Leah

This is how it ends:

I'm leaving," I say.  She sits like a statue on the faded sofa in the tiny living room of our small apartment, eyes forward, not even a twitch or a flick to show that she hears me.  That she recognizes my presence.  She is not going to stop me from walking out the door.

I think that maybe that's best.  Because we were never supposed to work.  I knew that from the start, but at the time it was like ever romance film I've ever made fun of.  Only thing is, I liked it.  I loved it.  Every single minute that we spent fighting to be together when the world wanted us apart was like the first time I ever held a girl's hand.  Our lives were linked together like teeth in a zipper: still separate, but with the appearance of making something whole.

This is how it begins:

She chews cough drops like they're the elixir of life.  Or maybe just happiness.  It makes me want to kiss her.  I want to know if the flavor that greets me will be cherry or orange or lemon or if it will be one of those disgusting eucalyptus cough drops that make my nose run.  But for some reason I don't think I would mind.  I think it would almost make me smile, even as snot runs from my clearing sinuses.

I make the mistake of telling Jared this, because we're in lecture and it's hard to pay attention when the professor is droning in monotone and it's even harder when she's sitting three rows down, going through that bag of cough drops like they're candy.

He laughs and punches me in the arm and says that she's Jessica's little sister and he'll introduce me after class if I'm really that interested and I say sure even though in my mind the phrase I'm interested I'm interested I'm interested plays like a favorite song set to repeat.

This is everything that happens in between:

Her name is Leah and I'm making a fool of myself which she mistakes for charm.

"She's only 20," Jared says and I don't care because it's only a two year age difference and it' s not that big of a deal.  My parents are ten years apart.

We kiss and she tastes like strawberries which makes sense because that's the color of her hair.  Strawberries.  They're suddenly my favorite fruit, my favorite scent, my favorite everything.  I can't get her green eyes out of my mind.

"Don't hurt her.  She puts all of herself into these kinds of things," Jessica warns me and I nod and assure her that that is not my intention.  That I can't stop thinking about her.  That she's taken over my world, and I've surrendered willingly.  Jess doesn't smile but she doesn't say anything else either.

And then Leah and I sleep together and when I wake up in the morning she's still curled in my arms only now she smells like vanilla and sunlight and autumn and I fall in love with her then.

She's young and doesn't know what she wants but she wants this.  Us.  I know this because she told me so, late at night with the moonlight kissing the pale freckles spattered across her cheeks and I'm only half listening because I'm dying to kiss every single one of them and she says "I want this."  So it's okay that everything leading up to that sentence sounded like she was trying to break up.  It's okay that I'm not feeling as upset as I probably should.

Sometimes she drinks like there's no tomorrow and I want to shake her and ask her what it is she's trying to numb away.  Sometimes I get drunken phone calls at 2 in the morning and then I go and pick her and her friends up because they can't make it home.  And this should bother me, and sometimes it does, but then she leans over and rests her head on my shoulder on the short drive home and the world rights itself again.

I'm getting ready to graduate and she's moved into my apartment because she's having roommate problems because a dress got ruined on a drunken escapade and I understand her, but can only relate to her in a distant and vague sort of way.  I wonder how things are going to work in the next few months when I move away, because I am meant for bigger places and larger things.

"Jessica said you would say that," she says with little rivers of tears leaking from her eyes and my arms ache to hold her so I do and I say "I'm sorry I don't mean it.  We can do this.  We can make this work," I whisper into her strawberry hair and she holds me tight and I don't let go.

"You've changed," Jared says and maybe it's true but I don't really mind the difference.  Except that sometimes the words bounce around in my head like pop rocks late at night when Leah snores softly beside me.  We no longer sleep curled around each other.

"What are we going to do?" She asks and I know that she's not referring to this weekend but I pretend that's what it is anyway and tell her my parents are coming in and I want to take them somewhere nice.  She purses her lips and then snags a cough drop from her pocket.  The crackle of the wrinkled paper echoes in our silence.

"I'm pregnant," Leah says and the world stops.  I ask "How long?" and she says "I don't know," and I sit down on the couch next to her in my graduation robes.  My cell phone rings on the kitchen counter.  My parents no doubt.  We have dinner plans and Leah and I just stopped by the apartment to change quickly but she just sits on the couch and cries and cries and cries and I hold her because that's what I'm supposed to do.

