Protected

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He's out there again. I feel it in my bones, in every fiber of my being; it is something I know for certain and I tremble with anticipation. The lights inside the little cottage where we sit are bright, rendering the windows blackened mirror faces, reflecting only my own pensive gaze. That I cannot see his face does not change the fact that he is there, slinking in the darkness, malice his intent.

I move from room to room, sometimes with her, sometimes without. I know when he is peering through the windows and watching. He hates that I am here with her; it infuriates him that she finds comfort in my company, in my touch and my protectiveness. He knows that as long as I am here with her, he must stay out there in the cold darkness, hidden in the shadows.

I go to her on the couch and sit beside her letting our bodies touch ever so slightly while she types away on her computer. I don't want to disturb her, just let her know I am here. She is lost in her thoughts, writing as she does for hours without moving. She reaches out and touches me absently. It's her way of acknowledging I am here without stopping what she is doing.

I sense him move from one window to the next and I stiffen in alert. She takes her eyes from the screen and her brow furrows in concern. Her own gaze scans the room, pausing to look at each window. She knows what I feel, but she relies solely on sight. She sees nothing from where she sits and shakes her head slightly.

"Shhhhhh. It's alright," she croons to me. "No fussing." She reaches out and caresses my leg. I try to be reassured by her touch, but I know things she does not. My senses have been heightened by years of training and I know he is out there watching us, waiting for me to drop my guard.

The irony in this is that I am here to warn her, to tell her when he arrives so that she can close the blinds, lock the doors and make the call, but when I do, when I tell her he is there again, insisting she look for herself, she only shushes me. Too many times has he been clever enough not to be easily seen. Too many times he has stepped just beyond the illuminating light of her own lamps. She doesn't see because her eyes are weaker than mine but sometimes she doesn't see because she doesn't want to see.

He is so close to the window now I can almost make out the lines of his face in the darkness. He stares at me before he fixes his greedy eyes on her. I shift in my seat and lean forward. Just a little closer and she will see him... She will see that he is there.

"Would you sit back, please?" She asks me, more than trace impatience in her tone. "You're making the couch all wonky." She reaches for me again, rubs my back with her hand and taps me along my spine.

"If you're not going to sit here nicely, why don't you sit somewhere else? I have work to do." She motions me away from her side.

I search her eyes but find only her desire to continue her work uninterrupted. With a sigh I leave her and go to the window where he stands and situate myself into a chair close by.

"Thank you, Gabe." She smiles at me sweetly. "I'm almost done and we can go out for a walk. I know I've been working a lot but try to be patient."

He moves away from my window now. I can hear his feet crushing leaves in the fall night air and it is too much for me. How can she not hear that noise? I take in a deep breath and ready myself to speak...

"WOOF!"

My alert startles her and she jumps in her seat. "Gabe!" She is irritated now as she sets her computer on the coffee table and makes her way toward the door in a huff. "C'mon!" She beckons to me impatiently. She swings the door wide and I can smell him. He is too close!

I leap from my perch and race out the door as she slams it behind me with a sigh. "Crazy damned dog!" She breathes after me.

I don't hesitate at the insult, instead I round the corner off the small porch just soon enough to watch his tall figure leap over the high back fence. I run to the perimeter and bend my nose to the wet earth where his boot left a print. I drink deep of his odor. It was him, sodden with fear. I peer through the fence slats and watch him run in panic down the alley and away from her, away from my bared teeth and low, menacing growl.

His running gait fades into the night air as I trot back to the porch and lay across the mat at the doorway. I exhale in quick short bursts to push his stink out of my nostrils and lay my head across my forepaws. I close my eyes in relief knowing I have kept her safe again, despite her ignorance of my valor. That is not important to me. This is who I am: her protector, her confidant, her partner, her dog.

