4
"Oh, do you know how much I miss you?" she melodramatically exclaims on the phone.
"How much?" I ask. I'm tired and I'm shocked. I hardly think of her, I don't like to so much anymore. She was nothing but sugary sweet, and if anything now, maybe she's a cavity in one of my teeth.
She purrs, "So much, baby." Her voice is lowered, raspy, like we're in the bedroom. That stings me; I wonder if she knows that it hurts me. I doubt she even knows she hurt me at all, that I used to cry in the shower so no one could hear me, I wrote her a notebook full of letters, but I never had the courage to send them.
"Baby, do you miss me?"
I try to light a cigarette, like it will steady my shaking hands and relax the anaconda tightening of my throat muscles.
"Do you?...Do you miss me?"
I inhale quickly, and cough. I'm choking. Can't she shut up? Can't she feel what she's doing?
"Baby? Are you there?" I can hear her pouting. I can hear her pink lips pout and pop against the harsh white of her face. Her white face, with that junkie, clammy sort of blue undertone, contrasted by her black hair and then her blue eyes…Big pools of icy water, if you dove in surely you would get hypothermia. They held secrets, they dripped them practically.
"I'm here, I'm just...my hands are full." I'm lying. I'm hardly there. My hands aren't exactly full, just my cigarette that needs to be ashed. I'm in my own head, remembering when she used to call me 'baby', and would kiss me over and over.
"Let me come visit, you should see me before I have the baby in January. I'm getting so big, I'm glowing, really, I am. We're so happy and excited. We can't wait for our little baby to come out of my tummy."
I'm still not happy for her, I don't know if I'll ever be able to be happy for her. Who does she think she is? Calling me baby and purring at me like she used to, gushing about how she misses...then she talks about the baby and how 'we're' so happy. It's like she doesn't exist without him, she doesn't feel without him, she's not herself with him. That cuts into me.
I'm so afraid to not be able to be me without someone else to complete me. I don't want to be one of those girls chained to a man. She could have escaped with me; her dimly lit and perpetually smoky room could have been our promised land. Instead I'm smoking this cigarette alone in my apartment, and she's so happy, she's having his baby.
3
The air is smoky and cold. The smoke sits heavily in the air, enveloping any other smells in the room. Lazily, I fan it away from my face. I’m paler and skinnier, I think.
I haven't seen her since June. We went off of own ways, to separate homes and lives. She still calls me and gushes on and on about how happy she and Brian are. Oh, they're sure it's a little boy.
I’m still not happy for her. Why did she let this happen? How could she do it?
She swears she's glowing, pregnancy is the best. I’m a little concerned; you can't smoke as much as she does when you're carrying that sort of cargo in your body. It needs a more careful sort of planning and doing. She’s not careful. I am the careful one.
I never have much to say, I never did. She was the one who did all the talking. And I sat and watched her tug smoke into her lungs and smile and chatter. She must be nervous, but she's never shown. Her mouth would always twist and form the right words or expressions; her pout could stop you in your tracks. But she could do that. She was so pretty in that helpless teen drug-addict sort of way, with her pale blue white skin that always seemed clammy contrasted and made paler by her black hair, and those blue eyes that seemed like ice.
Images of her melt away in my mind, I inhale something lighter, lighter than Marlboro Reds. My feminine fingers paint gestures as I smoke, they stir up the air. I exhale and release.
I am something lighter, I think. But that's a lie, I’m heavier, and I know it.
2
We're sitting next to each other in the tiny space between her bed and wall. I recline a bit against the corner of the walls and she sits Indian Style looking down at me. I am barely paying attention to her and she chatters on and smiles. She's talking about her ex-boyfriend and how he's positive I must have some sort of S.T.D. She explains that she couldn't say anything in my defense because he'll know she went down on me. I'm a little offended. It's obvious that I'm more cautious than they are, but I guess I won't have to worry about pregnancy like she does. I'm not happy for her still; I want to apologize as she glows at the prospect.
"Are you listening to me?" She demands, lighting a cigarette and pouting at me. She's wearing blush, but she still has that junkie kind of pale look. Her eyes look like ice.
"Of course, I'm listening." I lied. I usually do when she asks me. I have this grade school sort of reflex to just say I was and please the teacher. I even try to reach into my memory of the recent conversation to offer some proof. The room is smoky and heavy with incense. She looks away from me, freeing me from my obligation to prove I was listening. She doesn't say anything; she just smiles and looks pleased for herself.
I think about my current environment. The room is dark; we never turn on the lights. She doesn't like it bright. The window is open, it's always open, and the blinds are half way up. The trees outside blot out patches of the sun. It makes for a kind of greenery looking light when it mixes with the smoke. It's my dreamland. I'm always up in the clouds in one sense or another in her room.
"Hey." she whispers, she's no longer smoking and her lips are coming towards me. I close my eyes. She pecks my lips.
"What are you thinking about?" We're about to play her favorite game.
"Just thinking." I answer.
"I know, about what?"
"Just life and stuff."
"What about life?"
"How it will turn out." That's lie. A big one.
1
I just sat there on the floor of her bedroom. The blinds were closed and the lights were off, the saturation of the color seemed like the kind of thing you do to pictures or films to make them seem more artistic. She looked pale, like that clammy, blue, junky kind of pale. She grabbed a cigarette. A Marlboro Red. I watched her suck it in, her cheeks collapse, inhale the smoke. Sighing, she exhaled.
"You know, I'm late."
The smoke is heavy, if she smoked something different, maybe something lighter, I would ask for one right now.
"How late?"
She looks at me through a sheet of black bangs. She pouts a little and looks up like she can't remember how late her period is.
"Two weeks late."
Our eyes meet each other. Hers are pale blue. Everything about her has a blue kind of undertone, that junkie, clammy blue.
"Jesus." I spit the word out like it's gone sour in my mouth. She looks at me searching for some other reaction. I'm not happy for her. She pouts a little bit more. Her lipstick has left a little ring on her cigarette. She pulls more smoke into her lungs and blows little 'o's at me.
"So?"
"Who is the father?"
"Why do you need to worry? It can't be you. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but you can't get me pregnant. You're a woman."
I lift my eyebrow.
"Nice." I say.
5
I’m a cage. Just like Brian is a cage. Just like this baby, she’s so happy about, is a cage.
And she wants to be caged! She is one of those beautiful birds at the zoo, happy to be seen and adored by all those passing by. Thankful that she has a cage to display her and show her she’s gorgeous.
I’m not sure I was right for her. I’m not sure if I’m right for anyone.
All I do is think, I’m more distant than affectionate. I hardly talk. I observe, I love to observe anything, people, leaves on trees, smoke, colors, words…
Maybe that is why I loved to be around her, maybe I even loved her, she was something to observe. For hours she could entertain my fancies and paint pictures with her fingers, pout and smile, and kiss me. She was beautiful to observe, but maybe not so beautiful to be with.
I just don’t know anymore.
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Submission Name: unfinished, untitled.
