Before, There Was You

by Kit Harlow

  It was the first chance I'd had to look at her without her knowing. I watched her hands deftly move from one part of her lens to the other, pushing buttons on the camera body, attention fully given to her craft. A bomb could go off down the street and I doubted she'd hear it. She was beautiful to watch. Her hair fell over her ear, draping her face when she bent down. As she straightened, she looked up in my direction, eyes meeting mine. Even from a distance, I could see the deep hazel flecked with gold. I knew them better than David's.

  I smiled sadly, knowing there was too much animosity between us for proper conversation. Knowing there was pain still shared. Katie's lips twitched up, and she turned immediately. Any chance of meaningful contact was ruined because we'd chosen to go our separate ways and I'd been too much of a coward to step up. I’d missed my chance. How the hell could I make this work?

  The rest of the concert passed as flawlessly as the first, but my attention was split. I couldn't help watching Katie move. It was a fine dance of lighting and angles, and she was a master. The band wrapped up and headed back stage. I slowly made my way towards the green room, flashing my press badge at venue employees. Katie was ahead of me and knocked on the door first. The lead greeted her like an old friend. She promised a set of prints delivered by the end of the week and the singer accepted excitedly.

  "Who's this?" She asked, pointedly looking at me over Katie's shoulder. There was a hint of an Irish accent in her voice, but I doubted she'd ever been to Ireland.

  "Liz Carter...I mean Markley. Liz Markley, meet Niamh Douglas. Niamh, this is Liz, our newest addition to the team." I watched as Katie's shoulders stiffened and she sidestepped out of view of the rest of the room.

  I extended my hand, brushing past Katie as I did so. The bitterness in Katie's voice only made me angry.

  "Nice to meet you. Fantastic show," I said honestly.

  Niamh blushed. "Thanks. Do you want to meet the others?"

  "Sure!" I said, enthusiasm no doubt lighting my face up. Getting to know them would make the review easier to write.

  Katie shook her head. "Sorry. We can't stay. Our deadline is tonight."

  I glared at her. It wasn't. She knew it, I knew it, but the look she gave me warned against protest. There was genuine fear in her eyes. Fine. We'd leave, but I wouldn't be happy about it.

  "Ah well," Niamh shrugged amicably. "Next time then." She bade us farewell and closed the door. Katie grabbed my wrist and hauled me back towards the car, throwing the doors to the alley wide open. With an astounding lack of concern for her gear, Kate jerked the hatch of the Fiat open and shoved her bag in, slammed the door shut, and turned to face me.

  "What the hell is your problem?" I asked, barely smothered rage making my knees shake. Katie just looked exhausted, but said nothing. "Kat!"

  The nickname rolled off my tongue out of habit and I cursed under my breath. Katie's eyes went wide with surprise, then narrowed.

  "You don't want to get to know them. They get everyone they meet into trouble," she said angrily.

  "Since when do you get to make those decisions for me?" I whispered harshly. "You lost the right for any input when you left for New York. I'm not your girlfriend, Katie. I'm not even your friend."

  Katie shoved me. "Fuck you!" She said venomously.

  I shoved her back. "Fuck yourself!"

  She groaned and threw her hands up. "Fine. You want to know? Fine!" She clenched her fists and glared. "They're addicts. Their dealer was in the room and I still owe him money."

  Katie was indebted to a drug dealer. Great.

  "Money for what?" I asked in a harsh whisper.

  She leveled her gaze at me. "Heroin." She dared me to judge her. I didn't.

  We stood like that, in silence, each trying to figure out what to say to the other. I was mad yet I pitied her. The wind played with her straightened hair, sending a tendril under her jawline. Beneath the stubborn determination, she looked vulnerable and scared. I fought the urge to brush the hair out of her face.

  "Let's just go," I said, reaching for the car door. Out of the corner of my eye, Kate's shoulders relaxed and she started to breathe again. This time, I pulled on the handle more gently, sliding into the familiar seat with a sense of resignation. It seemed as though we were both scarred, both changed from the years that separated us. Katie waited outside the Fiat for a minute before slipping into the driver’s seat.

