She

Lips glistening pink with gloss and laughter; thin, yes, but never too full of life, always with a wide grin.  I could never forget the ever0smooth texture to those lips.  Lips that spoke hundreds of thousands more words than the tongue behind them ever could.  They told the truth when the tongue tried to lie.  They sought the truth when they detected lies.  They trembled with fear when she stood tall in the face of danger, and they shone bright with hope when all hope was lost.  Those lips always spoke her truth.

Her eyes were the glistening gems that were the locked portal into her soul.  Those eyes could reveal her innermost secrets, but they liked to tell their fair share of lies and liked to hold tight to the secrets which they confined.  They were two whirlpools into a world which her parents didn’t understand and her friends were never truly on her side.  Their vivid colour was a guise to the darkness which her pupils only ever hinted at.


She came rushing from her house, panting heavily, a big bag in each hand.  “Open the trunk!” she shouted.

Confused, but prompted by her urgency, I popped the trunk as she sped across the lawn.  In the rear view mirror, I see the trunk move up, followed by a heavy thunk and swiftly followed by the thud of the trunk shutting and a young girl accommodating my passenger seat after slamming the door.  The car easily rumbles to life with a turn of the key and slides into first.  Adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I almost peel out as we make our departure.

“You have everything, right?” my companion asks.

“I had a long time to think about it, I’m pretty sure I got everything that was important.”

She laughs and looks to the back seat, rummaging through all the thinks I had packed.

“Did you grab any poptarts?  I’m starving, I didn’t get a chance to grab anything to eat.”

“How could I forget that?” I say, almost mockingly.  “They’re practically the only thing you eat.  She laughs again.  “They’re in one of the bags on the floor, I think.”

The sound of bags being pillaged by my companion fills the car as we turn onto the highway.  Stepping on the gas in order to get up to traffic speed almost throws her into the back seat.

“You should really probably put your seatbelt on,” I say, once she’s recovered.  She grumbles something under her breath as she returns to a forward-facing position, tarts in hand.  When I don’t hear the buckle fastening, I look to her.

“What?” she says.  “Don’t look at me like that, you know how much I hate seatbelts.”

“Please?  I don’t want to have to turn around just because of a stupid seatbelt ticket.  Plus, what if we get into an accident?”

She scoffs at the idea of turning around due to a ticket, then argues, “I’ll be thrown clear.”

“Do you know what pavement does to flesh at seventy-five miles an hour?”
A long silence follows that comment, but she finally gives in with another grumble under her breath.

“Thank you,” I say.  She simply grumbles again and turns away, opening one of the prepackaged tarts.


That night was filled with lots of tears.  It was one of those things that, after it happens, you realize how bad of an idea it probably was.  The tears just made me feel worse.  She’s just so headstrong, I had never seen her this vulnerable.  Up until this point, I had never even thought it possible for her to cry.  To add to it all, I had never been in a situation like this before, so I had no clue what to do or what was expected out of me.  In the movies, everything works out perfectly; the guy is usually well-endowed (if his junk is ever shown) and the girl is beautiful in every scene, and there’s only ever a hint of pain, at the most.  Then afterwards, they sleep together until dawn.  Movies are just too scripted for real life.  Even the one that I watched where the girl cried, the guy was some sort of super-stud who could charm his way into the pants of a god if he wanted to, and everything still worked out fine. My life is no romance movie with some director telling me how to act and react, and this situation was no different.  She’s huddled up on the opposite side of the bed, naked under the sheets, sobbing at a barely audible level.  I sit at the other end, but might as well be sitting at the other side of the universe, I feel so distant.  I feel like I stare at her bare back for what felt like hours before I finally decide to make an attempt at diffusing the situation.  I lie down on the bed, just behind her on top of the comforter.  I can smell her; that strange sweet scent that always lingers about whenever she’s around, but that I can only smell when I’m just close enough.  I can smell the cocoanut shampoo she uses on her long, soft hair.  Slowly, I reach one of my hands up to her waist, hesitating to put it down to rest on her, but at the same time, it feels like I can sense the desire emanating from her for me to touch her.  I move closer so our bodies fit snuggly together through the sheets and I put my hand down.

