Catharsis

I do wish, in a way, that I could talk to you again.  Not to curse your name, ask you why; not even to coax a compliment out of you.  For months I couldn't think of you, couldn't hear your name without a wrench in my stomach.  I wanted to talk to you then, to prove that I was worth more and that you would be sorry for tossing me aside, treating me like an old worn out doll.  I thought that if I could make you angry, make you sorry, make you lustful, I would win and that chapter of my life would close.  More then anything I missed you.  For more then a year I had bared my soul to you, treated you as a friend.  I told you secrets, not my deepest and darkest perhaps, but secrets none the less.  You may have been a terrible lover, but you were a damn good friend.

I cursed you for so long,  remembered so much of the bad that it's hard to remember the good now.  I remember you telling me that I was beautiful and wasn't crazy (and yes, you did say these things months before accusing me of being so.) I remember you telling me about the family you wanted and the dog and the house.  You had such a newly minted future then.  The day you invited me hunting was the day I decided I didn't care anymore.  Later my best friend told me on the phone that I would be sorry-I would get hurt.  I knew she was right, but my heart was long gone.

I don't even need to say what followed, except to admit what I vehemently denied then.  hysterically mad.  I was stuck between the school girl antics of my friends and the emotional tilt-a-whirl that being with you sent me on.  I won't say that I loved you, if only to keep from sounding more insane then I have already admitted to.  I did care for you though, deeply, and I didn't understand how you could not care for me.  Perhaps you did after all, I suppose I will never know.

When I met him I was still infatuated with you, but I was just beginning to understand the reality of things.  He held my hand while I walked and cried, and despite what everyone said he was a perfect gentleman.  That is when I should have stopped, when I crossed the line of what is honorable to what is despicable.  Though I have forgiven you, it will probably be decades before I can fully forgive myself.

For the purpose of this testimony that you will never see, what has happened since is neither here nor there.  I'm back though, back to the girl that you met during a waltz who laughed too freely when you spun her.  I am not infatuated anymore, not hateful or hurt.  I am terribly in love with your arch rival, and I would be happy spending the rest of my days with him if he asked me.  I hear you're doing well, and you have the chance to find the same happiness.  She's wonderful.  Love her.  Open your eyes and tell her she is worth the world.  I am sorry for everything I did and said to hurt you, and someday maybe you won't be resentful towards me anymore.  I know that we can never be more then cordial to each other; that we may spend the rest of our lives pretending not to see each other even when we are crushed together in crowded bars.

If I could change it, I would.  I wouldn't erase you from my life, but I would have demurred from your invitations and stayed the naive girl that I was when I met you.  Any power you once had over me is gone now, I think I have finally taken myself back.

You're a good person, the kind of person people want to be around.  Live a good life, stay well, and for the love of god please don't let any of the horrible things I once wrote about you come true. 

Dear "anonymous."

I'm sorry I didn't notice your comment from two months ago until just now.  I wonder who you are.  Do I know you?  James, Michael?  You're not Erica or Zoe I think, or Nico even.  I wonder how in the world you found your way back into my archives; more importantly how did you stomach that much angst?  In reality I don't really want to know who you are.  It feels the same as in high school when Sarah made up a secret admirer and slipped notes into my locker.  In the end it was a wonderful birthday surprise from good friends, but the best part was letting my imagination go before I knew who it was.  Maybe you are Sarah or Elan.  We wrote enough together when we were younger, and I miss the companionship of fellow writers. 
Whoever you are, thank you for your comment, it is a delicious mystery. 

I'm going to stop

asking you if you read these anymore.  The answer is always no.

