Silver Springs

I watched the desolate street. Mamie’s apartment was in a small neighborhood, a midnight blue building on the corner of a deserted street. She had been in and out of her apartment all day. The last time she pranced in, she came back with a huge piercing on her left eyebrow. I rolled my eyes because it was so like Mary Lou to get upset and stick something in her skin in protest.

She hadn’t noticed me, or at least, I thought she hadn’t noticed me. Until she came out of her apartment, looked straight at me, and stuck her middle finger in the air. It was drizzling and a car was passing by, but I still heard her yell, “Either knock on my door or get off the street, you creepy motherfucker!”

I snorted a laugh because she was so ridiculous, but unbuckled my seatbelt and crossed the road. She stood in the mist, watching me with her hands in her sweatshirt pockets. “Gunnar, for real? You’re stalking me?”

“Not stalking, watching. I’m making sure you’re okay. Things got pretty fucked up last time,” I trailed off, my eyes zeroing in on the remnants of her swollen lip. She covered it with a hand.

“It’s really okay, please just leave.” I stared at her. “Or come in,” she changed her mind.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said and stepped around her and into the living room. There was an orange cat lounging on the soda. “Whoa, you got yourself some company,” I said.

“Yep. Her name is Cleo. She is really friendly,” she replied.

“And you got yourself a new… eyebrow,” I muttered and gestured to her puffy face.

“Mmhm, needed something new in the mirror,” Mary Lou said.

“Well. It’s pretty funny because now you look nothing like you did when I first met you,” I said. She really didn’t resemble her old self at all. She was about twenty pounds thinner, ten times paler, and had a gold ring in her face. And she looked tired, very tired.

“Eh,” she commented offhandedly, “So it is.”

“Why did you do it? Why’d you do all of it?” I asked her. My hands were crossed against my chest, as if trying to protect myself from her answer.

“I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t have the character to stop,” she stated sadly, “But I do love you very much.” She finished with tears glistening in her eyes, and then wiped them off in a hurry, as if she was embarrassed. For some reason, her embarrassment hurt my feelings. We were never embarrassed in front of each other because we knew each other from the inside out.

I realized in this moment, standing in front of Mary Lou with her eyebrow ring and pale hair, that I didn’t know her very well anymore. Maybe I had to let her go. What used to be an impossible route, moving on, suddenly became a viable option, an excruciatingly painful one.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m sorry too.”

“Silly Gunn. You don’t have to be sorry for anything,” she whispered, “At least not as much as I have to apologize for.”

“Hm. What about Billie?” I asked her. It hurt to mention his name. It hurt to even think of him.

She turned a violent shade of scarlet. “I don’t know about him. I love him very much, but probably not as much as I do you. Sometimes I can picture my life without him and it sounds okay. And when I picture my life without you, it’s like being ripped out of the womb.”

I sighed, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I wore the jacket she’d gotten me for my birthday. I wore it on days I felt especially down, she reached over slowly and fingered my black leather collar.

“I want you very badly,” she said, “It’s taken me so long to admit it to myself. But I must admit it to you.”

I got angry because my eyes were dripping and now I was embarrassed. “I want you too.”

We still stood about a foot away from each other. And I knew that if I moved, I would dissolve and give in. “I guess we shouldn’t talk for a while then,” she said.

“Yeah, probably. But when we bump into each other again, which I know will be soon, be ready.”

“Ready for what?” she asked.

“I’m coming for you, that’s what,” I said and smiled.

A grin crept its way onto her face. I turned around and walked out of the door, but I heard her through the rain again.

She said, “See you soon.”