She, 5

            She opened the apartment door and walked in. There was a dark greyness surrounding everything and the dreary light through the windows was cold, damp, ill illumination. She entered the bedroom and saw the outline of his body lying on the bed. The drapes were drawn and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

            “You look pretty,” he said in a low voice.

            “Thanks,” she said shortly. She walked to the closet and hung her jacket as her heart began to hammer. She could feel the chemicals reacting in her body. Fear, anxiety and sorrow mixed into a confusing mass. She turned to look at him through the darkness.

            “Are we going to talk about this?” he said. His voice was still a low drone. The monotone heightened her emotions. She knew he was wrought and raw on the inside.

            She fumbled with a corner stitch on her blouse and slowly walked to the bed. She sat down at the corner furthest from him, her back to him.

            “What’s happening?” he muttered.

She was quiet for some time and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she matched his low tone.

“I don’t know you anymore. And it is making me crazy. It makes me feel like I don’t know me anymore because when I think about me, I think about you. I think about us.” He stopped and collected himself briefly. “You’ve pulled away from me and everyone else. If you can’t talk to me at least talk to someone.”

“My brother saw shrinks his entire life before he killed himself. For nineteen years. I am not going to a shrink.”

“So you’re just going to hold everything inside and push away everyone?”

“I don’t want to talk about this. Again.”

“We wouldn’t have to talk about it again if you would… could make active steps to fixing it. And it’s only getting worse – that shit at the church, that is the worst I have seen you.”

“I know that,” she snapped. “That is the worst I have seen myself, don’t you think I fucking know that?”

“And you’re okay with that? You’re okay letting that be your worst ‘til you do something else that’s your worst? Over and over?” She remained silent. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

She rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. She blinked heavily, droplets falling from her lashes. He knocked on the door softly.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She closed her eyes and inhaled heavily as more tears escaped her. Sorry. She was sorry. It didn’t make any sense to her either. She carried everything inside of her, hiding away pieces – sometimes forever – and expressing herself untruthfully. It was who she was now. Thinking about a way back to her former self was dizzying and impossible. She was sorry. Yet there he was, apology in hand; anything to pull her back to him.

An inexplicable anger came over her and she pulled the door open. “What are you sorry for?”

“For what I said.”

“But it’s all the truth, isn’t it?” she countered, the boiling inside her rising.

“For how I said it,” he corrected.

“Fuck off,” she said nastily as she pushed past him. She entered the bedroom and reached inside her closet and pulled out her jacket. A piece of paper fell onto the floor and she bent down to pick it up.

“I said I was sorry,” he said as he came up behind her.

“Stop saying sorry.”

“I am fucking sorry!”

She balled her fist painfully and swung at him, hitting him on the chest hard. “STOP!”

The blow didn’t faze him. “I’m sorry that no matter what the fuck I do or say or try or give or accept, you are still hurting. That’s what I’m sorry for.”

She shook her head and pushed him hard as she marched to the door. He followed her and pulled her back by the arm. She flung him off her and looked him in the eye.

“I’m done with you. I want you to get all your shit out of here – out of my fucking life,” she spat.

He looked at her with a dead expression then chuckled.

She spun around and walked out the apartment. She exited her building and walked swiftly to a nearby deli.

“Cigarettes,” she said to the man behind the counter. She put the money on the counter.

“This isn’t money, miss,” the cashier said.

She stared at him blankly as he unfolded the piece of paper slowly. “It’s a business card. See?” He held it to her eye level and she blinked many times until the words came into focus.

It was the card the waitress had given her.

She, 2

She was running, her hand still in his. He looked back at her and laughed, his brown eyes crinkled, the skin around them creased in endless abandon.

“This is my yoga studio,” she mentioned breathlessly as they careened past the stone building. He backtracked unexpectedly and pulled her with him.

“HEY!” he called up at the dark windows. Passers-by on the sidewalk merely stalked around them, passive aggressively dismissing their existence.

She giggled, “No one’s there, it’s almost midnight.”

“They’re all at the wedding,” he said with a grin.

The wedding.

Her dress had ripped on the ferry ride and he had swiftly fixed it with some kind of boyfriend-cunning that only he possessed.

She touched the rip mindlessly, not even sure it had been there. He had mended it perfectly.

“Are you okay?” he asked, putting his hand over hers. She looked over at him, then at the stone building.

She didn’t know the answer to that question. That question was forbidden; it begged dishonesty and faux self-adulation.

“He fixed my dress,” she said, walking away.

“Your boyfriend?” She nodded. “What happened at the wedding? You said you had a fight.”

She shook her head and cleared her throat. “I said we came to an understanding.”

“Ah, yes. What was the understanding?”

“That I can’t stand being around him.”

“Like… just tonight you can’t stand being around him or it feels like your eye socket is being burned with a lit cigarette when he touches you?”

“The lit cigarette,” she sighed, taking a cigarette from the box he offered her.

“How did he take it?”

She guffawed for a second then shrugged. “I didn’t tell him.”

“I thought you said you both came to an understanding.”

“Well, I came to an understanding then, if you want to get technical.”

“That’s not about being technical, that’s about speaking the truth. The way you say something matters.” He was looking at her as if he was truly seeing her for the first time and he didn’t like what his eyes were being met with.

“Sorry,” she apologised softly. “I suppose I did know that what I meant to say was, ‘I came to an understanding’.”

He sat down on a nearby stoop and took a drag from his cigarette. She sat next to him and did the same.

“Did it hurt?”

“Uh… the rip?” she asked, her hand reaching for the rip in her dress again.

“Coming to that understanding; did it hurt?”