  "I know what you must think of me," she started, barely looking up from her lap.

  "No, you don't." I looked at her earnestly. She shook her head. "You don't know anything about what I think." I took a breath to steady my voice. "Kat," I croaked. "I don't care about what happened in New York. So what? You were an addict. You think I was the picture of sobriety when you moved? Don't get me wrong...I'm still fucking pissed at you, but it has nothing to do with you using heroin or owing money to some asshole." I blinked back tears.

  Why was I being so open? I was still angry with her and doubted that would change. But it was as though all the crap and bullshit of the past couldn't alleviate the fact that part of me was relieved and excited to be sitting in the same car, working together.

  "What is it then?" Her tone was soft and genuine. The usual ire displaced by a new echo of something I couldn't identify. Regret?

  I sighed. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd have a chance to talk to her again. Now that I did, I wasn't entirely sure what to say.

  "Just drop it." I wasn't ready to discuss this fully. I knew I'd have to. I needed to confront the fact that she'd left me and I was still coping with the break up. It was the truth, plain and simple, and it still hurt more than anything else. Without warning, the lump rose in my throat. It was a familiar discomfort, but an unwelcome one. My eyes stung and I bit the inside of my lip to keep the tears at bay.

  I watched her hands clench the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. My lungs felt tight, sore and struggling against the wave of emotion threatening to break. It was all I could do to keep breathing in the quiet of that car. The silence screamed with the things left unsaid between us and I hated it. It was like the raw potential of what we could have been sat in the back seat pointing and laughing at the two idiots who'd forgotten how to be themselves.

  “Lizzie,” she said gently.

  "Just take me home," I whispered, cutting her off. My eyes fixed to the dumpster in front of our car.

  Kate turned and looked at me. It was a brief contact, but I could never miss the pain in her eyes. We'd both been hurt and neither of us ever fully recovered. She pulled the car out of the alleyway and headed back through the winding side streets to the narrow country road that would eventually take us back to the city.

  She kept her eyes straight ahead, refusing to look at me. I wanted to have something to say, to know the right words to make the situation less hostile, but my mind was blank. Maybe I should have composed a letter and read it to her, but instead I sat in silence, eyes on the road, wracking my mind for some neutral topic of conversation to break the silence. I needed to find something to replace the bitter thoughts floating through my memory. I still hated her. A product of the rejection or just her insufferable self, I wasn't sure, but the feeling was there. What I hated to realize was the tinge of sorrow and regret that went along with it. I bottled it up as best I could, sharing it with no one, working through my pain by ignoring it.

  I was jolted out of my thoughts by a loud bang and smoke erupting from the engine. The car sputtered to a halt as Katie guided it to the shoulder, cursing under her breath. She threw the car in park and jumped out, throwing the hood up.

  "Fuck, shit, goddamn piece of crap, mother fucker!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. I got out of the car and walked to where she was pacing.

  "What happened?" I snapped. I was tired of her being so standoffish, regardless of how much she may have been in the right.

  "Like I fucking know? It's a goddamn car, not a camera! I can't just look at it and see what's broken!"

&n
bsp; I rolled my eyes and pulled my phone out of my pocket. "Shit." I looked at Katie who was kicking the tire of her car. "Do you have signal?" I asked.

  "It's a dead zone," she said angrily, landing a final kick front hubcap.

  I grabbed my bag from the car and buttoned my coat. The thick cotton wouldn't do much to keep me warm, but if I walked quickly, I thought I'd be okay. I started down the road, angry with her about the car, about life, and about the fact that I couldn't shake the feel of her eyes on my back.

  "Where are you going?" Katie shouted over the stillness of the night. The road was abandoned, cell phone signal was nonexistent, and I was walking away, quickly.

  I simply raised my hand and continued down the road towards the nearest gas station, which, if memory served correctly, was three miles down the road. I just hoped the gas station would be open at such a late hour. We needed a tow and we needed one now. And I desperately needed to get away from Katie. We'd been working together for hours and now, because of her, I was missing a date with a bottle of wine, Netflix, and my couch.

