drabblegrrl

I am about to break his heart.

I watch him sleep, for the last time. His dark eyes closed, twitching as he dreams. His chest rising, falling, breathing. He stirs, he mutters, but he does not wake.

He has no idea what’s coming. No idea of what’s in store. He thinks me in bed, still beside him, all is well and nothing wrong.

But everything changed three days ago. Three days. Thirteen steps from the bed to my car. And only one minute for the world to tilt, for everything to change.

I lay my hand on his chest, feeling the slow steady beat within.

I will break his heart, like he broke mine.

She sat in the driver’s seat of her brand-new car in the parking lot of her brand-new apartment, her head resting on the steering wheel as she willed herself to get out. To go inside. To start her brand-new life.

She took a deep breath, dried her eyes, and opened the car door. The cool night air rushed in like a lover eager to greet her.

If only.

She shook away the thought, burying the memories. Not now.

She opened the hatch and pulled out her duffel, slinging it over her shoulder. She took the first few steps toward her apartment with trepidation until determination took hold and her pace quickened. She unlocked the door, sweeping it open and stepping inside. Fumbling for the light, she dropped her bag on the plushly carpeted floor. Her fingertips found the switch, throwing on a soft golden glow.

It illuminated the tiny loft like sunrise.

She gasped.

No.

Not here, too.

Keys, duffel, trepidation – all forgotten. She took a couple of steps further into the room, heart pounding, breath held.

Oh, yes. She could see clearly now.

Crop circles.

In the carpet.

They’d found her. Again.

She watched. All-too-familiar white clouds bobbed on the horizon, moving swiftly in the wind. She watched as they grew closer, larger. She watched as they became sails on ships, white as snow, billowing over dark wooden bellies. She watched, unconcerned, as they moved over her waters.

The ships dropped iron into the sea and slowed to a stop; she watched as the fish around her followed in the wake, watched as they danced in and out of the links in the chain. Her dolphins took flight and plunged back, spiraling around her, around each other.

She watched.

She watched as they lowered their tiny boats into the ocean, unknowing of their deeds or their futures. She watched as they began rowing toward the island. She watched as the sea began to froth, as the waves began to rise, as the storm began to brew. She watched their tiny frantic faces as their little boats tipped, casting them into the tumultuous waters. She watched as her sharks devoured all of them, one by screaming one. All except the captain. And she watched as the octopus wrapped all eight arms around the man and brought him to her.

She reached out her hand to the captain. The rest was up to him.

This is the story I wrote for the Creative Writing class I’m teaching, using Popsicle prompts.

I put tulips under all the pillows, and then I set fire to the house. I had spent twenty years with Bill, and I finally snapped. I couldn’t take the thing he does with the newspaper anymore – I tried to ignore it, then I tried to forget it, but eventually, I realized that the only way out was to burn it all down.

I realized it when I caught them at the diner. She was standing behind the counter, giving him this root beer-float kind of smile. And there he was, doing that thing with the newspaper. I knew they were up to something, and I knew it was nothing good.

So that night, I raided the garden. Tulips were my favorite flower, so I had them planted in every color imaginable. I picked only as many as I needed.

As the house burned, I walked away with a new sense of peace in my heart.

Happy anniversary, Pace! This one’s for you.

It was a dark and stormy night.

How cliche, he thought to himself as he began the long walk home. The rain came down in slow, fat drops; manatee swimming ever downward from the sky to end by kissing the ground. He held out his hand, catching a palmful of drops, and smiled.

Then he saw her.

She’d been watching him through the window of the café all afternoon. Even as the sun began to hide behind the clouds, she was there. Even as the darkness crept across the afternoon, even as the bolts of lightening streaked across the sky and the manatee-drops began their slow dance down, she was there. Calm. Watching. Patient.

Their eyes met. He froze, his hand outstretched and filled – filling further, overflowing. The drops gathered on his eyelashes, making her look like a dream, like an illusion. He blinked and the rain ran down his face.

He blinked and she filled his vision. Time slowed. He blinked at half-speed, and she was right there in front of him, her hand in his.

“You,” he whispered.

“You,” she whispered.

She took his other hand, the world forgotten around them. They began to dance, to move together. She sang to him, the music filling him, encompassing them. He rested his head on her chest, and her heartbeat gave rhythm to the song. He let his tears join the rain’s slow waltz down his face, and he found his voice joining hers. He looked at her face, and she looked into his eyes. They walked a few steps, rounded a corner, and climbed the raindrops like ladders. Up, over, up. They reached the clouds and walked together, hand in hand, hearts in sync. Reunited.

