Heâd assumed he was sure when he did it. Of the rotating vibrant dial of options ( Game of Life spinner style ), he had made the choice not to wait for natural selection to transpire for or against him. Motivated to get an answer before he forgot how to question, despite such a means to an end growing more subordinate by the minute. Getting up â a superseding act that took control of and with the promise of clarity and confirmation on the other side, distraction demoted to second place. A disruptive decision which had been sufficiently undertaken but, dropping away from the frantically fuelled vehicle of impetus it had taken hitching a ride with to perform, already wanted to curl in on itself. Only deeper embossing the singular maddeningly decisive feeling ( smearing together pure-hearted belief and ineluctable somatic fact ) Tom had been monitoring â an inkling that had been hanging around since before three ( o'clock ). But it was hardly relevant. And, as per, filed away confidentially alongside that determined and unwavering desire to hold her again, the longer he lingered, taken to kneeling hesitantly in the shallow wake of it, feeling unpleasantly relieved of her figure over his. How vacated contact had come to be a malleable pillow between them instead of an airless razorâs edge to serenely teeter on ( over ) indefinitely. A continuum tracked by a riveting furtive lower registered tempo â beating, breathing, thunderous, and alive. As he looked up, finding her eyes unfortunately aimed elsewhere, missing what was still so near, he was only sure heâd wrongly assumed. His broadest judgment, for better or for worse, survived the switch â the knee jerk: he couldnât let her get that close, yet. Not out of sight. It was an exact mirror of what heâd been strictly avoiding the chance of deplorably repeating ever since the unforgettable ramifications that followed turned a fluke into a morality investigation. Granted, a refreshed frame of reference changed everything, but habit outweighed logic, and emotion outweighed habit. In contrast â the piercing high definition of it, by any stretch of the imagination, was far preferred to the torturous lapse of unpredictable quiet that caught, trapped, between his quietly hopeful voice and hers, undetermined. As much as heâd gained, heâd turned back into lack of. It had been surprisingly straightforward to manage. Simple as climbing over, encroaching in, standing up. Harder was the inactivity of knowing better and doing entirely nought. Closeness hadnât been the issue at all, apparently, it had just been an adjunction to palpable tension. Taking a step ( somewhat literally ) away was the trade off of trying to get to know, to re-familiarize, with what was to be â transparency. Already somewhat of a conned set up for relying on a need-to-know basis that left a large amount opaque, as uncertain as a tomorrow being as definitive as their today whilst ignoring the heavily loaded, tremendously more enticing, pro: without consideration of any future, their undirected current was limitless.
The unravelling had been purely physical, the rest of him remained in knotted formation, nothing abated. A concise parting would, at most, only ever succeed at being ostensibly possible. The fundamental innards of the underground told a different story. His arms may have been removed of her in them, yet it was merely an exhale of what had filled him with a heady inhale; two states in fluctuating rotation, one unable to exist without entrapping the next. Soon another inhale would doubtless be reached for. Heâd drawn a solid line â Â a breadth of space â with cautionary intent, then revisited to perforate its definition with words. He didnât wish to have the final say, the power of control and decision, despite the day in and day out training his apparent profession supplied him with to handle manipulatively accomplishing endgame goals. Where, shoulder-to-shoulder around long mahogany conference room tables, interrogating circles of career changing Q&As were engaged in with poker faced composure, eloquence deceivingly effortless and prepared even when it wasnât, simply to catch a less punctual adversary defenceless. Making or breaking a deal without blinking, a loss of a million dollar opportunity not meaning much to a bank account stuffed with eight figures irregardless. There was no such intact frigid skill in Tomâs body where Viv was concerned, only various smoldering degrees of conflagration. Deep beneath where unexpected kisses had been deployed, his bone marrow had felt filled with air. Palpitating with a deep-seated nostalgic hum, harmonizing past and present; tangible evidence that she may have gone, but she hadnât left. Imprints of her were inlaid everywhere, just waiting to be refitted with warmth and a welcoming sigh. He could have floated along with it, easily. Conquered every earthbound obstacle in sight. Offered her a hand he could lead with and keep track of. His inability to do so only generated more uninvited complimentary turmoil ill-benefits. Leaning one way, then the other, and so forth. Either were possible, only one more agreeable. Both harmless mentally planned procedures kept tidily separated from a physically manifested follow through, not at all like the scribbled over ( and ripped everywhere else ) planner still tucked far out of his reach in the glovebox of his car. Endlessness was improbable. Ends were foundational, but not mutually exclusive from anything. There was a pairing that occurred everyday that he was unintentionally frequently awake to witness; a preceding pitch black atmospheric overhang and its imminent dawning restart. Wandering went the enlivened parts of him for that snapshot of an hour or so, split into missionary facets of unlimited insomniac semi-decent innovations that wearily cropped up in creative spurts the rest of the day. The inconvenience of timing mattered least of all.Â
As far as he knew, she was unobligated. Didnât have to consider every hour from there on out as an enmeshing one more. An understanding, something more than words, may have only felt near crucial to one of them. Although even that was debatable, with how slapdash his assertion had arisen. Summoned forth by the way sheâd leaned in â a close position heâd been in as much as he hadnât, in years â glazed over with a poignant reminiscent echo of it, the past resubmitted in rapid zoetrope fashion: torrid closeness, a blur of dark hair, a waft of vanilla ( incorrect ), straying out of eyeline, peaceful quiet, a trace of soft skin, a side table reach, a retrieval, an evocative smokiness  ( correct ), crumbling, speaking, a shocked jab of nails, a cold departure. The makings of a rapt mumble and the emptiness that followed ( twice ) threaded from the same dreamy spool. With her earlier declamation on the sidewalk, sealed with his ( hardly outmoded ) script, sheâd provided him with appealing suggestion to believe in resilience. That culmination of years together and parted could be imported and merged into an updated, in a direction straying from cowardice and runaways. A versatile and newfangled timeline of overspilling tomorrows rather than unreclaimable yesterdays. Today had been ticked off as theirs, occupied: for them, an irreversible choice inked with an eddy of possibilities that seeped into the fabric of at least one horizon-dwelling tomorrow. It was more than nothing, but it wasnât everything â hardly made up for anything. He was quiet, absorptive of whatever answer would knock the strain of unsettling and unexciting unknown from itâs apex podium position. Another question mark to trace, unable to leave a mark without the assistance of an endorsing informant. Question. Answer. Right. Wrong. Like a pendulum, his thoughts swung back and forth; contradictory and unstable in how they grouped together. The majority of him found it ridiculously futile. Mulling over the future wasnât a commonplace activity he enjoyed idling over, yet that was exactly what his line of wonder had invited to be illuminated. Even more uncharacteristic was the fluttery need-to-know sense of misgiving that rushed through his veins, despite knowing all too well the oncoming couldnât be rightly talked about in security, only what was imagined or yearned for there. Want had seemed a safer middle ground to casually inquire after; guised non-committal, impermanent, while still calling on her to depict a narrower glimpse of what plot amongst sprawling fields of untouched possibility would be more fruitful than the rest. Critical ( realistic ) notions