  "Where are you going?" she said, running up behind me.

  I kept walking, but sternly stated, "I am going to find someone to tow our piece of shit car with its piece of shit engine. And then I'm calling a cab. I'm going home. I'm done." I didn't even look at her. I cringed inwardly when I said “our.” I hadn't meant to. Some habits are harder to break than others.

  She grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. "You can't go alone. It's not safe," she said, still yelling. I looked behind her at the smoking heap of ancient car and sighed.

  "Then come with me. Or stay. I. Don't. Care." I bit the words out with a snarl. I wanted to be home now, not waiting by the side of the road while Katie played mechanic. I turned on my heel and kept walking. Kate jogged back to the car and followed a few moments later, running up again from behind me. She fell into step with me and we walked in silence.

  Minutes dragged by, but I kept up the brisk pace, anger fueling my speed and helping me forget my exhaustion. Kate said nothing, but kept up with me. We walked side by side for a mile or so before she stopped.

  I slowed my pace and eventually turned around to look at her, standing in the moonlight, jacket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She wasn't moving forward, so I reluctantly went back towards her.

  "What?" I asked more angrily than I intended.

  "Why do you hate me?" she asked softly, eyes accusing me of things I wasn't even aware I'd done.

  I paused. "Excuse me?"

  "Why do you hate me?" she asked more seriously this time. I rolled my eyes. "No, really." She scoffed softly. "Don’t you think you owe me some sort of explanation at least?"

  I blinked. Surely, she wasn't serious...she knew what she'd done. She knew all too well. "You left,” I said plainly. Katie shuffled from foot to foot, arms crossed over her chest. I chose to ignore the eye roll.

  "You left and you broke my heart." I looked at her and hoped my disbelief was obvious. "You were my everything, Kat. You were my life and you just walked away."

  She rolled her eyes and propped her hands on her hips. "I left you?" She shouted, disbelief making her voice louder. "You and I remember that very differently."

  I scoffed and threw my hands in the air. "You packed your bags. You moved to New York. You refused to stay even when I begged you to. You chose a fucking job over me!" I stared at her, numb. "Then, a week after you moved to New York, you were already all over another woman. So, yeah. You left me. Whatever fiction you came up with to make yourself feel better...forget it. I never wanted you to leave and I was never okay with it." I quickly brushed a tear from my jawline, momentarily embarrassed that I was crying at all. Katie looked stunned, still frozen at my explosion.

  "You are fucking unbelievable," she shouted at me. "I wanted you to come with me! You were the one who made it abundantly clear that you wanted nothing to do with me the minute I started to be successful!"

  I took a step closer to her. "How dare you? How dare you say that? How dare you think that?" Katie scoffed and looked away. "No, you look at me!" I barked. Finally, she did.

  "I never for a second imagined my life without you. And when I finally realized my mistake, that no amount of success was worth not having you in my life, you’d already moved on." I choked back the tears, unable to finish the rest of my tirade. We stood there on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, neither of us ready to say anything, or willing to keep walking back towards the car.

  She shook her head, rested her hands in her pockets, and sighed. "Can we just stop?" She asked softly.

  "Stop what?" I asked angrily. My eyes were burning and I was doing my best to ignore it and the best way I knew how was to be as pissed off as possible. I wanted a reaction because I wanted to fight. I wanted a reason to continue hating her, and no matter how much I tried, I always seemed to be lacking one.

  The more time we spent together, the harder it became to hold on to the bitterness. The more time we spent together, the more I found myself missing what we had been. It made me angrier than anything else had in my life. I wanted so desperately to hate her and move on. I was content to continue our sporadic fights, but what I never counted on was her unwillingness to continue the feud.

  "Can we stop yelling at each other every other time we work together? I'm sorry I made you come out here with me. I'm sorry my car broke down. I'm sorry, okay?" She shouted. Her eyes glistened in the darkness. "I'm sorry you and I didn't work out. Believe me, I am. I'm sorry for all of it, but can we please put it in the past? At least for tonight?"

