Page 6 of Tangled at the Root
Our foreheads had pressed together, and I’d forced myself to think of all my mother’s warnings, of all the reasons this would never work, and managed to grit out a miserable but resolute, “Wecan’t.”
She’d exhaled shakily, her warm breath against my parted lips a mockery of the kiss we would never get to share.
“I know,” she’d whispered, her voice as choked and anguished as mine.
Four words, and we were over before we’d ever begun.
We’d spent the next three years content at simply being at each other’s side—we didn’t daredream of anything else, somehow knowing—without ever actually saying it out loud—that this was the kind of hunger one could never satiate.
As graduation had approached, though, we’d grown restless. Greedy. I’d known it was futile, but I’d been foolishly frantic, desperate for a future where I could keep her, even if I couldn’t have her. We’d clung on with bleeding fingernails, pathetic enough to even talk about it like it meant nothing—pretending that getting married wouldn’t be a hardship because at least we both also happened to be attracted to men; talking aboutliving side by side and raising our future kids together, staying involved in each other’s lives in the only way we knew how.
Then my mother had died.
I’d thoughtlessly assumed the ever-present need to be as close as possible, to fill my lungs with Rosemary’s scent and her scent alone, to lick andbiteevery inch of her skin had been a result of years of suppressed sexuality talking, evidence of the so-called “madness” my mother claimed nipped at the heels of all Takieme women, stubborn and relentless as a territorial bush rat.
Despite her warnings, her strict, unforgiving training, a part of me had naively clung on to the belief that I could be—that Iwasnormal. That she had to be lying or exaggerating. Befriending Rosemary had made my belief worsen.
Those dark, final days I’d spent buried in grief and ungodly desire had forced me to face reality. My mother might’ve lied about the “madness”, but she hadn’t lied about that wretched hunger.
Her death had made me want to hold onto Rosemary and never let go. It made me—made thebeast, I realise now, want to wrap around her like a python andsqueeze, grind her bones down to dust and then consume her ashes. End her life so it wouldn’t betakenfrom me—soshewouldn’t be taken from me; so that even in death, she would belong to me, forever.
I’d been downplaying my deterioration long before I’d swallowed my pride to come here, but seeing Rosemary again makes me realise just how badly I’d done so.
This flimsy, comicalcontrolis the single useful thing my mother had left me—it’sallI have left, and it’s fading. Fast.
What will I be when it’s gone?
I rip myself away from the door, heading blindly for the kitchen.
Two rooms between us and I can stillsmellher. Clean sweat and damp forest soil with a fresh minty undertone.
And blood, warm and rich, running through her veins. Unlike back in uni, where all her outfits had been paired with a small touch of green—green earrings, green bangles, green scarf—today, she’s dressed entirely in green.
Grass green top with spaghetti straps so thin I can’t stop thinking about how easy it would be to rip them off. A silky skirt with a grassy pattern that hugged those thick, curvy hips and thighs, stopping at her shins, her feet in dark green crocs decorated with the charms of flowers and stars. Dangling teardrop-shaped earrings made with Ankara cloth.
My once telenge best friend, a frail, petite thing back in uni, now has her shorter frame padded all over with luscious softness. Her nails had been painted a deep green, and had she not been wearing her crocs, I’m sure her toes would have been painted the same shade.
Her hair was done in a half all-back style with three star-partings, the braids at the back of her head tipped with large beads, most of them in warm yellow and brown, the only pops of colour on her frame in a sea of green.
I’m shaking. With how I’m feeling right now—like my stomach wants to eat itself, like I’m literally going through withdrawals—I can’t believe I’d been able to walk away from her. When I’d done it back then—ten years ago today, which I can’t stop thinking feels like some kind of auspicious omen, while simultaneously telling my foolish heart to stop fucking dreaming—I’d been thankfully numb, too full of complicated grief for my mother and everything her death had meant.
I grip the edges of the sink so tightly the aluminium threatens to fold underneath my fingers.
I can still smell her. Fuck.I can still smell her.
Is she still standing out there? The thought makes a knife twist in my chest. Is she staring up at the front of my grandmother’shouse, looking like a lost lamb—one that had finally found its shepherd, only to be rejected once more?
That last thought reminds me why I need to stay away. Her mouthwatering fragrance lingering around me—the delectable scent coming into the kitchen from the open window—reminds me why I need to stay away. The way my mouth hasn’t stopped watering, my gums aching, stomach cramping, reminds me why I need to stay away.
I am not her shepherd. I’m definitely not her saviour.
If she had even aninklingof the thing that lingers just underneath my skin—
The aluminium folds in my grip like clay, moulding into the shape of my thin, unnaturally long fingers.
One day. I’ve barely spent one day in this house, and all I’ve gotten is the total and absolute destruction of everything I’ve ever known. The last thing I need is my ex-best friend poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, discovering things that would worsen the distance between us—that would irrevocably alter the way she remembers me.
I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired.