regarding how far they truly could lean in before expulsion were kept far and away from the forefront of his mind. Careless moment-to-moment indulgence had always been preferred, made methodic by a self enclosed proviso â with no questions asked, thereâll be nothing you donât want to hear. Downright habitual in his avoidance toward the daunting prospect of acknowledging a cemented timeline or getting inflexibly attached to a day that would never come, so that if ( when ) it did, he wouldnât question it. For heâd be so busy luxuriating in the living of it there would be no chance to considerately pause and carefully look around, back, and forward all at once. However, the marvellous luminosity of their present momentâs uninhibited potential was but a fragile filament, nearly overshadowed by an unprecedented yin: wherever they headed, a chain reaction in the exact opposite direction would coincidingly pick up momentum. No amount of steeled or liquidated nerves could permit him to ignore the magnitude of a yet-to-be entertained futureâs worth when its madcap duration affected more than one. More than two. More than three. It wasnât harmless to put off what mattered; that which adversely cut into the core of irrational intuition until it was dissected it into warring visceral factions.Â
He had been unprepared to mitigate the aftershocks of Manhattan. To keep that insulated world within a world in equilibrium â one where Viv lived and stayed, front and center, where Tessaâs dependable presence occupied the foreground, toeing the line of tolerable and friendly â a collective maintained by the sum of their fail-safe interchange. Linked together like a barrel of monkeys, anchoring and motivating each otherâs swing into another day â another week, another month, longer â Â instead of falling away and getting stuck underfoot. Given a rerun, heâd have only changed one thing. At the first sign of peculiarity he wouldnât have resisted shooting straight for confide, enduring and stubborn as need be, for an insight of what was being stowed away and untraded, crowding protectively around what was on the brink of toppling instead of letting himself be held at a stoppable armâs reach ( a resistant distancing internally categorized as more severe, evidently, soon after heâd spent several minutes openly staring at her, testing the waters, without receiving the usual brief glance back ). The reality held up bleakly. Though hesitation had scarcely ever been Tomâs automatic first response before, heâd taken her hint and a prevaricate stance that entailed stepping back to surreptitiously supervise, to wait until he was sure of it. Halfway through that unfathomable week, actionâs antithetical replacement â pause â showed up, unpacked, and settled in. Overnight, the previously borderline strenuous act of patience was all too easy to host in the darkness of a fearful sky-scraping spike. Thoughtless and selfish idiosyncrasies were set aside to be clouded over by a highly elevated and peaceful nothingness. He unceremoniously adopted it like preservation was a pet he had any say in controlling the feral nature of. An unleashed icicle tipped neutrality that reared harshly at any sullen twinge, consuming it. There was no use insulting himself with harrowing shock or surprise, when the dissipation of her daily appearances beside him in the days leading up ( counting down ) to the last ought to have been preparation enough. She was headed forwards, alone. It was impossible to focus on a blurry frame that parted in a blink â which, by that time was just a door.
At the precise time sheâd left, a long forgotten unconquerable to-do list heâd been procrastinating on for weeks became the utmost importance. There was no time to grieve, there was no one to grieve for. It was a temporary vacation. For now, not forever ( she forgot a whole box, half-packed, next to another messy vessel â therefore a return for recollection was inevitable ). The volume of facts highlighting her excavation technique and leaving any alternative eerily dim was an unseen contrast. Growing pains were endured with a cool front, old skin shed for new that wouldnât quite let go. Ripped off like antler velvet, premature, still alive but unnecessary. Irritating illusions of distress soothed with very necessary cleansing swills of anything stored away that seared half a degree milder than rubbing alcohol on the way down. Not a clean nor painless break, he would sometime later acquiesce with retroactive perspective, the amount of layers hacked through and hastily disowned / disposed of too great to manage without ending up wholly moved beside himself by it. Instead of an imperceptibly created keyhole; a laceration. A domestic butter knife scavenged for in the place of a scalpel. Spider webbed cracks across pavement or a mosaic of glass shards before they fell from pane. Hairline fractures that showed themselves only upon close inspection. A cluster of interlocking lines that shouldnât have been there, evidence of a struggle only detectable by x-ray. The fluorescent truth, bleached into black and white, brutally highlighting the maniacal climax of two opposing forces. An untold story of negligence that even a picture being able to tell a thousand words would not capture accurately. Undoubtedly, the two player experience differed per perspective. For starters, the overcrowded waiting room of a hospital and itâs labyrinth of sterile departments were snippets Tom could only speculate were followed through with, being a scenario only the proverbial other guy had had to face ( to fix a face ). The documentation of an arrangement of serial errors committed in one indulgently reckless evening. An experimental (un)feeling exercise that began with a haul of cheaply thrifted layers â a black Guns Nâ Roses band t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, dark wash jeans with a rip at one knee, chucks a size too small and an unattractive lime green â all impersonal articles able to be easily to dispose of afterwards. An ensemble worn together that the bathroom mirror depicted foolishly: the reflection of a person more resemblant of himself than any of the numbed equivalents heâd looked back at in weeks. Unfortunately, also, the very opposite what he was going for. He didnât need unexpected prompts of any fragment re: days past to involuntary strike him with white-hot remembrance. To be branded without permission, each blistering hit reactivating the cycle that required a thick layer of quasi-carefree to be slathered over top to render unwarranted aches ignorable. Sometimes said calmative came in a bottle, sometimes it wasnât enough and catalyzed searches for interventions on a bigger scale. There had to be a hurt that could be controlled and extinguished at will. One that didnât entail absolutely everything was stolen by his overcast disposition while any stimulating feeling, positive or negative, was an at-risk psychological gateway for too much. That was overwhelming and unchoosable, yet wouldnât last. With a clear cut beginning and time capped end. An affliction that was visible, something that would come, leave, heal, and fade for good. He found a way to order a fleeting taste of it.Â
The bulk of that chosen day had been like any other, mechanically gone through the motions of until it was finally late enough to prepare to leave. For the first time in an unenthused stint of weeks heâd headed out of the house remarkably purposeful, embarking without a single piece of ID. He wouldnât need it where he was going; what he wanted there. Couldnât risk getting up-and-coming esteemed Tom Warren attached to the scene in the likely case it went South. Years of aimless urban exploration had lended to a mycelium of established connections that made nearly any part of the city understandable. It was how heâd familiarized himself with the jampacked layout the first place; sifting through each borough to uncover the amount and condition of their dives. He knew the bars that knew him and would greet him with the warmth of an old friend, but, perhaps most importantly, he knew of the ones that didnât press to card. The dimly lit ( most tables within always suspiciously sticky as well as askew ) seedy under-the-radar places that didnât care what they lost â liquor licence or questionably credible reputation alike. Where illicit deals and shady figures thrived, concealed weapon and cash at silent parley for which talked more dominantly in between smoke rings and crushed beer cans. Alcohol agencies of grungy hole in the wall, laddered entryways