Black Sheep Come Home

This whole thing is really fucked up.

Honestly.

Harper loves (loved) Tabitha. Tabitha loved Yuri. Yuri might or might not love Harper (and Tabitha). But also, Tabitha loved Harper because they dated in high school and I don’t think they were every really over each other.

Follow? One big love triangle and, where does it leave me? In the lurch, as always.

It was originally just the whole my-boyfriend-is-still-hung-up-on-his-dead-ex-girlfriend thing. I was cool with it, I could deal, I acted like it didn’t faze me. But frankly, after a while, it was like um, Harper, honey, hey, over here, look at me, not that picture of your dead ex girlfriend, um, IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS.

Whoa, whoa, hold on. Don’t turn this into me being the bad guy. No. I won’t have any of that.

Let me start from the beginning. Or the end. Which ever way you want to look at it.


It was that stupid, God-awful senior dance. I wasn’t even planning to go until I heard from him or her or you that, you guessed it, Harper Devine was going to be there.

With his band. It was a freakin’ wet dream.

I was completely infatuated with the kid.

I was a wreck when I got there and there he was on stage and the whole night flew past me in a lethargic blur after I realized the punch bowl was spiked.

And Tabitha was there too, she was the drummer for their band and had purple hair.

Tabitha was always everyone’s dream girl. I had also heard her and Harper were together.

She was pretty perfect. Too bad she died.

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I watched from the opposite side of the gym as they (Harper and Tabitha) slinked off the stage and Harper went up to that kid, Yuri, with the bright blue eyes who was pretty perfect too, and then I was downing another spiked cup of punch as Tabitha appeared and kissed Yuri before dragging him off to the dance floor leaving Harper alone.

Something abruptly came over me then, a sudden sense of heaviness and melancholy as I watched them and then Harper looked at me across the room, and I knew, I knew that he loved that perfect girl with the purple hair and ocean eyes and I knew that she loved him too but she also loved that perfect boy with the dark hair and crooked nose.

I was out of it and then Harper was standing next to me and I thought I was dreaming or dying or both.

We were watching Yuri and Tabitha dance and laugh and then I surprised him, and I even surprised myself, when I grabbed his hand.

And then we were outside in the parking lot, the side mirror of his car crushing up against my side as he nipped at my neck, groaning, “Romy,” and sucking on the delicate skin of my throat, bursting every blood vessel there.

And then we were at his house, a quaint, small little thing, racing to his bedroom drunk off the punch or each other, losing one article of clothing at a time until we collided on his bed and I wondered if when we woke up in the morning he would want to see me again.

And then the early light woke me, shining in my eyes from a partially open window, my panties were mixed in with the sheets when I looked up to find him, Harper, watching me from the bedroom doorway and I smiled at him and he smiled back, and everything was all right for a moment.


I’ll just say right now that Yuri and Harper and I are neighbors, funny enough. Harper and I became “official” after that dance that night and moved in together after high school and then suddenly Yuri appears next door in Tabitha’s old house. Rumor is he killed her. But I think that’s a load of batshit.

It’s not a secret that when Yuri shows up at the door out of the blue some mornings asking for a cup of sugar or something that outlandish when Harper isn’t here and when I go into the kitchen to fetch it for him after inviting him in, and he disappears for a moment, he goes to Harper’s room.

See, I followed him once.

He took a plain, worn pale blue shirt of Harper’s and replaced it with the ripped white one he was wearing.

And when he walked out of the bedroom and almost crashed into me I acted like I was bringing him the sugar and he said he was looking for the bathroom.

I watched his retreating figure head across our lawn to his front door afterward and right before I turned around and went inside, I caught a glimpse of someone in Yuri’s window out of the corner of my eye.

A flash of familiar purple hair.

An impish smile.

I nearly choked.


I love her.

I love her so much my chest aches.

I want to be with her everyday for the rest of our lives.

Tabitha Pearlina Jones. Where did you go?


“Harper.”

I look up.

Romy’s eyes are watching me over the rim of her tea. She has white hair and dark eyes that I always think will trap me in them forever if I look too long, large, gloomy, always-watching eyes, so I look back down at my cereal.

She always makes me feel this way. If I get too close to her she might swallow me whole and hide me behind her lungs. But if I get too far away she might wane into vestiges on the linoleum.

It’s almost the effect Tabby had on me.

Oh God. What am I doing? I need to get out of here. But I can’t leave Romy. Or Tabitha.

“Harper.”

I slam down my spoon. Look at her. She smiles sadly at me.

Do I love her?

Rosemary Adalia Geldof.

Romy.

Do I love her?

Do I love you?

“Harper,” she repeats quietly, standing up from the kitchen table across from me. Her shirt falls over her downy thighs and I reach out and brush my fingers across her insipid skin. “Yuri’s coming up the drive.”

She’s almost beautiful.

And then she leans on the sink, the sun catches her hair, I can see Yuri outside the window walking towards us, and she looks over her shoulder at me.

No, I think, and kiss her before going to let Yuri in.