In The Air

It was easy to remember the first time. Like the building rumble of jet engines preparing for takeoff, the roar rising ever louder, her blood had rushed in her ears. The pounding of her heart reminiscent of that heady, all encompassing vibration that started deep in her chest and climbed it's way up her spine, goose flesh jumping to her skin in an  eruption of excitement. The noise  was deafening as her body cried out for more, always more... It filled her head with a blinding crescendo that allowed nothing else. There had been many times after that, but the first was easy to remember because she'd been so filled to the brim with the mind-boggling noise of it.

As she sat in the back of the plane, feeling the weightlessness of takeoff, she wondered if life would ever be the same. Could she return to normal; the routines, the boredom and the malaise? Would it ever be enough again to know what was coming next, what was in the crock for dinner, the schedule and the mundaneness of it? She watched out the window as her craft took flight.

It didn't matter, did it? Whether she could see it or not, it was going to happen. She was going home.

She watched as the land and water fell away beneath her, her forehead resting on the cool glass, her head rocking back and forth. Laughter and chatter wafted from the other passengers, but she heard little of it.

She was leaving it behind, that rushing, heart-pounding heady feeling. It was slowly being replaced by the soft fleece of regularity. She'd be back to ponytails and sweatshirts soon, virtually invisible in her sphere of routine. She'd pack away the gauzy tunics and palazzo pants. She'd tuck the short, sleeveless black shift in the back of her closet, along with the daring red pumps. She was leaving that woman below in the sun drenched streets and the cool, shady cafes.

She was morphing slowly, inevitably, back into the dowdy, yoga-pant-clad mom of three; harried and hurried, barely showered and often hungry. She was leaving behind leisurely cappuccinos and croissant with fresh fruit for cold chicken nuggets, congealed oatmeal and icy coffee in a worn travel mug. Elegance floated away, down through the clouds, as humdrum banality pulsed in the engines that carried her toward home. 

She sighed and watched as her breath created a misty cloud of condensation on the glass. She reached her finger up to draw in it and hesitated. What should she sketch there? A heart? Fleeting and meaningless, too simple and pedestrian. No, she was more than that, she needed more than that. Her finger traced in the wetness slowly. 

First a dot, then below it, a small crescent. She closed her eyes and breathed over it, erasing then drawing again. A semi colon; this wasn't the end. She'd be back. She had to come back to rendezvous with that woman who wore the high heels and let her hair hang down her back to blow and tangle in the breeze.  She liked that woman. She needed that woman.

She needed to be transformed, to don other skin, to morph and shift with the rising temperatures and the muggy atmosphere. It sapped others of strength, but not her. She was made new in the denseness of air. In that fertile, moist environment she was reborn. She was more real, more terrestrial than ever when the sun wrapped around her and invaded every pore. Below was her real home, her Genesis, the essence of everything she desired. 

She would pause now, put her rebirth on hold as she raised her babies, supported her husband and built their business. She would don responsibilities like a heavy winter coat against isolating frigidity and blistering boredom, but she would return one day.

That was who she was, that freshness, that dewy soft spot on vibrant colors. She was not the washed out hard, pale pastels of winter, but the bright, raucous, thickly fragrant scent of exotic and steamy locales. She was not Vivaldi and soft falling snow, she was calypso and sand between toes. 

As the plane climbed high above the veil of thickening clouds she closed her eyes and drifted. She would be back, it was only a matter of time. 

Atonement, Part One (Fiction, Long post. Warning: Language)

The truck slid sideways in the fresh snow, throwing her hard against the door as she struggled to grip the wheel and right its progress. She mashed down on the gas pedal and grit her teeth as gravel and ice mixed in a rooster tail behind her. Any other time and this would have been play, fun in the new snow and a time to kick up her heels. Right now? Right now she wanted to kick someone in the teeth, punch someone in their fat mouth. She wanted to fight.