leading under sidewalk, scintillating gooseneck barn lights tucked below dilapidated apartment fire escape, unzoned locale. Heâd informally stored every one-off inceptive glimpse of them in his head for later. And, at long last, later had insufferably arrived. A night that would see him identifiable only as anonymous. Just another indistinguishable face in the crowd. Mr. John Doe, in every practical sense. Without anchor or history or anyone to consider missing or be missed by. Not the promoted owner of a brewery; not demoted from a life of fourths into thirds; not anything or anyone of note. Insignificant, forgettable, unattached â but driven. Seeking a reprieve from suffocating vacuity, sending out hooks in hopes of catching an exhilaratingly impermanent rush or else be pulled lethally overboard. The latter just as much of a short-lived experience, for in its permanence all sensation was philosophized to end â an option unthinkably kamikaze, perhaps, but he was heedless of self care. Wouldnât have stopped anything from happening if it sent him a five minute warning before landing at his door step. In his lap. At his mouth. Might not have felt an effect until it was too late. Stone cold sober ( he couldnât risk getting confused ), it couldnât have been written off as a violent accident. Only violent.Â
No sooner had Tom arrived, heâd wasted no time scoping the joint, at moderate capacity, before striding up to hostily instigate the biggest barrel-chested figure there; a quintessential motorcycle gang member. Clad in head-to-toe black leather gear with a patchy salt-and-pepper ducktail beard to match, elbow deep in a game of pool against himself ( a half-wall of mirrors ), pores already reeking of several liquors, a beer belly protruding from beneath wide set ribs, and a thick two knuckle brass ring on the outer side of his beefy left hand. With full awareness of the selection made, Tom impassively hovered within earshot to run his mouth on controversial subject attitudes until the grazing bullets of his perverse speech found a weaker spot that earned a flustered grunt: put a damn sock in it, kid. To which Tom met with an incorrigibly brazen procession; digging in with added sharpness, trading approaches for a level of invasive leering puzzled together from pop culture and eavesdropping on vulgar night-shift / failed marriage / recently jobless resenting zombie men and drunkards, purely intended to provoke friction against his companyâs shortening fuse until that first swing felt more than well ( deserved ) earned. Making a public nameless nuisance of himself until he was eyed up as a worthless unknown scrap that needed a force harsher than divine intervention to be shut up and taken out. Though the first sloppily brandished act of incensement happened to miserably miss itâs mark ( a spontaneous multitask of a mid-drink lunge that barely clipped Tomâs shoulder, imbalanced ale sloshing onto the floor at his feet ). He reacted on autopilot â how Hollywood and messy street brawls witnessed from afar taught him to rather than his ( non-existent ) instinct to protect himself â a move made with no more animosity than an emotionlessly prepensed move made in Central Park checkers. Doing so only because it was the fastest ticket to earning the same treatment. Hand-eye coordination had been on his uninebriated side, almost too allegiantly. Tomâs right fist landing an unblocked punch right on target; a graphic collision course with nose cartilage, landing with sickening rather than satisfying crunching noise that would later ( after several useless repetitions, despite trying to pick softer spots and swing with a gentler arc ) leave an aching bruise on the back of his hand. His target lashed back, wonderfully, finally.
A rough rhythm of sorts ensued, choppily blurring together with only intermittent encouragement needed on his part. Beginning with two sloppy throws that left behind a repercussive ringing sound at either his head before he was grabbed amidst furiously hollered expletives ( interwoven around what sounded like âbrokeâ and âmy noseâ ) and vertigo suddenly burst behind his clouded vision and the wind knocked out of his lungs. His head hitting a wall before the rest of him did, then the sound of something cracking behind him. Cold and sharp fallen mirror pieces uncomfortably poked into the back of his hair, neck, between shoulder blades. He didnât dare move away from the sensation, observing without wincing as two riled fists went haphazardly thrown simultaneously, their askew drunken muscle-to-force ratio speaking far louder than than expertise. Two satisfyingly direct wallops, the second of which would have completely missed and handed beside his head if Tom hadnât been adamant to intercept the off kilter trajectory and lean into it. The taste of iron erupts in his mouth, his lip split. Itâs sloppy and hasty work, but even that train of thought is derailed by the unignorable way half his face feels on fire, and he doesnât concern himself about stepping in the way of oncoming damaging right and left hooks. The majority find a solid place to land, and the off kilter ones only enrage his opponent further for the next threatening you-fucked-up-my-face revenge quest. Before a collection of interfering sets of hands appeared to pull them apart, an unseen knee, not seen or prepared for, though deliberately not dodged, went driven up and in. His stomach felt lead, the sting of air hitting something wet and open at his cheek as he half-keeled forward to brace his hands on his knees, the back of his head throbbing with the intensity of a migraine. His oppositions damage: one profusely bleeding broken nose, and cause to wail and drink more. Tomâs hands covered in blame; something other than paint. Sticky with more than just beer or leaked on by a scarlet ink cartridge. Incriminating red stains not made by wine. An unsightly mixture of his own and an obliging strangerâs efforts, covering slightly swollen knuckles like rings of war paint. White and red. For a while he just saw the latter. It was hard to concentrate â to think â about anything else but getting the bleeding to stop, the dark material of his shirt sparing him the severity of his gain or loss. The mirror, however, was not so forgiving. Regardless â desensitization compromised by the stunning and brutal newness, an intensity that wasnât in his head and able to be shut off â it had been a success.
It could have been far worse. Heâd been lucky, or so heâd overheard from the voices belonging to the pair of ushering arms that yanked him aside, out of further harmâs ( or harmings ) way. Grumbled apologies that meant nothing were tentatively offered on behalf of the larger coerced assailant, miraculously already hunched over at the bar, clutching a red handkerchief speckled with hardly any white, in front of an empty trio of shots. He always does this. Donât take it personally. Hates losing count of his points when he plays. Tomâs injuries had been superficial, ruptured blood vessels across his torso which would later subside into painfully slow to heal bruises, a nasty black eye and a half, lips busted in three places, swollen and shallow gashes striped across his face, an undiagnosed but suspected concussion, every muscle vaguely sore and seemingly on the fritz, but nothing permanent. He left a hundred dollar bill on the counter for broken nosed biker, wise not to make eye contact, gratefully battered. He slowly slunk home with his hood up, the effects of adrenaline lasting until after he made it to the right street ( after twice mistaking other signs ). The 2AM rain was cold, he was warm. Perhaps too warm, perhaps also unable to stand up without 15 minutes of preparation. At the first sign his next paycheck several zeroes too unjustifiably long had arrived, he used it to impulsively rent an apartment elsewhere for a month to repair and first aid himself without a judgmental audience ( an insistent avoidance that mostly revolved around the likelihood Tessa would take one look at him and call an ambulance and in the same breath threaten kill him for acting stupid but that she wasnât surprised ). He took an overnight leave to ensure the state he was in avoided being seen in direct lighting as to not further raise any red flags, checking in briefly after the first day away with varying uncommitted two worded excuses, hardly different from the weeks before: Canât remember. Itâs nothing. Iâm fine. Donât ask. Any two, not good enough to counteract the concise two that sparked the caustic habit: sheâs gone.
