Bedbugs.

Cozy and I lay in her bed, arranged as usual: she on her back, I on my side with my head on her shoulder. It was still daylight, but the cloudy, winter sky tinted everything blue-grey; it could have been a snowy day in March or a rainy day in August. We were quiet, aside from the sound of Mew's And the Glass Handed Kites and the occasional rustling of her pit bull in the kitchen.

I can't remember what, if anything, was said, but I found myself thinking about the day in May when Thom Yorke and I sat on the curb outside his house. We'd both been crying when his stepfather returned from work, and so we exiled ourselves to the front yard where we made small jokes and nudged each other with elbows and let the sun burn the backs of our necks. When I stood to leave, Thom Yorke put an arm around my shoulders and told me not to lose hope; told me that somewhere, someone was waiting who could make me feel human again. Somewhere, I'd find someone who didn't make me feel alone and cold and empty.

I didn't realize I was crying until Cozy placed the palm of my hand against her face and reminded me of how perfectly the two things fit together. I hadn't believed Thom Yorke initially, but there, at that moment, I realized how worthwhile everything had become. I legitimately cried for the first time in months. It wasn't embarrassing, it wasn't ugly, it wasn't unhappy, it wasn't shameful, and she didn't let go once.
It was the single most liberating thing I have ever experienced.

Never heard him lock the door, part 2.

For two nights I cried myself to sleep.

For two weeks I hid my neck in flesh-tone eyeshadow, collared shirts, and zip-up sweatshirts. My parents never noticed, but I felt just as dirty and ashamed as though they had. The scratches on my back burned in the shower each night and I felt as though a brick had taken up permanent residence in the very bottom of my stomach.

Two months later, we returned to his apartment.
He sent a lion-haired boy with tragic acne to let us into the apartment building. The elevator doors opened to the third floor, where Dirty Hippy's boyfriend lay on the grayish carpet; his hair, dark and stringy and splayed out on the floor around him, looked almost like blood from a distance. Dirty Hippy screamed. The 21-year-old Army asshole yanked him back into the apartment by the legs of his pants and scooped me into his arms, kissing me.
Two minutes later, everyone had gone from the apartment and we sat on his couch, he with his belt unbuckled and I with my hair askew. He took me into his bedroom but this time I was sober and aware and frightened; my clothes felt heavy and the brick in my stomach had finally dislodged itself and was making its way back to my mouth where it had presumably entered two months ago.

Two hours later, he finished himself off in the bathroom while I put on the skirt he bought me - $40, from Express. I smiled and made a show of it, pretended to be happy and flounced around like a 50s sitcom housewife.
I vomited the next morning and hid the skirt in the pile of clothes I wanted to send to my cousins in Arkansas.

For two years, I refused to answer calls from numbers I didn't recognize.

He said he wouldn't call me so much; I didn't realize it meant he'd never call again.

I cried when I tore the rear-view mirror out of the Starving Artist's car.
We sat for half an hour while I frantically tried to reattach it with duct tape and I grew increasingly hysterical with every failed attempt. The Starving Artist grabbed at my hands, my wrists; he begged me to stop crying, told me it was okay and that it could be fixed.

I cried when it started to rain.
We sat in silence while people mulled around the us, highlighted orange by passing cars. He started the car - a big, moss-green SUV - at which point the rear-view mirror toppled out of its bulky, improvised duct-tape base and crashed into the dashboard with a loud thud. It bounced to the floor at my feet; I picked it up and cradled it in my hands, turned it over and watched the way my tears trailed around the glass - just like the rain on the windows. He drove us to a nearby parking lot and did carthweels in the drizzle, sang songs and did somersaults, anything to make me stop.

I cried when it began to thunder.
He crawled into the passenger-side seat with me and played me songs with unmemorable lyrics and soft piano melodies. He squeezed me every time we saw the lightning and refused to loosen his grip until the thunder had passed; I cried harder and blew my nose into his favorite button-down shirt. He told me it would be okay and put his hands on my face, kissed my forehead.

I cried when he told me he loved me.
We made small, careful motions; his hands fumbled with the buttons of my cardigan and I, unsure, kissed the small, sensitive place where his neck and collarbones met. When I told him I loved him, too, he pressed his face into my shoulder and cried.

A month later, I sat in the dark at the edge of my bed and begged him to be there - to be alive - when I came back from Canada; he hung up the phone.
I stood in the shower under scalding hot water for three hours, hyperventilating, screaming, digging my nails into my arms until I bled.
I couldn't cry.