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“Skipping Up the Steps Since Six” was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.
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art by Alan Aine
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Skipping Up the Steps Since Six
by Camille R.E.
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The moment I was born, I couldn’t breathe.
“Newborns cry, y’know, but you couldn’t make a sound.”
Sprawled across that hospital bed, Ma was faint but fighting. ‘Cause for forty-something weeks, she had carried a miracle around.
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I’d eaten up her curves and kicked until I had stretched her twig-thin. Yet, she would bury herself in vitamins, books, endless doctor’s visits and Beethoven all so that I would come out alright.
And after her own mother had passed away, the only comfort to her was this little heartbeat echoing in her tummy.
“So there was no way, no way, I was gon’ let this world take you from me.”
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I owe her my first breath and my second life. Yet, by six, this second chance was all I could despise.
There were growing pains.
In the mirror, I would wrestle out my teeth too early. Rinse my blood into the sink. And, with a tooth placed under my pillow, pray to the fairy:
“I don’t want your money. Just wake me when I’m okay.”
But, my adult teeth wouldn’t grow in any faster. I would still rise the next morning. And my gums would still ache.
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In what felt like an eternity later, I would wake up, and my limbs would be longer. Weightier.
I often couldn’t sleep, so sometimes, I would drag my feet through the apartment. That night, I found my mom in the living room–crouched with a lamp in hand, looking through the old films she’d taken with her Polar.
I lingered and I flinched, watching my mom completely lose her composure, longing for the baby girl in those aging photos and just wishing that I hadn’t outgrown her.
Hiding in that dark hallway, I learned what it was to feel the heavy guilt of growing older.
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My training wheels would still be spinning in the trash the day Ma took me shopping for training bras. We parked up at PINK, having arrived in the very first summer of my teens.
By now, I’d had these two mosquito bites that I couldn’t confidently call “breasts” and, finally, the freedom to waddle down the city streets.
But watching the taller, thicker girls power past, I bumped shoulders with Envy. Ma would say to be patient, that I would be a woman in my due time. But I’d been waiting for my body to fill herself out, yet I still felt like I’d been colored too far inside my lines.
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I was wearing melting skin and a searing hot face. My hands were so tense I’d almost broken the key in the damn lock.
I felt so ashamed.
“Mama! I fucking hate going to the corner store!”
‘Cause congregated at the curbs, were these grown-ass men who would glare and smirk and tweet. Usually, I’d ignore them, but that day, they’d made me want to cover my body in layers–even in that blasted heat!
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So, Ma sat me down.
Said, “Lil girl, watch your mouth!”
Said, “This is your mother you’re talking to.”
Said, “Men like them can always sniff out your youth. They will watch the lack of balance between your feet and follow if you take the wrong turn or choose the wrong step. I’ve wished and I’ve prayed, but I cannot rid the world of these men.
“But trust me, trust me, I will do my very best–” Ma would then try too hard. “–To be your best defense.”
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No social media. Barely any social life. No dates, no links, no meets.
“After school, lil girl, you betta come straight home to me.” To our tension, to our fights, to our anything-but-what-we-used-
to-be.
“You’re robbing me of my childhood! And here I thought you was supposed to be my best defense?”
As if I’d cut her, Ma would flinch, then in a hushed hiss—say:
“Then try
living out
in the street.”
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I know Ma never meant it.
But in high school, I’d met a girl. Pretty. Pierced up. Never pressed ‘bout shit–unlike some parents. We were both fifteen. She once told me she’d already fucked two bitches, and I wanted to be her third.
So when she texted:
wanna spend the night?
I climbed down the fire escape and measured my mom up to her words.
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Mama blowing up my phone while my nails dug into a near stranger.
Wish I could say it felt special. That it was all worth it.
But, truth was,
I just wished I was worth more
than the next bitch who’d entertain her.
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Seated across the dining table, my mom looked to the ceiling–probably thanking God for getting me home safely. Or maybe asking Her to shed some light on just what mistake she’d made lately.
It was so silent–I remember–I could hear the old floors weeping. This room had once been filled to the roof with our conversations and Erykah Badu’s teachings. But now, it’d been so long since these walls heard some laughter and good Soul.
Then Mama’s wrinkled, puffy eyes looked through me:
“Lil girl, what are you running after? Do you even know?”
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“Duh…” I mumbled.
