‹ Prequel: Let's Waste Time
Sequel: Around Our Heads
Status: Complete

Chasing Cars

Seven

When I got home from work, Chris cooked dinner while watching a cheesy Sy-Fy original movie. He smiled when I came in. I closed the door and locked it behind me. Then I jumped right into his arms. He struggled to hold me up since he was still holding a spatula. But he got a grip of me with his free arm. So I smothered his face with kisses.

“Jeez, what did I do to deserve this?” he asked.

“Nothing, you’re just you. With the cute butt and the baseball spatula.” He set me down, and I went to put my bags on the counter. He went back to the stove.

“I should try being myself more often then.”

“You really should. It’s my favorite thing about you.” I pulled my laptop out and set it down on the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. I climbed onto a stool to get it open. “Smells good.” He sent me a smile over his shoulder.

“What are you up to?”

“I was thinking today that we need new curtains for the living room.”

“New curtains?” he repeated as if he was unfamiliar with the concept. His eyes narrowed disbelievingly.

“Yeah. Okay. I know it sounds crazy. But the curtains are a little outdated.” He looked past me at the window. Our current curtains weren’t even picked out by us. His mom was getting rid of them, and we just wanted something to block out the view into our apartment at night.

“The curtains look fine.”

“But—get this—orange curtains.” His eyebrows rose.

“Orange.”

“Yes! Wouldn’t that be awesome? Just think about it. Not an ugly orange. Like a cute orange.” He tried to consider it, but the look on his face told me he thought I must have grown up on a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

“Orange,” he repeated, still not grasping it.

“Yes. Orange.”

“If that’s what you want.”

He shrugged and went back to the stove. I continued my search for the perfect orange curtains. It wasn’t that I wanted ugly orange. I wanted bright orange. And I didn’t know where the idea came from. Just that I decided I didn’t like the curtains his mom picked out. They didn’t fit “us.” They weren’t “ours.” They were hand-me-downs. He’d get it once I got them.

We ate dinner together at the bar and then settled in front of the TV for more shitty Sy-Fi movies. I tried to flirt and made a few suggestive comments, but he told me he could barely run in the morning, and if we had sex again, he’d probably just die.

So I didn’t sleep well. And when I woke up the next morning, I was grumpy again. I complained about everything, and then Chris forced me to sit down and at least eat some cereal before I left. So I went to work just to complain some more.

But when I got home later, Chris was sitting on the couch looking somber again. I set my bag down on the stool and came to stand before him. Something was wrong. I could tell by the way his shoulders were slouched, and he looked so defeated. My heart jumped in my chest, thinking something had happened at practice. Maybe he’d gotten kicked off the team. Maybe we were getting kicked out of our apartment. Maybe he was breaking up with me. I sat down beside him.

“Chris, what’s wrong?” I asked. He looked up at me and sighed heavily. His dirty blond hair was messy, and he looked like he hadn’t slept much the night before either.

“It’s Ultra Pepe,” he said. “He’s uh—he’s dead, Marley.”

“What?” Ultra Pepe was my buddy. He was my companion. We’d been through a lot together.

“I’m sorry, Marley.”

“I—but how?”

“I think he was just old. You’ve had him for a long time. He was clean and well-fed, and he had an enormous tank. We did everything we were supposed to do to take care of him. He was just old.” I put my head in my hands and tried to fight back the tears.

“I need to lie down.” I went to the bedroom and closed the door behind me. Then I crawled into my bed and sobbed. Real brutal sobbing. For my poor Ultra Pepe. My best buddy. My roommate. He was old. I knew that he was old. Chris was right. I did everything right. I went above and beyond what a goldfish requires for a healthy life. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still completely dejected.

A few minutes later, Chris came into the room and laid down on the bed beside me. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me against his chest like the little spoon.

“I’m sorry, babe,” he said. I sniffled.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I replied.

“I didn’t realize he meant this much to you.” I laughed through my tears.

“He was my buddy. It just took me by surprise.” He moved my hair out of my face and kissed the back of my head.

“You’ll be alright.” I sniffed again.

“I know. I’m just really emotional lately. It’s PMS.” He laughed softly.

“You lost someone important to you. It’s perfectly normal. You don’t have to explain yourself.” He kissed me again.

“You didn’t flush him yet, did you?”

“No, I wanted to wait for you. He’s in the fridge. I didn’t know where else to put him.” I laughed at the thought of my goldfish in the fridge. Then it brought on a new wave of tears, and Chris had to pat my arm and squeeze me to comfort me again.

“I’m okay,” I said. “We should give him a funeral.” We climbed off of the bed and stood up. Then he pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly to his chest.

“I’m sorry, Marley,” he repeated. I sniffed.

“It’s okay. There was nothing you could do.”

“C’mon.” He took my hand and led me into the kitchen. He had Ultra Pepe wrapped up in a paper towel. He handed it over, and I unfolded the paper. It was weird seeing Ultra Pepe out of his tank. The paper towel had stuck to his scales, and they weren’t shiny anymore. He seemed so small and helpless. I took a deep breath.

“How did you find him?” I asked.

“I went to clean his tank, and he seemed really out of it. He was just swimming in circles and then not swimming at all. So I put him in a bowl to clean it out. I should have just left him in his tank. But it needed to be cleaned, and I had to wash the filter. When I went to put him back in, he was floating.” I sniffled again.

“C’mon.”

I put the towel back over his little fish body, and Chris followed me into the small bathroom. We said a few words for Ultra Pepe.

We talked about his extraordinary life as a fish. How he was my first pet, and I got him at a shop because I couldn’t afford a puppy. But over time, I grew to favor goldfish. I blew my first real paycheck on his new tank and a pirate ship for him to hide in. How every Christmas I bought him something for his tank. Either a new plant or that Spongebob pineapple hideout that he liked more than the pirate ship. He was a great roommate. When I saw his little gold body swimming around in a tank in a pet shop, I knew that we were meant to be best friends. Chris talked about how he’d never known a more fantastic fish. Then we put him in the toilet and flushed him away.
♠ ♠ ♠
R.I.P. Ultra Pepe. Your memory will live on.