You visited me again last night.
You sat at the edge of the double bed that you’d shared with me, not so long ago, on your side, smiling. You were glowing. Wherever it was that you had been since you left me, it suited you.
It hurt me to acknowledge this, but as you know, I don’t believe in lying, even to myself. I do not hold with people who dissemble, who sugarcoat the truth in order to spare feelings. I suppose this was one thing, among many, that came between us.
But, enough of that. Getting back to last night…
You smiled at me, that tender beam you reserved just for me – or so I had thought, once.
Your hair was longer than I was used to – as long as it was when we first met, before you had it cut and shaped into a fashionable bob at that expensive salon.
You had laughed when I said, ‘How much?!’ my eyes almost falling out of their sockets at the price. You said it was all the rage, and I watched as you turned this way and that in front of the mirror, the bob, glossy silk, framing your face into a profile I didn’t recognise, that of a sophisticated woman one might find in a French cafe, not that of the girl I loved.
‘Now I’ll look like I belong on your arm when you take me to that award you’ve been nominated for,’ you said.
‘You would have belonged before,’ I protested.
‘I wasn’t polished enough for you, Mr Going Places,’ you twinkled at me, ‘but with this hair and in that gold dress you gave me for my birthday, I’ll be a match for any of those ladies who make a play for you.’
Your insecurity, the way you couldn’t see how beautiful you were, how much lovelier, in your innocent naivety than all those heavily made-up vamps so prevalent in my workplace, was endearing. It was what had attracted me to you in the first place. But now you were in danger of turning into one of them.
As if reading my mind, you smiled and kissed me, the shiny shorn hair, smelling of synthetic strawberry, brushing my face.
You changed into the gold dress and matching sandals, the sleek bob accentuating your cheekbones, highlighting the starry amber of your eyes.
You linked your arm through mine, dragged me to the mirror. You looked exquisite, a goddess, unattainable and yet, by some miracle, mine.
‘Look,’ you said, your reflection grinning at me, dimpled charm. ‘What a fine couple we make.’
You always knew how to get around me, blunt my sharp edges, make me yours again.
Until you didn’t…
Anyway.
Last night, your hair was like I remembered it. The hair of the fresh faced, ingenuous girl I had fallen in love with. It whispered around your shoulders in waves the colour of autumn, complementing the burnished fire of your eyes.
‘Come,’ you said, your rosebud lips lifting in invitation, your slender hand, the nails chipped as always – you could never let go of that nail-biting-when-nervous habit and although I teased you about it, it was another of your winsome quirks that I loved – extended towards me.
I didn’t want to take your hand – another thing that has changed.
But you wouldn’t take no for an answer.
When I touched you, the icy blue tremor reverberated through my entire being, insinuating into and taking up residence in my very bones.
I allowed you to lead me down the stairs and into the garden.
The stillness of a winter’s night. Frost lending a glassy sheen to the blanket of sleeping green.
A fox who was rootling through the bins startled when we stepped outside, you in a scarlet silk dress the colour of sin, your skin glowing alabaster. Me with the dressing gown pulled tight around myself, yet still shivering, the tips of my fingers turning blue.
The fox’s eyes glowed startled garnet and it slunk away, letting out a high panicked whine like a child’s cry – the child we could have had together, the one you didn’t want with me, the one you…
Let’s not go there. I don’t know why I keep getting sidetracked. I’m a little disturbed, as I always am after one of your visits. I have called in sick, again. I am sitting in the living room, curtains pulled shut, nursing a glass of whisky, my third and it is not yet noon, and still my fingers will not stop trembling.
The chill of last night will not leave me.
You laughed, watching the frightened fox disappear into the denuded, ice festooned bushes.
You twirled on the patio, slippery with frost, your crimson dress spinning around you, a spot of colour in the dead of night, a whirlpooling splatter of blood on a navy web of shadows.
You looked so graceful, a ballet dancer, one of those figurines you see on jewellery boxes, forever trapped in that uncomfortable pose, arms spread out, one leg lifted, the other balanced on tiptoes.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ I said, after a while, hardly able to get the words out through my numb lips. My stuttering teeth.
‘It’s always cold where I am.’ Your laughter like cascading water.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I truly am.’
You laughed even louder, shooting stars in a stormy sky.
‘You are the love of my life. The only woman I’ve ever loved. When you said you were pregnant with his child, that you were leaving me, I just… I…’
‘You snapped,’ your voice brittle, breathless, like it was that day when you begged, ‘Don’t, please. I’m with child. Please don’t…’
I didn’t listen then, I couldn’t, a mist having descended on me, hot red, choking my senses like I was choking the breath out of you…
Last night, as I stood, shivering, on the patio underneath which you are buried, you came close, and your touch sent splinters of ice shooting through my veins.
‘P…please,’ I stammered. ‘Please,’ I pleaded like you had that fateful day.
‘You wanted me to be yours. Only. Always. You’ve got that wish. I will be back,’ you promised leaning close, your voice an omen, a curse, rendering me faint, petrified.
I never used to be scared of you.
So much has changed.
Somewhere a safe distance away, the fox cried like it was being strangled.
You left then but I knew it wouldn’t be for long.
I could not sleep. I could not get warm.
I still can’t.
I sit here, shivering despite the heating on at its highest setting, two robes and two blankets around me, curtains shut tight against another day I cannot face, in the living room that we used to share, drinking myself into an oblivion that will not come.
I know you will be back, that I will get no peace.
It is what I wanted, after all. You, mine. For eternity.
What have I done?
Renita’s short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet, Verve, among others, have been nominated for the Pushcart prize, the Best of the Net anthology, shortlisted for the LoveReading Very Short Story award and The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story award. Their short story, Eavesdropping Shamelessly, will be published in the Arts Council England funded Bridges Not Borders anthology of prizewinning stories this autumn.
Published 10/31/24