  I held my breath and counted to ten, willing my aggravation to dissipate. It didn't work. Still, for one night, I supposed I could try to be civil.

  "I'm tired, Lizzie," she added. "I just need one night where you and I are nothing but coworkers or old classmates. I'm tired of fighting, so please. Just one night." Her voice was tight and eyes pinched. I finally began to wonder what she was really feeling.

  "Fine," I said through gritted teeth, hands balled into fists at my side. "Now can we please keep walking?"

  Katie studied me, sizing me up. It was a measured glare, but despite how calculating she could be, I sensed that she was truly sincere this time. She nodded once, curtly, and began walking back down the road towards the town. I followed a few steps behind her, hanging back just enough to give us some distance.

  We continued in silence down that dark country road. I checked my phone periodically for signal, but there was nothing. I never thought there would be a total dead zone not twenty miles from Boston, but then again, I never thought Katie and I would end up at odds like we were. Sometimes life surprises us.

  The silence lingered for another mile. Along the horizon, we saw the lights of the town we'd passed and Katie muttered something along the lines of 'Finally!' I smiled in relief. The night was on its way to being over and I was one step closer to going home. Thank god!

  A buzz on my cell phone startled both of us. It was a text. I didn't bother reading it. "We have signal!" I shouted and furiously dialed my AAA number. The agent told me a tow truck would come in less than an hour and that I should wait in the car for safety purposes. I thanked her and put my phone back in my pocket.

  "Let's head back. A truck will be there soon," I said, feeling optimistic for the first time that night. Katie nodded and said nothing, falling into step beside me once again. As we walked back towards the car, I ran through my weekly checklist of things I needed to do. I was so in my head that I failed to notice Katie fall.

  "Fuck!" she screamed, lying on the ground clutching her ankle in both hands. I spun around and jogged back towards her, heart racing.

  "You okay?"

  "No," she snapped. "My fucking ankle's twisted!"

  "What did you do?"

  "I don't know!" she yelled. "Does it fucking matter?" I grimaced. Katie always got angry when she was hurting. I brushed it off. "Just help me up," she barked.

  I hauled her to her feet and
caught her when her knee buckled as she tried to put weight on her foot. "Lean on me," I said as gently as I could. Katie snorted with derision. "Okay, fine. Crawl," I said and started to pull away.

  "No, wait," she begged. Pain sharpened her eyes, but I leaned back in, resuming my role as human crutch. Together we made slow progress back towards the car. All the while I was painfully aware of her arm around my shoulders and the familiar scent of cinnamon and cloves that always lingered on her hair. By the time we got there, the tow truck was just pulling up. We explained the situation to him, watched him haul the beaten up old Fiat onto the flatbed and jumped in the cab.

  Along the way back to Boston, I struggled to figure out how to handle my own emotions. Katie kept her fists clenched in pain, but said nothing. We stood at the garage, watching the Fiat get rolled into the repair bay, side by side. In a strange twist of solidarity, I reached for her hand. I was startled at how familiar her grip felt, how part of the hatred I'd held onto crumbled. She squeezed mine back and continued to hold it. In that moment, we were just two friends, isolated by our own choices and I had no idea how long it would last. Katie called Nathan to come get us.

  Outside Katie's apartment, Nate offered to help her to her door. She declined, vehemently and bade us goodnight. I stayed put in the passenger seat, grappling with my conscience while Nathan kept an eye on Kate. Watching her hobble to her door struck some chord in me and I caved and rushed after her.

  After the warmth of the car, the autumn wind was bitter, but I ignored it as I jogged over to Kat.

  "Go home," she ordered. It was my turn to snort.

  "And you'll get up the stairs how, exactly?"

  She flung the door open and glared. "I'll crawl," she snarled. I rolled my eyes.

  "Get over yourself," I laughed. "You asked for one night... Let me help you. No strings attached. Tomorrow I'll go back to being a bitter ex, but for tonight you just get a friend."

  Katie glared, but conceded and used my arm as a crutch to climb the four flights of stairs. It was slow progress, but we made it. She leaned against the wall and grimaced. "Thanks," she said, exhaustion showing in her face.