It’s not that she was a bad child. She was stubborn, difficult, often challenging and occasionally downright immovable, but not bad. Her father had died the day before she was born. I’d done everything I could to give her a good life on my own. I didn’t have to work; her father’s company supported us, so I devoted my life to raising her well.

Somewhere along the way, I must have done something wrong. Otherwise, this wouldn’t be happening.

I watched her sitting with the other kids. She was lecturing on the behaviors of cats, holding her own kitten captive so she could bare his tiny teeth and gently expose his claws for demonstration. The other children were enthralled. I could just barely hear her, and everything she said was factual and correct. I wondered where she’d learned so much about cats; the kitten had been a present only this morning. Today was her 12th birthday.

She was so brilliant, it frightened me.

I turned back to the conversation. “She’s gotten so distant from me. I can’t get through to her anymore; she does her own thing most of the time, and when I try to teach her something – anything – she knows more about it already than I do. She has no patience for lessons with me. We’ve grown so far apart, but all I’ve ever done has been for her.”

The teacher nodded, compassion in her soft brown eyes. “Do you touch her?”

I stared at her. I looked over at my daughter and realized I couldn’t remember the last time we’d held hands or hugged or touched at all. I was flooded with sorrow. I couldn’t speak.

The teacher reached out and put her hand on my arm. The feeling of warmth and skin on my skin was so foreign to me; I realized I hadn’t touched anyone else, either. She looked out over the children, then turned back to me. “Her stars say she’s a very physical person. We all are, really, but her especially so. Can you remember the last time you held her in your arms?”

Memories flooded me. The grief at losing her father poured through me, mixed with the joy at her birth. Her perfect little face, eyes that matched his, her ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, her completeness. The older she grew, the more like him she became – both in looks and in behaviors. Eventually, it became too much for me, and I retreated into my head. I stopped touching her, grew cold when she would reach for me.

How long ago had that been? Oh gods, nearly ten years?

My heart burst, I broke into tears. I stood, sobbing, and walked toward her. As I grew closer, the other children scattered, clearing the path between me and my daughter.

She looked up at me, her eyes cold, calculating.

A moment, a lifetime, an eternity passed. Tears rolled down my face. Neither of us spoke. The kitten wriggled free and scampered off, unnoticed. She stood, taking slow, hesitant steps toward me.

Her eyes changed, softened. Deepened. Our fingers reached out toward each other.

I was holding her hand. She was holding my hand. We were standing closer than we’d been in years; I could feel her warmth. I could smell her; grass and kitten and dirt and cherry shampoo. Our eyes were locked and for this moment, there was nothing else in the universe.

“Give me a second chance?” I asked.

She nodded.

***

I looked into the soft brown eyes of my toddler. Today was her second birthday; she grew more like her father every day, and the pain in my heart from losing him eased when I looked at her. She toddled toward me, arms wide, and I scooped her up and spun her around. I pulled her close to me, kissing her face a dozen times.

A shiver ran through me; I heard a voice like wind in my ears. This is your second chance…

I wasn’t sure what it meant. My daughter patted my cheek, tugged my hair, asking for attention. I looked at her and a lifetime flashed in her eyes; pain, sorrow, distance between us. For a moment, her eyes turned cold, calculating. I nearly sat her down, I wanted to shield myself from how like her father she was.

I wanted to close my heart.

But then she grinned, and the moment broke. Her eyes softened, lit up, and she started singing her favorite song. I kissed her a dozen times more, nuzzling her soft baby skin, feeling her warmth. I snuggled her close to me, close to my heart.

I would never let her go.

Not this time.

“I wish I hadn’t given away my fridge and thrown away my takeout menus,” said the girl with no bed.

She looked around her empty apartment, pondering. Her thoughts wandered back to the night it started, the night he’d looked at her with that look on his face, and how she knew it was over before he even opened his mouth.

His mouth, his full pouty lips, his dark stormy eyes. Gone, along with everything in the apartment. Just a few days ago, just a whole lifetime ago.

She’d been surprisingly relieved when he left. The music had returned that very night, flowing from her heart through her fingers and out onto the paper so fast she nearly set it all on fire trying to get it down. And then, she’d started singing.

And that was exactly what she did right now.