Cherries on Fire

In this very moment, the subtle glow of a street lamp is the only thing keeping me safe. It’s a reminder that outside of this room exists a reality that isn’t the one I’m currently living. If it were to shut off, I would be swallowed up by the darkness of this room. By his darkness.

As the smell of his cigarette slowly leaves the room through the propped window, the sound of a bus passing by filters in. “Kyle, why are you still here?” This is now the fifth time he has left for days without any warning. His phone is always off, he never returns calls or messages. He simply states every time that he was out gambling with friends whom I have never met. And every time he comes home, he doesn’t look me in my eyes and goes right to bed.

I hate the way he smokes inside our bedroom. It makes it feel like we live in some sort of crack den. I constantly find myself coming home and hanging out with our roommates in their rooms because I don’t want the lingering smell to make its way to my nostrils. I had the option of always going back home to my parents’ house where I truly lived because I was 18 at this time, but then they’d think there would be something wrong. My parents would want me to leave him if he kept up this behavior, leaving me as a failure at love.

I try to wake him. No response, all of his clothes are still on. Including his jacket. He is passed out completely. There is only one thing to do, and no, it’s not pack my stuff up and move back in with my parents and leave this mess forever. I grab my laptop and face it away from him. I log onto Craigslist and search for a new man. There they are, listing after listing. Some even closer to my age. I’m so tempted to email them, to get into trouble and be forced to end this. Because that’s the only way I can get out, is if he leaves me. If I left well, I would have failed from trying to help him. My love is a power like no other, I think I can save him. From whatever he is going through.

“Go to sleep, Kyle,” I say to myself as I’m scrolling through torsos and dick pics.

I delete the computer history of the past hour, lay my head down next to his, and the smell of the tar from his lungs creeps into my nostrils. “Goodnight, I love you.”

It’s been over a year that I have been living in this reality. And I’m not sure calling it a ‘reality’ is grammatically correct anymore.

Yes, everything in my immediate universe was ‘real.’ All the “I love you’s,” the “I’m going to go hang out with so and so,” “I get off of work at 4:00 so I’ll see you at 4:30.” It seems when I’m in a relationship, I make it a point to be on my best behavior since, after all, it's a husband I’m wanting. So you gotta put in the work.

Well, I haven’t believed him for about six months now. I don’t know what to believe. Or who to believe. I was losing my trust. In everyone.

It all started when I was 18, working at PUMA. To make a long story short, he was the hiring manager, he hired me (Now I think it was because I was cute, not like I had any skills to offer), one day we went out with co-workers, he got me drunk off red wine, kissed me in front of a co-worker, which stirred the pot at work. Eventually everyone found out except the general manager. Once she found out, it was only a matter of time before he was fired for “fraternization.” Or at least that’s what he told me. So I hated the general manager from there on out. I had no idea what was to come.

A month goes by and he can’t find work, which also makes me think he can’t pay rent at his best friend's mom's house, where he rents the In-Law unit. Which is exactly what happens. Instead of giving him notice, his best friend and him “Got into it, real bad”. Therefore he had to move in with another friend, in her room. So then I find myself, sleeping over in his friend's room with him. Thinking to myself, this is weird. I’m sleeping next to a 28-year-old man that can’t afford rent, can’t seem to get a job, and now is sleeping on a small twin size air mattress on the floor of his friend’s room. But of course, I don’t read into it. The friend is the same girl who found him kissing me for the first time. She still is a co-worker of mine at this point. One night, after working a shift with her, we ride back ‘home’ together. In the car, I ask her why she isn’t charging him for rent. She knows he’s struggling but he’s never offered to even help. So I tell her that I’ll pay half while he stays with her, which she accepts graciously.

After months go by of me paying his portion of the rent, he secures a job at Ed Hardy as an assistant general manager. Somehow, he still seemed to have no money, all the time. He asked me (since I’m always sleeping over) if I could pay half of his new rent. Since we're “In Love” I didn’t think twice and just accepted it.

I was so naive back then, I truly just believed no one else could hurt me after what had happened to me as a teenager, there is no way this world is that cruel. But on a smoke break one day at work, it all started to come together. I was dating a vile narcissist. 



