When I'm Gone

by Jaxson Kidman

  She officially had my interest.

  Up there on the roof it was really quiet and calm. There were two metal poles that I think were once used for antennas to grab some free channels, but they now donned a set of round bulbed stringed lights, half of which were burned out. The plastic furniture was supposed to be white, but was now dirty and stained with black, brown, and even a hint of green. On good nights, as long as Archie was in a good mood (he loved to bet on horses, and if he won, everyone won) you could buy a six pack to-go from the bar and bring it up here to chill for the night.

  Tonight, it was just me and this woman.

  Standing there with her arms outstretched. Her hair dancing in the breeze. I heard the soft sound of some sappy song playing. I saw that she had a boombox on the ledge of the roof. She started to sway a little, left to right, not really moving with the rhythm of the music.

  I started to step forward, trying to play this out in my mind. Sometimes I’d come up here and there would be a group of drunk people talking, laughing and getting louder with each story. Other times, you’d find some of the people that lived in the apartments up here having a smoke - cigarettes and something else. Other times, I could get the place to myself. Tonight, there was company. And she was still swaying. She suddenly stopped swaying and leaned forward a little. I watched as the heels of her shoes lifted up.

  What the fuck is she doing?

  I kept moving forward, silently, wondering what my position was here. If she was drunk and leaning forward, she could end up falling. That would be one hell of a Friday night, huh?

  I gently placed my beer down on a half rusted metal table and kept moving forward.

  I cleared my throat, trying to make some kind of obvious sound to get her attention. She didn't hear me. I purposely gave a quick kick to a plastic chair, tipping it over, but she still didn’t hear me.

  I watched as she got fully up on her tip toes and leaned forward some more.

  “Hey, darlin’,” I yelled and reached for her.

  She let out a loud scream as my hand clutched the bottom of her jean jacket. I pulled as she started to turn, her hair flying in front of her face. She stumbled and I swung my left arm around her body to make damn sure that she didn’t fall off the damn roof. I punched the boombox and caught a quick glimpse of it as it went flying off the ledge.

  “Dammit,” the woman yelled and tried to pull away from me.

  “Are you fucking crazy, darlin’?” I called out as I turned and let her go.

  I put myself between the woman and the edge of the roof. I showed my hands to let her know that I wasn’t trying anything funny. But the funny part was that her hands clutched my hoodie, which was half unzipped. Her eyes were big, glowing with a really pretty hazel color.

  But the first thing I thought when I looked into her eyes?

  Sadness.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m Kace. I was coming up here for a drink.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “You got close to that ledge,” I said. “Had me nervous.”

  “Oh, shit. My boombox!”

  She pushed away from me and lunged forward toward the ledge again. This time, my hands slid around her waist as I ripped her back for a second time. There was just something too fluid about the way she went for the ledge. It damn well shot jitters through my legs and I wasn’t even afraid of heights. The way my hands slipped to her waist was far too easy. I gritted my teeth and quickly let go, again trying to show good faith that I wasn’t touching her with bad intentions.

  “Damn, darlin’, you’re going to end up going over the edge there,” I yelled at her.

  “Whatever, dude,” she snapped and shoved at my arm.

  She went for the ledge again, and this time I stayed back. I made fists and cringed as she bumped into the ledge, which was just about at waist height for her. For me, it was closer to my knees.

  She put her hands on the ledge and leaned forward. Then she said, “Total destruction.”

  I crept forward and looked over and down. We were on the south side of the building which had a very narrow alley between it and the next building. That building’s windows on the side facing the bar and apartments were all boarded up or covered in newspapers. There was a coffeehouse on the bottom floor and really shitty apartments throughout the rest. The guy that owned the building and Archie did not get along, mostly because Archie gave a damn about the town and the other guy was the picture perfect definition of a slumlord.

  Right there on the ground was the boombox, shattered into several plastic pieces.

  “Dammit,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said. “Better than you.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “That wasn’t even mine.”

  “Sorry. I’ll buy a new one.”

  “No you won’t. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  She turned and started to walk. I slowly turned and stared at her.

  Why is this so casual right now?

  “Hey, what’s your name?”

  She paused and glanced over her shoulder. “Why?”

  “Because I’m being friendly. Because you damn near gave me a heart attack.”

  “There are plenty of easier women at the bar downstairs.”

  “Right,” I said. “But I like a good challenge.”

  “Ew. Asshole.”

  She started to walk again.

  I grinned and moved forward, snatching my beer off the rusted table. I cut around her and got to the door first and put my hand flat against it.

  “Look,” she said, “I took four months of karate when I was a kid. And I have a knife and some mace in my bag.”

  “You’re not carrying a bag, darlin’,” I whispered.

  “Shit. I meant my pocket.”

  I leaned and looked around at her ass.

  She quickly slapped my face, but not as hard as she probably could have.

  “Eyes here,” she said.