Coolness prickled beneath his shirt, the resumption ( a loose fitting replacement ) of space â once considered normal, then abhorrent, then familiar reins of detachment scrambled for â was an unpleasant equivalent to its former. It was ungrounding. The validatable mark of something being there no longer. His chest, stitched with the warmest pocket of all, inadvisably quaked with longing for a reverse. Each unsettling sensation happened to be valuable, for once. Proving without a placebo of sentimentality influenced belief that what occurred hadnât been misconstrued or projected of importance. How it felt wrong gone without as opposed to the nestled nearness of her previous embrace â something, warily regarded as, right. Where speculation ended and familiar knowing began, he lingered. Not knowing how or if distance would arise and conclude made the fencing of expectancy around it the terribly risky part. After a long enough time the space would fill â even if was with nothing, it was in vacancyâs nature to be filled â until that checked out too. Inarguably, the smaller the space; the least likely it could stretch for an expanse of miles in the blink of an eye, thereby the most acceptable occupant of all. Maybe he could read her mind. For what he received was fuck-all silence, an anomalous place where leaving and staying and options didnât exist. Only she did, as all there was, in front of him.
His witâs end had been reached just once. Another experimental first ( and last ). Far earlier. Quartet status: intact, closing the gap between just acquainted and familiar. Everything else: undeniably wrecked. The shaky aftermath of rolling up to a dead eyed dealer and cheerily uttering the words surprise me â but not in a birthday way; in an end of the world way. During an evening that would go on to imprint onto Tom to never again play mixologist with his insides whilst clubbing. It wasnât worth the steep roller coaster tricked out with more drops than rises, or the way every surface stretched and spun and leapt away from him, or the ( hopefully ) over exaggerated stories later revealed depicting lunatic situations he had zero recollection of participating in. Nonetheless, for the midnight hour it had seemed a fun idea, everything indistinguishable and unpronounceable was fair game to be used and abused. Ushering in one guzzling swallow and snort after the other until properly undone at the seams by a cocktail of intoxicating substances that altogether distorted everything delightfully, and unbearably. Discombobulated brain and blood chemistry indescribably skyrocketed molehills into mountains across the board, though only one conscious revelation stood intact at an Everest height amid the nonsensical mania of vivid sensory overload: how outrageously infuriated he was for returning home without her. More specifically, furious at himself for still even being bothered by her ending up somewhere unknown ( with an unknown ), again, when that sort of thing didnât matter. It was pretty common. Normal. He didnât really care. He was high. He was drunk. He was falling lovesick. Dizzy. Tired â and adamantly refusing to go to sleep until she arrived home alright as usual ( loudly undercut by letting it be reaffirmed, repeatedly, toward the faintest of dubious expressions, he would have âtotally been awake anyway, so shut the hell upâ  ). Between realizing heâd lost one of his shoes somewhere between 43rd street and home ( a practically impossible feat, considering heâd been confined to the passenger side of a car the whole time ), discovering Vivâs phone had ended up in the front pocket of the burgundy leather jacket ( also not his ) tied around his shoulders, finding his wallet stuffed full of half a bowlâs worth of salted party mix instead of money, resenting Jay for being a stringy ( incorruptible ) designated driver; the night fell under a scarcely acknowledged category â regrettable. It was one Tom desired ( days later when his reactions regained lucidity ) to not remember. For what had happened as much as what hadnât. Thankfully there ended up being very little he did go on to retain, until his blissfully miserable hangover bubble was burst when all was relayed back to him in great detail one following afternoon.Â
Jay had helped him unlock and get past the front door, audibly providing an ongoing interpretive play-by-play commentary regarding the amusing way Tom struggled to basically function. Then, snuck somewhere in between stairwell and foyer, a harmlessly baiting tease that implied his state was less linked with drugs than it was to her. Before a distant and diluted version of sense could intervene, thrown even more off course by the pounding headache playing accompaniment to his heartâs elevated pressure, the gut-wrenching topic went swatted at with a disgruntled paw: shuddup. Y'dun-fuckin-know. Flip flopping between moods that slurred as much as his words, Tom somehow found himself in the kitchen, guffawing in the middle of cupboard ransacking. The best place to find a remedy for the hollow ache that occupied his entire ribcage â also one of the most central parts of the house that made front door activity unavoidable. Squinting into the brightly lit cavern of the fridge, he didnât hesitate to launch at the first thing clearly marked in perfectly looped handwriting ( Tessaâs - do not touch ) and pry off the tupperwareâs silicone lid to poke around at the suspiciously gritty ( read: healthy ) contents within. Behind him, seeming to echo around the house as much as his own skull, he caught on to a voice emitting rounds of that tiresome sitting-in-a-tree playground rhyme. The late late night ad lib: V and T. Around a mouthful of something vaguely sweet/chocolatey/wet sand-esque arose his countering overstimulated lament; a run-on mumble too many degrees defensive, delivery devoid of any linear structure and overbrimming with scatterbrained disorder: yo, look, I swear on this whack alien brownie being staler than cardboard that sheâs, like, the most unlikable person I really like. S'not even a competition. Sheâs just already the winner, y'know? Rocks at nothing but most things, she do. Look around â even when sheâs not, like, here-here sheâs still here. He swallowed a gulp of crumb filled air, staring transfixed as two elongated beams lit up the countertop; golden headlights crawling through the window from the street. Then it passed and he roughly shook his head, snapping back into his one-sided dialogue like an overextended elastic band, Do I wear those⊠those damn things sheâs always throwing around? Nah, but thereâs one living in my top drawer. Found one under the table, in the pantry too. Threw one off the balcony yesterday, m'pretty sure. Good for what? Nada. Theyâre just tripping hazards and finger traps, man. M'drawerâs not special. Itâs just what she does with her shit. Spreads it out everywhere. Gets it in everyoneâs way. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. With each erratic reiteration, his fingers pulverized the supposed batch of brownies into finer and finer pieces, the container held guardedly close to his chest despite his obvious detest for its contents. She gets in everywhere. Whatâs next? Who knows. Oh, man, does she even know her way home? Do I? Thatâs fuckinâ wild. Not knowing and knowing. Knowing you know you donât know, you know? Damn. Itâs diff'rent when sheâs gone though. Like right now. Hear that? â  so friggin quiet, huh. S'horrible. Shittier than shit. Around that point, heâd aimlessly rounded the corner of the kitchen just in time to see Jayâs, much farther away than anticipated, moonlit figure ambling up from the hallway, the white outline of a toothbrush hanging from one side of his mouth like itâs cancerous cousin most often did. His face, a startled mask of confusion that matched his obtuse inquiry: sorry, what? Tom threw a chunk of imposter chocolate at him that fell short by more than a meter, Donât get your twists in a trouser. M'answering you, asshole. The scrutinizing stare received in response regarded Tom as if heâd grown a third head that was speaking fluent Portuguese, I havenât said anything to you since we got home. Tom smirked indirectly in response, abruptly turning toward a wall, subdued by a daze of strobing color that suddenly warped across the darkness of his heavy lids. Heh, okay, sure. Spoken after so long a pause, his companion had already walked away. For the better, however, ensuring Tom had no audience but dining table furniture to hear him as he regressed. From thinking out loud about the likelihood of Viv turning into a pumpkin if she stayed out too long after midnight, to singing unintelligibly under his breath â upside inside out â  a disjointed and chorus-repetitive rendition of a karaoke song that sometimes reminded him of her beyond the commonality of a few letters â viva la vida loca... He was narrowly spared having to give explanation, from spiralling into ongoing miscalculation, when the front door rattled and he was, right on cue, forced to take his routine disappearance from sight.
