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by J. R. Rogue

  When she reached me, she sat half a foot in front of me, crossing her legs Indian style, staring at my profile as I trained my eyes on the building across the street. We stayed like that for a few minutes before she broke the current again.

  “What are you doing here, Reese?”

  Her soft voice sent a chill up my arm. There are small moments that define us in life. Small words and small days that stretch out to strange and beautiful versions of our own unique forevers. One day I would look back at this, and maybe I would say this is where it all began. I could say that. I could let it be the beginning. Vulnerability is a strength. So many would argue with that statement, but it’s a truth I hold close. I have yet to master it, but she makes me want to learn.

  I turned her way after a moment and laughed. “I don’t know.” A lie. I’m here because I can’t stay away. Because I want you desperately and I want to confess everything.

  Lately there was always a smile in her eyes, dancing on her lips, taunting me. I didn’t know this Kat and I was both terrified of and fascinated by her.

  “What are you doing here, Reese?”

  I pulled my arms up and raked my hands across my face, groaning loudly into the Ozark night. “Fuck, Kat, I don’t know. What are you doing to me? You shouldn’t be speaking to me. You shouldn’t be reaching out to me, showing up at my shows, touching me.”

  “I know.”

  I pulled my hands away from my face at her response. “Then why are you doing it?” I asked, pleading, a little desperate.

  “Because I want you,” she replied, matter-of-factly.

  “Fuck.” I sighed, looking up at the sky, away from her shimmering arms, shoulders, and neck glowing under the moon spying on us. I kept my eyes on the sky as I felt her push down on my thighs, straightening out the bend in my legs. I kept them there as I felt her tiny legs wrap around my waist, as I felt her palms slowly run up my abdomen to my shoulders, as her warm breath settled on my jaw. I repeated the curse and clenched my eyes when she pressed her tiny warm center to my dick, deliberately, cruelly. I didn’t know who she was anymore, and I desperately wanted every version of her that she was exposing.

  “Reese, look at me,” she whispered into my ear.

  I didn’t look at her, instead I pulled both of my hands to her face and crushed my mouth to hers, relishing the sound that crawled up her dainty throat into my own mouth. God, she fucked me up. There had never been a woman to make me dizzy the way she did. Being near her was so foreign, so strange, so much like a drug.

  I pulled one hand away and pressed it to the base of her back, pulling her closer to me, raising up off the roof, pressing into her.

  Her small nightgown was bunched up around her waist, the only thing between her soft skin and me was the thin fabric of her panties. I pulled my mouth away and started to tease her neck. I had turned so quickly. From a man resisting, to an animal in desperate search of release.

  Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

  My life had settled into a slow lull of work, reading, online shopping, and work. All on repeat. Week after week, month after month. My love life had been non-existent. For the most part, I was fine with it. I didn’t believe a woman right out of a divorce should start dating the first man she saw. A woman raped by her husband, what was the protocol for that? Tell me how to deal.

  The disaster that was two years ago had been left behind. I had filled my time with a numbing disappointment that started at the bottoms of my shoes and worked its way to the top of my head. Now here I was, caught in the eye of the storm again. Distracted. I needed it again. The alternative was too hard to face. I needed to get out of this trance.

  It’s amazing how trauma can change you. You find yourself frantic, searching for anything to numb, to help, to make you better. When you can’t find a way to tell the people who love you the most what has changed and rearranged all the moving parts inside your body, you reach elsewhere. I had a small bookcase next to my bed filled with self-help books. The pages were bent, and colorful sticky tabs stuck out of them at odd angles. Some helped. Band-Aid patching for my broken soul.

  When those didn’t work, I made myself a doctor’s appointment. There was a bottle of prescription pills in my medicine cabinet. I didn’t need them every day. I didn’t need them when I woke up, to function. I saved them for the rare times I cruised my car outside of city limits. My anxiety was an irrational beast. I was brought to tears easily by hectic traffic and masses of people. It had never been an issue before but I saw the face of my fear on the sides of buildings, in the glare of headlights, in the eyes of a stranger. This small town was a cage, yes, but it was a refuge.

  I had left town to see Reese without the assistance of medication. I thought of his face and his voice singing from the stage. I thought of the way he had once made me feel, and it dared me to step forward without a crutch to lean on. I had asked my friend to drive us though. I was going to attack this buildup of grief surrounding who I used to be slowly, deliberately.

  My best friend Sera had bounced back and forth from our town for a while. She came back when I told her about my divorce, then left when her own heart was broken. She came back when her heart had sought her out in New York City, then moved away again with Chace by her side. I had done everything in my power to paint my face in a way that hid the darkest moments from her. I was allowed to let a little through though. I was allowed to show her the appropriate amount of sadness a woman going through a divorce is supposed to feel. I could not let the real grief seep through. She would see it and if she flat out asked me for the truth, I was afraid I would have given it to her.

  The pills were a salve. Like makeup. Like a pretty dress for my ravaged soul. They made my face and limbs dance in a way that was acceptable. I couldn’t pour my heart into poetry the way Sera could. I didn’t have an outlet like she did.

