FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #7

"She's a local." I’d heard the whispered conversation as I entered the convenience store, quickly making my way to the restroom. Two college-age girls exiting the store pointed to the flyer clinging to the door. But the photo was outdated—they’d never recognized me now. In fact, the changes were obvious as I stared into the mirror. From the tight, square-set jaw, to the sallow skin around the eyes, this was not a face I knew—not the face on the flyer. When had I lost my dewy complexion? Two weeks ago? Three, maybe? Had anyone noticed? I fingered my dirty blonde hair where it fell in choppy tufts near my chin, regretting the rash choice I’d made to cut off my braid with a pair of kitchen shears. I swallowed back the tears that brimmed in my eyes, pushing the bile that rose in my throat back down into my empty stomach where it belonged. How long had it been since I’d eaten? So long that I couldn’t remember.

With shaking hands, I grasped the cold faucet handles wet with condensation. The water spewed out in a spray of hard water, pungent and faintly orange-tinged. I washed my hands, splashing cold water on my face, ignoring the mirror as I used a paper towel to dry off. I didn’t know that girl in the mirror; I wouldn’t look at her again.

I emerged from the bathroom, suddenly nervous in the glaring light of the convenience store. A woman, heavy set with neatly curled red hair, walked up and down one of the three aisles carrying a bag of potato chips in one hand and a large bottle of Diet Pepsi in the other. She looked at me, her eyes jotting up and down my body, taking in my disheveled appearance. I pulled at the dark blue sweatshirt I wore secretly wondering if she could tell. Could he tell? The man behind the counter, who’d eyed me with a bit of suspicion when I’d hurriedly walked past him on my way into the bathroom, rubbed the scraggly goatee on his chin, his long, skinny fingers stroking the sparse facial hair, pulling his lips downward into a disapproving frown. Could he tell I was hiding something?

The bell on the door jingled, announcing the entrance of yet another patron. I turned to the left and hurried toward the refrigerator case to pick out a bottle of orange juice.

“Twenty dollars on pump six.” The voice I heard was familiar—too familiar. My back stiffened in panic and the bottle of orange juice slipped from my hand, bouncing once before cracking open. The juice leaked from the bottle in a pool of sticky, orange blood. I scooped up the bottle unsure of what to do next.

“Becca? Is that you?”

It was too late. Nathan had already crossed the tiny convenience store and was standing behind me.

“Nathan, what are you doing here?” I asked, dumbly, clutching the leaking bottle of orange juice to my chest, letting the juice seep into my already dirty sweatshirt.

“What are you doing here?” His hand went to his forehead, as he looked me up and down before reaching and touching the jagged edges of my chin-length hair. His eyes were clouded by all the questions in his head rushing to get out.

He let his hand fall to his side. “Do you have any idea . . . Where have you . . . We’ve been worried . . .” He struggled to find the right thing to say, starting first with one question and leaving off abruptly to begin another. “Your bottle of juice is leaking,” he finally said, pointing at the stain forming on the front of my sweatshirt.

I looked at the bottle before using my sticky fingers to reach into my pocket for the few dollars I had tucked there. But Nathan cut me off.

“I’ve got this.” He took the broken bottle from me, dumping it into the trash at the end of the aisle before returning to the refrigerator case and retrieving another. He walked to the front of the tiny store, slapping two bills and some loose change on the counter. He returned to me, handed me the bottle, and stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for me to say . . . What? What did he want me to say? I’m sorry? Sorry for running away and leaving everyone I ever loved behind. Sorry for letting everyone, including myself, down. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Tears sprang to my eyes and began spilling down my cheeks though I tried to hold them back.

“Do you want me to call Adam?” he asked. I shook my head.

Nathan’s brother Adam had been my steady boyfriend since the beginning of our freshman year of college. His family had become closer to me than my own. Our lives had become inseparable, entwined. Though we never spoke of marriage, family, children, after three years together, that had become my plan. My plan. Not his, he’d tersely reminded me when I’d first told him.

“What about school? You won’t be able to finish your program,” he’d nearly screamed, the disappointment written in the deep lines of his furrowed brow. “What about graduate school? Huh? What are you going to do?”

What are you going to do? I had no answer. Nothing that would satisfy him, anyway. Marriage, family, children had been my plan, not his.

He left. And then I left, but only after having a breakdown, of sorts. In a manic rage I’d grabbed the scissors from the counter. In a hasty and frantic act of desperation, I’d lifted the braid that hung down my back and swiftly cut it off, tossing it in the kitchen sink of the apartment we shared. Then I left with only the clothes on my back and the few dollars I had left in my pocket after doing the laundry. I’d spent the last three days wandering the city in a haze of depression and fear. This was supposed to be a time of new beginnings and I was stalling, hiding.

“Can I take you home?” Nathan finally asked, waking me from my reverie.

My first instinct was to tell him no. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I still wanted to disappear. But then I remembered the face I’d seen in the mirror only moments before.  Who was that girl? Was she the new me? Is that who I was becoming?

“I’m pregnant,” I blurted, letting the words tumble awkwardly from my lips, barely recognizing my own voice. The lady in the next aisle dropped her bag of chips. The man at the counter cleared is throat loudly.

“I know,” Nathan said, nonchalantly. “Adam told me.”

“He doesn’t want it,” I blurted again before correcting myself. “He doesn’t want me.”

“Let me take you home, Becca. Please?”

I shook my head, but he placed his arm gently on my shoulder, his eyes pleading. “Please? You need to go home.”

I allowed Nathan to lead me to his car. I allowed him to open the passenger door for me before I crawled inside. But, when he got behind the wheel we didn’t drive away like I’d thought we would.

We sat in his car listening to our breath coming and going like waves. I waited for him to start the engine and drive me back to the empty apartment. I imagined my blond braid of hair still in the sink like a spent noose, a reminder of my abandonment and despair.

“Adam wants you,” he finally said. “We all want you.” He tenderly took my hand in his, a gesture that made my stomach quiver. “We’ll figure this thing out—together.” He smiled though tears were filling his eyes.

“Okay,” I whispered, my mouth hot and dry. I fingered the lid of the bottle of orange juice, needing its wet nutrition to fill the empty aching in my gut, but fearing the choking lump that was cemented in my throat. I needed to escape this, the loneliness, the isolation. I wanted to stop running. I wanted to forget the girl in the mirror and find my former self.  I’d allowed this to happen and now I needed to start over somehow. This was real. This was happening.

I opened the bottle of juice and drank deeply, allowing the cold liquid to slide down my throat and fill my empty stomach. Then, wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I said, “Take me home.”

back to Contest #7