Sparrows For Free

by Lila Felix

  “You didn’t tell me your story.”

  “I think we’ve had enough for the night. Haven’t we had enough?”

  “Yeah.”

  Aysa

  I hide shock well. I’m a pro at hiding. I had no idea that whatever he had to tell me would be so personal—so heartbreaking. Heartbreak was all around him every time he turned around. He needed no more empathy or sympathy in his life. He needed someone to give him a different take on a tired situation.

  And different is practically my middle name.

  I drive us back to my apartment, trying to judge by my side of the car how smashed he is if at all. I have absolutely no idea about alcohol and saturation levels, so I keep shooting him looks to gauge it.

  I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

  Hell, what I drank earlier was my first swallow of vodka—ever.

  We get back to my apartment, and I’m scared to death he may try to drive, and I’ll have to call Roman to come get him or convince him to let me drive him home.

  “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

  There it is.

  “Because I think you’ve had too much to drink. I think I should just take you home.”

  “I have not. I’m fine.”

  He sounds fine, and he isn’t slurring his words or anything.

  “I would feel better if you didn’t drive.”

  “Then let me crash on your couch.”

  “I have to work tomorrow.”

  He laughs, deep and loud, “I’m not gonna sing karaoke all night. I’ll sleep.”

  “Fine.”

  “Anyway, it would be pretty embarrassing if you brought me home and then Roman caught you kissing me goodnight on the doorstep. I mean really, on the first date, Aysa? What kind of boy do you think I am?”

  This is what I want to see out of him. Joking and flirting—it is refreshing.

  “Is this all it takes? Should I start bringing a flask with me on dates so that you’ll get unbroody?”

  “Dob says I can get pretty damned funny when I’ve got a few in me.”

  “I would have to agree.”

  I park in front of my apartment building. I reach for the handle to get out, but he stops me with a hand on my arm.

  “Just wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t get to walk you to the door. So…”

  Oh God, he’s talking to me, but only looking at my lips and I’m so very, very bad at kissing. Well, I’ve really only ever kissed a couple of guys but I never went out with them again, so I’m assuming that I’m bad at it.

  “Aysa,” he whispers it like a question.

  I nod once. I didn’t think this very off kilter date would end this way, but I want it. A shiver breaks through me.

  “Are you cold?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A rabid giggle breaks free from my lips, “You’re sorry because I’m cold?”

  Ezra trails a flattened palm down the side of my neck and glides a finger around the scoop of my dress in the front. A strangled whimper emerges from my mouth as that same finger floats along my collar bone. His skin is hot to my cold, his skin rough to my soft. He’s too close. God, his breath smells like the peppermint he popped in his mouth as we left the bar. I know I’m heaving like a damned marathon runner. I hate for him to break through this easily. I hate that it’s so easy for him to make me into this heaving, heavy breathing—girl.

  “No, I’m sorry because I’m about to kiss you. I shouldn’t. I should stay away from you. I’m just gonna break you. I’m gonna ruin you and maybe ruin us both.”

  “Maybe I want to be ruined.”

  I work my lips through my teeth. He’s stupid. He can’t break me. People try all the time. I bend—I bend so far I start to fray in the middle—but I never break. I’ve come to the conclusion that I simply cannot be broken. He looks so damned determined on my lips, but his right hand is gripping the handle of the door hard, I’m afraid he’ll rip it off. The thought of kissing me is causing him physical distress. Or is it causing me mental distress? I can’t tell, but I can see he’s torn.

  So, I decide for him. It takes every will I can muster to turn and get out of the car.

  Ezra

  Did I scare her off? Those things about ruining her just tumbled out, not caring how much I wanted to stretch across the middle of the car and take her lips.

  How in the hell did I ever miss that face?

  This is who I’d become. I’d become this person who had tunnel vision for anyone and anything that had the tiniest filament of a connection to Mara.

  And in the process, I’d missed the beauty that just left me hanging.

  I run after her, catching up just as she gets to the door.

  “You left.”

  Nothing ever comes out right after vodka—ever.

  She fumbles with her keys, sticking everyone but the right one into the deadbolt. She finally gets the right one and shoves it in, and kicks the door as she turns the handle. She throws her purse with a little too much force on the chair. Her actions speak anger but her face continues its angelic soliloquy.

  “You mad?”

  Apparently, I’m only capable of two word sentences with no verbs—out loud.

  She stops midway into her kitchen and grabs the counter, shoulders slumped over. Something like ‘what is he twelve?’ is mumbled but when she turns around, she’s all sunshine and cartoon voice, “Now why would I be mad?”

  My shoulders answer for me.

  Aysa waits impatiently for an answer, and when she receives none, turns and begins to thrash around in a hallway closet. She comes back minutes later with a pillow and too many blankets for one person. She makes a king’s bed on the couch, turns out the lights and whispers, “Get some sleep.”

  Not exactly the end of the date I expected or wanted.

  Then again, nothing about any of this relationship is status-quo.

  I manage to pull of my shirt and shuck my shoes. I flop onto her makeshift guest bed, and as I lie there, I wonder how she made it so comfortable.