Slipping

She stood there in the kitchen pathetically clutching an apple and listening to the soft laughter echoing in from the drive.  The pie was on the counter in all it's half-baked glory, a messy symposium of flour and oatmeal and sliced apples (skin still on.)  It was his favorite kind of pie, she thought.  Nine years ago that pie had brought him through a blizzard to her dormitory door; as he shook the ice off his sneakers she had known that he was the one that would make her mounds of student loans worth it in the end. 
He was The Perfect Man, the man of her dreams.  This is what she had told her family as they watched her pack all of her shabby things in the old sedan and driven away with a kiss and a prayer that the car made it over seven states and twice that many hundreds of miles.  When she had arrived they had kissed and fallen into the bed and they stayed there until they were both dizzy from exhaustion and lack of food. 
For the first few months life was a working class fairy tale.  It was enough at the end of the day to come home to a warm hug and warmer words; shared glasses of wine and television shows and playful wrestling matches on the too-small mattress. 
She couldn't say what the first thread to unwind was.  It was the computer, probably.  Every night after work she would pull together food and maybe throw a load of his once white t-shirts into the washer; losing herself in the maintenance of their untidy life before finally falling sleeplessly into bed.  He was there too, headphones on staring at the bright screen.  People talked into his ears, people that she didn't know who shared some bond with him that she could never understand.  Sometimes he would laugh, and when she asked what the joke was he never seemed to hear or that's what he told her later anyway.  Soon all their conversations were about this half-life of his, he would tell stories and smile at things she didn't understand.  She smiled too, because it seemed the right thing to do. 
The sex got shorter and he stayed on that computer longer, and soon the only things they talked about were the Problems that had to be fixed.  His mother, her loans, the car, rent, her mother.  One day on the way to the store she crashed the car against a guard rail at the bridge between their town and the next.  The pleasant police man said wasn't she a lucky one, a few more feet and over she would have gone.  Funny place for an accident too, with no sharp turns and the great weather they had been having and all.  She nodded and agreed, sufficiently grateful to providence or god or good luck for saving her to cook another day.
After that she tried to talk to him, and when that didn't work she tried other things.  She brought a picture from when they first started talking to a salon, a picture that he said he loved.  The hairdresser cried as she cut off her long dark tresses, but she sat stony faced and resolute in the seat.  When he came home that night he flicked the monitor on and then looked up at her expectant face.
"Oh, yeah I was supposed to mail that letter to your mother today.  Sorry about that."  She went to bed and curled her fingers around her new bangs, making one small ringlet at a time. 
Two weeks later she did the most humiliating thing of all.  The local mall only had a few stores in it, the essentials.  She had never been in Vanessa's Vixens before, but she knew the town's elderly ladies liked to sit on the bench across the court and take note of who entered and how long they spent in that pit of sin.  There was just one old bird there that Thursday afternoon, but she still walked around the fountain three times before she had the courage to dart inside.  A sea of lace, reds, blacks, pinks.  A corner seemed devoted entirely to feathers, there was a fantastical fan and duster sitting on a shelf above the register.  One side was full of black shiny vinyl; she felt her cheeks redden as her gaze fell on a woman modeling one of the garments on the plastic package.  Keenly avoiding the salesgirl's eyes she set towards the least imposing rack where silky gowns in plain colors hung. 
"You could really pull off the red you know."  The girl had crept up on her while she was distracted by tags. 
"Not many people can actually wear red, but you're complexion is just pale enough to do it."  She made a noise that was halfway between a cough and a smile, but the girl seem pacified and went away to continue marking down bustiers.   Thrust into the middle of the rack was a little black chemise, satin with a sweet bow draped across the back.  It would hit her just above her thighs, probably.  She brought it to the register without glancing at the price, and signed her name on the slip as quickly as she could.  Tucking the bag under her jacket she fled the store, head bent in a vain attempt to keep the old black crow from noticing. 
That night she straightened her hair and tried to put some makeup on.  It had been years; her mascara was all dried up and she slipped with the eye pencil and so had to start over.  Finally she dabbed some lipstick on and returned to the bed, staring dubiously at the gown laid out so unassumingly there.  She pinched herself, counted to five, and then slipped it over her head. 
She had already finished most of the dinner preparations in the kitchen, the chicken was in the oven and she had been sure to cook the potatoes just the way he liked.  Only the pie left.  She was standing at the counter cutting apples in her black slip when she heard his treads in the driveway.  She peered from behind the curtains, staying out of the line of view to hide her ridiculous getup.  He was there, sitting in his car talking to another silhouette.  It was a girl or woman, she couldn't tell from the outline, but she was laughing and he was laughing with her.  He was leaning towards the figure and they seemed to be caught up in some serious and ridiculous conversation.  She let the curtain fall back of it's own accord and stood there, holding her apple.
Of course, he had worked late tonight.  Most nights he worked late she went to bed in the spare room so that he wouldn't wake her when he returned.  He was usually gone again the next morning before she was up.  This was the way the weekends went. 
By the time the passenger car door had closed with a quiet thunk the black slip was in the trash with the rest of the meal. 
He only stopped to smell the kitchen momentarily, then decided that she had made another one of her chicken microwave dinners tonight.  As he rounded the top of the steps he thought he saw the light go off in the second bedroom but when he opened the door silently he could see her sleeping form on the bed.  He turned on his heel and thought with slight annoyance that she hadn't even had the decency to put out leftovers for his dinner.  