The skid corrected, she careened further up the lonesome road, hitting unseen potholes and bouncing  high on the old spring seat. Fuck them! She swiped angrily at the tears that wouldn't stop falling. Fuck them, and fuck this backwoods shit! They don't know who I am anymore. They don't know what I did to get here! She mashed hard on the brake as the turn, once so familiar to her, came up too sudden. Wrenching the wheel sideways she spun the old ranch truck around, one wheel slipping off the road into the ditch, pitching the cab downward dangerously. Her head snapped forward and smacked the hard plastic steering wheel with a crack.

"Damn," she whispered into the cold air with a puff of white steamy breath. She pulled off her right glove and pushing back the grey cashmere hat, tentatively touched at the knot forming on her forehead. "Ssssss..." She sucked in breath as she checked her fingertips for blood. Not too bad. There was only a tiny speck on one finger, but the  knot was swelling rapidly and her head throbbed to an unknown beat.

She adjusted her cap, took a breath and shifted the ancient old pick-up into low and pressed the gas gently. Nothing happened save the spinning of her back tires. "Shit," she breathed, resting her head on the steering wheel in frustration. She remembered she had to lock the hubs in first. She pulled on her glove muttering to herself and pushed at the door. It swung open with a labored squeal as she stepped into the cold, quiet air, her black english boots sinking in the snow to her ankles.

She was in blue tinged shadow, surrounded by the pines covered tip to trunk in thick white frost. She breathed in deep. The air had a sweetness to it, a freshly washed, icy newness that only Colorado winters produced. The cold felt good on her head, like an icepack, quieting the thumping to a dull roar. She stepped to the wheel and gripped the hub and tried to turn.

She strained against the frozen hub, her hands doubled up against the cap in an effort to free it, and her head began to pound in earnest. "FUCK!!!!!" She screamed into the quiet wilderness around her when the damned thing wouldn't budge, frozen in place by time or the cold or who-the-hell-cares. Now that lump screamed back at her in protest, blood pounding in her ears with a dizzying rush. She stepped back and kicked at the wheel, instantly glad when her foot made no connection. That would have been stupid, to have injured herself further out here where no one but one of them would find her. She would be exactly what they thought she was: some stupid city girl who couldn't even pull herself out of a ditch in a four-wheel-drive ranch truck.

It was the same truck they had all learned to drive when they were tall enough to see through the shiny plastic loop of the steering wheel and the dull, blue, cracked dashboard. They had made fun of her then too, calling her "Noodle" and "Olive Oil," her thin, wiry frame always too weak to lift or pull or push. She looked around the truck, stomping through the snow and peering into the rusty bed, hoping for anything that might help free her from her stuck position. She rested her arms along the rail, her chin cradled in the scratchy wool of her black peacoat. No widow-maker, no bags of sand, nothing. She was stuck.

She closed her eyes and listened to the silence push in around the low grumble of the truck's engine.  Exhaust billowed out of the tail pipe like smoke from a chimney and she watched, hypnotized, as it made its way skyward. She had thought coming home would help her mend, help her say goodbye once and for all. She had thought being with them would have been comforting, not awkward and lonely. She had been wrong about so many things. They still looked at her with that same disapproving stare, that same accusatory way that said she'd abandoned them. She'd abandoned all of them, even Daddy.

She hadn't, of course. She had tried to stay in touch with her crazy schedule, but it always felt lacking. The long drawn silences on the phone, the failed attempts at video chats, the unanswered emails because they "forgot to check that stuff;" it all added up to more and more distance between them. Now it was a canyon that seemed couldn't be bridged. Today at dinner had proved it. They blamed her. Why, she wasn't sure, but they blamed her.

Trey had been the hardest one to take. "You'd think with all that money you say you're making now, you'd have at least come home to see Dad before he died. Why couldn't you do that? Or do we still not matter to you, like when we were kids?"

"I was in Milan, Trey. It takes two days to get stateside with the best of planning. Last minute, I did the best I could." She had tried to stay calm, to speak low and slow and clear, but he kept on. He accused her of being a fraud, of making more of her career than it really was, of always putting the shiny bright lights above her family. She had finally thrown her plate at him and grabbed her coat and hat before she sped away from the cramped Thanksgiving dinner into the frigid afternoon.

