. "Never." I didn't want to leave you yet. I wanted you to hold me. I wanted to get dirty in the mud with you, but never impure. Never tainted. How could perfection be tainted? I was whole with you, a stolen piece of me returned. Together, we could transcend all of this and be more than everything, more than God.

But you had things to do, my love, and I never want to hold you from your duties. "I'll see you around, Ruth." I blew you a discreet kiss and your pink lips curled up, your scar shifted, and you caught the sun just right again. My golden god.

You took my wrist gently and pulled me back to press your lips to mine. Just a peck, a discrete kiss. It couldn’t be anything more, not now, not in the day. You let me go as quick as you grabbed me and I was dizzy on you, high on your love. I might have looked ditzy and lovesick as you leaned in and whispered in my ear, “See ya ‘round, Ada.”

The walk home was uneventful. I was far too busy tracing my fingers over my nether lip to feel the pressure of your lips on mine. Only that a rusty old truck making a whining screeching sound passed and I heard a faint, "Hey Ada!" Everyone in this town knew each other but I never bothered with learning names. No one mattered to me except you.

I returned home dappled with sweat and aching feet, still giggling to myself. I came through the back door that led into the kitchen and dining room. I stopped in my tracks, struck in the chest as if God had chosen to smite me on the spot. Reverend Hall sat at our dinner table with his trusty leatherback bible sitting beside him.

“Ada. You’re home.” Mama ushered me in. “Wash ya hands and help me with this potato salad.” I never expected him to be here at my table again, smiling at me knowingly. He hasn’t done it in ages, years, not since I was 15. I thought it was over. But politeness was key. He would not have me again, my soul, my dignity. I was above him. I was above everyone. He was just a maggot under my shoe. But that did not explain why I was so terrified of him.

“Ada. I’m so honored to be having dinner with your family. I hope I am welcome in your home.” I wanted to tear his throat out with my bare hands, shred him to pieces before his God and curse Him and His evil ways.

I did not answer him. Instead, I went upstairs to calm myself. My heart threatened to break my ribs, to suffocate me. And for a moment, I wish it would. But I reminded myself of who I am. I am greater, I am God. Who was he to scare me? He’s the one who should be scared. But that ideology did not comfort me when I went back downstairs and kissed Papa’s cheek and he whispered to me, “Don’t you go causing trouble now. Screaming your accusations up and down the street. You know Reverend Hall is a good man. Don’t act up.”

My Ma and Pa never believed me when I tried to tell them. How could a man of God ever do such a thing to a child? I was lying for attention apparently and was made to apologize to Reverend Hall which he graciously accepted. “It is alright. All children have wild imaginations. She must have taken my afternoon private lessons in an unsavory way.” He smiled at me with a glint in his dark eye and that was the end of it.

Sitting down for dinner was Hell. I was forced to sit beside him, my hand in his as we lowered our hands while Reverend Hall led us in prayer. He held my hand tightly, his grasp bordering on crushing as he glanced at me. I could feel it, his gaze burrowing into me, carving out my insides, hollowing me.

Dinner was unappetizing. I simply pushed my food around my plate, thinking of you, Ruth, how I wished you were sitting here instead of him. I wished we could share smiles across the table with our own secret shared between just the two of us because the way he smiled at me showed his secret, the secret I tried to make known only for it to be shoved into a box. The thing about a secret like that is that it’s not dying to get out. Whether it's known or not, a secret that is not cared for is not a secret.

We were all sitting in it. The mess he made of me. The secret between us, all of us, would simply stay here. I did not know whether my parents truly believed me or not. A part of me thought they did, but knew something like this would mean reshaping their worldview, something they weren’t ready for. But what about me? What about the little girl that had her world shattered by someone she was meant to trust wholeheartedly? 

"Adaline. Stop playin' with ya food and eat." Papa snapped. I stood abruptly, pushing my plate away. "'m not hungry. I'll just go to bed." I didn't wait for a response. I just left and no one tried to call after me because they knew. They all knew why I didn't want to be there, why I could feel myself growing angrier by the moment.

I lay in the dark on my bed with only the comfort of crickets and cicadas. With my ear pressed against the wall, I listened and the world fell silent. The creaks and groans of this old, withering house disappeared.

And then I heard him. His hymns, his slow, dragging footsteps weighing down the floors as he made his way to my bedroom. I fell into bed before he opened the door with my back turned to him.

"Adaline." He called my name and I shivered. The door clicked closed and I could hear the way his leathery fingertips rubbed his bible as if ready to open it to justify what he was about to do.

I stared at the cross above my bed the whole time. By now, I had known it intimately. The way every end comes to a decorated point, a golden carving of Jesus hanging from it, His blank lifeless eyes staring down at me, condemning me, berating me like I asked for any of this.

There was something here once. A little girl with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart. Undying love for her Lord, her Father, who would protect her from all.

I was defiled by him and when he kissed me, I wanted nothing more than to kill him. If I killed him, would it make me good? Would it make me holy? Would it make me whole again?

