“The things I repress?” I ask confused.
Mrs Michel looks at me, smiles faintly and drives off. I take a good look at my saviour before I turn around. What things?
SF. San Francisco is so unique that it can’t be compared to anywhere else, and I decide to do something about my feelings for this city to fill the emptiness inside me. I enter a discreet tattoo parlour and wait to be served. A man with multiple tattoos on his arms comes over and shows me to a chair.
“How do you want to be tattooed?” he asks with a smile.
“A heart with SF inside it. I don’t want it to be big.”
While the tattooist gets ready to tattoo my wrist, I look at the people around me. A large man weighing around two hundred kilos sits on my left. He is having a naked woman tattooed on his arm and I’m pretty sure that tattoo is the only woman he will ever have. I turn to my right and see an attractive woman with short whitish-yellow hair. Now who does she remind me of? I jump when I feel a prick on my wrist and the tattooist gets to work. He doesn’t take long and in a strange way the pain calms my body down. While he fetches me a Band-Aid, I look to the right again. When the woman turns to me, I can barely believe my own eyes and I stare at her unashamedly. Pink! Pink! Pink! I snap out of my dreamlike state and turn my gaze to her again. She is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it. She talks to her tattooist. She is clearly aware that she has been recognized and glances at me. She has noticed me! She is looking at me! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I can hear a voice screaming inside me. Several of Pink’s songs come back to me and I rediscover all the love which has been absent in me for so long and the feeling is so indescribably huge that it cannot be resisted. When she turns to me, I bow my head to her in gratitude. There is no doubt that Pink’s music is the best guide I have in my life. When she sees me bow, she sends me a smile which I will treasure deep inside my heart forever. Pink. Who would have thought that I would see such a beautiful person? I pay the tattooist and take a last look at the woman with the wonderful voice when she suddenly waves to me by wriggling her fingers and my heart explodes. I can sense that Pink is looking at me with compassion and as I can’t understand why, I just leave.
SF. Heart.
My tattoo has penetrated the skin properly and my body is less tense. I sit down on a small mound of green grass and light a cigarette. I pick up my iPod and play Pink’s latest album, The Truth About Love. I gaze at the blue sea and try to put my chaotic feelings and thoughts in order. I have to knock some common sense into myself. What am I doing here?
“Right from the start, you were a thief, you stole my heart, and I, your willing victim.” The song “Just Give Me a Reason” starts to play and some degree of lucidity seeps into my thoughts in such a terribly short space of time that I almost become fearful. I have come to my senses.
“Just Give Me a Reason” is playing in the background. The television is on, but silent. Our small kitchen has been left untouched and filthy. I have woken up feeling fraught and because of that I have a headache and I am crotchety. I heave a deep sigh and go to the kitchen to start washing up. She dries the dishes and smiles a little while I try not to get annoyed with her. I want to look at her lovely face without looking angry myself. When we have finished, I sit down on the sofa and spend a long time on Facebook to avoid talking to her. She sits on one of the chairs by the table and looks at me with devotion. I pull a face to offer her a kind of smile by way of acknowledgement. Today we have been together for three years and I’m still in love with her. I get butterflies in my stomach when she puts her arms around me. I always long for her to come home from college. I always look forward to lying next to her, holding her, kissing her neck. When I tell her that I love her, I always mean it. I don’t want to lose her, but I’m not OK. Even though our relationship is exciting and happy, something is wrong. I’m fine as long as I’m at home, but when I go out, it feels as if the whole town despises me and talks about me behind my back. I log off and go to my room to lie down for a little while. My lovely girlfriend enters and lies down next to me. Without making eye contact, I slip my arms around her and kiss her a few times “Fia, just look at me,” she says. I make myself comfortable and she smiles and starts to caress my face. She gazes at me with her pretty eyes.
“Are you OK?”
I nod in order not to show my frustration. We lie in silence holding each other. “Fia…” She clears her throat to firm up her voice.
“Three years.” I smile and she starts again.
“I love you, and you know it. You love me, I can feel it. When I think about my future, I always imagine spending it with you. You’re so precious to me and I don’t want to lose you. I can’t imagine life without you.” She smiles and continues. “If you feel the same way about me, I would like to marry you, make a home with you and have children.” She kisses my cheek.
“Of course I feel the same way about you. If all goes well, I obviously want to live the rest of my life with you and have children. You’re a part of my future because I have no chance of ever being happy unless you’re with me.” This is what I want to tell her, but I’m worried what other people might think. “Get married? Have children? You have to understand that our relationship will never be straightforward. Can you imagine what people would say if we were to marry? If we have a child, people will look down on her or him because she or he doesn’t have a father. I’m telling you, our child will be bullied at school. He or she will have two bloody dykes for mothers, and that will be a shame.” I don’t pause to think before I launch into my rant. She looks shocked.
“If our child doesn’t have a father, but gets plenty of love, feels safe and can talk openly to us, having only two mothers won’t be a problem. I know that we would make good parents. I’m sure that we can offer a child everything it needs. Are you against marriage? Are you against making promises to each other, loving and respecting each other for the rest of our lives? You have to ignore what other people say and live your own life. Many people think that we’re completely ordinary. Our relationship is no different from their relationships.”
The truth of her words hits me hard and I snap. I get up and reply: “But I know that lots of people think of me as a freak!” She gets up, comes over to me and puts her arms around me, even though I shrug them off. “Fia. And so what? I don’t want them getting in the way of our love. Don’t let them stop you from being yourself.” Her embrace reassures me, but I remove her arms and get ready to leave. “Where are you going?” she asks softly. “Out to buy fags,” I reply angrily and leave. The rest of the evening I’m unapproachable. I walk away whenever she comes near me. I go outside to smoke when she tries to talk. My body grows tenser and I can no longer control my rage.
Everything comes back as images. A sofa. A 42-inch television. A big lamp. A double bed. A freezer. A MacBook Air. A PlayStation 3 and two games. I remember now that I sold it all except my iPod. Her mother’s pale and red-eyed face appears when I close my eyes. Her grave. Sara being buried deep in the ground. Sara. Sara. Sara. I can’t remember attending her funeral, but terrifying images flash up in my mind. Everything is dark, but her bright white coffin shows up horrifically and I can’t make the disturbing sight go away. I remember the phone call. The words seem so fresh that it feels as if they were spoken only a few seconds ago. “Knocked down. Dead.” Sara’s last word, “Sorry”, and her pretty face filled with grief repeat on a loop, tormenting my ears and eyes.