  I was not a writer. That was her job. But I had taken to journaling at night before bed. I had a stack of lined booklets stuck in the drawer of my nightstand. One ritual was to write down one thing each night before bed that I wanted for myself. A handful of nights ago I had written down one word: Reese. I wanted Reese.

  Seeing my desire and confession written in jet-black ink on stark white paper made it real. Just like that, I accepted it. Years ago I had denied my feelings about my husband, about my marriage, about the pieces falling apart through our hands that no longer held on to each other. I wouldn’t do that anymore. I couldn’t.

  I rarely backtracked into older journals. I wanted to look forward, and a big part of me didn't want to read the way I had been stuck in one place, despite my desire, despite what I wished for in my small entries.

  This morning, I forced myself to pull a handful of journals from the packed drawer. I flipped one open straight to the middle.

  I just want to spend a few hours outside this weekend.

  Flip.

  I just want to tell someone.

  Flip.

  I just want to be able to wear my old jeans without a belt keeping them on my shrinking body.

  Flip.

  I just want to know why he left.

  Angry flip.

  I just want to stop losing things.

  This entry was bookmarked with a handful of red hairs from my head.

  The strangest thing happened two years ago. I started to lose some of my hair. It would come out in handfuls in the shower. I would watch the strands slip silently down the drain with my salty tears.

  No one noticed because I would not allow it. I wore scarves in my hair. I wore hats. I never wore it up. The whole of that year was marred by the strange occurrence until it finally stopped due to an aggressive onslaught of vitamins and begging every night before I went to sleep. I didn't want my outside to reflect my inside. Mangled and falling apart, strand by strand, day by day.

  I pinched the hair in between my fingers, rolling them back and forth. It was strangely calming, to hold collateral damage in my hand like a diffused bo
mb.

  There was one undeniable truth here: within the past couple of years I turned into an introvert. There's nothing wrong with being an introvert if that is exactly what you truly are. But that was something I had never been. I had changed in so many ways.

  I was always an extrovert. That word was often associated with the loudmouth talkative Chatty Kathy person. I wasn't that either. I was just the girl who always wanted to be around her friends. Who always wanted to be moving. Who always wanted to be out of the house doing things.

  That wasn't me anymore. Did you know that you can have almost everything you need to survive delivered to your own home? I had been surviving on the Amazon Pantry service for so long now I couldn't remember another way. There was a Dollar General store one block away from my home, making it easy to pick up the items I couldn't get delivered, like milk and eggs.

  You could cage yourself inside a glass box and not even know it until you were standing just on the outside. I was on the outside now, and I couldn't go back.

  I placed the strands back in the notebook and stored everything away, back into the drawer. After a moment, I walked across the room to my phone, pulling it from the charger, tapping the text message app. I had his new number now. I could say things I might be afraid to in person. I rolled my eyes at myself just at the thought.

  I was surprising myself with the things I said to his face now anyway, I didn't need the shield of an iPhone to protect me. You never truly know how you will react to the demons in your life until you are face to face with them. Maybe, just maybe, the monster from under the bed will show its face and you will kiss it on the lips.

  I drafted a text and smiled to myself when I was able to send it to Reese for the first time.

  Me: Do you regret it?

  Reese: There's no right answer to that question…

  Me: There is a truthful one, right?

  Reese: Yes.

  Me: What is that in answer to?

  Reese: Yes there is a truthful one.

  Me: Quit dodging.

  Reese: No.

  Me: No what?

  Reese: I don’t regret it.

  Reese: I think.

  Reese: Fuck…

  Me: Well that wasn’t so hard, was it?

  Who was I? Good God. He didn’t answer after that. I lay in bed clutching my phone for about twenty minutes, waiting for a response, before I gave up. I had a whole Sunday ahead of me to obsess over every moment from the night before. That would be fun.

  We didn’t have sex, not for lack of my trying. My body was wound tightly now, just at the thought of it. Over two years of celibacy will do that to a woman.

  I spent the rest of the day tidying my house, walking from room to room with my lavender robe open, passing mirrors without a desire to turn away. I plugged my phone into the little speaker on my kitchen counter and replayed songs from the past, the ones I had avoided. Reese never texted me back but I didn’t care. I was going to force him to confront every feeling he had for me that was taking up space in his somber head. I was going to get him to smile at me again the way he used to, the way I remembered it.

  In most shitty ass dudes’ stories, I would say they looked back and wondered which shady act tipped the scales. I wouldn’t have to do that. I knew which moment it was. It happened this morning.

  After getting home from Sera and Chace’s house, high on the night before when Kat had let me taste and touch her everywhere, my suspicions were confirmed. It’s like the universe wanted me to know everything was going to turn to shit.

  I strolled into the house, waved to my father perched at the dining room table, kissed my stepmother on the cheek near the stove where she was making brunch, and headed toward the fridge to grab some ice from the freezer.

