Sparrows For Free

by Lila Felix

  She doesn’t speak for most of the meal. She doesn’t move to turn on the TV for background noise, watching horrible shows just for something to look at. She eats her soup sitting on that same countertop while I stand next to her, brutishly shoveling food in my mouth. The tea or whatever the hot water was for never gets made. She doesn’t even flinch when the whistle sounds come from the pot—nor does she make any move to turn it off.

  I’m engulfed in shrimp fried rice when a lithe arm intercepts my fork motions. She steals one of my shrimp. I play it off like she didn’t just break out of a coma.

  “It wasn’t the falling. My damned face doesn’t even hurt that bad. One time, Blithe—what kind of name is Blithe? Anyway, Blithe, got a paper cut on her finger. She doesn’t even know how to bleed well. I could see her from my desk squeezing the damned thing like she needed to test it for something. And the whole damned office, I kid you not, raced over to her desk to see if she was okay. One of the guys almost killed himself going into the break room to fetch the first aid kit—went head first into one of the huge cement pillars. And today—after I fell—no one budged. Like it didn’t even happen. I picked myself up, dragged that stupid chair to the stock room, got another one, stopped in the break room, made a bag of ice, got back to my desk, and no one uttered a word. I kid you not. And then the mail guy, Tony, dropped my mail on my desk, looked at my face, closed the top drawer to the file cabinet and walked off without a word. Am I that invisible? Is there nothing about me that would warrant a ‘Hey, did you break your face?’ or ‘Is the cabinet okay?’”

  This time she jerked the rice from under my hunched over stance and attacked it.

  “So, I decided that since no one would even notice I was gone, I’d just leave for the day. I came home and intended to just spend the night—hiding. I forgot you were even coming over. I suck. And then, I was gonna do that girly thing where girls just eat soup or salad in front of a guy they’re into and then you ordered this crap, and I decided, screw it, he knows I eat. I’m not even good at eating soup. I swear, half of it is running down my cleavage this very second. It’s like my lips don’t work when soup’s around.”

  I feel like I should be taking notes.

  She said she is into me.

  She slams down the rice and swipes the sesame chicken next. She digs into it with a greater gusto than the rice.

  A person can learn so much about another person at moments like these. These raw, candid blips in time where the other person is just unedited. I realize these are the best moments. I should’ve taken advantage of these moments with Mara. Maybe I would’ve been able to do a better job convincing myself I was in love with her, as much as a seventeen year old boy can be in love.

  “You feel invisible?”

  That’s the question you choose to ask? Nice job, asshat.

  “Yes. I’m even invisible to you. Don’t act so surprised.”

  “Trust me, you’re not invisible to me.”

  She reaches out, and I think—I hope, she’s reaching for me. Nope, she’s nabbing an egg roll.

  “That night, at the church. You literally knocked me on my butt getting to Gray. You didn’t even say thank you. You barely even looked at me.”

  She’s lumping me in with the people that made her cry today. And I deserve it.

  “I did. And I’m sorry. Now, when I look at you, I can’t imagine how I ever didn’t see you that night.”

  She shrugs, but I see that blush arrive just on time.

  “I think maybe everyone is invisible at some point. Just waiting for the people who are meant to be in their lives to show up. Maybe that night I wasn’t ready for you yet. Or you weren’t ready for me. And I hate that girly thing, by the way. I eat everything in sight. You should join me. No more soup.”

  She sucks in her cheeks, squelching a smile, “No more soup.”

  “I saw that.”

  She smiles full force this time, and I see something pass over her features. She looks down and giggles.

  “What?”

  “I’m in my pajamas, with no make-up on and no bra. Perfect first date attire.”

  Yeah, I noticed the no bra thing when she lifted herself from the cold tiles of her counter.

  “It’s working for me,” I waggle my eyebrows at her.

  “Maybe if I wore this to work, people would notice if I give myself a concussion.”

