Schism

The murky 5am sunlight force its way into our bedroom, shattering my attempts to sleep. Like the glass splinters that I imagine have coerced themselves into my brain, I am momentarily unsure of its origin. I am equally inconclusive about the intense nausea that has nestled itself against the wall of my stomach, kneading hatefully and stretching its tail upwards into my esophagus.
My cheekbones feel tight, like the skin has been stretched and anchored behind my earlobes, like some sort of skull-faced, aging celebrity face-lift. Inhaling deeply, I feel my ribs distend through my skin. I don't even have to put my hand against my side to check. Turning over painfully, I see that he has overslept and needs to get ready for work. Genuflecting horizontal, worshiper of sleep, he looks comfortable and at peace, and I regret calling out his name and shaking him awake. Before he thanks me, I ask him to get me my pain killer. It feels selfish for a moment, my request, but I manage to overcome my guilt when a sensation not unlike having several eyelashes simultaneously plucked, spasms through my forehead.
I settle my head back against the pillow, gingerly, as though it were a detonator (which I suppose it is, though I have yet to determine the nature of its discharge), and frown at the drool marks on the gray pillow case. I wonder if the crusty white spit-shell has covered my face too and stringently pull my fingers against the sides of my mouth and the corners of my eyes. My face protests malevolently as it twists into an expression somewhere between sorrow and disgust. Do you need the antibiotics too, he wonders, standing at the door, drowsy. Yeah I murmur, low and tired. I close my eyes.
Remaining conscious becomes a force of will as pangs of agony and waves of prescription pain killer surge through my bloodstream, battling it out to determine which will successfully put me to sleep first. I am glad that the pain killer is strong, though it is unable to successfully vanquish the tenderness in the back of my head, which, in my exhaustion, is beginning to feel more like without-a-doubt brain damage every minute.
The problem is my tooth, or rather, my teeth in general. Years of throw up and vitamin deficiency don't really keep smiles on one's face, let alone one that is unblemished. I've been having nightmares about my teeth for years, and have swum helplessly inside mouthfuls of gastric acid on several occasions. In my dreams, I am trapped and watch, detached, as my enamel dissolves, disintegrating into dust. I am showered by venomous little particles that bite and sting and melt me down. Awake, he tells me not to worry about a little blood on my gums when I floss.
We go to the first dental office we can find that is open on Saturday and wait. The secretaries and dental assistants behind the counter are being handed thick, whipped cream Starbucks drinks from another worker and make sure to thank her before handing me over the clipboard. As I write, head pounding, I try to ignore the television mounted to the wall; the children whining on the other side of the counter; the abrupt, disinterested conversation among the overweight latte drinking secretaries. He leans over me, encroaching, watching to make sure my information is accurate.
I am despondent. I think of how much this is going to cost and how little he's spoken to me today. He walks ahead and mumbles about how dentists just want to scam people into unnecessary root canals, that it would be cheaper to send me home to have it done in Canada, that he's going to cancel the appointment and get a second opinion. I begin to feel disposable and decide not to speak to him until the angry tension in the air dissipates, affixing itself with all the world's other evils, inside my mouth.
Inside, I am finally seen and given an X-ray and he leaves to return to work. A small television turned to MTV is mounted to the wall to minimize patient-doctor interaction as much as possible. My tooth, they tell me, is decayed and requires a root canal. However, because the tooth has calcified, there is no longer a canal and the dentist, who I immediately dislike for his rude, dictatorial way of speaking, barely comprehensible Chinese accent and all, is not skilled enough to help me. I am given a prescription for antibiotics and painkiller and told to see an endodontist.
I return to the waiting room and wonder how long it will be before he returns to pick me up. An hour and a half at least. I call the cell phone, but am unable to reach him and resign myself to avoiding the glances from the fat coffee drinkers behind the front desk. I wonder if they have cavities.