  I didn’t get that freezer door open very far. A piece of paper stuck to the door with a red A+ magnet stopped my motion. Kat’s name was written there with a purple sharpie, and her number was just below it.

  I let the door fall shut and hastily reached into my back pocket for my phone. I knew they would match but I needed to see it for myself. Maybe I was wrong, maybe one number was off, and I was just fearing the worst.

  I pulled up her last text. I had her saved in my phone as “Mystery Woman.” I sighed audibly and pressed the little information button at the top of the screen, accessing the information tied to the contact.

  I looked at the numbers on my phone then back up at the fridge. Fuck. God fucking dammit. I didn’t realize I was cursing out loud until I heard my father’s voice behind me.

  “Andrew, language,” he scolded from behind his Sunday paper.

  I rolled my eyes and spun around, then made my way out of the kitchen. I heard my stepmother’s voice calling behind me.

  “Andrew dear, what’s the matter?”

  “Everything,” I called over my shoulder.

  I took the stairs two at a time, shoved my bathroom door open, and flipped the faucet on. I placed my palms on the side of the sink and watched the water swirl around in the porcelain bowl. No, no, no, no, no. Yes, you knew it, deal with it. Tell her.

  Sweet, sweet Kat was so obviously my mystery woman. Same age, same situation, same town. How did I not see it before? We all know what a good guy would do right now. He would walk right out of this house, get in his truck, and drive over to her house to tell her. Tell her his identity. Tell her everything so the back and forth will-we-meet or won’t-we-meet dance could end. That’s what I knew I should do, but it’s not what I did.

  Kat’s apartment was pretty close to my house and walking felt right. I had spent most of the day cooped up, having an imaginary fight with the remaining scraps of my morals. Now here I was with a song in my head. A song that normally I would have texted to Kat, who I hadn’t known was Kat, and waited for her to tell me how those lyrics made her feel.

  I felt too shitty about it all so I kept the song to myself. After my shower, I got dressed and pulled up the Facebook app on my phone. I searched for Kat’s profile and clicked the “message” button. I looked at the message I sent her the other night after she fell asleep. She had read it in the morning but never responded. I couldn’t help but smile. I hoped it made her blush.

  Me: Hey, whatcha up to?

  I wasn’t sure if she would respond. The messenger app showed me she had seen the message but no response came for a few minutes. She was surely still embarrassed that I got her off on the porch the night before.

  After it happened, she sat up quickly and pulled her skirt down. With red cheeks and wild eyes, she hastily excused herself for the night and retreated to the couch inside. She had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. God, that girl got so worked up when she let go.

  I didn’t want to make her more red in the face than she was already so I had followed her inside, shut the front door, and followed her to her bed on the couch. I pulled her up and gave her one long wordless hug. I kissed her temple and let her lie back down. After covering her in three huge blankets, I left her alone and went to the office where I had been set up to sleep.

  My phone dinged in my hand, pulling me away from the memories of her sighs echoing across the lawn that night.

  Kat: Watching TV. You?

  Me: I was thinking about going for a walk. Want to join me?

  Kat: Sure. I’m living above my shop downtown now. Meet me here?

  Me: Yep.

  I was out the door in fifteen seconds, power walking in her direction. I lived about four blocks from the back of Kat’s shop. I jogged most of the way and took her back steps two at a time. I rapped loudly on the back door and paced her small deck. She answered the door and laughed when I turned toward her.

  “Did you run?” she questioned.

  “I’m 6’2”, Kat, my legs are a lot longer than yours,” I said, chuckling.

  “Well, come in for a minute. I need to get ready. I didn’t think you would be here this fast.”

  She stood to the side and let me walk past her. I could feel her
nerves in the air. She was wondering why I was here, why she agreed to let me come over.

  Her place was a little bit chaotic. After she excused herself to her bedroom, I took in my surroundings. It wasn’t a mess because she was messy; it was a mess because she had just moved in, and she was having a hard time with the reality that this was her life now. The sad reality that I knew this, and she had no idea I knew this, hit me right in the gut.

  The man she had confided in, sent sweet and honest words to while she was married to another man, was standing in her living room, and she had no clue.

  By sending her a Facebook message instead of a text, I had chosen to keep her in the dark about that fact. Fucking prick, you.

  She had a long stretch of countertop attached to the wall that overlooked Commercial Street below us. I walked over to a pile of photographs. I picked one up and smiled at the faces staring back at me. It was a picture of Sera and Kat with graduation caps on their heads. They were both smiling at the camera with their arms around each other.

  In the corner of the photo I saw myself, scrawny ten-year-old Andrew Taylor waiting for his turn to take a picture with his sister. What a strange world this was.

  There was a small waste bin down on the floor. A picture of her ex-husband stared back at me from the trash. I wondered if he could feel it, wherever he was. The man who ruined his marriage staring into his eyes smiling back, mixed in with everything she wanted to leave behind, everything he had left behind but was too much of a coward to set free willingly.

  Kat’s voice behind me broke me from my thoughts. I dropped the photo I was holding when she spoke.