He tosses the pillow at her.
My eye roll is automatic as I saunter over to the couch, plopping down beside my friend. “I didn’t want to say it in front of him, but I met him at Loving Lifelines. He doesn’t talk to anyone. He doesn’t share. I think something bad happened to him.”
“Shit.” Leah’s eyes soften as she turns to look at me. “Maybe he needs a friend. You should invite him out for a beer with us tonight. Sometimes people just need that little push, you know? To feel included. Noticed.”
“I don’t think he wants to be noticed.”
My response spills out unsought and candid, and it’s a sad declaration.
Sad and relatable.
And then I think…
Some people don’t want to be noticed, but maybe that’s exactly what they need.
Charlie thought I looked sexy in red.
“It’s a striking contrast to your skin, like holly berries sprinkled into a winter snowfall,” he told me once, always the poet. Always the romantic.
I’d wear red as often as possible because it made him happy. Cocktail dresses, high heels, barrettes, lipstick. Crimson, scarlet, roses, and wine.
The tube of lipstick slides along my lower lip, butter soft, complementing my matching maxi dress. I press my lips together, then pucker my mouth, noting how my fingers are trembling as I pop the cap back on. The reflection staring back at me is one I haven’t witnessed in well over a year—face decorated in makeup, lightly curled hair, a pretty dress.
Effort.
With a quick smile at myself in the mirror, I reach for a small bag resting on the counter and make my way out of the hall bathroom. The trek towards my bedroom feels longer than usual as the sound of a power drill welcomes me like a musical score for my grand entrance. I clench the little paper bag between nervous fingers, shuffling my bare feet when Parker comes into view on the floor, installing the new bathtub.
“Hi.” He doesn’t hear me over the shrieking drill, so I clear my throat. “Hi,” I say louder, until he lifts up on his knees and twists to face me, silencing the drill. There’s a smear of pewter paint along the side of his jawline and a sheen of sweat glistening his forehead.
Parker frowns slightly, eyeing me from toes to top. “Did you need something?”
The bag crinkles as I grip it tighter. “I, um… well, I just wanted to see if you…” I trail off, biting on my lip. Parker’s eyes narrow as my thoughts race, almost like he’s trying to read them before I can spit them out. “I was wondering if you wanted to go—”
“Don’t. You’re just going to embarrass yourself.”
His unexpected words cut me off, rendering me silent, save for the tiny gasp that escapes and joins the heaviness now hovering between us. I’m certain my cheeks are flushed as red as my dress. “Excuse me?”
“If you’re about to ask me out, I’m saving you the trouble. Just don’t. I’m not interested.”
“I wasn’t…” I’m stunned, my legs starting to quiver, my tongue tying into knots. Is he for real? What an asshole. “I wasn’t coming on to you.”
“No?” Parker stands slowly, flicking wood shavings from his work pants. He sighs, a little exasperated, his eyes skipping around the bathroom before they finally land on me. “You’re standing in front of me all made up, wearing some kind of “fuck me” dress, looking nervous as shit. I’m not an idiot, and I’m not interested.”
I feel myself shutting down, inundated by the cruelty of his words and the acidity in his tone. Bitter and venomous. His light green eyes are swimming with something… repugnant. An eerie juxtaposition to the beauty of them.
A fuck me dress? What the hell?
I’m torn between being outraged and throwing this bag at his face, and bursting into tears. “That’s bold of you to assume. You must have a very high opinion of yourself.”
“Not really.”
“So, you just enjoy being mean, then? Tearing people down when they’re trying to be nice?”
Parker hesitates before glancing my way. “Just people like you.”
“People like me,” I echo softly.
I can’t help but study him through brimming tears, desperate to expose what lies beneath the anger and the rough foundation. I’ve never responded well to negative people—I gravitate towards kindness, smiles, positive lights. People like Charlie.
And when my own light dimmed and my smile waned, it only intensified my increasing feelings of despair. My grief was turning me into something I loathed.
I was that negative person. I was the thing people like me avoided.
My eyes dip down to the carpet when his sharp stare becomes too overbearing, and I determine his walls are far too hardened for me to poke through. “I wasn’t making a pass at you,” I mutter gently, swallowing down my own anger. “I assure you I wouldn’t be trying to seduce a man I just met in the bedroom I shared with my deceased husband.”
Parker’s silence has me glancing up, catching the wrinkle that creases his brows, the tiniest indication that he’s listening. He’s waiting for more words.
“I was inviting you out to the brewery tonight,” I continue, the paper bag now clutched between two hands, crumpled tight. “There’s a group of us going. Nobody you would know, of course, but I wanted to extend the offer. I thought maybe… maybe you could use a friend.”
His frown deepens, his grip on the drill tightening. Tension rolls off him in waves. “I don’t need any friends. I like being alone.”
“Do you? Or are you just more comfortable with it?”
“What does that matter?”
I force a smile, the smile that seems to irritate him somehow. The smile I offer so easily—so carelessly. Then I step forward, pushing through the bathroom threshold and setting the little bag beside him on the sink. “People like me might not be so different from people like you.”
Something flashes in his eyes, something fleeting, and he stiffens, his gaze drifting to the bag, then back to my face. We’re only inches apart now, and I feel his warmth, I feel his heat. He’s not as cold as he appears to be.
Parker remains silent.
Unmoving.
He’s watching me—waiting for what I’ll say next, what I’ll do.
So, I do what I do best.
I leave him with another smile and exit the bedroom.
—NINE—
9 Years Old
I don’t like it here.
I think I’m supposed to. I think I’m supposed to feel grateful and happy that they rescued me from her. That they found me curled up in that closet one day, so thirsty and weak, and saved me from my brush with death.
But… have I really been saved?
Is being transferred from one horrible place to another actually being saved, or is it just a different kind of pain?
I don’t get burned anymore, so that’s good. I’m happy for that. I don’t have to worry about the cherries of a cigarette scalding my belly and chest, making me squirm and scream until I almost faint.
My mother would always laugh at me. She’d say I sounded like a squealing pig, and then she’d hit me to shut me up when I wouldn’t stop crying.