When he comes, I watch his military issue camouflaged legs approach the glass door that reads 'Absolute Dental,' backwards from where I'm sitting. I look away as he approaches, like I've been absorbed in the nuances of the stucco wall. I repeat to him the vague information I've been given about the state of my mouth and he says he wants to see the X-ray. In the operating room, the dentist explains to him, in infinitely more depth than he had with me, the nature of my problem and why he can't help me. Silenced and shifting onto his other foot, he appears satisfied that my pain is real and not the product of melodrama, so we leave.
I feel faint as we walk to the car and want to close my eyes. Driving, he asks me if I understand about why my tooth has calcified. "You know the reason, right," he asks, accusingly. "Yeah, I know, but it's been a long time coming," I say. I haven't been able to see a dentist in a while. He shifts gears; the wheels spin; silence.
"There's something else I want to ask you about", he says, after a while; we're at a red light. "What happened to the cappuccino biscotti? I want you to tell me the truth". I swallow; the light turns green; we move; I want to throw up.
His mother had sent him boxes of candy and cookies at Christmas and he'd piled them against the wall, like a monument to self-restraint. A week prior, I'd somehow felt forced to pay my respects and pull the lid off the tin, silently. It had been sitting there a week and when it came, I went to lie down to read in the bedroom, never acknowledging it with more than a simple "Hmm, that's nice of her."
I can't look at him beside me in the car and for a moment I feel as though he's waited until now to trap me. There's an unspoken sort of protocol about food between us that implies I will only eat fruit and vegetables and that if I consume anything with fat or significant calories, it must mean I intend to vomit it up. Eater's remorse.
I look at the highway through the window and notice that the car in front of us has a license plate reading "GETU1". How about that. He sits beside me and tells me he wants an answer, so I say, "I ate it and threw it up," in the same tone one would say, "yeah, the view is clear on my side, you can go."
I think he is surprised that I admitted it. Some people, especially those who read all about bulimics on the internet, think we're all in denial about our habits and follow the carefully bulleted guidelines to try to fix the problem. Because we're all the same person with the same reasons for needing such a dangerous emotional crutch in the first place, right?
I am tired and my face feels bruised. I put my hand behind my ear, lean my elbow against the window, which I stare out of trying to will an explosion because I am passive aggressive and do not have a tendency to scream even when I feel at my angriest.
Nothing happens and nothing is said and I still feel like opening the car door and falling on to the highway, so I ask, in a really quick, unsure way, "does that make you happy, having me admit to something that we're already both aware I am responsible for?"
"Well, I had opened up the tin and noticed a whole wedge was gone, is all. And, it's not like there's a lot of people in the house. Just us. And, it wasn't me." He is victimized, deprived of his cookie.
"Well, if you're going to check..."
"Oh, aww, come on..." he insists, but I know that he'll deny his distrust of me until the end. He feels compelled to open my drawers and search for contraband, I've recently learned.
We sit silent and he drives. I am aware of how little I am in control of anything. I can't go anywhere or do anything without his consent and awareness. I have no income. I can't eat cookies without being made to feel like a piece of shit a week after the fact. If anything, being put on the spot and being inadvertently informed of how little say I have in the things I do makes me want to vomit more. I can't help but marvel in my mind, which is gradually losing it's ability to contain the tears I've been suppressing until now, how ineffective and damaging his 'help' is.
"I just want you to tell me things. I feel like when I find these things like I'm living with a sneak," he informs me after what feels like an eternity of silence. I'd hoped his voice had dried up.
There is no time to think of what I am going to say, though at the very least, I hope to contain my calm, angry tone and not dip into that revolting, blubbery zone where one can barely make out the words, let alone take one seriously.
"There are just some things I don't feel comfortable talking about. I'm not a sneak. I'm not lying," I manage to sputter.
"Well, you're not telling me things."
"What, should I wake you up to inform you, like, 'hey, guess what, I just ate some stuff and threw it up because I was hungry and feeling emotionally empty and useless." Like, that's going to make me feel alright and at peace with myself for my actions? I really don't think saying these things out loud to you is going to do anything for me besides make me feel even worse. A piece of shit."