"I like the name James," I say and rest my hand on her stomach, still so flat but it's early yet.  I feel her hold her breath and think that maybe that wasn't the best thing to say.  "I mean, maybe, if it's a boy.  It's just that I thought it'd be nice to name him after my father."  She exhales and smiles and I didn't realize until then I hadn't been breathing either.

"I love you," she screams as I pack my bags because I should have listened to Jared and I should have listened to Jess and I should have just left her to her cous  dropss.  "I didn't lie to hurt you," she cries and my gut twists as I realize again that I have ignored pieces of my life and deserted parts of my future these past few months for a child that doesn't exist.  "I just didn't want you to leave me.  Everyone in my life leaves me."

"Give me some space," I beg her as I close my suitcase.  She retreats from our bedroom and I hear the old sofa creack as she throws herself upon it.

Returning, with some new ideas

So this hasn't been updated for a while, but it's not because I haven't been writing.  I've been working on my larger project (tentatively titled "Existence") and haven't been keeping up with my short stories.

In 2009 my plans for this blog are as follows:

• excerpts from "Existence"
• short stories and microfiction
• possible poetry
• starts or ends to stories I will write at some point, but may not get to or have time to work on right when I think about them
• and because I believe that improving at writing requires reading, books I've read and recommend (also possibly books I start, but end up detesting)

That's all for now.

Be back soon,

Maggie

untitled

I’m sorry that I can’t hug you back some days.  It’s not that I don’t want to because sometimes all I can think of is the comfort that comes with being held by you.

I’m sorry that sometimes I can’t hold your hand and that I shake when we kiss.  My fingers always ache to be twined with yours and my heart pounds happily when our lips connect, but I’m still so scared that this will disappear.

 I’m sorry that I fall apart at times and that my lows are sometimes too low and that I laugh when it’s inappropriate.  I know it embarrasses you sometimes, it embarrasses me sometimes too, but they’re few and far between now and when they do happen I close my eyes and hold my breath and it hurts less.

I’m sorry that sometimes you intimidate me and that at other times I break down and shut you out.  I don’t have an excuse for it, but I hope to always see you standing there when I finally open the door.

Gesture

To Be or Not To Be (The Unspoken Question)

“So,” Ethan says and his voice trembles a little, like he knows exactly what I’m about to tell him, and maybe he does.  Maybe I’m not as good at pretending as I like to believe.

I reach for my wine glass and his eyes follow the path, widening slightly even before I’ve pressed the thin curve of glass to my lip.  But on contact they catch my own gaze, questioning and it’s then that I know he knows.  He’s always been so observant.  It’s what made me fall in love with him and it’s what makes me frustrated with him now.  It just seems so obvious.

Everything feels that way though.  Like the way he combs his hair to the right to hide the miniscule recession of hair or the way he hums some unrecognizable tune when he washes the dishes.  Because he washes the dishes.  Or the way he bites at his cuticles when there’s something he’s dying to tell me but just can’t because he’s terribly shy.  I thought I loved these things.

But I know him too well now and the small habits and ticks that I used to find endearing only serve to wear at my patience.  And I think that maybe it’s because he knows that I know what each little gesture means.  I know that his fingers are raw and bleeding around the nails because he’s dying to ask me if it’s true.  If the little stick with the little pink plus sign that was somehow sticking out of the wads of tear-stained tissues is true.

But that question got filed away and stored for a later time when I reached for the wine glass.  The rim is cool and slick against my lip and I remember the article in Cosmo that said to use your drink as a prop for attracting men.  But this isn’t a game of whether or not Ethan loves me, because I’ve known that since he whispered it against my neck three months ago when he thought I was sleeping and two weeks after that when he said it clearly across the table at our favorite diner.  This is about something that he wants to talk about and that I don’t and this wine glass is the answer.  Just a tilt will do, just the smallest incline to send the bittersweet liquid across my palate and down my throat.  Just the smallest angle will send fire down to the pit of my stomach and will explain what I cannot.  That I cannot do this now.  That I am not as strong as he believes me to be.  That this kind of thing is for other people and that I’m not ready to be the woman he thinks he loves.