Trey had no clue what those long hours on the trains and planes had done to her, knowing her father was slipping through her fingers one last time. She had known the instant she landed in Denver that he was gone. It had been an eerie, empty, echo in her soul as she had stepped from the terminal to hail a cab. She knew she was too late even as she tapped out a text message to Trent, the middle brother: Landed. Taking cab to driveway, can you meet me?

It had been Travis that answered from his phone. Trent must have shown him her message. Leave it to the youngest to drive the knife home: No one at ranch. Dad dead. At funeral home making arrangements. Truck parked where it usually is. Let yourself in. See you tomorrow.

She had the taxi take her to the driveway and found the same old two-toned ranch truck parked by the gate. It had started up like it an old friend and she'd made her way down the winding drive to the valley where the squat clapboard house sat nestled in the clearing amid scattered barns and sheds. The old red tractor and the rows of neatly stacked round bales stood sentinel around it, smoke curling from the chimney.

One light had shone through the living room window, casting a wide swath of light onto the covered porch and her mother's worn, hard-wood rocker. Peering through the single paned glass, she could see it was the lamp that sat by Daddy's easy chair. The antique lamp with the ash tray fixed midway down flooded the room in soft yellow light. His pipe sat in the glass insert, as if it too waited for him to walk through the door and sink into the chair to light it once more. Standing on that porch in the bright clear moonlight of late November, she had felt like an intruder, an interloper who didn't belong anywhere near anything as pure as that scene behind the window.

She squinted into the bright sky beyond the shadows, back to the present with a jolt. A flock of geese honked and called overhead as they flew southward, the signature V flexing and melting then reforming again to relieve the lead flyers. She had a job to do and the afternoon was waning fast.  She did not want to be sitting here stuck when her brothers started home.

She stomped around the nearby trees, gathering fallen branches, twigs, pine needle brooms, anything she could find, to wedge under the tires for traction. Piling the awkward stash by the side of the truck she opened the door and fished behind the seat. Smiling, she pulled forth the stubby old camp shovel, right where it always was. She moved to the drive tires and began to dig around them, uncovering gravel and wedging branches underneath. She was sweating now, under that fancy coat, but she knew better than to strip down. She wiped away a bead of sweat that snuck from under her hat. Doing the work felt good. Her arms ached and her feet were numb, but she was doing something physical and it channeled the anger out of her with every shovel-full.

Trina shoved the spade back behind the truck seat and climbed in front of the steering wheel once more. She pulled the lever back to two-wheel-drive and said a little prayer as she shifted into reverse. The engine idled higher and rocked back against the debris. She eased her foot to the gas and felt a tiny victorious thrill as the tires gripped and rocked slowly backward, the crunch and crack of branches filling her ears. Success was short-lived as the ass end began to spin and wheel its way around sideways. She stomped on the brake and opened the door to hop down again. She adjusted her makeshift ramp and got back in to try again. A few similar attempts finally had her backed out onto the road, engine purring like it was brand new as she huffed out triumphant white puffs of breath hands on her hips in satisfaction.

She kicked the largest of the branches she'd used to the side of the road and proud of herself, re-entered the truck and started back around the curve toward home. She watched as the mess of tracks and pine needles faded into the distance. The boys would see it, she frowned at her reflexion in the rearview mirror, but at least she wouldn't be there, stranded and waiting for them to bail her out. She didn't need them, she wouldn't need them ever again if she could help it.