  “Not a good idea if you want anyone to get any work done,” I mutter under my breath.

  “I’m gonna go change. Are you gonna leave?”

  “Are you telling me to leave?”

  “No. Will you stay? Can you stay?”

  I want to say no, I might not ever leave.

  “I can stay for a while.”

  “Thanks.”

  She thought it was a favor to her? It was a pleasure for me. I watch her through the opening between the kitchen and the living room gather her comforter and go toward the back of the apartment. She comes out a few minutes later wearing jeans and a red thermal looking shirt. And she’d definitely put a bra on.

  She passes by that cabinet and closed it gently, almost reverently.

  “Do you want to watch a movie, or do you want to go somewhere?”

  “If we go somewhere people are going to think I smacked you around.”

  She laughs; “That’s true. A movie then? You pick.”

  She brings me a huge binder filled with DVDs. It’s filled with guy movies. There’s no Steel Magnolias or Center Stage—thank God.

  “Wanted?”

  “Sure. You just want to see Angelina naked, Ezra.”

  “Never hurts to have a naked woman in a movie—ever.”

  “I guess not.” She sits on the couch, cross-legged.

  I’ve never been one to like chasing a girl. Maybe it’s because, since Mara, I’ve never really chased one. They were all thrown at me by my friends.

  Speaking of friends, my phone beeps. It’s Gray checking on me. I text her back telling her I’m with Aysa.

  “You can leave if you need to. I’m not falling apart anymore.”

  She doesn’t look at me, instead stares at that short guy shaking and turning red on the movie.

  “Why are you always kicking me out? I was content with you in this chair with me. I could’ve stayed like that all night. But no, you had to eat and put on a bra and stuff.”

  That does it. Her dam of solemn thoughts is broken, and a laugh breaks through.

  “I’m such a party pooper.”

  “You really are.”

  But despite my too subtle hint, she stays on the couch, way too far away. Something tells me she needs the space, so I let her have it.

  Another text comes through, Dauber, wanting to know where I’m at and if I want to go to the bar with him. I text back that I’m with Aysa. He asks if they can all come over. I really want to keep her all to myself, but she could probably use the goofiness of my friends.

  “Dauber wants to know if they can all come over.”

  “Yeah,;” A bright smile shines and it makes me jealous that I have to work so hard for it, but one mention of my friends and she perks up.

  “Okay, I’ll tell them.”

  She runs back to her room and after ten minutes comes out with make-up on, hair down and she’s changed clothes again. It strikes me as strange that she’d get fixed up to see them but not me.

  I don’t understand women at all.

  Dauber, Neil, and Leon walk in laughing.

  Leon fills me in, “So we’re discussing apocalypse scenarios, you know, zombies, plagues, pole shifts, global warming, solar flares, you get it. And then Dauber adds in Global Orgasm Pulse.”

  “What,” I ask.

  They’re all smart enough to notice the huge mark on Aysa’s face and also smart enough not to mention it. I love my friends.

  “Dude,” Dauber starts to explain. As he does, he puts his hand on Aysa’s knee. That’s just how Dauber is, he hugs, he touches, and he slaps other men in the ass as a hig
h five. It’s just his way. But his hand on her was a whole other issue.

  I never cared when my friends hugged on Mara. But those were different friends.

  And this is a very different girl.

  “So, there’s this electronic pulse and it gives everyone on the planet these fifty-four minute long orgasms. Like all at the same time. And then it freaks everyone out. Then they all go nuts, because they want to experience it again, so they all just start screwing everyone forgetting about eating or sleeping and then we all die.”

  The room falls silent. I don’t know what to say. I do know two things: One: I want to pretend I don’t know Dauber right now and Two: His hand is still on her knee.

  “What about the babies,” Aysa blurts out. That knocks Dauber’s theory on its ass for sure.

