AngeInk

She stood on the cement strip, toes of her chucks right at the edge. It was old, mossy. The wind scaled up from below, hot, like out of a volcano. Maybe it was one. Or maybe the world hadn’t actually ended outside of herself.

There had been an end. When he, the one who made her, handed her the keys to the family sedan and 800 dollars in cash, and said this is it. You can change your mind. When she took them, he hugged her and said, “Don’t come back. Don’t try to talk to us, because we are still whole and you don’t belong. God said.”

Three years here now. She didn’t know anything of that other life. She didn’t miss it. She missed them, though. Everything here was foreign and impersonal, including the man she fell into in that flight. This wasn’t ever what she wanted. She just wanted to not be bludgeoned by her lack of faith every waking moment of every day. She had moved from My Little Ponys and Mr. Rogers to bleeding monthly to being schooled in philosophy and being a submissive wife a man could love. Ten years of that bullshit had turned the scape of her soul into something withered and frightened and inherently unlovable.

But maybe it would stop if… her toes inched closer. Would it? Or was it all awaiting her in purgatory? Because that is what love is. Love is someone pushing you over the edge for your own good. Love here was a man who saw himself as a savior but slammed doors and pushed her off his body when she needed comfort. Love was abandonment and rejection and the best fucking love was tough.

“Lady!” the voice floated up from the street 10 stories below. “Lady step back! I’m callin’ the cops!”

She stepped back. She waved and smiled. “No need!” she called. And she went back inside.

“I’m going to my sister’s,” she said. 

“But it’s late.”

She closed the door behind her. So completely out of character, 17 years of pouring a bowl of cereal at 9:30, scrolling her phone for an hour, and finally following him to bed where he slept jack-knifed away from her, snoring like a freighter. 

But that text had come through, and after the way he had kissed her by the car in the Sav-A-Lot parking lot… She turned the key. Put her phone on silent.

He’d dropped a pin. And as she turned into the park entrance she had a flash of doubt. No, not doubt. More an, are-you-out-of-your-fucking-mind-Lila? She heard the sound of the New River in the background… not rushing. She wasn’t that kind of river. She was wide and flat and always muddy. All sandbars and driftwood along the sides and still and dark out in the center. Good bass fishing. Trout when the weather was good. And by good, that meant overcast and about to rain. Trout liked the rain, that’s what daddy always said.

She saw the truck. Red. And him, leaning on the tailgate, all flannel and lank and easy confidence. 

“You made it,” he moved to wrap her in a hug. Like a boy just grateful for the chance. But his arms felt good. Touch felt good. A person could be touch starved. Hugs saved lives… she read that somewhere… maybe on the back window of a Subaru. 

He pulled her over to the truck. He had piled in blankets and quilts with frayed edges, pillows of all shapes and sizes. There was a cooler and he reached in and pulled out two bottles and opened them. Handed her one.

She hated beer. But she drank it anyway. Nothing worse than tasting it on someone else first. 

“Looks like you went all out,” she said. 

“I just wanted you to be comfortable. If you still wanna…” he trailed off. Looked at her earnestly. “It don’t have to be nothing but a drink though. No hard feelin’s.”

She smiled. He was sweet and sincere, and there was that starving thing. “Remind me,” she said.

And like a good boy, he stepped in and cupped her jaw, thumb across her cheek, and inside that holy kiss the empty years unfurled. The layers fell. The stars watched and the river sighed, and her fingers scrolled his flesh like ancient script. 

My Latest digital Painting, titled "Bad Liar." Painted in Artrage6 using a Huion tablet.