Her reply was unexpected in a different way than encountering the lightness of her lips to his skin had been. Its arid broadcast tumbled across to him with little impression, thin and lacking of sought after sustenance. Parched of fullness, lifelessly removed rather than personally divulged. At first there was only quiet given back, Tomâs jaw set, lips pursed into a line of reticent restraint as he considered what was suited. His gaze flitted about the limited ( though a grand canyon compared to their recent maneuvers ) area around where heâd landed in the moat of space encircling the couch. Borderline bashful, for a second, recognizing how precarious their continued pursuit was. On his knees, the tilt of his head to look up at her was enhanced further. It required re-enforced cooperation between the divisioned parts of himself that he harboured, to engage or disengage with her directly, still given no mercifully opened gate to lurch toward. Without being thrown a flotation device pumped with sureness, indecision re: their direction latched another cold tendril around him; a noose tightened or loosened with each thought reviewed. Unhelpful passive conditioning only made stubbornly avoiding her unusable dictation easy in theory, his dark blond lashes an almost transparent screen that he couldnât kept but frequently look up through regardless of his perturbed stance on what she ( hadnât ) supplied. Her hazy outline grew pronounced the longer he looked, glanced away from before he memorized everything perfectly just to have a tenable excuse to re-inspect. It was with a fraction of haste that he said his return, making up for the slow beating seconds he hadnât been in any rush to interrupt, brushing off what sheâd avoided; the blank space that he refused to be the one to fill alone. Reluctant to accept the dishearteningly lightweight line sheâd offered that left much desired if it meant skipping the subject entirely ( albeit usually his favorite sport, under any other avoid-worthy circumstance ). He fumbled, quickly steering away from the subject heâd parted them for to open, as if concocting a certain phrase in a particularly muttered way would be the spell that magically got it all over with the fastest, âForget it.â It tasted sour in his mouth, around the edges, his facial expression visibly lined with underscores of inner debate; stressed across his furrowing brow and into the slight begrudging curve tugging the ends of his mouth into the opposite of itâs more characteristic direction.
Inwardly, he was going precisely against only thing heâd vocalized â he couldnât forget it. The sentimentâs falseness lingered on his tongue as sharp as a shot of tequila, cognizant his preferred personified counteracting chaser for such a sensation was not a stock he could subtly tap into without sending everything overboard after it. As a compromise, mocking any form he told himself heâd successfully gained ( two steps forward, one step back ) part of him fell for the tickling sensation of an unoccupied pad of hitherto wayward thumb. Entirely absentmindedly â the gesture as easy and natural as the fleeting precursor had been â he raised and swiped it across his lips, a neat horizontal corner to corner sweep. Or, rather than a clearing away â a Freudian slip of a security deposit. Value of goods: priceless. Lazy hedonism steeped curiosity went imbued by the act, though his brainâs frontal ( arguably ) incontrol lobe failed to realize what heâd done, in a succession hardly spaced out enough to be uncorrelated. That it was the same hand that had done so not a minute earlier, not for the first time that day, in the place of something that did not allow for space to accompany it. As his pensive ( unintended ) mobility heeded its own fancied interests from afar, the fullness of his attention was diverted to bigger and more covert examinations. The fact was that, despite the disadvantaged lowered stoop of his location, even if she appeared to have the upper hand, she wasnât any more reply empowered. Seemingly not wanting to be portioned anything of the sort in the first place. No more confident than anyone else in the room. Except she was innocent. She didnât have to take on anything she wasnât willing to. And he was inexplicably ( all in ) confident â about one thing. He shook his head, as if emphatically distributed force could dissipate the formation of all the wandering transcripts stacked there, wanting to be untangled from it. To stop ogling at questions he had but couldnât get answers to. On par with the answers he had but couldnât give. If he was truly inclined to accept what was for what it was, he would have stoically assigned himself the full monty of the undisclosed burden still up in the air. How long did they have? It was a notion to be swept aside with the same chivalry needed to remove a terrorizing closet or under-the-bed dwelling malady: Never you mind, Iâll deal with it.Â
Confusion, next to a lingering raised temperature, knocked around between Tomâs ears like a billiard of heavily weighted boulders. Starkly different from the comfortable I donât get it but I accept it version of perplexment she was unwittingly culpable of encouraging. Every beat of his pulse drove an in-time tweak down the back of his neck. The claustrophobic conflicting contents in his head doused in absinthe, ready to kick overthought to the curb in black out finality or be lit up, beautifully brief and bright, to be then consumed by arresting ash. His navigation of where their modern togetherness could lead was even harder to perceive than her mind. He was mapless. Possessing only an old edition heâd marked in pen instead of pencil â or something even bolder than pen, unable be wiped away or fade. Unlike one locked down afternoon in a blizzard embraced Manhattan, sans steady electricity, with boredom bordering on stir crazy, when heâd sharpied ( an open invitation extended to the entire household to join in ) intricate designs on his bare arms. Then came the redundant re-outlining, as if permanent marker would hold up to its name better done twice. Within the hour, heâd been transformed into a walking colouring book page. Black and rainbow sketches covering his arms, hands, a section of chest, and words heâd had no say in written on either side of his face, itâs creator deftly leaving behind a few rogue markings that were definitely not Newell Brands manufactured. When the power returned, not five minutes later arrived a call to confirm a ( selectively forgotten about ) job interview lined up for the following day had not been cancelled, in spite of the weather. Every surface Tom encountered for the next stretch of torturously thorough hours was abrasive, until only one shade of cleansed color remained: pink. A rubbed raw epidermis had sounded easier to excuse â Iâm bad at tanning. But itâs December? Real bad. â than the alternative: yessir Iâm well into my twenties and still get a thrill from tempting ink poisoning.Â
Eventually that urge for misconduct faded too. The life span of a youth that felt insurmountable in the thick of it, actually heartbreakingly short. All of it sloppily childish ( inexperienced, yet far from inferior ) and designed to change. Vulnerable like minds loaded in holsters tufted with outgrown purple hair and blonde highlights, the delicate matter within under consistent shield. Tomâs features softened slightly, adding in postponed continuation: âI think Iâd only get lost in there if I tried, anyway.â More somber than playful. An afterthought of half-hearted effort made in an attempt to humour her idea instead of completely disregarding it. Also a useless way to busy his mouth with a task that wouldnât further corrode it with craving ( the presence of the beer at his back was noted to a strength that only fell shy of branding iron â that pinnacle positionâs equivalent already claimed ) as he began to shift into a better seated position. If he couldnât escape ( didnât want to ) the scene, at least he could limit the irritating ache of protest the hard floor below inspired; kneecaps digging into linoleum overlay without give. Tom collected his weight onto the balls of his feet, risen into a slight crouch as fidgeting fingers went about fastidiously adjusting the state of strain and disarray the material of his dress slacks had been mistreated to, the neatly ironed centre line of each fabric leg askew. Staying in the runner of floor stretched between table and couch edge, he tasked himself with maintaining an orient close to her without the springy return of direct contact. Hyper aware of where she was regardless, he realized, that it wasnât so drastically different from when sheâd been hugged tightly to him. Still hanging in there: the phantom pressure of her hands flattened at his chest, her arms around his neck. Memories so freshly made they were still warm. Reflected on without being an act of cruelty against his senses, but a curious sweetness. A potential.
