People Change

Sydney stood with her palms braced against the edge of the sink, staring out of the rain-splattered window at the moist street below. Cars parked outside of the bakery and across the street glistened with teardrops from the sky. The sidewalks transformed into a parade of umbrellas, some boring and bland, while others were lively and colorful. Sydney didn’t mind the rain; it didn’t find its way to Huntington very often, anyway.

Sydney turned away from the sink and walked over to the refrigerator. She pulled open the freezer side, resting her weight on one hip as she looked over the different Ben and Jerry flavors there. Lanie and she had organized quite a collection in there; they really loved to spend their evenings together after a bad day, eating ice cream straight from the tub and watching feel-good movies, like a good comedy or romance.

Right as Sydney began to reach for a cardboard tub full of the most awesome mixture of sugar and milk known to man, her cell phone vibrated in her back pocket. She quickly grabbed her specified ice cream and set it on the counter, closing the freezer door with her foot and pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. She smiled upon seeing it was Brian calling, and brought the open phone to her ear.

“Hey, baby,” Brian said after Sydney greeted him with a hello. In the background, Sydney heard his SUV engine running and the even fainter ping-ping-ping of raindrops against the metal of his vehicle. “So, what do you plan on doing today?”

“Well, since it’s my day off, and it’s raining outside, I decided I could watch some cliché romantic comedies and gorge myself with my two friends Ben and Jerry,” Sydney answered, pulling open a drawer and letting out her secret weapon: a larger-than-normal spoon. She closed the drawer with her hip before placing her weapon on top of the ice cream.

“Sounds great, babe.”

“Why were you asking? Do you want me to go somewhere with you?”

“No, I was just wondering how my baby girl was doing on her rainy day off. Besides, I’ve already made plans,” Brian answered.

“That’s aces, hun,” Sydney replied, grabbing her partner in crime—the ice cream—and walking into the living room. She plucked her blanket from the couch and sank back into the cushions, throwing the blanket back over her once she’d gotten settled. “Just come visit if you get bored.”

“Got it,” Brian said. “Love you, babe.”

“Love you too,” Sydney replied happily. The two of them hung up, Sydney threw her phone down on the couch beside her, and pressed play on the DVD player remote.

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Two hours later, Sydney stepped quickly into each room of the apartment, making sure everything was turned off, including the lights, electronics, those sorts of things. Finally satisfied that she could leave, she tucked her phone into her purse and slung her hood up over her head, throwing a shadow down across her forehead and eyes. She flicked the living room light off, throwing it into dimness hardly broken by the weak gray light filtering its way through the rain. Glancing once over her shoulder, she stepped out into the misty rain, closing and locking the door firmly behind her.

Sydney watched one movie and ate her way through half of the ice cream tub before deciding she didn’t want to sit in the flat all day, even though it was raining outside. She’d decided to go to the mall alone, something she rarely got to do. She always seemed to go with someone—Lanie, Brian, sometimes even Jimmy—and never went just on her own. At least she could go wherever she wanted and stay there as long as she wanted without Lanie tugging on her arm and trying to get her to go into Victoria’s Secret or Jimmy trying to drag her into the instrument shop, practically a candy shop in Jimmy’s eyes.

Sydney pulled her hood off and carefully smoothed out her hair upon stepping into the dry and surprisingly empty mall. She made her way towards the central plaza in the mall; one of the shops near there sold cookies nearly as big as her head, and she was really craving one. There was hardly anyone in the mall, save for a few couples sitting on the benches placed back to back in the central plaza. Sydney smiled as she saw an elderly couple sitting on a bench together, watching the people who walked by and holding hands. Sydney wanted to have that when she got older: a husband who loved her as much as he did when they were younger, who would hold her hand and wouldn’t complain when she got a little upset and hit him over the head with her cane.

As she neared the plaza, she realized with a jolt one of the people sitting on the benches was Brian. She picked up her pace slightly, wanting to surprise him. So she wouldn’t have to walk around alone after all. She could make him carry her shopping bags if she bought anything as well.

Sydney slowed again, however, when she realized Brian wasn’t alone. A brunette sat next to him on the bench, nodding and smiling at whatever he was saying. Their bodies were pivoted towards each other so that their knees brushed together, and if Sydney wasn’t mistaken, their hands were linked and resting on the bench. She advanced slowly towards them, not wanting to be seen now, hoping and praying they were just old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. They were too wrapped up in each other to notice Sydney advancing slowly towards them, her gaze flickering between their faces.

