Until

My hands aren't mine. They've never been. I try not to look at them.

I don't like to remember Back Then very often. It is as if it is another girl's story, another girl's mistakes. I smile big. I laugh a lot. I wear a fancy watch and I always pay for dinner. I see the diamonds glisten from my fingers, but I don't really look.

They're not my hands.

Someone will sometimes remind me about the Time Before. They'll tell me about the boyfriend facing drug addiction and I feel my insides ache. They'll tell me about that time they faced physical violence at the hand of a loved one and I want to vomit. They'll complain about the price of popsicles and vegetables for their son and I want to leave. They tell me about poverty, complacency and the future that they don't know that they can attain. I want to go far away, hands in gloves, fingers tucked away, palms facing you, veins hidden.

I don't want to see them.

They're not mine.

They're hers.

They are the physical reminder of Back Then; the smell of alcohol on her breath, the stumbling walk to the bathroom to find more pills, the screaming, the hitting.

My worlds don't bleed together until you look at the flesh of my fingers, the ridge of my nails, the way my veins stick up from my hand, the wrinkle of my knuckles. I hide my hands behind jewelry, behind beautiful clothes, gorgeous shoes and everything I never had.

But, they're still there under the things that sparkle and shine; under the life I've made for myself.

I can look away, not notice them, not look.

Until she starts looking for me again. Until she starts emailing me every day. Until she tries to find me, until she gets my phone number again, until she wants me again, until she fills letters to me with words that I don't want to read, vowels that look menacing, offers of love that feel like demons along my spine. Until she relapses, until she gets another DUI, until she breaks her neck again, until, until, until.

I would give her back her hands if I could. I only hope that when my daughter sees her own hands, which may look like mine, she can only think of all the other ways we are alike.

I hope a smile lights her face and she remembers her Back Then a little differently than I remember my own.