My lucky stars

I promised myself I won't write about that night-not yet.  The terror is too fresh in my mind to make comfortable prose.  Instead I will try to do something you used to beg me for, write happy thoughts.

I love that you refuse to wear khakis with anything but a button down shirt.  Most guys I know would throw on a polo and dash for the door; You carefully match your belt and your socks before you deem yourself appropriate.
I love the way you kiss my forehead.  Somehow when your lips brush my hair it's so much more intimate then a passionate kiss on the mouth.  When you do that I feel so cared for, so utterly loved.   The same as when you wrap one arm around me and rest your face against my neck. 
I love that you're not perfect.  Your hair has that funny cowlick in the front and sometimes it sticks up at the back of your head.  I might laugh and tease but I hope you never win the battle against those few stray hairs.  I like them that way.
You know just what to say to get me riled up; sometimes you do it just for a good joke.  I'm halfway through defending poor Indonesian orphans before I see the smirk in your eye and realize that I've fallen to your baiting.  I think you like to see my passion sometimes, even if it is sometimes as ridiculous as you claim.  My darling, you may bait me and prod me but I will never be anything but a socialist philanthropy loving liberal. 
I love that gleeful defiant look in your eye when you've done something  that you know I won't approve of.  I can always tell, and I wait for you to pull out the inevitable game or gadget or movie.  Most of the time I can't help but to smile too, if only at your excitement for the new toy.  I love when you completely dork out and go off about tangents that I will probably never understand; I sit there nodding and watching the lights in your eyes. 
Do you remember that chilly night in Meadville, the night that the men in the truck started following us?  I was scared frozen but you told me to run, and we ran and ran across cold lawns, me still in my cocktail dress and you pulling me along.  Later you told me that you were doing your best to think how you could protect me.  I knew I loved you then.
Most of all I love it when you tell me that you love me.  Not the way you say it the little times throughout the day when you want me to stop bothering you while you play the game or before class, but when you actually mean it.  When you look in my eyes and use my full name, "I love you Emily Anna Doherty."  You look at me like I'm amazing and I believe it. 

I love you, even when you make me so mad that I want to cry.  I love you even when  I'm being an infuriating diva.  I love you even when there is a silence between us so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.  I love you always.

A warning.

Don't you dare ever do this to me again.  You're way too much to lose.

For the ladies (put your hands up)

I never knew either of you when it counted.  In real life I mean.  I had my little circle which seemed much bigger then, filled with Forever Friends and the like. 

