Every Week
by Mary Lynn Reed
I notice the silence, heavy and tasting metallic. Every week as he turns the sputtering engine off and steps into the gravel. We're parked under the same window, always the same spot. Sometimes the light's on, sometimes it's off. I don't go inside because Jason tells me I shouldn't and I know he's right because he loves me and that's why he does this at all.
I crack the window and hear a cardinal singing. I squint at the glow in the five am sky, my brain thick with worried no-sleep; I don't look at the door because I don't want to see Jason emerge from the too-silent frat house, where the party is over and no one is stirring, as he stumbles to guide Miranda half-conscious. So I listen for birds and wait with eyes closed, for Jason to open my door and pour the girl I'm in love with into my arms. She won't take the back seat, won't accept even an inch of space between us. Not in these moments, on these Fridays, after beers and tequila and whiskey shooters on top bunk beds with naked big brothers: how many?I'll ignore the torn buttons, the stains on her jeans, the gunk knotting her wavy red hair, as I open my arms and accept her harsh bony frame into my lap as her breath hits my neck, and soon her lips follow. Because when she whispers my name and my palms find her waist and I cradle her gently, her heart will steady its beat and I'll know for that moment she is safe and protected; and when we're back in our dorm room and the day breaks full open, she'll kick off the blanket I've wrapped tightly around her, toss her hair over her shoulder, and say: "Baby, Elisa, Sweetheart, will you call the chauffeur? Tell Jason I want pancakes and bacon. God, what a party—were you there? It's crazy, I know, but I felt like I saw you. I could swear—"
Mary Lynn Reed's short fiction has appeared in The MacGuffin, Karamu, Temenos, Happy, and See You Next Tuesday: The Second Coming (an anthology of short-shorts published by Better Non Sequitur). She lives in Maryland.