No…only you would make me whole.

I think, in his own way, he loved me. The sick, twisted kind of love. The love one has for a possession rather than a person. The kind of love that is ownership, a pet. I didn't want to be loved that way. And I didn't love him.

I will not go into detail what he did to me for I will never give him the satisfaction, but I was left in my bed with tears streaking my cheeks. I did not fight him. I never fought. Maybe I should have but you understand, right? At my core, I am just a child. What was I meant to do and if I hadn't done it, would that make me to blame?

I was not the same person in the morning. Like a layer of skin peeled off of me and left me cold, slimy, and trembling. I was reborn. He had molded me into a monster. I went to the bathroom to find myself staring at my own reflection. My hair was tangled and frizzy, the tips unkempt and ragged. My face was blotchy and red. And I wanted him to see me like this. I wanted him to know I wasn't afraid, I was angry. My eyes were wild and black as I stared accusingly into his already dead eyes. Do you know how many times he did this to me? How many times he has hurt me?

What would you do if you found out? Would you be outraged, threaten to kill him, to protect me? Or would you look upon me in disgust, finally see me for the unworthy, disgusting being I am. A fallen angel? A broken God?

I could feel him inside of me.

I sat unmoving at the table, my head down low. The world had felt so fragile, like it was about to shatter. And I didn't want anyone to see through my eyes because if they did, they would see that I was a demon. I was the one who should be burned. I was the one who cannot be forgiven. My mother brought me breakfast and it sat on the table in front of me, untouched.

 "Adaline? Ada, are you alright? I've made you a plate. Eat." She placed a cool hand on my cheek and that was it. How dare she? How dare she ask if I'm okay as if she didn't know, as if they all didn't know? They knew what he was going to do the moment he began upstairs and she had the audacity to ask me if I'm okay.

"No, Ma! I'm not okay! How could I be okay?!" I screamed, picking up my plate and tossing it to the floor. The glass shattered into fragments and my mother gasped in shock at my outburst. "Why didn't you protect me? Where were you when I needed you? Where was God when I needed Him?" Why was I sobbing? Why should I give anything to them? Why should they see me at my lowest?

Still in my nightgown, I left out of the door of our small, decaying house, littered in the judgmental eyes of Christ. I wanted you. I wanted you to hold me, to touch me, to tell me I am worthy, I am pure, I am Holy. So I ran to you, Ruth. I ran with my soft soles against asphalt and broken glass. I bled, leaving my sins in my wake with each footstep.

I wanted to run away from God, away from Him and take you with me. We could be more than all of this.

Who, but God above, if there even is one, would forgive me? Forgive me for being created with a sacred heart. Forgive me for being born into a world where my purity was meant to be coveted. Forgive me for being born a woman. Forgive me for being born with purity, with pain and suffering. Who here would forgive me? Who would be merciful enough to accept me?

I am an effigy of purity.

Do you blame me for this? Do you hate me as I hate myself? Do you blame God as I blame myself? Did he hurt you like this? Did he? Did he? Did he?

I ran through dirt and mud, through the cold, whipping wind as with early morning came frigid air.

My feet did not stop until I was at your doorstep and I knocked, hoping that you would answer. You and your brother were usually up by now, checking up on the dogs. But your Pa's old pickup was gone and I feared you had gone with him.

I heard the peephole open, heard you answer. "Ada?" you called, your voice weary and scratchy. I was scared you wouldn't open the door because this was too much, too fast. I need you to accept me. I need you to be the first to forgive me so maybe I can forgive myself.

"Adaline? Hun, what's wrong?" You opened the door and I fell into your arms, weeping.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I sobbed into your chest and you stood still, just holding me. I was in your arms for a long time, trying to calm my breathing, calm my heart.

"Good Lord, Sweetheart. What happened?" You asked, your voice pained as you pulled me inside. I stood in your kitchen and could only stare at the floor. You pulled out a chair and I sat down. The way you looked at me, I felt safe. I felt like enough. 

“Ya feet all bloody. Look like ya got the devil on ya heels." You left the room to grab a rag and soaked it in water to clean my feet just as Mary Magdalene did Christ. You were tender with me, taking my ankle in your slender, calloused fingers and cleaned the blood and dirt from my feet with diligence. I’ve never felt so loved, so cared for. You wiped my tears and told me it was okay, comforted me without interrogation, and stroked my head until I finally calmed down enough to speak.

“Now, tell me what’s goin’ on here. You scarin’ the daylights outta me.” You knelt before me with your hands on my soft, brown knees. Your eyes were earnest and open, ready to accept the wildest of all I had to say.

"He did it again," I whispered, my voice hoarse from crying.

"Who did what again?" 

"The Reverend. He defiled me again." I said, my eyes pleading for you to understand. I didn’t want to go into detail but with those few words, you knew all you needed to know. The thing about you, that I loved and appreciated, was that you didn’t look at me with pity in your eyes. I wasn’t suddenly something irreversibly broken to you. I wasn’t a victim. I was a person first and foremost. You looked upon me with sympathy, even empathy and accepted my accusation wholeheartedly, without question. That’s how much you loved me, trusted me.

