Pants on Fire.

I think it was the note on the countertop that really settled it all in. As many months ago as that was, I still remember the feeling of the crumpled receipt in my hand, the thin crispness it epitomized and the unnecessary bill for some condoms and juicy fruit on the front side.

Her handwriting was like perfect, caps locked font, all one size and one space apart. I could tell the pen she had used to write the words in was gripped tightly in her left hand because the ink pressed into the paper so hard that, in the middle of one of her words, the paper tore and a small, wrinkled hole gaped back at me ironically.

“Fuck you for what you did.”

My wrinkled shirt still smelled like her.

There was too much involved in our relationship to think it would all end with a useless receipt.

My mind raced from the moment I read the words. I read them, then reread them; and I kept rereading them until I had memorized every infallible word. My heart was doing weird, floppy leaps in my chest and my lungs wheezed and the bottom of my stomach felt like it was being weighed down by a bunch of rocks. The paper crinkled in my palm and, after a few minutes of standing around in the kitchen, I placed it back on the table and retreated to the bedroom.

In our bed, there laid foreign property. She was half naked, half asleep, and smelled like half a carton of cigarettes. She didn’t have a smile on her face as she slept and her hair was dyed blonde; I could see the dark roots already coming in.

I had only known her for a few weeks. Her hair wasn’t grown out then. I thought it was naturally blond. Back what I first met her, she rarely smoked and she never spent the night.

I didn’t remember ever telling her that she could stay the night. When had she even come over in the first place?

My head ached. Empty liquor bottles littered the stained hardwood floor.

“Cory,” I said. My voice came out groggier than I thought it would.

She didn’t stir.

“Cory,” I said harder.

Her eyes flickered open.

I walked toward the bed and sat down on the side I always slept on. She was in Harper’s spot. She was laying on the pillow Harper usually laid on and she stank up the pristine sheets Harper had taken down to the laundromat on Monday.

“G’morning,” she drawled.

My face fell.

“Hey,” I said carefully. “I think you’d better get dressed and drive home.”

There was a long pause of silence, in which neither of us spoke and just sat there awkwardly beside one another. After a moment she sat up and looked at me through blond bangs; I met her eyes begrudgingly.

“Are you kickin’ me out?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No,” I said simply, “I just think it’s best you leave.”

“Well I’m tired,” she said, then laid back down and rolled over away from me.

My breathing grew louder and I looked to the bedside table on Harper’s side. In a rush, she hadn’t remembered to take with her the book she was three-quarters through. She read it every night in bed and I watched television.

I balled my hands up into fists. I felt like such a selfish fuck.

“Do you want me to have to kick you out?”

Cory looked up at me and her eyes widened a fraction. I just stared her down until she eventually pulled back the covers and searched the room for her shirt.

She wasn’t meant for our bedroom.

Fuck you for what you did.