She stopped for a few seconds. She looked off into nothingness, she didn’t breathe, she didn’t move to swipe a stray curl from billowing against her cheek.

Slowly, she began to nod. “But I’ve known for a while. I’ve known, I just haven’t felt it until tonight.”

“Denial,” he said shortly.

She nodded again and whispered, “I suppose so.”

“Come on, we’ll miss it.” He got up, stretched and put one hand in his pocket and the other he put out to help her off the stoop. “You’re hungry, right?”

“Hungry?” she asked. “Not particularly…”

“You drink tea?”

“Not really…”

“What kind of yogi doesn’t drink tea?”

“I’m not really a yogi, per se…”

“Hot chocolate?”

“Diet Coke?” she offered.

“Perfect,” he nodded and pulled her along gently.

They passed a small café on a corner and he ushered her inside. He took her to a booth and she sat down.

“Not that side,” he said solemnly.

“Why? Is this your side?” she teased.

He pulled her up gingerly and sat next to her on the cushy bench-seat.

“Because you have to see the TV,” he explained finally.

She looked up and saw the screen. A sitcom had just started and one of the idiotic, jazzy characters was saying something idiotic and jazzy while the audience laughed with as much energy as a raucous gang of golf spectators.

“This show?”

“I love it,” he said, his eyes on the screen. “I come and watch it every Tuesday. If I can’t make the 9PM show, I come to the midnight rerun.”

She examined his face. It was lit with excitement and he guffawed at a joke. It was actually a good joke, she had to admit, and she laughed as well. He looked at her and nodded. “See? It’s shit-stupid with momentary lapses of brilliance. Sometimes the best art is accidental. It’s not trying to be, it just happens – like a flash of lightning: fleeting and random.

“At least that’s my metaphor for a stupid sitcom.” He snorted softly and turned his attention back to the screen.

“You don’t have a television at home?” she asked.

“I don’t have steak and eggs at home,” he said shortly.

She nodded and they sat looking at the screen for a few minutes.

“Hi,” he said to the waitress who approached them, “we’d like a steak and eggs special – all the trimmings – and… um, a Diet Coke?” He looked to her questioningly. “You sure you don’t want anything else? The steak and eggs are blow-mind, I promise.”

“Just Diet Coke,” she said to the waitress with a smile. “Thanks.”

He shrugged.

“I’m really salivating over that Diet Coke,” he said during a commercial break.

She sipped from her straw and said nonchalantly, “It’s delicious.”

“You’re not anorexic or something, are you?”

She made a face at him to show she was hurt and offended. “You can’t say something like that to me after knowing me for one hour.”

He thought about it and said, “Sorry; that was a dickish thing to say. And we can share anyway.” He touched her shoulder and instinctively she put her hand on his.

“Well?” he asked her, expectantly searching her face.

She chewed a few more times then swallowed and looked at him blankly.

“Holy shit, gimme that fork,” she blurted and stuffed some more meat into her mouth from the plate the waitress had put on the table. He laughed and she laughed and they both laughed.

They laughed for minutes; she couldn’t swallow the food in her mouth so hers was a muffled, odd guffaw that sounded like the coo of a very old pigeon nearing the end of its life.

He put his hand on her lap while he ate.

“You’re left-handed,” she said.

“Yes. You knew that because I’m eating with my left hand?”

“Well, you’re eating well with your left hand,” she reasoned and he gripped her skin softly. She looked at his hand and it became upturned, facing her. He motioned with it for hers and she gave it to him.

“What now?” she asked him.

He shook his head and shoulders all at once. “Got work early in the morning.”

“Where do you live?”

“Around the corner. And you?”

“Uptown,” she said.

“‘Uptown’ is a large place – I hope you don’t get lost.”

Outside the café, they turned to face each other. “Well, goodbye,” she said. “Thanks for the meal.”

“Okay. Thank you.” He smiled and turned, hesitated, then turned back to face her. “Can I say something?” he asked.

She searched his eyes but they were dark. There was nothing to see. “Yeah,” she shrugged.

“You said you came to an understanding today with yourself or within yourself, right? Don’t take that lightly. People live their entire lives not understanding shit – especially themselves. You had an epiphany or a revelation or a bomb-drop moment or something. You know how you feel. It probably hurts and is scary as all fuck, and even then you don’t know what you are going to do. You’re thinking the pit is only going to get deeper before you can even start thinking about climbing out to see the shit all around.

“You don’t love him and that scares you because you believe you should. But you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to do anything if it makes you feel like this.”

He touched the side of her head, smiled and walked away.

The cab ride home was cold and bumpy. She stared into nothingness, the sickening truth washing over her. She felt hot, her neck was boiling and the cold wind felt like tiny shards of glass against her exposed skin.

She entered the apartment and stumbled inside, slamming the door behind her.

“I called you, I was freakin’ worried,” came his voice before she saw him. He was a dark shadow, becoming larger, walking to meet her in the dark foyer. “What the fuck happened? One minute we’re at the reception, the next minute you’re getting a ride to the ferry and told David’s son to tell me you were bouncing? He literally came up to me and said, ‘Yo, your girl is bouncing.’”

She looked into his face but there was no light. She reached behind her, feeling around blindly all the while looking at his face.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Finally, her fingers felt the click of the switch and the light illuminated his face.

Brown! she thought. Brown…?

“Please stop staring at me blankly and say something,” he said.

“Brown…” she murmured.

            “What’s brown?” he said and she came out of her thoughts.

            “Your eyes.”

“So are yours,” he spat.

“So were his…”

He shook his head in misunderstanding and searched her face desperately, his eyes darting from her lips to her eyes to her chin. He rubbed his face tiredly and pushed his hair back.

“His?” he asked.