  He sits back, and I can see he’s crushed. His theory is shot to hell. But he removed that hand. That’s the main thing. We settle in watching Wanted, and the cat calls abound as Angelina Jolie gets out of that weird wax bath thing.

  “I’m starving,” Neil blurts out not even half an hour later.

  “Let’s go eat. Are you guys coming?”

  Aysa stands; “I need to get to bed. You go,” she tells me.

  The rest of them file out, telling Aysa they’ll see her soon and telling me where to meet them. I’m not going to eat with them, but I will leave. I wait until the door closes before addressing her.

  “Stop kicking me out.”

  “I’m not. I’m just tired.”

  “I’ll leave if you promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “Promise you’ll call me if something like this happens again. I don’t care what time it is or where I am. You call me, and I will get to you. I know you’re strong, but don’t be alone when you’re upset.”

  Tears bubble in her eyes; “Why?”

  “Because you’re important to me. Because I want to.”

  I walk over to her and pull her into a hug. Her head barely comes up to the top of my chest, but I bend down and kiss her hair more than once. Her grip on me is so tight, like she is touch starved. Maybe she is. Another thing I would make sure to fix.

  “Thanks, Ezra,” she breaks from me.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I leave hesitantly.

  She is my second chance. She’s my second chance at life.

  I go home to an empty apartment. I texted the guys to tell them I was going home. As I stand in the living room, it’s like the first time I’ve ever seen where I live. I’m twenty two years old and my apartment, our apartment, still looks like a freshman dorm. We have prom pictures in frames on makeshift milk carton side tables. Even some of Gray’s swimming trophies are lined up behind the flat screen. Our futon is the same one from Dauber’s house when we used to hang out there. It’s like none of us ever left high school. We never moved on.

  We never grew up.

  I hear someone come in the door behind me; Gray, I smell the flowery crap she wears all the time assaulting my nostrils. I never noticed how much her smell bothers me.

  “Why are you just standing there?”

  I answer her question with another question, “Why do we still live like this?”

  She shoves past me; “Like what?”

  “Like we’re still hanging out at Dauber’s house after school.”

  She gets perturbed; “So what? All of the sudden you want to buy grown up furniture like we’re middle aged people?”

  That one statement is awfully telling.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” she growls, walking toward her room.

  Isn’t this what she wanted? She said it was time for a change, she couldn’t live like this anymore. Maybe she just expected me to stay stagnant while she moved on—that way when her relationship and counseling fails, I’d still be around to slump around with her.

  How horrible am I to think that about my best friend?

  The thing is, she never spoke to me before Mara. She didn’t even acknowledge my presence until halfway through Mara and my relationship.

  We became best friends through a mutual tragedy. I decide to let the furniture thing go. It is then that I allow myself a luxury I often deny myself. I go into my bedroom, get into the top shelf of the closet and retrieve the box. That box haunts me, much like the box with the Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar often spoke of hauntingly. But today I allow it.

  There’s not much in there. Though the remembrance has lasted what seems like a lifetime, our relationship wasn’t very much more than six months. In that time, I managed to take her innocence, take her on countless meaningless dates, and take her life.

  There’s a couple of selfies. I printed those out when the memory of her face began to fade. There’s tickets from the first movie we went to see. I didn’t even mean to save those. I found them tucked in my wallet one day.

  I don’t dwell on them for very long, sifting through the pictures and artifacts for less than half an hour before putting it back into the closet.

  As I lie down and replay the events of the night, I realize something. I like this Aysa character. Even in all her scrambled delusions. I like her a lot.

  Aysa

  This is how big of a Gouda-head I am. I stand here, throwing away the last of his Chinese food, and I am seriously contemplating keeping the fork, like in a Ziploc bag, in my freezer, so his DNA is forever alive and well.

  Maybe it’s more like Swiss-head.

  I end up throwing it away. The next morning after the file cabinet incident, I go into work and decide to not make a big deal out of it. No one asks about my bruise. Harvey seems to notice, but doesn’t respond. The rest of the week is filled with work, getting ready for some big project which stemmed from the meeting with the Japanese investors.