I don't need the mirror to realize my face has gone red and that mascara is probably streaking my face in a very un-heroin-chic way. I'd purchase a new wand of mascara a week before and it seemed a little troublesome, because the first time using it, it had clumped up a lot and left black specks on my eyelids if I blinked too soon, before it could dry.
"You're not a piece of shit," he says, slowly, embarrassingly, wondering if these are the right words to say. "Not at all," he says, like elaborating will make me feel better and realize the truth in his words.
But, in my mind, I am sure I am.
The next day, the tins of cookies and boxes of candy are gone and never mentioned again. When he returns home from work, he comes up behind me in the office where I am writing an email to a friend in Korea, and gives me a kiss on the back of the neck. I am supposed to consider this an apology, or perhaps in his mind, it is a prompt for me to apologize to him for being a fucked up, little secret keeper who he cannot control as successfully as he'd like.

Later, we're on the couch and he's reading his horoscope. I am surprised that he is acknowledging it at all, but am amused at that same time that he is taking the vague assertion that he will acquire a pay rise because Jupiter is rising, with any degree of seriousness. Poor little Sagittarius.
"You believe that crap," I ask, teasingly.
"Not really, but it's actually pretty spot on, this time."
"Uh-huh. Read me mine," I tell him, and he scans the page of the weekly culture magazine to find Aquarius.
"It says, 'Keep your thoughts to yourself to avoid conflict. Some things are better left unsaid.'"
I smile, vaguely, not wanting him to be aware of how amusing I find this sort of irony.
He closes the magazine, clearly thinking the same thing I am."It's all bullshit, I don't like that horoscope," he smiles, shaking his head, like he is suddenly an authority on the subject. Word-eater.
We go back to watching whatever inane programming we are watching and I can't help but thinking, with some small level of hostility, how maybe the newspaper's horoscope writer fucked up and gave Sagittarius the wrong advice.

Implosion

My nerves are taut, inflamed. He touches me and I do not resist. I resent him in that way I do when I know I've lost autonomy. His rough skin against mine has an opiate effect and I become prone. The desire to protest, to kick out at all my invisible offenders dissolves, trickling absent-minded onto the carpet.
Hours before, he joined me on the bed where I lay, door closed, staring into a book as a means of diversion. To allow my eyes freedom to roam and to be caught up in his is dangerous. He knows my blindness is intentional. Settling in beside me, head turned, upside-down-like, toward the head-board, he asks me to look at him, to tell him what the matter is, if I feel alright.
My temples palpitate in sync with his pulse. My foot rests on his knee and I can feel it, how his blood flows. My face grows warm and I am reminded of how he checked my forehead for a fever this morning and brought me some Excedrin, a morning offering to appease the latest flare-up of insomnia. My all-night tossing and turning: an apt metaphor for the usual state of my mind.
I am the depression left by the weight of my body on the comforter. This I know without even looking. I am sinking and my distaste for loud noises suffocates the potentially loud struggle I might voice otherwise, had I energy to exert.
I tell him via the wall I am turned towards that I'm thinking of going back to Korea; that I'm not happy; that Vegas isn't my sort of town. The gaudy, tacky neons and the arid, treeless ground are masters of an unfamiliar stench. It lingers in my nostrils, paralyzing, making me afraid.
Day after day, alone in the apartment while he goes to work, I try to be productive, but my brain is met with the dull lull of paranoia. Like a refrigerator's hum, my eyes dart steadily, my heart jumps at each slam of a car door from outside.
The food I eat is consumed with unbearable guilt and furtive glances at the window. I get frequent stomach aches and my teeth buzz with sensitivity.
He asks me to look at him and I, the lodestone, exert an effort to turn towards him. I fear my shift will crush him. In lieu of scanning his beautiful face, his compassionate eyes, the mouth that sometimes stretches itself out thinly, chin pressed up against the neck when irritated, I turn towards his chest, convenient-like, as I have yet to perfectly master implosion. I let him hold me and tell him of my need to escape, but that it's really hard because I know he's committed to Vegas for another year.
