Page 82 of The Crush
Two teenage girls strolled arm in arm through town with their smiles painted on bright. Poodle skirts and ponytails still tied with ribbons, hands raised in practiced waves and eyes searching the face of every boy with slicked-back hair and a black leather jacket. Looking to find true love before their mothers found it for them.
Too young to stop believing in happily ever after, too old not to wonder how to plan a life in a place that seemed to have nofuture. Trying not to dream too far past Friday night as they each played with stolen moments in trucks parked at the drive-in. Excitedly sharing the evening’s report at the bathroom counter in a borrowed letterman jacket and a swiped cowboy hat that neither had any intention of returning. Time ran out when the porch light flicked on.
Stop.
Two mothers sat across from each other at a worn wooden table, whispered words and bitter worries exchanged over the whir of a box fan and refilled glasses of sweet tea. Ice melting and condensation pooling on summer-heated glass, ribbons holding back hair now streaked by age and sleepless nights. Burning up in yet another record-breaking heat wave that seemed intent on shoving them all away.
Too young to imagine a time when they would have five children grown between them, too old to still have their own parents to ask for help. Their smiles were back in place whenever I wandered in with my yellow magazine, pulled into laps for tight hugs and the safe cover of the childhood ignorance they never got for themselves.
Stop.
One woman stands on the hilltop looking down on gray stone, an old oak tree swaying in the wind and shading out the sun. Sunday church clothes on and a red ribbon in her hand. Still hoping for a sign.
Too young to have said goodbye, too old to learn how to do this alone.
Stop.
Sixty-Seven
Isabel
Wednesday, November 2, 1994
I already know he’s not there.
Before I open my eyes, before I struggle against the rhythmic pounding in my head that urges me to keep them shut, I already know he’s not there. Again.
If he was, I would be able to feel him, pressed right up next to me with no space in between, a strong arm around my waist, his broad chest at my back, his face buried in the nape of my neck. Holding me tight just how I like.
So rather than reach for him, I extend a grasping hand to turn the bedside clock toward me and crack my eyes open, just enough to read the numbers and immediately doubt myself.
No. No, that can’t be right.
I sit up quickly, way too quickly, the morning-lit room doing an abrupt sideways lurch as I try not to lose the dinner I’d worked so hard on making.
JesusChrist, how many drinks had been in that last round? Does it still count as one if your glass is never empty?
Okay, breathe, breathe, breathe. You will not throw up in his room for fuck’s sake. You will die first.
It takes me a minute, a few more with my head between my knees, before I feel brave enough to risk a look around and confirm two things.
One, as I suspected, Daniel is not here and, two, as I feared, it is later than I thought.
God damn it, why doesn’t he wake me?Even with a raging hangover, I would still rather he wake me than leave me to worry if he—
Did he even come to bed? I can’t remember him coming to bed.
My mind may be moving slower than usual, but it is waking up, and right alongside it is a growing sense of unease. I stand, ignoring the way the room gives another unhelpful sway before I head for the door.
The first thing I notice when I step out into the hallway is how quiet it is. No radio tuned to the morning forecast. No coffee pot brewing its third round. Only a dark house that suddenly feels strange to me in a way that it never has before.
I wrap my arms around myself, still wearing the T-shirt and sweats Daniel had put me in last night before he’d tucked me into bed.
Maybe this is a dream. Maybe I’m still sleeping. Although if I am, the booming headache feels like overkill.
What had he said to me before he left last night? I think I remember him laughing.With me? At me? Oh, God, what did I say?
I reach the end of the hall, gaze drifting over the ofrenda to peer into the kitchen. I find nothing there but empty plates on the counter from the night before, chairs still pushed out and bottlesstill waiting to be emptied. The scene appears so much colder now than when there had been people to fill it with warmth and conversation.