Tides and Tunes and Truth

There's a Phil Collins song... "In The Air Tonight." It has an ominous ring to it, haunting and slow and it builds. It builds to a shout with a pummeling drum beat that is unmistakably recognizable. I freaking love that song! It embodies things that, as a writer, I relate to. It is a mirror to my relationship with my Muse, my genius, my daemon. This song...when it plays and my heart quickens, this is how I know something big is about to come at me, come out of me, burst through me.  It's overwhelming and filled with emotion. It screams and cries and curses as it wheedles its way from my belly to my pounding heart, up my constricted throat and into my brain like a deadly parasite, a fevered disease of the mind. It takes me over. It refuses to allow me to sleep, to clean, to chore. It consumes me. If I let it, it will scare the shit out of me before it winds its way out onto the page of my computer screen through my fingers. My digits struggle to keep up, spelling be damned, grammar goes to hell and I know that something is demanding to be heard. My throat constricts, tears threaten to fall and I am obsessed.

I feel her today, my stiletto clad Muse. She is frustrated, hair askew, one heel broken and the other missing, mascara in black streaks under both eyes. There are stains on her french cuffed shirt and it hangs open at a dangerous angle, buttons dangling on tenuous threads, stolen glances of torn black lace. Her stockings are full of runs and there is a gaping hole in one thigh. She is drunk and unruly, straining against the unseen bouncer of my rationale, spitting obscenities at me over his burly shoulder. She melts into a puddle of frustrated tears and lands herself in a heap on the floor. Only when I consent to sit at the keyboard, Phil blaring in my ears, body rocking to the heavy beat of drums, does she gather herself up and sit across from me. She has poured herself another glass of something dark and peaty, I dare not ask what. She isn't constrained by social norms, she could give a shit less. She wipes at the black smudges on her cheeks and dares me to listen.  Cue Adele and "Hello..."

Music between us eases the tension and I am writing. I am writing what ever she sloshes forth, slurring her words from a lipstick stained mouth. She is scattered and haphazard and I am grateful. Whatever she needs, whenever she needs it, I am committed. I will respond. Is it a short story? A novel idea? A blog post?  I don't know until I sit down and open the spigot. Sometimes it comes at a trickle and I can wrap my head around it. Sometimes it is a fire hydrant and I am left with nothing to do but dance in the drenching fallout, soaked to the bone and gloriously spent.

I could fight this interaction. I could reason it away and go about the laundry and the dishes and the everydayness of my life. But because I am a writer, because I have embraced the desire to be one of the ink stained, the other-worldly, the creators and artists, I welcome it. I cuddle it close, this porcupine of emotions, and I listen. When it shouts and when it whispers, I listen. If I am lucky, someday when the stars align, I will have written it down in such a way that it cannot be ignored and you will be introduced to the joy I know on an intimate basis. She is, after all, a very real part of me and she only wants to be heard.

Just A Pinch...

In my twenties, life was exciting. It was about potential, setting up the perfect serve, drinking from life's cup in big sloppy gulps. In my thirties, life was about working hard, striving for one more rung on the ladder, making what I wanted happen through one more all-nighter. In my forties my perspectives on life changed. I looked around and while I could say it was 'good,' I realized a few things: Life is precious, nothing turned out like I thought it would and that was okay. My enjoyment has taken on a different flavor. I savor more, sip instead of gulp, realize that even though it may have some burnt edges, it's still good enough to gobble up. Disappointments and disillusionment become another part of the meal instead of something to throw in the dumpster. Acceptance reins supreme.

It was in light of these revelations that I started thinking about what I want when I am old... Scratch that, not old. Seasoned.

