Waving Not Drowning

If she leaves now, there's a good, no, a GREAT chance he won't see her. He's buried in his phone with his headphones on. Perfect. She's got her back to the door, her hoodie's around her waist, toque pulled low, massive glasses obscuring her face. She can grab her bag, scoop up her laptop and just GO. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Mel? Is that you? Fer crissake- why do people say that? She shared a bed with him for two years, six months and 13 and a half days. She picked gingersnap crumbs off his chest while he slurped Earl Grey tea, and read racing biographies to him out loud for hours on end. They'd stumble over each other in the bathroom half naked, jockeying for space in the mirror. That beard. His cheap clippers tripping the fuse. Every single time. No one groomed longer than Alan. He's really not sure it's her? This from the man who mapped the freckles on her body with a Sharpie. Who tattooed her name on the inside of his bicep s...

It's driving her crazy, this weird humming, high pitched wail coming from the front door. She discovered it coming home late one night, climbing the stairs to her darkened porch, waving her arms to trigger the world's least responsive motion sensor light. She could hear this whinging, like a pitch pipe stuck between tones, ebbing and flowing. At first she thought it was a distant siren, or someone's smoke alarm going off next door. Then it crescendoed to a keening wail from the depths of some tortured soul. Kat freaked out, shoulder checked frantically, fumbled in her bag for her keys, dropping them on the ground. She managed to muscle her key into the lock and had to body check the door to open it. It was like entering a total vapour lock. Kat found this house online about 4 years earlier, on a spontaneous trip back home over the high holidays. A need to get away from her present craziness and bask in the familiar yet equally crazy energy of the big city. It's an old t...

This is an incredible moment of panic. Opening up the freezer and not finding the stash of emergency chocolate. The really expensive kind, too. Fair trade, organic, chips of mint, maybe coconut, she can't remember. It was a spontaneous purchase for occasions just like this one. She knows better. Stay away from the computer. Flashing across her screen. His face. The date. The announcement. Probably as close as she'll ever come to skydiving without a parachute. She imagines that this is what it feels like. Her vision blurs, she feels her pulse pound through the veins in her neck like a torture porn movie, and waits for her heart to explode. Any second now. This is it. Old ghosts. Living in her psyche. Lining her fascia, sheathing her entire body. Tiny tubular webbing filled with fluid, stretching and undulating, tightening, seizing, creating adhesions. Blocks. Sticking patterns. She needs to break it down before it hardens into more scar tissue around her heart. Again. Months of ...