  There’s that break in every window. That one mislaid blind, that quarter inch splice in the curtains that lets the morning light blare straight into my eyes. It happens no matter where I am. That damned sunshine has a promissory note to torture me with my signature on it.

  I groan and throw the blanket over my head. Checking my watch, it’s five thirty. I have to get home, but I don’t want to just sneak out. I knock on her door and groans resound from the other side.

  The door flies open. Before me stands—a mess. Her hair is everywhere, her shirt is twisted to the right and one side of her neckline hangs over her shoulder. Maybe it’s supposed to do that. I never knew a shoulder could be so damned enticing.

  As I stand, staring at her hooded gaze still entranced in sleep, I remember everything I told her the night before. Why was she like this? Why did she look at me with those hopeful eyes? Why did I see hope in her and despair in everyone else? She’s staring at my chest, and I know exactly what captures her attention—that damned sparrow on my chest. She lifts her face to me for an explanation, but I’m still raw from what I told her the night before.

  “I’m about to leave,” I say, pushing an unruly hair from her face.

  “Just have coffee with me,” she says and then bites her bottom lip.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  She ducks under my arm and heads to the kitchen, now trying to tame her wild hair with her fingers. She makes no move to straighten her shirt, so I assume it’s like that for a reason. Thank you Lord, for shirts like that.

  “Can I help?”

  I don’t even know why I ask. She’s flitting around the kitchen, like coffee making is her paid trade. Before I know it, we’re sitting at the table both inhaling the warm wake up.

  “Do you look at me differently now,” I blurt—obviously I haven’t had enough coffee.

  She turned he
r coffee cup around in circles, not answering me.

  “Tell me you hate me now.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me you want me to stay away.”

  “No,” Finally, she looks up at me.

  “Tell me to get the hell out of here and never look back.”

  “Just shut—up—Ezra.”

  At least we were back to my full name.

  I see something moving and shit, she’s running her foot up and down the leg of the table. I thought I liked long thin legs, but they are nothing in comparison to Aysa’s shapely ones that lead to those hips that I just want to grab ahold of while she sways into me. I can’t even think straight with her moving her foot like that. I grip the edge of my seat, trying to keep my composure. She yawns, long and slow. Her hands reach up above her head, stretching and a patch of her stomach is revealed. I can’t take it anymore. Even if it’s the only time I’m able to do this—if it’s the only time she allows me, I have to.

  With her arms still stretching in the air, I reach under her chair and grab the underside. I make one swift jerk and pull her chair over to meet mine before she could oppose me. She lets out a strangled yell. Her coffee cup is left wobbling in a circle.

  “What was that?”

  “I need to kiss you,” I almost demand with a clenched jaw.

  “But I thought,” she stutters.

  “You thought what,” I ask inching in, running my hands up her bare thighs. She shivers. I’ve never made a girl shiver. It fuels me on.

  “I thought you didn’t want to. That’s what you said.”

  “I do want to, Ace. I want to kiss you until you forget everything I told you before.”

  “I thought you weren’t gonna call me Ace.”

  I chuckle, “No, I just don’t want you to call me Ez.”

  Her foot is moving against my jean clad leg like it was against the table leg earlier, and it’s driving me to insanity. Girls should be warned about running their feet up a guy’s leg. It’s only asking for trouble—and I’m feeling criminal.

  Her caramel coffee breaths are warm and hasty against my face. Her thighs are now scissoring against themselves, trying desperately to relieve some need in her. I hope to God it’s the same need boiling in me. I’ve sparked that need in her. I can almost hear the hammering of her heart. I want to feel it. I would love nothing more than to lay with her, her heart against mine.

  “Can I? Can I kiss you mindless?”

  I wait, one breath and then another, before she gives me the go ahead in the form of a curt nod. I waste no time. Surprisingly, as I lean in, she does too and in seconds my mouth is on hers. A satisfied moan fills the air around me and suddenly she’s on her knees in her chair with her hands in my hair. And here I thought she’d be shy. Her mouth moves with a skilled innocence. She tests the waters with her tongue against my lower lip. As if I would ever say no. I could stay in this moment with her for all time, letting her soak into me, never coming up for air. This is so much more than a show of affection. This kiss is her permission to show her how much I want her and how much she’ll let me want her. And the best part is—it’s after I’ve already told her who I am and what I’ve done.

  Her lips are magic. They’re strong and needy, but soft and willing at once. I can’t get enough of her. I don’t realize my hands are blazing a heated trail up her legs and under the hem of her shorts until she breaks free of our kiss and says, “Hey,” stopping my hands in place.

  “Shit, I didn’t even know. They had a mind of their own. You’re so damned soft.”

  “I’ll try to be rougher.”

  “Yeah, you’re not making this any easier.”

  “Oh, wow. This chair is hard, it hurts my knees,” she says rubbing the red, intended spots on her knee caps.

  ‘It’s not the chair,” I grumble under my breath.

  “Don’t you have to get to work,” she says after giggling at what I thought she couldn’t hear.

  “Kicking me out again?” I chuckle, shaking my head.

  “No.”

  Our hands are entangled. She’s still catching her breath. It strokes my ego. I’m not the only one worked up.