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• I want to own chickens. When I have no more desire to travel and see the world, I will gather to me chooks of all sorts and feed them in the setting rays of the sun, tossing seed upon the ground and smiling as they gobble it up. I will wear aprons with pockets and glory in the remnants of feed that find its way under my fingernails.
• I want to sit on the porch and sip my coffee in the mornings, reminiscing of the places I have been and the shoes that got me there. I will recall strolls down cobbled streets, paved cities and country roads. I will bask in the rising sun of another day and hold the memories like treasures to my breast. 
• I want to build blue bird houses and set them about my yard to watch as they swoop and dive, swirl and light. I want to listen to the cheep-cheep of chicks in the mornings as their parents bring them breakfast, the iridescence of their clothing shining like a mirage in the light of sunrise.
• I want to wear long tunics and palazzo pants, to sweep myself into a room with elegance and grace. I want to clothe myself in bright blues and greens and purples, reminiscent of a peacock in full regalia. I want to sparkle and shine and make people marvel at my fashion bravery.
• I want to laugh with my children, let their kids bounce upon my knee and ask me questions like, "What was it like when you grew up?" I want to see my kids as the incredible artists, hearts and philanthropists that they are. I want to be proud of them and still encourage them to stretch.
• I want to surround myself with Ya-Ya friends - You know the ones... Those that chuckle at our past adventures and begin stories with, "Remember that time?" I want to share bottles and bottles of wine into the late hours, sitting quietly together, gazing into firefly speckled darkness. I want to hold their hands, laugh at their verve, stroke their hair and cry in their laps.
• And when it is time for me to go, I want to do so in my own bed with my Love and my family at my side. I want to tell them how deeply I love them and listen to their favorite memories and I want to laugh my way into Heaven. With my last breath and my last gaze, I want to smile at the face of God, giggle one last time and know that I am home.

What a Writer Wants

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Have you ever wondered what it takes to love a writer? It all starts with knowing what we want... Here's a short list of my desires:

• A writer wants to connect. When I sit to write, I do so as one speaking to a confessor, a confidant sworn to secrecy. I want you to understand and even resonate with what I am saying. I want to let you know and in turn, know myself, that we are not alone. Emotions and perspectives are unique but the same in so many ways. I am revealing myself to you.
• A writer wants to rant. Most of what I write I am dealing with on some level. That may alarm you if you have read any of my books or my shorts. That's okay. Be alarmed. A writer's rant, I can almost guarantee, means something completely different than you think it does. 
• A writer craves details. I am completely irritated and undone when I get the short answer. "What did you think of the book?" "It was good." Good? Seriously? What did it make you feel? Did it teach you anything? Don't tell me it was good! Tell me it was spectacular, it was horrifyingly boring, it was rancid. Description is a meal and words are the seasonings - FEED ME!
• A writer longs for truth. Whether in research or honest word choice or description of the hard scenes, a writer is searching out the truth of what they write. There is no worse feeling than reading something you know is not true. It is a slap in the face of your audience if you don't at least attempt knowledge of what you speak. Respect of their time is always at the top of my list.
• A writer wants quiet. This is a hard one for me to describe. Anyone that knows me as that other person, knows that I am less than a brooding, solitary soul. Still, in my writing life I have to have a sense of serenity. I need a quiet place, a few hours of my day unassailed by the noise of life: no television, no radio or music, no interruption to the process of writing. The noise in my head alone is so loud it often takes me days to quiet enough to get even a few words on the page. I have to have that stillness to make sense out of the static energy in my cluttered mind.
• A writer wants release. When I write, if I am paying close attention, concentrating on word choice and being demanding with my concepts, it is like having amazing sex. There... I said it. Any writer who tells you otherwise has either never had great sex or is lying to you.  When I put in the work, decide selfishly I will not stop until I am done, I feel as spent, as satisfied, as gloriously loved and attractive as I do after a naughty romp in the sack. It opens up my whole world to more! I am energized, confident and contented... I'm pretty sure I glow. That release of my story onto the page clears my head and allows me to move on with my day. If I am honest, that same release also keeps me coming back for more, because - well... Isn't it obvious?
• A writer wants stimulation. (No I'm not all about the sex today...) The death knell to any sort of creative juice I have is to sit stagnant, to let routine rule my life. I have begun to travel in my aged years (wink, I'm not all that old), and in those adventures have come to realize it fuels my writing mojo. The more I see, the more my mind opens up to the possibilities. The more I stretch my boundaries the more my mind stretches its imaginings. When I cannot travel, just a trip into a cafe where I can sit and observe, a little darkened bar in the middle of the day, a park bench under a canopy of trees... All of these become fodder for the page.
• A writer craves appreciation. There is nothing more heady than to be told someone is waiting for you to write another story, tell another tale, create another character. To be lauded by those who read my stories is a drug as addictive as heroine and the cravings can become destructive, especially when I have gone dry. If you know a writer in your midst, if you admire a blogger you lurk but never comment on, let them know you appreciate them. It may give them the courage they need to try a new character, to re-edit their last short, to finish!