She slowed even further when Brian started to lean towards the woman. Sydney hoped he would just whisper something in her ear and pull away, like telling a secret or something, but all her hopes shattered on the polished tile floor as Brian leaned ever closer and allowed his lips to press against the woman’s.

At first, Sydney didn’t feel sadness, or even betrayal. The emotion she felt most was rage: absolutely frightening, uncontainable rage. So, these were his plans? To come to the mall and kiss some other chick while his girlfriend sat at home, lonely and glutting herself with her good friends Ben and Jerry? If Sydney wasn’t mistaken, she’d be meeting Ben and Jerry again pretty soon, only this time for therapy because of a recent break-up.

She growled deep in her throat and advanced quickly towards the two of them. They still hadn’t pulled away, as engrossed in their kiss as they’d been in their conversation. Neither of them even realized Sydney was there until she grabbed a handful of Brian’s hair and yanked his head back from the chick. The woman looked up at Sydney in shock, but Sydney didn’t get a read on Brian’s expression before slapping him as hard as she could across the face with her free hand.

The sound of her palm connecting with his cheek echoed around the plaza. Sydney ignored the looks she got from innocent bystanders as she whirled around and stormed back up the corridor, towards the doors leading back out into the rain. The instant she felt the moisture pricking at her cheeks and forehead, Brian’s hand closed around her elbow, spinning her around to face him.

The look on his face—half anxiety, half shame—brought along another wave of rage. It coursed through Sydney’s veins, blocking out all thought processes and logical reasoning. She pulled back a fist and punched Brian hard, directly over his right eye. Her arm slipped out of his hand as she spun back around and continued towards her car, the rain peppering against her face.

So consumed by her rage, Sydney didn’t even realize where her hands and feet were driving her until she got there. She’d drove herself right out into the country outside of Huntington Beach, and the instant she saw the back of the sigh that read “Welcome to Huntington Beach” all her rage washed away.

Then, the tears came. They trickled serenely down her cheeks, resembling closely the raindrops slipping down the windshield of her Taurus. At first, only the tears poured. But as she drove farther and farther away from town, away from the mall and Brian, more and more of her rage ebbed away, taken over by sobs that shook her whole body. She drove through streaming eyes, her entire body shaking, her knuckles white as she clenched the steering wheel in her long fingers.

Out of nowhere, a speckled cinnamon and nutmeg bunny rabbit sprung out into the rain-drenched road. Sydney jerked her steering wheel to the left, narrowly missing the rabbit that had been so close to death without even realizing it. She didn’t find time to straighten her car out before the tires hit the muddy shoulder on the left side of the road.

What happened next happened very quickly, much too quickly for Sydney to comprehend until after the fact. The tire made contact with the muddy, streaming shoulder, and suddenly Sydney found herself flipped upside down, the sound of crunching metal and cracking glass loud in her ears. The car rolled twice down a small embankment before resting on its hood at the bottom in the sopping wet grass.

Momentarily shocked out of her tears, Sydney hung upside down in her seat for several moments, held in by her seatbelt, to assess the situation. All around her, the metal of the car seemed to have narrowed and flattened. The tinkling of breaking glass joined the gentle pinging of raindrops against metal. Sydney’s ankle hurt like hell, and her forehead burned as something wet and warm dripped down her face and into her hair.

Slowly, Sydney reached up and unclipped her seatbelt. She landed on all fours on the roof of her car, jarring her ankle enough to make her hiss in a breath. Then, just as carefully and just as slowly, she broke out the remaining glass in the driver’s side window and crawled out of the mottled remains of her faithful little Taurus.

Sydney crawled a little distance away, the knees of her jeans becoming soaked from the damp grass. Once she figured she’d reached a safe place to sit where she wouldn’t be in much danger if the car exploded—it wasn’t on fire, but you could never be too cautious—she sat down and pulled out her phone. Miraculously, it was still working.

As she slowly dialed in 911, a droplet of blood dripped onto the screen. Sydney raised a hand to her forehead and felt a gash there, wincing as the touch of her finger made it burn. She lowered her hand as she raised her cell phone to her ear.

“911, what is your emergency?” a kind female voice answered after one and a half rings.

As Sydney began to explain her predicament, she couldn’t help but think, What a great fucking day.