  “Fine by me. You’re eyes are beautiful. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Yeah. And by the next morning, it’s all ‘uh, sorry, babe, I have this super awesome meeting to go to…’.” She rolled her eyes and curled her lip.

  “So you’re up here alone because of a broken heart?”

  “I’m going back inside.”

  “You live here?”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I come here all the time.”

  “To pick up women?”

  “I like a drink after a long day and longer week.”

  “Why come up here?”

  “Honestly? I like the view.”

  “Is that another get in my pants remark?”

  “No, darlin’. If you look behind you, you can see The Wethen House. I like coming up here and seeing it in the distance. Every once in a while there are a few lights on.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “I could tell you, but that would be too personal. And I don’t even know your name.”

  “Please. I could ask you to kiss me right now and you would without knowing it.”

  “Oh, well, yeah. I mean, a kiss is very different than knowing something secretive about me.”

  She finally smirked. “Whatever, dude.”

  “Kace. I told you my name is Kace.”

  “Okay, Kace. Dude. Man. Move your hand.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “To salvage what I can of my boombox and then who knows?”

  “Want company?”

  “No.”

  She eyed my hand and I took it away from the door. I was defeated in seconds by this woman that I didn’t know. And I stood there and let her slip away through the door, and I let the door shut. I walked across the roof to the ledge and stared down like a dumb fool, waiting to see if she was actually going to try and salvage the destroyed boombox.

  I gave it ten minutes before I realized that she was gone.


  I laughed and shook my head.

  I looked forward and sighed, drinking my now warm beer, staring off toward a piece of property that I would never own. I tipped my bottle to the wind and smiled. It wasn’t normally my style to let someone that I was interested in slip away. But that woman had pulled off a miracle. And one of two things would happen now. Either I’d never see her again, or maybe I’d get lucky enough and somehow bump into her one day.

  I knew which one I wanted to happen.

  Chapter Two

  Garlic Basil Bad Day

  Sienna

  There were so many things I could lie about. Some of them were less important than others. Take my height, for example. I could tell someone that I was five-five. They’d probably nod and smile, not really giving a crap if I was actually that height or not. Which I wasn’t. Take away five inches and that was a good day for my height. Or take my hair color. I could tell people that I was naturally bright blonde, but loved to dye my hair the color it was. Who would doubt me? And why?

  Those were the little lies that people weaved in and out of in life. We all told those kinds of lies, stitching together a blanket of comfort to shield whatever flaws we didn’t necessarily see in the mirror, but felt in our hearts.

  All of my lies, big and small, were the reason why I had been standing on the rooftop of that bar. There had been a bigger plan while I was up there, but something caught me. No, it wasn’t Kace either. It was fear or reality. Or both. All Kace did was grab my jean jacket, pull me back, completely mess up my vibe, and then try to do some stupid hot guy, flirting thing with me. Plus, he broke my boombox. Well, actually, it wasn’t my boombox.

  I walked back to Maria’s apartment and went back inside like I had only been gone for a minute. I looked at the neon light of the microwave and saw that I’d been gone for almost an hour.

  Shit.

  Maria was on the couch, wrapped up in some dramatic TV show that was supposed to mimic real life, but it didn’t. This was our guilty pleasure. Watching this stuff on Friday when we had nothing else to do. We’d eat popcorn, drink wine, and pick out which guy on TV we wanted to marry. Sometimes we’d indulge in other things… you know, open the window a little bit and have a smoke to take the edge off the week. Sometimes Maria had a date and I’d be on my own. But the truth was that I hated the TV shows she watched. But she was a decent enough friend that I just went with it.

  More lies.

  It was a little troublesome to me how easy it was to lie. To put another lie on top of the previous one. Like building blocks as a kid, waiting for them to eventually fall. Only my stack wouldn’t fall. It just kept getting higher. To the point where I wanted to kick it over. And when I tried, it would simply just sway back and forth, mocking me with an evil laugh, leaving me dangling.

  “You’re missing all the good stuff,” Maria called out from the couch. “Cheating scandal alert.”

  “Big shock there,” I said as I climbed over the back of the couch and plopped down with a sigh of disgust. “Who did he sleep with?”

  “Who do you think?” Maria asked.

  She looked at me and I could see the buzz all over her face. She quickly smiled and started to giggle.

  “You bitch,” I whispered. “I went outside for a minute and you partied without me.”

  “You were gone for like two hours, Sienna. I thought maybe you went down to the bar and met someone.”

  “Um. No.”

  “Then where did you go?”

  “The roof. I told you that.”

  “Yeah, I know. You popped up and said you were going to listen to some music. Acting all weird and shit. You stormed out of here like someone was after you. Or you were after someone.”

  And you didn’t think that was weird? You didn’t think to stop me? Question me? Push me into a corner so I could let it all out before I did something stupid?

  “After someone?” I asked.

  “You know, a hookup. You take the boombox and set the mood on the roof. It’s wild up there. Like you’re screwing on top of the world. And you never know if someone is going to catch you.”