You Can't Take It Back (Fiction, Long Post)

They stood facing each other, the air thick around them, crackling with tension. They stood and stared. Her chest heaved, up and down, her arms slack at her sides, her mind a whir of confusion and hurt. She was finding it hard to breathe. The silence rushed in on her, filling her ears like rushing water, the beat of her heart pounding loudly against the void. The air seared her lungs and burned all the way down to her soul. She felt the ache in her heart squeeze hard at her chest. The heat that had powered their argument was cooling quickly and she felt the rise of bumps along her arms and legs.

She watched as his eyes registered regret, then stubborn resolution; he didn’t look away. She continued to stare, to search his weathered features, to try to recognize the man she’d married. The boyishness was long gone, vanished with his compassion for her. Somewhere along the road they had traveled that young man had been replaced with greying hair at his temples, haggard lines on his cheeks and a hardness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. At this moment he was no longer someone she recognized. She let her gaze fall to his clenched fists, his expanded waistline, his faded jeans. When had he left her? Had she pushed him away? Was this somehow her fault?

Her ears were still ringing with the words. She drug her eyes back to his face, searching for any sign of a coming apology. There was none. She held her breath for short bursts, knowing each time she released the air and took another it might be the one that sent her sobbing. She vowed she wouldn’t do that yet, not here, not in his presence. Her pride wouldn’t let it happen where he could watch.

She forced a small, tight smile and blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. She tried to force her mind to make sense of what he’d said. What exactly had he said? Could she recall the words, or only the pain? The sounds of them, swift and sharp, had stuck to her like darts, stinging and hurtful. She wanted to pluck them out, throw them to the floor, tell him to say it again, but her request stayed walled behind a fortress of teeth and lips. If she unclenched her jaw and tried to speak she would surely crumble.

A shiver slunk down her spine, her gut wrenched painfully and she fought the urge to vomit. Only now did his face spark a sliver of concern. He extended his arm to reach for her. She turned, denying him any touch.

“Don’t,” she managed through the grind of her jaw.

“I-“

“You’ve said enough.” It was those few words that broke the dam on her tears. They ran down her cheeks, hot and salty. She swiped quick at her face with the back of her hand and turned to walk away, “I have work to do.”

He spun her around by her arm so that she had to work to maintain her balance. She stared at his hand on her skin, tight enough to push flesh through the gaps, until he let her go. The print of his hand on her remained, pink against pale. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

She rubbed her arm where he had touched her, “No. You meant it, or you wouldn’t have said it. We always mean the things we say, whether we should say them or not.” Her voice was quiet, deliberate, cool.

She stared at the floor, silence yawning lazily between them now. She was suddenly exhausted, bone tired and mentally weary. Although she struggled to move, she felt an incredible lightness; a floating, twisting, bobbing along that should have caused her alarm. She couldn’t bring herself to register the angst. She was drained. She wished she could be washed away with the tide she drifted on now; to be sucked out to oblivion would be less painful.

She moved on unsteady feet back to the table and sank heavily into her chair.

“I am sorry.”

“Me too,” she forced herself to look back into those eyes. “Is it enough? Is being ‘sorry’ enough?”

He reached for his ball cap and ran his fingers through his thick hair. He met her gaze as he placed his hat back on his head, “I don’t know.”

He searched her face, his grey eyes flicking along her features. What was he seeing? Her age? The woman she once was? Did he find what he was looking for? He turned and put his hand on the doorknob. For only a moment he hesitated and then was gone, pulling the latch home with a click.

“Me neither,” she whispered as the tears cascaded down her face unfettered.

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