I have no wish to abandon him in this place, this side-show of routine and diversion and repetition and distraction. But, everyday, my mind loses buoyancy and my heart grows a little less or a little overly soft--I can't quite decide which would be worse. I fear becoming harsh and dry and immobile, like the Nevada mountains surrounding the infinite strip malls that occur in similar arrangements on the concrete every few miles. They span territorially, stretching like glass beads patterned within a kaleidoscope.
Worse, I fear becoming malleable, to allow my heart to yield from fear or exhaustion or doubt. I am afraid of becoming lost in this place, in this undefinable role I currently occupy, where my days run themselves out only because they know no other goal. I fear dependency on another for my life, and am sickened with myself for this force that, halo-like, shimmers somewhere above my head, blinking golden and flickering rotten, pushing my mind down endless circuitous hallways.
I am tired of needing approval, of having to explain simple things when others don't. I am sickened with accepting things I don't believe in order to avoid arguments that seem to occur silently, but play out with terrible aggression in my mind. I wonder sometimes if others feel the ache of emotional pain quite so terribly, and feel guilty for blaming another for the phantom gashes, the mental constriction of a hand raised affectionately and squeezed too close to the throat.
I tell him I want to start looking for a job in Korea and that I want to stay a few years this time around. He asks me to wait a bit longer, to volunteer at the military base or to look further into finding a decent job here which is very difficult, since I am not a citizen of this country. My nose crinkles and my fingers numb at the thought of bagging groceries for military personnel's pity change. He instantly reads this as a sense of superiority on my part. They're people, like you and me, he informs, illuminatingly.
I am sad that he thinks it is necessary to remind me that I am as indistinguishable as the next person. I realize this. I know far too well that my education and beautiful dreams amount to nothing here, especially each time I need or desire something and am forced to stand patiently as he pulls his wallet out. I hate myself and am disgusted with this situation that feels helpless as long as I am stationary. And when his mouth tightens like it does, in my mind I wonder if he's trying to figure out whether I, this person like any other as he says, is worth it, really.
He wants me to stay. I want to believe this as much as he does, I think. He often falls asleep in front of the television at night and rests his head in my lap until my legs grow unbearably phlegmatic. Immobilized under him as I often find myself, the strength of the metaphor is not, and runs around mockingly on more bitterly tinged evenings.
He sleeps oblivious and sweet. His eyes closed, I feel I can look at him, to him, without that rising feeling of degradation that's grown more common of late. I examine his face thoroughly. I imagine it on graph paper, under lines. I stroke his hair and am sad again, especially because it is my default emotion. When I do find myself smiling and people wonder why, it is hard to explain and I resent being asked; I feel as though I ought to stop, like I've been reprimanded. He tells me he likes to see me smile, that it makes him happy.
He snores softly and wheezes into the couch cushion over my lap. Unable to tolerate the insensateness of my legs a moment longer, I stroke his bristly face with just enough force to wake him. Flickering his eyes, he mutters that I am beautiful and that I'm his girl before drifting back into the unconscious. Sighing, legs still paralyzed, I wonder about his default and slip farther into mine.
I watch his eyelashes flutter. He looks so young sometimes it doesn't seem fair that he should have to seem so suspicious towards life. I think of how he takes the garbage out to the bin as I sit reading in the living room. The trek is a solid thirty second walk and the door remains in constant sight. Regardless, the lock never fails to turn and I am forced to consider this a habitual quirk, as I am in no mood to be told yet another time that I ought to trust no one; that I need to remember the combination to the bicycle's lock, that this isn't Canada (whether the tiny cultural divide is supposed to justify his paranoia is beyond me, but whatever). I am confused, as I have never been known for possessing sunny optimism towards humankind before now, and Canadian or not, I have always locked my doors and bicycles. He thinks I am naive. He doesn't trust anyone but himself.