You didn’t ask how it happened or try to deny or justify it. You just accepted it and loved me deeper, harder. You saw me, felt me and buried your face into my stomach. I wrapped my arms around your head. You held me, rocking us back and forth for a long time, holding onto my purity for me, for us, while I sobbed.

"It’s okay, Adaline. I’ve got’cha. I’m here for ya." You stood up and I followed, standing on my tiptoes to kiss you because you were so tall for a girl. Our lips grazed with the same tenderness seen in depictions of angels in church.

“I want to kill him,” I murmured against soft, yet dry lips. “I don’t want him to hurt me anymore. Please don’t let him hurt me anymore.” My fingers traced your deformed cheek with love and admiration for the beauty of it.

I knew I wasn’t wrong to see the darkness within you when you said, “I won’t, I won’t let him hurt you. Let’s kill him.” And that darkness that melted so nicely together with mine, made you all the more divine; all the more beautiful. I wanted so badly to be one with you and I’ve never loved you so badly. I kissed you again and you kissed me back, all while knowing that if your Pa caught us we’d be strung up as a spectacle of the devil. Your flesh tasted so bittersweet. I wanted to sink my teeth into your skin and consume you as we started to that night and I could tell you were holding back as well.

“Let’s do it tomorrow after church.” I needed him gone. I needed to bathe in his blood to make me pure once again. I’d take back what he had stolen from me. You soothed a hand down my arm and your fingers laced into mine. “What’s the plan?”

---

“Reverend Hall.” I stood with my fingers wrapped around the cross above my be behind my back in my favorite Sunday best. The white against my dark skin, the bow pinning my curly hair back, allowing the youthfulness of my face to show through. Round and chubby, a well-fed girl that hasn’t yet slimmed out from puberty. I knew it would entice him.

His thin lips curled into a smile. It was just the two of us in the church house after a late sermon. “Ada, what can I do for you?” He liked the look on my face, the innocent unawareness scribbled across my face. I was vulnerable and vulnerable meant easy. He knew I wouldn’t fight him.

“I am having trouble having faith in the Lord, Reverend.” My cross in my hand, given to me by my mother, the God that stood by and let me hurt, that protected all his secrets, would be his undoing.

He came down from his podium, off the stage where he would stand before the choir, and met me in the middle of the aisle. The sun hit the stained glass at just the right angle and it cast a rainbow across our faces. “Of course, child.” His hands reached out to cup mine, never without his sacred book. “I’m glad you came to me.”

I glanced past his shoulder as you came from your hiding place behind a pew. I smiled, at him and at you. “I’m glad I came too.”

You grabbed him, took him completely by surprise, and dragged him to the floor. You pinned his arms down while I got on top of him, straddled him the way he always did me. We were basked in the multicolored light of God. This act was holy. He was terrified, the same look of utter fear that would draw on my face every time he touched me. I had never felt so powerful.

My fingers wrapped around the cross, I rose it high above my head. “This is for everything you’ve done to me.” And I plunged it down into his beating heart. “You bastard! You sick!” I stabbed him again, “Twisted!” And again. “Bastard!” I didn’t know how many times I stabbed him but by the end, I was covered in blood and screaming, crying. I grabbed that Godforsaken bible he always carried around and tore the faded pages of them out. I jammed them into his bloody mouth, down his throat.

“Ada, Ada.” You reached out to me and cupped my face in your hands, stroking my cheeks with the pad of your thumbs without a single care of whether you get blood on you or not. I was free. I was pure. I looked at you and felt whole. I wanted to be one with you. You in me, me in you, no distinction between the two of us.

“He’s dead. He’s gone. We’ve gotta get out of here.” The two of us already had our things packed and in the bed of your dad’s pickup. Just the bare minimum. All we needed was each other.

You grabbed my hand and I grabbed yours as we rose to our feet. Together, we ran out of the church to escape this town so small it could never hope to contain the two of us. You in the driver’s seat and myself in shotgun, we rode off down the dirt roads leaving dust in our wake. We drive into the sunset, drive until we feel we’re far enough from our little hometown. You pull over on the side of the road so I can change beneath a streetlight.

But I couldn’t contain myself. I took you and I kissed you, the rush of it all. I’ve never felt so free, so unrestrained in everything I wanted. I loved you, Ruth. I loved you to death. Now nothing can keep us apart.

I kissed you, I bit you. I loved you. And you loved me just the same. The bitter taste of your blood coating my tongue, mine coating yours. The hunger we always longed for filled. We consumed each other, beyond the struggling, the pain.

They found us later on at the crack of dawn. Just a pile of flesh and bones, teeth marks everywhere. It was hard for them to determine who was who. We had accepted each other so thoroughly that they were forced to bury us with pieces of each other in our caskets. We filled our hunger for each other, our love so strong it became blasphemous. We ascended to something greater, something beautiful. Something whole.

We loved each other down to the bone.