When he spoke again, it weakly coasted into the atmosphere. A subtlety to be caught and carried by the breathing gap between them. Into air that might have felt solidified and stifling if not for the overhead fanâs ongoing propel, creating a maelstrom of all that was attached to one or the other lurking below. His cadence, blunt and matter-of-factly placid, intimately swept into the eye of it, âI donât even know where to start with you.â The sentiment was decidedly more personal than the one before it, with the intent of reaching somewhere underneath her closed exterior, illustrated by the yielding act that breathed life into an otherwise resigned and refrained admittance. A time sensitive ( of blink-and-youâll-miss-it brevity ) flicker of something deeply gentle and generous wriggling in to crown itself at middle of his semi-arc of transition from sitting in front of her to where he intended to further displace his chosen seat; shuffled slightly to the side. Timed with an emphasis over that last syllable ( you ), he tenderly gave a lone kiss to the center of her forehead before sinking back down. He flanked the left side of her from the ground below, fallen back to a half-crouch sitting on one heel, a bent elbow making an indent a few inches to the side of her leg where it went to rest, chin propped on elevated palm. A contemplative glance drifted over her before dropping off the edge of her silhouette, an unseeing gaze planted onto far wall, a safe plastered mark. Softly, aloud, he mused, âMaybe you can lead the way in.â He didnât weigh what suggestive conclusion, to follow, was fit for share. Didnât think something randomized by drunkenness and the majority of unfollowed through impulses in all other areas of him, bodily and psychologically sentimental, would arise to disrespect every boundary that had ( arguably ) been able to be beheld in the first place. It wasnât planned, the interjecting syllable that transported itself forth without passport. Making it identifiably halfway across the threshold of his lips before he attempted to half and snub it out with a side swerve. Too advanced to dismantle with a calculated cough of concealment, and a slow beat too late to diminish entirely, caught lamely in between throat and teeth. An affectionate beginning; a cautiously introverted middle; an undetermined end. âI canât think for you, baâuh⊠t. But â I..â He closed his eyes tightly, a prolonged pinch me blink, that when released, confirming the scenario was one he couldnât be wrenched out of, hovered downcast ( the thoughtless slip parachuted by one potent head filling Fuck. ). He rubbed his supporting hand down his jaw, erasing the chance of continued speech of that variety, oppressing it from dropping open and obliging the deviant utterance of another excavated archaic habit. Improvisation fell short of supplying a new sentence. But what? There was no alternative. It had been a whole statement, until something fully loaded crept its way into it, catalyzing a dive for a reroute that went nowhere. Thatâs enough, moron. Willing for an oversight, he sought refuge in watching the mismatched miscellany of patched quiltwork, avoiding the more organized sewn lines of neighbouring materials; denim, gray, braided hair, responsive eyes.
Now, it was a deadly drip of betrayal siphoned from a bridled time-capsuled instinct. Before, it was one of those stupid endearments heâd sporadically sling at her, purely in parody. Babe. A single term among many heâd occasioned using, definitely one of the mildest and most virtuous ones, ironically parroted in speech and handwritten offcut. The treatment special not for the inherent value of those interchangeably soft and scoff-worthy sentence endings, but for the lingo only being privately deployed around her. Words from that lambasted romantic section of vocabulary roped off for individual access ( V.I.V. ) to be used in supplement of her name with or without intentionally meaning to. Overt accidental-on-purpose slips dropped in the name of histrionics, always. The more leisurely, amusing, and ridiculous way to get her attention. Sweet, if provisioned to be. An everyday object of speech no more remarkable than âhelloâ or âorangeâ. Harmless and unmeaningful recycling. Another form of dress up â over worn by others, tried on for size just for fun. It was socially acceptable nonsense. Nonetheless, thrust out of well-established context, years out of practice, thoughtlessly extracted from one lifetime into another with startling ease, it translated differently on his tongue. Unable to decipher what caused an unforeseen inclination to transition from shadow to faux pas ( somewhat aware it was an accumulation of somethings rather than an isolated proponent ), with nowhere to direct his hanging sentence, he blurted into the leftover dust of that unconvincing non-existent recovery: âM'sorry,â lost in a nearly incoherently expedited murmur, parapraxis sheepishly deprecated, frail air snuck between the steeled vice of his voice, breaking solid sound into shattered shapes too late to amount into more than their obviously struggling form. Muttered, with hardly any volume, to the floor for safe keeping. âI â I donât know.â
Tom sighed shallowly, a vestigial rendition of a far more overbearing internalized commotion. Take it easy. The request had cloaked him, at first, with more dread. He failed to hear her, for an instant. His eardrums struck with a different voice mouthing the same words. In spite of altered inflection and greatly differing intent, it was enough to initially inspire what that other voice often did. Retort. A biting, decidedly argumentative, trying for the sake of it monstrosity â then appropriately tamed and tucked behind his molars almost as immediately as it formed. He resheathed any particle of venom as it dawned on him how what had so far felt more accomplishing than taxing might not have read the same both ways. Heâd been holding out for when she would look up from her lap again and was, with a chagrined twinge, dully alarmed when she did. The discreet quivering shift of her eyelids and voice, the way she seemed to be visibly shrinking the longer she sat there, put a more important motive into motion. All of it bringing to his attention just how fragile the page they lingered on was, magnified by how ardently he refused to let it be a brittle epilogue. Then recognizing, further calculations computing as slow as pouring molasses, the expensive exchange of everlasting prevention required in order to freely enlarge and maintain any positively hopeful fraction of possibility for the pair of them long term. The former â preventative discourse â a focus that ebbed between reasonable and overprotective. Hinging on two underlying fundamental truths heâd realized early on: how a length of a new hour alongside her had once been barely imaginable but believed ample, yet in the midst of a reality even more precious ( time frame immeasurable ) he knew âenoughâ was not an existent marker on this scale. Secondly, he knew ( and had carried through with ) diverting power into not speaking of anyone not in the room was of the utmost importance. Heâd kept up that silent agreement, dutifully ensuring he remained a regardable him and not the fragmented other half of a different two. Maintained a thick wall between her and what patiently gnawed at the outer edges of his conscience; an unexpected camaraderie gathered in twisted ( debatably anti- ) commemoration of Viv, what was out of his range to ever see coming, then knowingly helped in crafting and refining. An enormous affiliation surprisingly easy to shelter, kept diligently underwraps from any public source for years, until recently. Ultimatums being as limited and defining as they were, he was more likely than ever to wage against against every tightly wound screw ever constructed until it surrendered or proved permanent. He wanted to do as simply proposed â like what adults do â despite feeling a strange unprepared admixture of boundaryless frankness and wary composure. Wedged in the middle. As complicated as it was to leap over a whole segment in actively applicated avoidance, compared to the ulterior experience, it was, indubitably, the less challenging road.