He sleeps oblivious and sweet and I can't help but recalling how he often searches my face for signs of life. When people stare at me, I feel exposed, raw, like something is expected of me. It is at these moments that I let myself implode to get away from eyes that try to scratch their way inside. And, his face will inevitably flatten, twisting uncomfortably into a mixture of concern and irritation, and begins to shake his head, like he's suddenly got too much shit to put up with; like he's trapped in a boring nightmare.
Though he'll never admit it, he believes I am incapable of taking care of myself. When we're both upset, we walk apart from one another, but when we are happy and I am within reach, he sometimes grips my arm tightly before I cross the street; like I am a child who'd otherwise get run over or abducted if he turned his back.
I weary of conversation sometimes and like the obstinate child I was, remain silent, though I can't help but worry about how he shakes his head at me, like I'm clueless. I strain the muscles in my face into appearing unconcerned, though I never could quite get a grip on any expression close to happy or carefree. I excel far better at appearing like a blank slate; robotic. I've never been a very convincing actress, you see.
It gets predictable. My mouth will tighten as he grabs my arm, just above the elbow and I'll glaze my eyes and try hard to convince him of my sad lack of peripheral vision; Might as well validate his victory, I'll think. Defending my ability to see with clarity the people, my surroundings, the reality of our situation, is simply too exhausting.
I wonder if he is aware that in the short time I've been here, that I've ceded an obscene amount of my will over to him. I wonder if he's begun to realize that any little extra he helps to scrape away from me now and then will make me want to violently wrench my arm away (it belongs to me) and sit down on the pavement and cry.
He sleeps and I think of Korea. In the eyes of my mind, it's looking better all the time. He seemed a lot happier and more relaxed there too, and I can only chalk it up to not having to live with or support me. Earlier, on the bed, though he told told me he wanted me to stay, he also told me to narrow down the choices I came across, job-wise. He always has advice, of course.
He sees that I am unhappy and that my decision is firm and I think for a moment that his eyes look really sad. Perhaps it is my vanity that causes this thought. After I leave, I wonder if he'll still try to join me a few months later. I think he must already know his decision, but I'll let him tell me when the time comes.
We watch T.V. and changing positions, I rest my head on his lap and feel absolutely terrible. My temples drum out an irregular sort of marching tune and my gums respond competitively.
Later, before joining him in bed, I check my email to discover that the director of the Korean school I'd applied for only several hours previously, has responded, interested.
I panic. I panic at the superior professionalism of this institution and feel unworthy of it. I panic over the lofty, moralistic nature of the question I'll have to answer in TOEFL's standard essay format. I'll have to submit it later for assessment of my value to them as a teacher and a writer. But mostly, I panic because I'd half-expected to be utterly unacknowledged, or at most, responded to eventually by a much lesser, more pedestrian school with crappy hours and predictable pay.
I close the computer's window in terror and stare at the screen in astonishment before entering the bedroom.
He is sprawled out in the center of the bed, the sheets and quilt wrapped shroud-like around his body. He looks much thinner than he did in Korea and I feel guilty about it, like it's my fault, like his life would be pretty hassle-free minus me.
His elbow protrudes from against his torso and for a moment I can think of nothing else but how beautiful and nice this elbow is and that I couldn't possibly go overseas without being in close proximity to it and its owner at the end of the day.
Still panic-stricken, I feel the air becoming denser, despite the loud drone of the humidifier I require to breathe at night. I am surprised to find my eyes accumulating with water, the way they so rarely do. I wedge myself in beside him and gently steal a corner of blanket for myself. I look at the time and know that his alarm, programmed to revert every five minutes to one of the most irritating songs I've ever heard, is set to sound in under an hour.
I wrap my hands around the beautiful elbow and look at his face, asleep. I try to commit the moment to memory and close my eyes. I wonder how many more bittersweet, sleepless nights I'll spend here in this bed.