Because of course I knew what I wanted.
I wanted I wanted I wanted I wanted
I wanted
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They say a girl’s father is her first love, but nah, Mama was my very first heartbreak.
Eventually, our silence crumbled into a loneliness that we battled separately. My mom never really checked on me anymore. She just kept looking at those old baby photos, losing again and again to the depression I’d brought her.
So, I sought the company of another grown-ass woman who called me “baby.” Though, I didn’t even look like her daughter.
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All my life, I’d hated Algebra. Until I met Ms. Alexandra. The whitest woman I’d ever seen. Romanian. Pale skin. Light ginger hair. Eyes so piercing and green.
For me, our affair was something completely new–completely other. And her age, her experience, her power had kept me terrified of her.
And, I liked it?
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No social media. Still barely any social life. No dates. But there were links. And meets.
“After school, you better come straight home to mommy.”
I’d gag whenever Ms. Alex would say that. But, there were a lot of things I hated about Ms. Alex that I had let pass.
Like how she would hiss in my ear, telling me I’m more than enough. But then, as if trying to mold me into something entirely different, handle my body so rough.
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After our first time, I never wanted to kiss her. Her lips would punch mine, and I’d feel like a plastic doll or the wall behind us. At first, I just thought she was a terrible kisser, but I would soon learn, she was more than just a bad one. Eventually, I never wanted to be touched. I would kick and cry and scream. And to my horror, she wouldn’t let up. She would just say,
“Louder for me.”
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And whenever Ma was tripping, and I needed to leave early, she’d say things like:
“You’re mine, not your mother’s. She won’t treat you good as me.
“Because take it from one:
“a mother could never love a slut.”
But when her daughter was too close to home, she’d shove me around and throw me outside. And that’s what really didn’t feel like love.
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But she did listen to me talk.
I guess.
After my clothes were taken off and she’d had her full.
I grew exhausted with bargaining for her company and constantly using my body as collateral. And the evening I would leave her house for the last time was the very first moment I would realize:
The same evil Mama had fought to shield me from, I had been opening up for and letting inside.
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Suddenly, like the moment I was born, I couldn’t breathe.
There were many nights when I’d begin to suffocate in the middle of my sleep. I’d wake up and the world would be pulling the air right through my teeth. As if it hadn’t already taken enough from me.
“Breathe in gray skies,” my mom would say, laying by my side. “Exhale blue skies… Slowly now.”
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Once I calmed down, I would find that the air was still around somewhere. I would try not to think about Ms. Alex or her house or her stench or her hands or her bed. I would just crawl into my mom’s arms, and she would try to hold me.
I guess I’d been going off old news because, suddenly, I was shocked to be ten years older then I remembered.
I remembered being six, finding my mom crouched with those old films.
Now, in her arms, I couldn’t fit. I really had outgrown her.
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Now, I had become the one crying about it, and my mom would be the one telling me:
“You’re not all gone, baby. Not at all.”
But she was wrong. I felt it inside. This crushing, grinding, and crumbling thing that chokes a girl into a woman. Some pieces of me did get lost. Uncomfortable, I’ve tried shaking them off, and they have left. And they’ve never found their way back to me.
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I’ve admitted to a lot, but to this day–about Ms. Alex–Mama still doesn’t know. I am afraid that I am my mother’s worst fear. Afraid to let her see, that despite all her fight and all her hope, just how far her daughter’s let herself go–in trying to be a woman when she chose. Simply ‘cause she felt that the time was moving too slow.
But, God–when I stood in front of that bathroom mirror–how I wish I had known first
that pulling out my teeth to grow them in faster
doesn’t do a goddamned thing
but hurt.
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Camille R.E. is chanting a black and queer girl’s song, unearthing deep feelings and inspiring powerful self-discovery. Since childhood, she has found solace in alchemizing imagery, rhythm and words to express her living, palpable emotions. With roots wandering from Brooklyn to South Carolina, her bold literary voice blooms from every verse, aiming to sow gardens throughout our vast wounds. Camille shares her words on TikTok (@camille.r.e) and Instagram (@camille_r.e) while she writes her first novel.
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War. Remembrance. Walls. The High Price of Authoritarianism – by editor/publisher Joe Maita
“The Sound of Becoming,” J.C. Michaels’ winning story in the 70th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
Click here to read more short fiction published on Jerry Jazz Musician
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