  “You’ve done… of course you have.”

  “Hey, don’t say it like that,” Maria said. “I’m not a slut or anything. There’s a difference between… hey, wait a second. Where’s my boombox?”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “It fell off the roof.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I put it on the ledge and was listening to music. Then some guy showed up and scared me. He knocked it off the roof.”

  “Was he hot?”

  “Ugliest guy I’ve ever met,” I said.

  Another lie. Kace was as sexy as anything. His really dark brown eyes and messy hair that somehow perfectly rested just above his eyebrows. His zip up hoodie and strong chest that filled it out, not to mention his huge arms that filled out the sleeves. The way he grabbed me, spun me around, saved me, protected me…

  “That’s a bummer,” Maria said. “And my boombox? It fell?”

  “To the ground.”

  “And?”

  “Um… it went boom.”

  Maria laughed. And snorted. And laughed again.

  My mind shifted course during the night because I saw the way that Maria went from the bottle of wine to the bottle of vodka with ease. A smooth transition that told me that this wasn’t just a regular night for both of us. Why we were so closed off from each other was sort of beyond me because we both grew up the same way. It was like our subconscious were best friends, while me and her really had nothing else in common in life. Maria went to college, had a degree in marketing, and had a pretty decent job. Me? Eh, life just did its thing over and over. I was more or less in training for a life of waitressing, which wasn’t a bad thing, but it certainly wasn’t the dream of being a doctor that my grandmother had held out for me all those years when I was a kid. I figured that in some way, all parents, grandparents, and guardians wished that their kid would grow up to be a doctor or lawyer or something with a sense of prestige.

  Maria took another drink and her head tilted to the side. I inched across the couch and got close to her. I bumped her shoulder so she’d move her head onto my shoulder. That’s when I was able to casually get my hand around the bottle of booze and break her hold without her realizing it. I managed to lean forward and put the bottle on the table.

  “Sienna,” Maria whispered.

  “I’m right here.”

  “Do you ever feel lost?”

  “Sure.”

  All the time. Why?

  “I feel lost,” she said. “I’m sorry I ruined our night.”

  “You didn’t ruin anything. Get some sleep.”

  I knew that I could have tried to get Maria to her bed, but that would have been a chore. So I took the lazy route and just put her head down on the couch. She had a blanket and a pillow. And she was closer to the bathroom, just in case her decisions decided to come back and haunt her.

  I crouched on the floor and forced Maria onto her side.

  “Get some sleep,” I whispered. “I’m sorry about the boombox.”

  “Hey, Sienna,” she said. Her eyes popped open. “I’m just happy you didn’t fall.”

  I forced a smile and nodded.

  When Maria started to snore, I stood up and walked across the room to the window. Maria had a very dramatic relationship with a guy named Matt. They were a high school thing that tried to keep the romantic dream alive of being high school sweethearts to together forever. But that shit only seemed to work in movies and books. Matt couldn’t keep his eyes off other women and Maria couldn’t keep her hands off other guys. So they’d go round and round, in love one month, broken up the next. My guess was that tonight was a breakup night.

  I stood at the window and looked down. I could just barely see the alley. To the right was where the boombox was. Even as I pressed my face against the glass, I couldn’t see it. I bit my lip and looked up, wondering if Kace was still up there.
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  How stupid to even think that, right? I had been up on the roof with him a little bit ago. He had been willing to talk. Even if he was trying the dumb flirty guy thing. Then again, he had been spooked that I was going to fall.

  Which was probably the right feeling.

  Except Kace got one thing wrong.

  I wasn’t going to fall up there.

  I was going to jump.

  “Do you have to have your hair like that?”

  I held a tray full of hot food that was meant for table fourteen. And here was Daisy, blocking the kitchen door. I froze because I had no choice and I swallowed the giant lump in my throat because I had no choice again. Daisy was the owner’s bitch of a daughter. She’d been to some fancy college out in California. Her business degree was bought by Mommy and Daddy and she came back thinking she owned the place. Which, in some way, I guess she did. Only she had no idea how to run a restaurant. Any time she was there, it was hell. No, scratch that. Hell was better than this place when Daisy was there.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, trying my best to put a smile on my face.

  “Your hair looks like shit, Sienna. What are you trying to do to this place? Our sales are down ten percent compared to last year already, and you look like you belong at some all-night diner, working the two in the morning drunk shift.”

  “Oh,” I said. Sometimes I felt my legs getting shorter.

  “Oh? That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?”

  “Daisy, I’m holding food. Table fourteen has been waiting. I’d like them to get their food hot.”

  Daisy moved forward and put her chest right to the tray. She was fierce and a rotten person. She didn’t exactly intimidate me, but I had to put up with her crap because I had this thing called responsibility. You know, paying the rent and all that adult stuff.

  “You think I give a shit about one table?” she growled at me. “You cannot go out there and represent my restaurant with the way you look.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “I have my hair pulled back.”