“How is he?” my friend and manager, Tripti asks on a smoke break. I get taken aback because, since he was fired, she hasn’t asked about him. It was almost like she was mad at him for it, therefore, I was mad at her. But instead of holding my grudge, I open up. I tell her of his money troubles, about him having trouble finding work, about me paying the portion of the rent, how I buy groceries and then I slip the small detail about how he disappears.

“Kylie, what do you mean he disappeared?” she asks me softly.

“Well, the first time it happened, I waited for him to come home from work. Normally, he would be home by 10:00 pm at the latest, I would have some Thai food ready to eat, we’d then watch a movie and pass out shortly after.” I continue, “11:00 pm hits and nothing, so I call him, but it goes straight to voicemail. I send him texts like “Hi Babe, Hope you’re ok, I’m just at home chillin.” Another 30 minutes pass, then an hour, then it’s 3:00 am and he’s still not home. I think to myself, ‘Maybe he went to the bars with his friends, and just forgot to tell me?’ So he should be home anytime. But he never came home, I stayed up all night.”

Tripti’s eyes got wider and wider as I told her this. She inhales a hit of her parliament, and puts it out to reply. “Kylie, I’m so sorry this is happening to you. You shouldn’t have to be helping him like this, you’re far too young, and too sweet.”

“But I want to make sure he’s okay! I mean, he came home two days later and said he was just hanging with friends at the casino. And I wouldn’t understand because I can’t drink legally yet. It makes sense, I’m just too young for him!” I’m trying to win her over with my excuse.

“You’re enough, and your age has nothing to do with this.” Tripti takes a beat. This might be hard to process but I think he’s on drugs, I think he’s doing meth.”

The world fell silent in this moment. Then it all came crashing down on me.

Months before, his best friend, whom he was living with, told me about how he used to work for a bank and got fired for smoking meth in the bathroom. But then she followed it up with how he’s past that, and she made sure of it. That’s why she took him in. A friendly rehab. But then why would she kick him out? Was he back to his old ways?

I told Tripti a brief explanation of the information I just had realized.

All she could say was. “Protect yourself, honey. This is a big test for you. If he is doing drugs, you need to leave.”

I appreciated Tripti and I’ve always been so fond of her wisdom. She knew I had work to do on my own. And she believed that I could do it. That was so different from any type of friendship I’ve had before.

I nod and head back into work.

At dance rehearsal later that night, I tell my best friend Kelli what I had potentially discovered. Kelli was completely over the fact that I was still with this person. After all, he had ripped me away from her and all of my friends. The only time I ever saw them was at dance practice. After rehearsals, while I traveled home to be with him, to prove that I was faithful. My friends would have sleepovers, get trashed, watch movies together, go to parties, create memories that I could have been a part of, they were living their age. I was missing out on two years of my life.

Kelli tells me to leave. And I agree, I must.

But I don’t. I’m trapped.

A few months later, things are still the same. I’m still dating the missing person on a milk carton. My friends have stopped texting me or calling me to hang out. My family is checked out as well. I wish someone would have just ripped me out of this situation, come to the apartment on another night I’m in the bedroom by myself, waiting, 1:00 in the morning, in the dark, asking myself why do I feel the need to stay in this, why do I care about him so much even though I kept alluding to everyone that I had it under control? But I was silently blowing my whistle. Hoping someone would hear it and save me.

Valentine's Day comes. A day in which I held such high standards for myself because I felt like I was worthy of a fairytale love. He comes home from work with a present in hand. I, of course, had a full package ready, a card, some new clothes, and chocolates; a present that would show him I care and that he’s valued and subconsciously letting him know that ‘I’m taking this seriously, are you!?’

He hands me the box, “Happy Valentine's Day”.

I open it. It’s a Tiffany’s ring. Something I never even dreamed of owning at 19 years old.

“It’s a promise ring, Kyle. I promise to always protect you, to always love you. Happy Valentine's Day.”

He slips the ring on my finger and I throw myself on him, crying, instantly forgiving him for all the pain he’s caused because why else would he buy this expensive ring?! He must be serious! He opens my presents and I laugh because they obviously aren’t nearly as good.

“I have one more present for you,” he says.

“It’s something you have been asking for since we first started this journey together, and it’s also the reason I’ve been gone without calling or texting. It’s because I didn’t want you to find out.”

He pulls out a CD. “It’s our song, Kyle.”