I let my hand conform to the curve of her body, the soft space between her ribs and the flair of her iliac crest.  I feel her body twitch as my hand comes to rest, but she doesn’t protest.  We stay like this a long time, with only her soft sobs breaking the silence between us, yet now, they grow much farther apart.  Soon, the sobs fade and the room is a silent, black square, seeming to float in the middle of nowhere.

I nuzzle my face closer to her neck, half burying it into the waterfall of her hair.

“What are we doing,” she says, at last breaking the silence.  When I don’t respond, she twists herself around just enough to face me, her brow furrowed with the question and her eyes till puffy and red with tears.  She says it again.  There’s no attempt to mask her uncertainty with the headstrong act she normally puts on.  I can see it all in the way her lips tremble, and for once, I can see the fear in her eyes.

I’m not sure if I can trust my voice enough to speak; I know what I say will not be what she wants to hear, but I was never one to lie to her.  I speak, but the words come softer than a whisper: “I just want to prove that I love you…”  She can’t say it back.  But it’s okay.  The tears begin to well up in her eyes again.

“I think… maybe…”

I can see the hesitation in her again, but I know what she wants.  So, with an empty heart, I put a finger to her quivering lips and make my departure before I give her another chance to speak.


She taps on my shoulder and shouts something.  I can hardly hear her over the music we’re playing from the car radio.  When I don’t respond, she taps my shoulder again.  I turn just enough to acknowledge her, but keep my eyes on the road.

“What?”  I shout back.  She responds, but again, I can’t hear over the music.  She shoots me her classical look of annoyance.  I can’t help the smirk that draws itself across my face as I lower the volume on the radio and give her my attention.  She stares at me with her lips pursed in a familiar pout and says nothing.

“What?” I inquire again, expecting her to repeat whatever it was she had been trying to say.  Instead, she turns away to look out the window.  In a low tone, almost a whisper, I barely make out a request for me to turn the music back up.  Will I ever figure this girl out?  Confused, I turn my attention back to the road and oblige her request.


I would have to break the news to her soon.

As we pulled into a small mom-n-pop gas station in some small city, I can’t recall the name, just outside Las Vegas, all of my thoughts were on the dwindling cash in my wallet.  I knew we wouldn’t be able to make it too much further on all I had left, but the agonizing fear in my heart of the thought that telling her so would change her mind about the whole adventure.  The fear in my heart that she would request to return to the drab suburbs of our boring old town was paralyzing.  Even pulling up to the pump, I could feel my palms growing sweaty and my fingers cold the more I mulled over my thoughts and fears.

We pull up to the pump and I put on the parking break, turning off the ignition… and, for the first time, I took the keys with me.  I didn’t look up from the vehicle after taking them, hoping she wouldn’t have noticed; hoping she would have been preoccupied with something on her MP3 player, or watching someone or something outside the car.  I got up and shut the door as quickly as I could, shoving the keys in my pocket, refusing to look back as I trekked to the doors of the small station to pay.

Like any typical gas station, this one had a few short isles, each with an assortment of snacks and random items a traveler may need in his or her journey.  Almost as a reminder to my dwindling funds, a four-pack of the s’more flavoured tarts was on the top row of the very first isle.  I step up to the shelf, considering and reconsidering before finally taking my wallet out of my picket and mustering up the courage to open it.

It didn’t take long for me to decide against taking the small box, no matter how broken-hearted my companion may be.  My disappointment must have been fairly apparent, because the old woman at the register, who had been watching me with an unwavering smile, had let her smile fade when I stepped up and asked for “ten on two, please.”

I hand her the last ten in my wallet, and without another word, the old woman takes my money and enters it into the register, handing me the receipt when she was done.

As I walk out to the car, my disappointment quickly turns to panic once the passenger seat comes in to view, empty.  I look all around, into the windows of other cars, back to the inside of the station, hoping to recognize, perhaps, the back of her head or some other familiar feature.  I call her name, once, twice, expecting to hear her come out from behind me, “Calm down, weirdo, I was just in the bathroom.”

There was no response.