But Ethan doesn’t play by the rules.  So when I start to move the glass just ever so slightly he breaks and asks, “Will you keep it?”

I hesitate.

Dream Story

Hole Punched Moons and Missing Stars

This is a house.  This is the window and this is the little red door and these are the three and a half floors that reach up to the blue blue sky.  This is the orange couch with ugly brown stripes that lives in the den like a tiger.  It curls itself around the wall and breathes deeply but shallowly.  Hick hick hick every time someone rubs their fingers through its fur.  Hick hick hick with the small bites that each touch leaves in its wake.  It opens its eyes, foggy and baleful with old age and yawns with a wide-toothed smile that would be fearsome if it weren’t so cracked and worn with age.

This is the rug that greets your toes and tickles your heels and kisses your arches and says Welcome Welcome Welcome.  It used to say bah but the couch got really hungry a long time ago and felt neglected and went straight for the jugular, so to speak, of the shag pillows in the study.  But that was a long time ago and the grudge has long since passed, though they stay separated.  It would hurt too much for either of them to be in the same room now.  It’s just too much to ask of anyone.  So now the couch growls sometimes in its sleep and thinks of soft warm things when it dreams at night in its den and the rug counts its brothers and sisters to go to sleep each night.

This is Olivia.  This is her house.  This is her window and her little red door and her three and a half floors that scrape some of the blue off of the beautiful sky.  This is her purple hair, cut short in an awkward bob that curls at the apples of her cheeks.  This is her orange hair, long and flowing and pin straight.  It grazes against her back and creates an itch between her shoulder blades and she just reaches around with her long long arms and scratches it. 

This is Chip and this is Daniel and they live with Olivia and they are her friends.  They used to be her brothers but then something happened.  Something important that she can’t remember but it left everything in ruins except for this house.  This house with the orange door and no windows and seven floors that rip through the red sky and leave it tattered around the edges.

Chip lives in the den with the tiger and he pets it occasionally and it goes hick hick hick but he doesn’t mean to hurt it.  It’s just that sometimes he forgets.  He lives in the den with the tiger and the tan carpet that have splotches of green from the bad thing that happened that nobody can remember anymore and Daniel explained it once.  He said they were water spots, like the ones you find in the ceiling when it rains too much except that the spots are on the ground now because the water is slowly coming up from below now instead of from above.

Daniel lives in the study with a lone shag pillow and his laptop and his wire-rimmed glasses and his sweaters and he stays there until the sun goes down.  Until the red sky that’s torn in places and worn-out in others shifts and changes and fades to purple.  He gathers it in his hands and molds it and melds it and punches a hole in it—sometimes whole, sometimes half, and sometimes somewhere in between—and puts it all back up where it belongs.  Sometimes he forgets to punch a hole at all though and then the sky is very dark.

This is Olivia’s room, which is very much the same as the one she had before the bad thing but is somehow different.  Things seem less concrete now.  If she presses her hand to the wall it caves in on her hand, like those foam pillows that she played with the other day at the  mall while her parents picked out a new mattress for the guest room but they’re not here now and neither is the mattress.  She has a small bed that is pushed up against the wall and a radio and a clock that goes tick tick tick almost like the tiger downstairs but not quite.  She has two windows and she looks out of these and watches Daniel make the sky and the moon and never stars and wonders how it was things used to be.  A ringing starts in her ears and she thinks that maybe she’s thinking too hard on certain things but somebody has to now that they’re the only people left.  It stays that way for a while though and she feels out of place, like something is dragging her to the surface and now she can’t breathe and she wants to stay in this world of purple skies and hole-punched moons and tigers and sheep but then Daniel looks up from the yard and says Wake up Wake up Wake up and Olivia opens her eyes.

Dialogue

On a Staircase in a Museum in Chicago

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“What do you mean about what?  About the painting, of course.”

“I don’t know Elle, what do you want me to think about it?”

“Well don’t you have any opinion?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.  I like the colors.  They’re very striking.  They make me want to open up my soul and tell you absolutely everything about myself.  Things I swore I’d never share with anyone else.”

“You’re a dick, Jason.”

“They’re a bunch of clouds, Elle.  It’s just a canvas painted blue with streaks of white that blend together towards the top.”

“It’s an O’Keefe.”

“It’s a waste.  Oh don’t give me that look.”