  “Can I see you Friday night?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “You will?”

  I laugh and kiss her on the forehead, getting up to leave, “Hell yeah, after making you moan like that—I’m gonna call you.”

  She hides her flushed face in her hands, “Just go!”

  I drive home in a hurry. I’m already late and would have to skip the shower altogether. It was worth every damned second. I knew just the way to make those douche canoes at her work notice her once and for all. They’d notice her, and then they’d feel like assholes because they’d never pursued her.

  I get home just in time to shower and throw on clothes before taking off for work. We are having some kind of redundant safety meeting when I drift off, back to the night before. She wasn’t repulsed. She didn’t get up and scream and call for help. And when she said it was an accident, I believe her. For once, when someone said it—I could actually believe it.

  My thoughts continue to gravitate to Aysa all day. When it’s time for me to get off of work, I cringe. Suddenly home, feels like a cemetery, a place to bury myself back down in a state of mourning. I text Neil, Leon and Dauber and we decide to meet for dinner at Mahoney’s. It was a place I’d loved before Mara and hadn’t gone back since. I always did that. I tried to deny myself things as a punishment. But denying myself a root beer glazed ham po-boy wasn’t helping anyone—especially my stomach. I need to have a talk with them anyway.

  We all get to the restaurant about the same time and after fifteen minutes of waiting, are seated. Dauber is very interested how things are going for me and Aysa—a little too interested.

  Not that I could blame him.

  I couldn’t stop myself from falling for her if I wanted to.

  She is from a different time and age. At least, in my world. She’s not afraid of my truths.

  In fact, she let me kiss her even after I bared my soul.

  I’d only go if she asked me to.

  Gray

  The pages of her diary mock me. Their words ring truths to me even this far after their author abandoned them. I remember her sitting around writing this stupidity. Sometimes she’d be so completely engrossed that she’d forget I was even in the room.

  Details about their encounters together was what first drew me to him. I hated Ezra when Mara first started crushing on him. And I pitied him. She seemed all peaches and cream, but she was really lemons and acid. Everyone thought she was so sweet and innocent. Everyone thought she was Suzie next door, loved her daddy and all that Tom Petty song bullshit.

  But I knew better.

  Which is why I hated her and Ezra for liking her.

  I can’t count on two hands how many times I’d tried to talk to Ezra or get his attention before Mara snagged it. Granted, my idea of getting attention from a guy was usually punching them or making some snide comment.

  And now who am I? I’m a sniveling, crying, whining girl. Honestly, I could give a rat’s ass about Mara and her death. Yeah, she was my friend. But we had the kind of friendship that was just hung onto because I served her purposes at the moment. If I was doing well at sports or she needed my help with homework—or she needed to cheat off me on a test—I was her best friend. Other than that, I was simply a tagalong. I was the shoulder she cried on when something didn’t go her way. I was the designated driver when she got trashed.

  Countless times I’d nearly told Ezra that the baby she carried might not even be his. Because as soon as Mara wasn’t able to fly her virgin flag anymore, she ran out and proved to everyone she wasn’t a virgin. It was so strange to me. She knew how I felt about Ezra. That was also in this journal. I don’t even know why I keep it. Her parents wanted it to go to Ezra, either ignorant or oblivious to what was in it.

  But I co
uldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let the menacing words in her scribble scratch writing destroy him anymore. So I took it. I told her parents that I’d give it to him later.

  I’ve evolved into this incessant liar—always covering my ground, always making sure that Ezra was as entangled in my web as I wanted him to be—until he loved me. And I’ll be damned if I wasn’t getting my way before Aysa showed up. When he pushed her away at the church, I had to hide a smile. I mean, really, that was some of my best work, fainting at the altar. Where was the Academy when I needed witnesses?

  Even the ‘I’m gonna try to date and get some counseling’ thing didn’t have the effect it used to.

  I should’ve never let him go back to that church to get my rosary.

  He came back all boy-stupid and giddy, telling me she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. He detailed out her features and her voice. ‘She’s gorgeous. Her voice is really small.’ Blah, Blah, Blah. Honestly, I thought ‘piece of cake’ to myself. I really did. I’d ruin their first date and their second—Aysa would be no more.

  That’s why I invited her to breakfast and the movies—attempts to scope her out, see what the deal was.

  I wasn’t prepared to see them together. I was even less prepared to like her. It would be so easy just to hate her right off the bat.

  This would all be so much easier if I didn’t like her.

  It’s gonna make their break up so much more painful.

  And who is Ezra gonna run to?

  Aysa

  Apparently at this office, emails to the Human Resources Manager are frowned upon. So frowned upon, in fact, that said manager felt the need, in my absence, to report the email to my boss. And ‘oops’, the email also somehow leaked into the inboxes of every person on my whole floor of co-workers.

  That Thursday, before I can even plop my butt down into the cold swivel chair, Harvey summons me to his office. Walking into the stale room, I immediately recognize this as not just another meeting. Peaches, the HR Manager, is present along with Harvey. There are files on his desk and the only reason I find this interesting is because usually the only way Harvey has files on his desk is when I put them on his desk.