I met the girl with the golden hair first.  "Met" is a subjective term, it was either very late or very early and we were talking across the ocean.  I was crying as the messages pinged back and fourth; shoving my computer away from myself over and over again, only to crawl across the unmade bed to retrieve it moments later.  Through my tears I felt a kernel of resentment that this girl was nice.  She was kinder then she needed to be with me, and it was obvious that she cared.  Damn it.  Why couldn't she be heartless and cold so I could hate her in peace.  I promised to do my due diligence and fade away, and so I tried.  I wasn't perfect that spring, but then none of us were.

The first time I saw he in real life I spotted the purple jacket across the frozen lawn.  Arm and arm with him and laughing I think.  I looked away, crossed the brick walk, went to my room and sobbed.  That spring I grew accustomed to seeing them together, and I learned that it didn't hurt as much as I thought it should.  I was still terrified of her, with her wide smile and her pretty blue eyes.  When we worked in the office together I would go red (a habit I somehow picked up in high school that I wish to god I could un-learn) and leave as quickly as decorum allowed.  She was nice to me as ever, and it became clear that this wasn't he same kind of "nice" that those forever friends had acted.  She actually meant it.

When I left that place forever I thought that would be the end of it.  Months passed, and somehow we kept pinging messages back and forth over hundreds of miles.  Over time we talked about everything; soon the last bit of mistrust faded and I let myself understand that this girl was somehow the only truly Genuine girl I had met in a long while.  She saw me at my absolute lowest, and I don't think she holds that against me.  That is a true forever friend.

The second girl with the raven hair I met just days before I left.  She was talking and laughing with the boy that I finally let myself fall for.  Hugging me she made me promise that we would be friends the next year "when I came back."  I made the promise lightly, knowing that I would not be back.  That is how I remember her, laughing in the sunlight in over-sized glasses. 

I trusted her easily, which is why I started going to her with all the wrongs of my life.  I had no one else at home, and certainly no one at school, that I had any degree of trust in.  She made me laugh from a hundred miles away; she reminded me I was beautiful and smart when I desperately needed to hear it.  I listened to her too, and as lies and truths and heartaches showed themselves in the light we held on to each other. 

We talked about paper cards and fishing and computers and rings; when she called me I could hear the bustling of city streets through the phone and could almost taste the spinach salad she was describing.  One night I called her sobbing and she listened to me until I cried myself out.  She told me I was worth it, and for some reason when she said it I believed her.  That meant the world to me that night, sitting in my car alone at the park. 

They changed my life.  They are smart and kind and sexy and fun, and I wouldn't trade either of them for the world.  They are true friends.  So here's to those two wonderful ladies who keep me sane.  Thanks.