  That Thursday night¸ I get my paycheck. I really don’t pay attention to my check, it’s been the same for two years. But I do this time. I notice on the bottom, it lists my pay grade. I also notice my paycheck has declined by at least fifty dollars. It’s not much, and I try to put a good deal in savings, but it’s still a change. I get out my handy Human Resources pay chart and check the code against the chart. Now wonder Harvey treats me like his gopher, and the rest of the ‘team’ treat me like I’m less than. It’s because I’m getting paid as a personal assistant.

  This is another side effect of my ‘run me over’ syndrome.

  I was hired as an advertising accounts manager. But when I came in, Adam was already the manager and there were no more open or new accounts. So I became just another member of the team. One cup of coffee for Harvey evolved into one every morning. Copying and collating one presentation became my regular responsibility. A random reorganization of desks brought me right outside of Harvey’s office.

  But did I ever say anything? No.

  I get on my computer and looked at my older pay stubs. Up until six months ago, I was still listed as an account manager. I should really pay more attention.

  I send a quick email to the Human Resources Manager, noting the change in pay grade and requesting the change to be corrected. I’ve retained the papers I signed when I got the job, and note that the position says Account Manager. I mean, I do have a degree in accounting.

  She probably won’t even respond.

  It’s only fifty dollars, I guess I shouldn’t be whining.

  I should’ve noticed earlier.

  I get a text from Gray, asking me if I want to go shopping tonight. I do. I haven’t been shopping with a girl in too long. She tells me to meet her at her apartment at eight.

  There’s no tiny tingling in my stomach knowing Ezra will be there.

  Not even a twinge.

  Nope, none.

  I continue to pretend I’m not excited through the rest of the day. I am, and not just to put my eyes on Ezra, though the pull is present. I’m happy to just have a freakin’ friend who actually reaches out to me instead of me always reaching out to them.

  I get home and
change quickly. I throw on some of those jeans my mom gave me for Christmas and find they fit better than I thought. I couple it with a plum colored, scoop neck sweater, throw on some black boots. The only reason I do my makeup and hair because Gray always looks so good all the time. I don’t want to look like a complete slob around her.

  I get to their apartment a little after six. The traffic was a real pain. I knock on the door. Knocking on a door didn’t alarm most people. Knocking on a door scares the crap out of me. I always picture someone opening the door and shouting, ‘Oh, my God, she actually showed up. She really thought we wanted her here!’ Instead, the door tears open and Dauber grabs me up before I can resist. I squeeze back awkwardly, more of a pat than actually hugging back. I see Ezra over his shoulder and have a tiny battle with my blush, begging it not to come forward. But it won the fight, and after Dauber finally let me down, it managed to subside a little.

  Ezra sits across the room, playing some game I’d never seen. After it’s clear Dauber is now engrossed in the same video game, Ezra passes the controller to Neil, who’s attached to earbuds and his phone.

  He looks better than I’ve ever seen him. His hair, though very short, is wet. Tiny rivulets of water cling to some of the tops of his shaved head. He’s also not shaved since the morning. A line of stubble has begun on his face—I shouldn’t be imagining what it would feel like rubbing against my face. I can’t help the reactions that begin in me tonight, though I’m sure they’re one-sided. I clear my throat as my mouth dries up, looking at the expanse of his chest—the way his shirt is loose enough to fit but tight enough to make me want it off. I’ve never been one to drool over pecs before—maybe I’ve just never seen ones like his. He catches me ogling and looks down at his shirt. He probably thinks he has food or something on it.

  Our gazes collide as he brings his head back up. He now knows exactly what I was staring at. He gets up suddenly and stalks my way. I back up a few steps. He looks determined, the crinkle of his eyes more defined. Finally he reaches me, almost a foot taller and ten thousand times as strong.