“Care to elaborate then?”

“It’s a waste of paint, of canvas, of space, of my time.  Stop sighing, you asked me to explain.”

“I just don’t get you anymore.”

“It’s a painting.”

“It’s an O’Keefe.”

“It’s just an opinion.”

“But it’s your opinion.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything!”

“This isn’t about the painting, is it?  Oh don’t cry.  At least not here.  Let’s just move to the side and—”

“No.  No we’re not pushing this to the side again!”

“Elle—”

“No!  You will not be embarrassed of me and you will not push our problems under the rug again.”

“Problems?  What problems are we having?  I’m sorry that I don’t like the cloud painting.  I just don’t get it.”

“You don’t get anything that I like!  That’s the problem!”

“Elle, please, calm down.  This is a museum.  People are looking.  I’m sorry.  Okay?  I’m sorry.  But I love you.  I wouldn’t have given you this ring if—”

“Let go of me.”

“I’m sorry.  What I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t love you.  If I didn’t want to marry you, Elle.  I want to make this work.”

“I… I…”

“Oh, Elle, don’t do that.  Please, please don’t do that.”

“Take it back.  I can’t marry you.  I can’t do this anymore.”

“Please.”

“Take it.”

“I can’t believe this.  You’re leaving me because of a painting.”

“It’s an O’Keefe.”

How to Not Fall in Love

How to Not Fall in Love

Don’t look at him.  Don’t notice the color of his eyes or the way his smile goes all crooked to the right or the really light almost invisible freckles spattered across his nose.  Don’t do this unless you absolutely positively have no other choice.  Make sure to remember this when you’re first introduced.  Looking in between the brows generally does the trick.

Don’t be friends.  Don’t find the things you have in common or count them towards your chances because everyone has things in common and everyone stands a chance if you let them.  It’s not unique.  Be sure to keep this in mind when he asks you what kind of music you like to listen to.  Just because you both like Coldplay doesn’t mean he wants to hold your hand.

Don’t give him your phone number and definitely don’t ask for his.  Don’t let the butterflies come to life in the pit of your stomach the first time his name shows up on the small screen and don’t let your voice crack when you try to nonchalantly answer with the ever popular “Hey what’s up?”.  If it comes to this point make it clear that you are and will always be busy.  The extra minutes you spend with him on the other end are not worth the nickels and dimes you shake from your old piggy bank that you keep stuffed in the back of your closet.

Don’t spend Friday nights on his couch talking about the smallest details of your mundane life when you could be out with friends.  Don’t tell him about how you feel abandoned sometimes because the people who you grow closest to seem to leave for different places and different people and don’t listen to him when he says he won’t leave you.  He doesn’t mean it the way you want him to and you can’t get back the hours of sleep you lose from thinking about those four simple words.

Don’t make him a mixtape that spells out exactly how you feel and that has all the songs from all the memorable moments the two of you have ever shared.  Don’t think he’ll appreciate or understand it or call you at two in the morning to suddenly air out the mutual feelings that have been sitting heavily in the air between you for the past few months.  They don’t exist.  At least not for him.  The only person who’ll actually listen to the mix anyway is you.

Don’t analyze every little movement at the movie theater.  His knee touching yours is not a secret code that means “I want to be with you,” and the way your knuckles graze each other when you both reach for the popcorn is only a testament to the fact that you should have bought your own bag.

Don’t cry into your pillow the night he starts seeing the girl from the math class you are both in.  Don’t imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes.  Don’t think about how their first kiss (on the front steps of the school) should have been yours while you wait impatiently to walk home with him.  Don’t let the chaos ripping through your body start to tear at your chest and don’t let the tears creep up into your eyes when he finally turns and smiles at you with the friendly grin and not the one that she always gets now.  The shuddering breaths that leak from your chest will only make it worse.

Don’t let him in on what’s got you down.  Don’t pour your heart out and let all the desperation and frustration and humiliation trickle into your voice when you tell him that this wasn’t how things were supposed to be.  Don’t let him know that your heart was his from the start because he won’t know what to do with it and he certainly can’t keep it.  Don’t tell him the feelings and thoughts that have been echoing and bouncing around the walls in your head for days weeks months years.  Don’t say it and you won’t feel it.