âListen. Viv,â He began, his lead-in a gentle verbal nudge, steadily masking his unease with a more pressing message to pinup: targeted assurance. His first shot in a fusillade of it; coinciding deliveries lined up neatly in a row, hit resolutely one after the other without extravagance. An exact execution of truth, in that moment. On the floor of her row house, openly looking up to her with a reserved solemn certainty he acted with nothing but consideration for easy. A solicitous underlining made even more fierce by the undetermined nature of their time together â when one day, near or far, somewhere was proven to be a finite hideaway and the spoken word couldnât be offered with safety first in mind. For the time being, he worked to insist with all he had on offer that she wasnât given reason to have the ground beneath her rocked irreparably. Too soon. At all. Irreversible would it be to miscommunicate on grounds as untraversed and unknown as the space they now inhabited. His words were posed without allowance for a ricocheting path of alternative interpretations, reclaiming earlier fault lines with serious and devout correction. It was a departing stride older, the way he proceeded to speak. Undisguised and unguarded, wholeheartedly willing where is counted, then and there; releasing over to her what meaningful belief he had to be entrusted that he knew what he was doing. Was striving to move with caution at the base of an unprecedented situation, every act genuinely vigilant and deliberate lest disrupted fallen stone trigger an avalanche. Going ahead with heightened awareness, or to the best of whatever version of under-the-influence awareness he possessed at present. On the contrary: a conscious blind eye turned to the details pertaining to the not easy contents sealed away. Out of sight, out of mind. It was trying; unrelenting and worn at the edges and eroded with efforts already made, seen and unseen, leaks preemptively caulked. The tsunami of information having already been significantly sandbagged away from her in preference for a steady but winding stream. âBelieve me,â implored forcibly low and controlled, in all other aspects it was disheveled in sound quality, tailored to compliment his appearance, advanced with age. The tart mixture that was a melancholy splotched sanguine reality. Of knowing more than before â of possessing the privilege to pick and choose courageously rather than use multiple choice as an irresponsible excuse to tear around in wild all-at-once-at-midnight abandon â and not being made wiser for it, but tired. A fact already intrinsically provided by Tom in his second hand rendition, who played the game of policy and appearances by wearing suits with a relaxed slump of acceptance ( defeat ) attached to his shoulders. Scaffolding virtually clung to him like the city itself, the structure of his life under indefinite construction. Start and stopped â copied and cut â his normally steadfast confidence arriving in inspired solar flares, then eclipsed by periods of darkness. His captured promise was one of those alive flashes of radiant sureness, âI am.â
His unpropped arm, lackadaisical and limp at his side, was the exception to the only rule of self-administered guidance heâd been experimentally abiding by ( stillness ). Attached to stiffened joints, the hand connected to it absentmindedly clasped and unclasped; alternating between tucking his thumb inside or outside the hold. He swallowed, his voice slightly thicker, âVivian,â selected to garner full attention, his demeanour minutely subduing at the lesser used address, utterly devoid of sharpness. Offered with an invisible white flag, going out in a whim bigger than him. âJust say you donât know and I wonât ask.â A clean cut statement, plainly willing her to indulge him with more, even if it happened to be just a more elaborate refusal to do so. âHelp me out here. Donât do that â donât retreat. Look at me.â A latent question slanted, without appropriate punctuation, into an open invitation and an understated challenge. Granted without tactile reinforcement, his single manner of communication was laid with painstakingly attention to direction. He was already on his knees, anything portrayed with more than a quiet urging could have tipped the scales of becoming an act of humble beggary. An added declaration, his tone allaying and without ancient edge, slipped between the widening fissure of resolve and impulse. Gazing upwards, willing her to accept something. For in that moment it was truly so, vividly real and tangible, a hardy keepsake stored away in a part of him that only she could access ( with the click of a door, deactivated; with the smell of smoke, reactivated ) without permission, highlighted in permanent marker, unable to be deteriorated by the unidentifiable landscape of a non-existent future. âYouâre safe here.â Unspoken: with me. Thereâs nothing to worry about. Delivered applicable to their now, exclusively. Without accessory, sounding inflated into a far more all encompassing guarantee. He couldnât ( wouldnât ) postulate it any other way when waiting by wordlessly was itâs damned parallel. Wanted to show and be shown â a venturing demand already met and surpassing in some areas whilst falling short in others â more. Could he prove it was true? Had he ever? Did he dare to, again? Hypocrite. If it really was safe, he wouldnât hesitate to speculate over exposure.
So Tomâs lips remained parted, an inquiring breath stemmed from deep behind diaphragm, taking deliberate and emboldened will to drag any higher. It wasnât a new issue, heâd already experienced the harm it could do unaffirmed. A jagged spindleâs point tempting to break the surface with a minor graze. To reimagine the 27th. How it arrived as much as it didnât. Why nothing hadnât been enough. Where opportune chances to corner her mid-takeoff, to ask to be spoken with, to confirm or deny what was happening up front, were avoided under the guise of a civility. An overgrown and unruly hedge of questions, clipped and scissored down to a more appeasing shape with silence, its root system just as much of a maze, ignorance denying there was anything to dig down for. A bright blinking thumbnail sized light indicating an active incoming line was awaiting his attention. With aggravating telemarketer persistence, popping up multiple times annually to check in. Just in case you forgot. It was the presence of that promised protection he hadnât hesitated to grant her a moment earlier, that gave one of those dwellingâ?â a ledge to spitefully grapple at. An immortalized question he couldnât help but pause to ( again ) wonder over as it was proposed, hearing it betrayed aloud for the first time since the concerned seed of soundless doubt was planted, âDo I â have IÂ â ever made you doubt that?â
          Her living room, now the default anchor for her gaze, seemed entirely incorporeal; her, rendered bodiless. All of it made unsubstantial by the syllable that filtered in -- you -- and the confusing press of his mouth against her forehead. Her lashes flitted down in a fit of uncertainty, mouth a hardlined defense against any overt reaction. The ungainly collision of wants and contradictory knowledge had her bristled, all of her one taut muscle. The gesture heâd made, amassed with her earlier ones, were perplexingly intimate. Familiar. An old impulsive twitch, a knee-jerk kick, a phantom limb. At the moment, the tangible reality of him outweighed the opposing voices: the ones that reminded her, and not gently, that years and miles separated them. What use were reality and sensibility in combatting the glorious -- harrowing -- unknown? Viv leaned forward in one swift bend, snatching her half-empty beer and drawing back another swig. Took a deep breath. Reclined again. She held the bottle firmly in her grip, so tight her knuckles whitened around it. âI donât know, either,â she admitted. Why they still felt this way around one another. What was to be done about it.
