A Short Story About… the weather…
Slowly, his eyes move down my body before settling into mine. I am fidgeting with my keys and pinching my cigarette. He is biting his lip, his eyes like smoldered coals. I used to light them up when we laughed.
“Why’d you get so close?”
The parking lot we stood in was empty save for a few night owls at the 24/7 gym. In the distance cars drove down the highway and made the sound of waves. I sucked down my cigarette.
“Why’d you get so close?”
He asks again. I twirl my keys. I flick the head mirror lights on and off, pretending to look for something. I give up, look at my hand and run it through my tangled black hair.
“I’m not well,” I tell him. Really I want to grab his face and kiss him. Really I want to be embraced, oh my god, embraced. However I hide behind an indifferent face. I burn him up with my stare. I hate that I’m doing it. And I know where I’ve learned it from.
I lean back from the steering wheel and look at him not knowing what I’m looking at, what he’s looking at; what we’re both thinking. I throw the butt of the cigarette out the window and start the engine. Bluetooth doesn’t automatically connect to my phone so some fuzzy AM radio show crackles through the speakers. I don’t fix it. I turn out of the parking lot and see him still standing there. Two lights down I can see the tiny speck of him hunched in my rearview mirror. I turn into the left lane to make a u-turn, but when the light turns green I pull out and go straight instead.
When I get home it’s dark and still. The dogs are asleep on their bed. There is a candle burning in the kitchen. An unused drum in the foyer, a tall grandfather clock next to the front door. It’s Westminster chime announces that it’s midnight right when I set my keys down, and I stand motionless until the last bell dies down. I then lay on the floor while my dogs stare at me. I stare at the ceiling and remember when I was four years old staring at the same one, thinking it was so tall. A mansion, even. Now I am still here. Still here. Sneaking around my house like a stowaway.
I creep up to my room and light another candle, and turn on an old lamp covered by a lacy dress a friend once bought me. It gives the room a handsome glow. I sit on my sofa and look at all the books, and run my eyes over the titles, my memory over where I was when I read them. I think about taking out my notebook to write, but my phone buzzes notifications on more Armageddon. I open up YouTube and watch clip after clip until half the candle is burnt down. I want to call someone. I don’t know who to call. I listen outside to the wind howling. What I would give to be free like that. When the wind blows my limbs sway with it, when the clouds are dark I pour out, if I want to strike out and hurt… I get close to the window and watch the rain begin to fall. I watch it hit the pond below the house when a giant flash of lighting cracks through the sky. Just close enough for a second of wonder. Then the sky grows dark, so dark, and I blow out what remains of the candle.