“There’s no clarity in conscience.” Daryl always ignored the beauty in thought, plunging straight to the core of anything we spoke on. I’d ask him about the devil, and he'd tell me he’s no Christian. I’d wonder at him, voicing the fears I have, and he’d return with this crap.
“Maybe not. But there’s a sense of... right. Isn’t there?” I hated the look on his face: Don’t be stupid, that look said, let’s be serious. He flicked his wrist, swirling the wine in his hand until it sloshed, reminding me that we had to be careful of the carpet. Every time we were in my room drinking, someone spilled on the carpet. I bit my lip, eyes on the golden floor beneath his glass, it needed a clean.
“Is that what they taught you at that posh school of yours?” I flinched; he never let that go. I had never intended to hurt him when I left to study, but it damaged him somehow. He would mention it when he thought I wouldn’t yell, when I wouldn’t cry. Sometimes I did both just to spite him.
“No, they taught me how to stand down tools like you. Get the fuck out of my room.” He wasn’t surprised. He never was.
“Mella, Mella, my lovely.” Daryl’s lips curved in a smirk. “You don’t want me to go.”
I didn’t. But he didn’t need me to concede the point; we both knew he was right. “You don’t know what I want, Daryl.” The smirk stayed set on his face as he touched the glass to his lips. I turned away and threw myself on my bed, carpet be damned. “I wanted to go away from you, so far away that even your letters couldn’t reach me properly.” Satisfaction came in the stiffening of his spine, and the way his hand arched from the wine.
“You’ve ruined the carpet, my love.” His voice was strained, I heard his glass tap onto my desk.
“You didn’t know that I hated you. For so long, Dar, my dear. And I’m so God damned glad that you know now. Because it means I don’t have to screw around with this crap anymore. “
“Mella, look at me.” I could almost hear the frown in his voice. I’d offended his senses; I didn’t need to lift my head from the mauve quilt to know it. “Mella.” It was like a warning shot.
“Get out of my room. Get the fuck out of my room.”
He left, not without staring at me for moments longer than was ever going to be comfortable, but he left. I didn’t expect him to, not that I expected him to stay... but he’s never actually left when I told him to. He does only live across the hall, but it’s always been hard to make distance.
I didn’t watch him but watched as the pale wood of my door shook in its frame, I heard the slam of the front door. His car started scant moments later and he was gone. Crying seemed like a good option. So did screaming. I did neither, staring at the only photo on my desk, sitting on the shelf above the half empty wine. Him and me on the lawn outside the veranda. We looked like fools together, all those years ago – it feels like twenty, though it’s only been four.
Light covered the picture; it had to be summer, the way the light pounded into the image, over us. The sky was a solid blue, without the gaps of clouds that kept sunburn away; neither of us wore a hat. I don’t remember the moment, or that I ever wore a sundress, let alone wore one with a wide sash. I do remember Dar’s blazer, the flippant pink of the inscription along the breast, “Property of Madame Mella”. He made it when we decided that neither of us could ever marry, we were too involved with each other.
Too involved... but never really. He’d never touched me more than in that photo, I’m sure. The casual arm slung around my waist, holding me close for the still image, was never there for anything more. I never loved him and he never pretended to love me, but we both thought we’d be together. I suppose you can get used to anything given time.
The glass was spotted with grime; I’d forgotten it was there. The frame was nothing but lacquered wood, the top sealed in dust. The rest of the room was similar, dusty and unused; even when I lived here, I hardly lived here.
At one, he’d not returned, and half an hour of moping was enough to drive me up the wall. There were rags in the bottom cupboard in the hall and window cleaner under the sink. When at boarding school, I found that late night cleaning distracted me, so I cleaned. At ten in the morning I stopped. The house, barring his room, was clean and he was still gone.
The usual images flashed through my mind; downing absinthe at Rojas Cafe, jazz at the club, sex. They became less flashes and more day dreams, the later in the day it became. At two in the afternoon, I’d detailed the hallucinations from the alcohol, and danced every jive in all the slippery, jazz rich beats I knew of... and some I didn’t. The images of sex fascinated me, though. Lying at odd angles on my mattress, listening to the whirr of the washing machine, I immersed myself in it. They were languid and torturous in their simplicity. The women were beautiful, but plain, with red barrettes and pink heels, walking across the hardwood floors and kneeling over his lap. They didn’t speak, but performed each action with a sense of purpose and direction. Their faces delighted me, but in each fantasy, each slowly roaming hand, I never saw him, or felt him, or smelt him. He wasn’t there, somehow. So the sex ended in disappointment, much like every other experience I’d had with it. I wondered how he’d be, whether he’d make my body arch and sweat the way the women did. If his body could press so perfectly, conform to mine, that orgasm wouldn’t be a trial. Maybe I’d just had really bad lovers in the past but these fantasies were better than the real thing.
I was smoothing the quilt down on my bed when the click of the front door made me open my own, peeking at him. He looked fine, dressed just as he’d left with no ruffles or shadows. He’d slept sometime this morning, maybe he’d just gone to a hotel and slept. The skitter of his keys on the side table startled me, but he didn’t look up from his shoes. They tinged red where the leather met the carpet, creeping up over his heel and toes. Hand on his doorknob, he straightened for a moment, and I hid behind my door. He knew I was home; he’d just parked me in.
His shoulders slumped back and he went into his room, closing the door firmly. I flicked my door open and crept to his, listening against the paint. He didn’t turn on his music, and he made no noise at all until the swish of his blinds and window. With a small sigh I turned back to my own room. Flopping down on my bed, chin propped by my crossed arms, I stared at the photo on the desk.
Our smiles had been so real.
*sneaks away*
) But it took me a couple read-throughs to get she was fed up with him and wanted him out... which, now that I read it again, seems obvious. I would say to add a bit more description of her tone/emotions/whatever, but I think you did a decent job with that, and it's just my brain being dead. I'm thinking that if I knew a bit more of the characters first and their situation, it would have help my sleep-deprived self out, but I'm pretty sure explanation will come as the story goes on, so I'm not so worried about that, either. Critting as I go here, giving thoughts along the way.
That was good.