          Though he deemed uncertainty acceptable, she felt it was inadequate enough to prohibit use as an excuse. I donât know was forbidden; not included in the punishingly elusive answer key to the ever-growing questionnaire. She had sworn to be brave. Had sworn to try, when really all she wanted to do was retreat, have a drink with Kevin -- a name heretofore entirely forgotten -- and return home on the verge of blackout to eat her day-old Thai food, as planned. Collapse onto her couch to watch something randomized in her queue while furiously working her vibrator. Continue her established routine, undisturbed by greater worries like feelings or regret. Instead, she was posed open-ended queries; passed the baton, weighty as it was. Dangerous for all it meant. The singular certainty amidst doubt and confusion: He was the first, the only. To admit that freely, however, required her to abandon everything sheâd been carefully cultivating for twenty-seven years; to become a new Viv entirely. The present Viv, stunted as she was, was able only to stare blankly forward -- eyes flicking down, up again. The silence stretched on, tense with her contemplation. When she spoke, her voice composed to cover the crack of want in it, she still held the admission sharp on her tongue (unspoken, caged). âForget it,â she echoed searchingly, investigating each pesky syllable. Rolling it over in her mouth, gnashing it between her teeth. She offered a wry smile; one terse, humorless laugh (barely more than an exhale). âWouldnât that be nice. Easy.â Viv cradled the beer between her thighs, staring down its neck at the half inch of liquid that remained.
          From that vantage, she saw the familiar, weathered leather beneath her legs. Vividly, she remembered the day sheâd bought it. Further still, in that unfurling length of time: the first time sheâd glimpsed her house, with its asymmetrical roof; trendy Queen Anne style-molding, painted easter-egg blue like some token from a Wes Anderson film; the sprawl of it, in comparison to the Manhattan house. Old appliances swapped for brand-new chintz. It was all exciting at the beginning, if only because it was shiny-new: new job, new coworkers, new people to fuck. For the first few weeks, she cared naught for furnishings or pretending that it was anything like a home. The last straw came when she opened a Chinese food container and found only a putrid slop-pile, alive with threshing maggots no bigger than pinheads. Youâre acting like some sad girl who got dumped, she admonished herself. Hilarious and ironic, given it was she whoâd severed things with the brutality of someone accustomed to ending chapters without punctuation; just sentences lilting feebly, desperately. They hadnât been a mere chapter. Six years of repetition, of the only routine being the eschewing of mundane routine, had, despite her best efforts, grown into the fleshy organ beneath the cavity. Had swollen it, fed it and marred it with scar tissue like seams. Most days days when Viv was alienated by the self-assembled coffee table, the worn leather couch. They were not spaces meant for her to occupy, were meant to be filled with other phantom bodies; ungenerous figures that leered at her. That pointed rudely, told her in no uncertain terms: you do not belong. For the first few months, all they did was remind her she was meant to be elsewhere.
          The reality became clear: simply erasing him wasnât an option. Instead, the process was one of whiting-out; drawing over in broad, opaque strokes until she couldnât see the remnants of him through the ink of everything else. Her new life. She amassed her furniture slowly, but with clench-jawed determination: Scouted out shops nearby, scoured online advertisements, had a friend drive her into another neighboring town for the very chair that seemed alien to her now. Blankets were pulled, vaguely crusted, from collection bins. Pillows were chosen from a catalogue and arrived in sleek packaging that she tore open with new eagerness. Mugs, all matching. A kitchen set in crimson, hard rubber pleasantly buoyant in her hands. Pans without burn-marks, coated appropriately in teflon. After months of using various convenience-store bags (an overeager chorus of THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU amassed in one corner of the breakfast nook) to collect trash, she made real progress with the purchase of a retro push-pedal bin (how very Westbrook), which she displayed proudly on the more trafficked side of her island. Suddenly, she was the type of woman who had prep space. The kind of woman who cleaned out her cupboards regularly. Who, instead of raw PopTart dinners, bit her lip while determinedly studying a recipe on her phone (something as basic as sautĂ© garlic and onions a daunting task). Who vacuumed twice monthly, who knew her social security number by heart, who made sure to pay off her credit card at regular increments.
          Vestiges of the old Viv still remained: the way she always had the television and music playing at once, an assault on her senses. How eventually she grew restless with even that -- which occurred roughly thrice daily -- and flung herself onto her belly and went to work until she climaxed at the top of her lungs. The nights she spent reading through the Casual Encounters on Craigslist like it was literature. All that change necessitated some stability. Reversion back to old ways was inevitable; the sex depraved, ungainly, and constant. The first after Tom was unceremonious, deliberately generic. All that stood out was the flash of a palm against her ass, then the post-coital cigarette smoke wafting into her overhead fan. The very same fan they sat under presently. They had sat tapping their ashes into one of her matching mugs, Viv deflated by the realization that she could no longer ignore the fact that he wasnât Tom (a preference rendered masochistic, obsolete). For a while, she could pretend. When he pulled her underwear down, cast them aside on the floor. When she palmed across his chest blindly, coaxed him into pulling her hair. It was over the cigarette that the spell was broken. The ghost of his name had been on her tongue, the taste of it there just beneath the tobacco.
          He hadnât made her feel unsafe. It was what she felt, the sheer knowledge that safeness often meant displacement later, that was the danger. The reverse of safe. What had kept her, in her youth, from exposing herself fully to anyone. She could recall something Skylar had said once, a perfect encapsulation of her very deliberate persona: everyone likes you or wants you, but no one knows you. She was a shapeshifter, adept at deflecting with alcohol or marijuana or pure, unfiltered fun. Chaos in human form, a whirlwind of excitement and unpredictability that prevented anyone from looking deeper. A terror that distracted all passersby with its stunning assortment of neon-bright colors; blinking signs that were merely glimmering, gaudy diversions. Life in Lanford had proven same. The Viv who inhabited it was -- somehow, unexpectedly -- reverted to the one who had occupied Brooklyn foster homes. That was the Viv all her friends knew: buoyant, buzzed, baffling in her ability to press on despite the clock ticking the early-morning hours. Easy. A shallow attachment, a sheeny surface that reflected away any onlookers. Kevin was one of them; a friend who, in comparison to her Manhattanites, knew her at only a basic, facile level. She felt the phone buzz against her hip, eyes flicking between Tom and where it sounded once, twice. After a beat, she moved her hands to retrieve it from where it was tucked precariously into the shallow front of her jeans, edging out. Promising to drop at the most inopportune moment: onto tile, concrete, while she tore down the street. That had been the precise fate of the last four phones sheâd had. It was jarring, to enter into the realm of her messages (paragraphs matched with only one-word replies, conspicuous silences); look at the timestamp and know that it had been sent before the clear partition of before and after. Before she had been greeted by the cold air of the bar and his undesired (and yet, paradoxically, indispensable) presence. As expected: Kevin, inquiring re: her whereabouts. She punched out an innocuous message in a fog, having to type and re-type and try again thrice before her fingers obliged.
          When she spoke, she still clutched the cool cut of metal in her hands, an anchor she could retreat into if need be. Her voice, as well as the sentiment it delivered, was so sure and direct it was startling. It cut through the brief quiet with a deceivingly fragile lash. âDonât go, then.â A clear expression of desire; a sly act of transparency that wouldâve gone unnoticed by those who didnât know her well. Perhaps the most definitive statement that sheâd made yet, misleading in its seeming simplicity. The cloaked importance, the sheer weight of it. âI donât want you to go.â
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
kaledo-art
2087