“Ain’t No Sunshine” was the song he first sang to me, it was also his audition song for American Idol when he was on TV. I was always completely enamored by this. And it made me fall deeper into him. I would put this song on the nights he had been gone, and now it made all the sense in the world. While I was listening to this song, he was recording it for me.

I put on the CD. It is him. Not the best quality, but it’s him singing to me. I start crying again, he starts singing to me live, in our tiny cigarette-smelling bedroom. As he’s singing, I’m looking down at my ring. I see my guilt. I see all the emails I’ve sent on Craigslist wanting sex, wanting a reason to get out of this horrible situation, the situation that apparently I’ve now made up in my head.

That night, we finally made love after months of him not even kissing me. It felt like it was the start all over again, a new leaf had turned. I couldn’t wait to tell Kelli the next morning.

Kelli had no words for me at rehearsal that next morning. She seemed so disappointed. Surprised at the ring, but still concerned. She said he could have recorded it around the time of American Idol, and that he just burned it onto a CD making it the perfect cover up! I didn’t want to side with her because I felt like he was truly making an effort. After all, the ring was the same cost of a month's rent! But my best friend, my soul mate, Kelli Terada. She knew. I wish I had just been a better listener.

So we’re back in my bedroom. I’m waiting for him to get home, I just douched out, and I want to make love to him, and his tiny penis, I want to show him that night how much I loved that tiny penis.

Hours pass, and he never makes it home. It has happened again, this time, the excuse doesn’t line up. What is he doing, recording a new song?! No. I open my laptop and log onto Craigslist. Searching for any man that will fill this void. I search for about 30 minutes, send out about 20 emails and get no replies. I start crying. I can’t believe she was right. Kelli was right. I want to call her but it’s late. I’ll call her in the morning. Tomorro,w I’ll leave him.

I fall asleep.

In the middle of my dreamlike state, I smell the hot, sour smell of a freshly lit cigarette. The room is dark, and the streetlight isn’t blaring into my eyes from the outside. The window has its shades down. I slowly wake up confused, I hadn’t done that.

In the corner of the room, I see a red cigarette cherry breathing, and a dark face behind it.

It’s him.

“What are you doing?, Where have you been!?” I say exasperated.

“You’re a liar, Kyle,” he says angrily.

“What?”

“I found all of the messages you’ve been sending. You’re a fucking LIAR!” he shouts.

I look at the clock, it’s midnight.

“I haven’t done anything bad, it’s just…”

Then I notice the knife in his hands, he’s holding it up right, spinning it in his hand.

“Why are you holding a knife?”

“Because I have to. You have to learn someday how to treat people.”

Without thinking twice, I scream for him to stay away from me. I jump up, barge out of our bedroom door. “He’s got a knife! HELP!” I scream at anyone who can hear me making a dash for the hallway bathroom, where I slam the door behind me. He’s screaming, “Open up!”

The roommates wake up, yelling at him to drop the knife and get the fuck out! He quickly grabs what he needs and runs out of the house. I’m left crying on the bathroom floor. The girl roommate comes in to console me, asking if she can call anyone. I tell her to grab my phone. I call Kelli.

Kelli arrives in a taxi. She comes into the apartment and into the bedroom, where I am sobbing. My roommate leaves me so we can be alone together. She immediately hugs me and the healing process begins. I start apologizing for not listening to her, and being distant, and being a terrible best friend. Kelli had no interest in hearing any of it. She forgave me in a heartbeat. She simply wanted to get me out. So for the next hour, we pack all of my belongings that I had moved into the tiny cigarette smelling bedroom. Even the pillows and duvet were mine. I called my Dad to tell him what had happened. He without hesitation drives over to pick us up. My dad enters the apartment and asks the roommates for details. My dad was furious, I never wanted to see him like this, wanting to kill my ex I’m pretty sure he said something like, “I’ll buy a gun and shoot the kid.” Not exactly what you wanted to hear when going through something this traumatic but I get the sympathy. My dad loved me.

We get in the car and drive back to my parents. Kelli and I sit in the backseat, she holds my head in her lap, caressing my hair. I notice the Tiffany’s ring on my finger. I lift it in front of both of us and say “Well, the one good thing is, at least I can pawn this?” We both chuckle.