Ashes and Wine

In the waning hours between when the young folk go to bed and the business world wakes up to their espresso in fancy paper cups, I am waiting.  A knock at your front door and you answer, berobed and befuddled at the intrusion that is either too late or too early.  In the days since we last met I have gained weight; ten pounds in all the right places.  Despite this you could still fit both hands around my waist if you wanted to, and as your eyes sweep me I know that some part of you does want to. 
You stand aside, and neither beckon me in nor turn me away.  I slouch into the hall, stepping over the rolls of skin that passes for your old basset.  Kneeling I pass my hand in front of his nose, after a few seconds of pondering he gives a quiet garumph of recognition.  Slipping him a beef offering from my coat pocket, I can hear your slippered toe beating a muffled tattoo on the hardwood.
"He's on a diet you know."
"Poor thing, months left on this earth and he can't even eat what he pleases."
"It's four o'clock in the fucking morning."
"It is."
Pausing we study each other.  You have kept your hair short out of habit; I can see the bits around your temples fading to white.   I wonder if you see the lines around my eyes.  It's too late now for miracle cures and skin tightening cream; I'm stuck with the ghosts of my years of laughter and tears.  
Outside the garbage truck is cling-clanging it's way down the street; in a few minutes it will reach the lone industrial sized dumpster at the end.  In mornings past the resulting cacophony served as my natural alarm clock.  Today the sound shakes you out of your silence. 
"You staying in town?"
"I don't know yet." 
"Need a place to crash?"
"No, not today."
You nod slowly, relaxing now that you know this is not a conjugal visit.
"Well, come on then.  There's a space heater in the living room I can turn on."  The old house has high tin ceilings and planked floors scored with decades of dragging furniture.  You spin the dial on a white heater, the only thing in the room that doesn't have a comfortable layer of dust.  I drag a saggy armchair up to it so that I can rest my toes on the warm plastic; you lean against the blocked off fireplace and continue to stare at me.
"So, it's been a while."
"Sixteen months."
"I thought you might be back for the funeral."
"Didn't think you wanted me here."  You shrug, then turn to stare at the mantel.  A woman stares out of a picture there, a laughing woman.  I remember taking that picture. 
It was the first time she convinced me to stay the night, telling me that I was far beyond driving home.  I slept on the old couch in this room-there was no heater then, and I was shivering.  You came downstairs to get a drink after she fell asleep and saw me shaking.  When you took me in your arms it was just as it had always been, for a while we forgot that you were married and I had found the right one with a ring to prove it.
After that she invited me around once every couple of months.  Soon a decade passed; she was the maid of honor at my wedding and the shoulder I cried on during the divorce and still you and I would find each other wrapped together on the same old couch.  I don't know if she knew, if she did she never said anything. 
When you called me a year and a half ago from the hospital I flew out.  She had already lost her hair in the treatment, but her smile was still there and she still offered me the couch to sleep on.  That night I slept alone.  Two months after that she was put in the ground surrounded by a lot of people who said touching things and left appropriately expensive flowers.  I had work or family or some other good reason I couldn't attend, and when I called the next week I got ring after ring after ring.  You never saw the point in answering machines. 
You are still looking at the picture, and for the first time I see the five years of age between us.  You look old. 
"I finally got my carry permit."  Dragging your eyes away from the laughing eyes you watch me pull glossy metal from my jacket pocket."
"You scared that you're going to get in trouble between your car and my front door?"
"You never know."
"Give it here."
I pass it over and watch you expertly heft it, some of the light going back into your eyes as you slide back the chamber. 
"Nine millimeter?"
"Mmmm."
"If you're going to be around for a couple days I'll take you to the range, could be fun."
"I'm leaving today."
"Suit yourself."
"Carl?"  You look up, I rarely use your given name.
"Yes?"
"Did you ever love me?"  You take a deep pull of dusty air, the light flying out of your eyes as you hand back the gun.
"We've been over this.  You know that I wanted to try things again, but then you met Evan and I found her and..."
"That's not what I asked.  But I guess I know anyway.  I just came to say goodbye mostly."
"You're not coming into town anymore?"
"I am.  Just don't think you will be seeing me."
"You don't want to...?"
I stand and go to the mantel, brushing past you and fingering the frame. 
"She was beautiful you know.  And kind.  You should have loved her.  You shouldn't have- we shouldn't have, well.  I wish you had loved me.  It wouldn't have been so horrible if you had."
I am still holding the gun, I flex my fingers around it and look up into your beautiful dead eyes. 
"You ruined me Carl, for everyone else.  I have wanted to hurt you for so long."  I press the metal into your chest, you wrap your arms around me and hold me there.  We are stuck in some obscene version of a hug; listening to the sounds of the street coming to life drifting in from outside.  In the hall the old dog whimpers, complaining that he hasn't had his quarter cup of diet feed for the morning.  Finally I break away, pushing with the gun until we are at arms length again.
"Goodbye Carl."  You look curiously from me to the gun in my hand, almost expectantly.  I hesitate for a second, then turn on me heel and walk out of the room.
In the hall the pile of skin and bones hasn't moved, but the dog lifts his head to look at me mournfully through watery old eyes.  The loud crack reverberates through the house followed by the dull thud of his head hitting the floor for the last time. 
I leave the house as an equal.  Now we both have nothing.