It was the second time this week. She cursed herself for getting sloppy. Her fingers combed through remaining trinkets she had retrieved earlier in the day and sighed heavily. The trade won’t be enough. She would have to go out again, and soon. But how could she avoid the sentries after getting spotted twice already? They knew her face by now, or if not her face then her fiery red hair. Well then, she thought, she will just have to find a way to hide it.
The next morning she woke early, kissing her little sister’s cold cheek before ducking out of their makeshift shelter of woven tarp treated with wax. It had belonged to a thin, oily fisherman who liked to dock a few meters away from their temporary home. On an early morning raid of the seaside docks, she had tucked the thick fabric beneath her shirt as the fisherman flirted his way into a higher price for his catch from the round-cheeked butcher’s daughter. Though it wasn’t worth much in trade, it made it easier to keep leftovers, whatever they forced themselves to ration, dry from the incessant drizzle that seemed to plague their city.
Once down by the water, she scooped her hands into the freezing darkness, plunging her fingers in the slimy, black goo. Her head bent as her fingers brought the mud up to her scalp. She shivered at the cold which now enveloped her head but pressed on, forcing her thick auburn hair to lay flat. She wiped what remained on her hands across her cheeks and neck for good measure.
She waited for the sun to peek over the clock tower at the end of Main Street. This was the usual time merchants came in, dragging their feet until they had their first cup of whatever strong stuff they could find in the cupboard. This made them easy targets.
By nine, she had pickpocketed three watches, one of which was a chained stopwatch she thought her sister might enjoy. So far no one recognized her but she didn’t want to push her luck. Yet she could feel the mud starting to harden and crack, falling off her scalp in increasingly large chunks, revealing more and more of her hair’s natural shade.
As the clock tower rang its eleventh bell, she made her way back to the river to add a second coat to her scalp. Adding a second layer only made her skin itch more but she tired ignoring the feeling, focusing on her little sister’s face when she would bring home warm supper that night.
“Hey! You there!” The shout bellowed across the courtyard with practiced authority. “Child, stop!”
She ducked beneath the nearest cart of goods, knocking a few oranges off its pyramidal arrangement, and slipped into a thin alleyway less than a meter wide. Too narrow to crouch, she pressed herself against the wall with closed eyes, praying silently for the gods to blind or confuse the guard who spotted her. She mumbled bits of rehearsed prayer taught to her by her mother. Not remembering all the words, she figured the meaning behind the words were more important than the words themselves and hummed some hymnals instead.
After peeking her head from the alleyway, she forced her eyes closed once more, willing the gods to listen, if not for her sake, then for her sister’s.
A cold hand clapped onto her wrist, yanking her from her hideaway. The man squeezing her wrist wore a breast plate of silver and a brown leather tunic but her eyes fell to his other hand. He held a thick short whip, and she swallowed nervously.
“So I have a question to ask you. Or maybe more of um, a statement I suppose.”
He looked at me, waiting, a curious smile playing at his lips.
I forced myself to look at him despite every nerve telling my eyes to stare at my hands rubbing together. I hesitated, rethinking how I was going to word this. “Do you remember when you first saw me?”
“That sounds like a question, but yes I do. Why? Do you remember when you first saw me?”
I laughed humorlessly. “Definitely. I couldn’t forget, you walking in all cocky and loud through the back door of that one bar. You know the one, uh, the one off the corner of 21st and Main, I think? Anyway, I thought, ‘damn, this guy must be kind of an asshole.’”
He laughed, pushing my shoulder back. “Hah! And who turned out to be the asshole that day, huh?” He lifted a brow teasingly, never losing that small smile.
He wasn’t wrong. I had pretended not to notice him despite my acute awareness of his every move. The way his mouth slanted to the side when he laughed at my lame pun jokes, the muscular indents of his shoulders beneath his shirt. But it wasn’t the physical things I noticed first, come to think of it. It was his effortless confidence, this open kindness which wordlessly invited anyone he spoke with to grab a drink with him. Which is how I ended up being the asshole in this scenario. He had been genuinely nice to me and I brushed him off, assuming he wanted what any guy wants when they come straight up to you and offer to buy you a drink.
He leaned closer, grabbing my attention which has slipped to the straw wrapper I was twisting around my finger, turning it purple. “You alright? You seem off.” He said and reached his hand to grab mine. “Hey, I was only kidding. I didn’t think you were an asshole when I first met you. In fact, I thought you were one of the most intelligent persons I had ever met.”
My palms were itching and sweaty and I pulled my hand from his, wiping it against my pant leg. “I don’t uh—hm. I guess I should start—well no, I mean—“ I took a deep breath and squeezed my fingernails into my palms as hard as I could. “Look. I don’t really know how to say what I want to say, so I’m just gonna say it and it might not be what I mean but just bear with me alright?” He looked genuinely worried now but it was too late to back out without him pushing it further. “I like you. And I kind of love you too. You never belittle me, which is extremely easy to do considering I am a bit naive about most things besides, you know, books and things. And you never ask me to stop talking about the things I love which I know don’t interest you.” I forced the words past my lips but kept my eyes unfocused on the table between us. “But that’s the thing! You are the only one who doesn’t make me feel stupid and you are the only one I want to tell how my day genuinely went and not make up some bullshit response just so no one is compelled to comfort me.”
He took a breath, opening his mouth.
“Wait! Wait wait wait, I’m not done. I, uh, have something else.” I inhaled through my nose, holding the breath there for several beats. “I have loved you since that first day. And I didn’t know what to do about it so I just, pretended I didn’t. But I can’t do it anymore.” I closed my eyes for several long seconds, then felt his hand grab mine.
He was looking at me with a face I’d never seen before. Pity? Distaste? He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself, then looked down at our clasped hands. He sighed quietly, making my insides curl up in dread. “I think I need some time to, uh, figure out how—how I feel.”
Yup. Pity. Why the fuck had I opened my damn mouth...
~April 23, 2016~
A bird landed on my hand today. Is that a sort of sign or something? A symbol that I’m destined for greater things like some Disney princess locked away in some tower? Perhaps my Prince Charming will come scaling my tower of emotional insecurity and rescue me from my own self hatred.
Or at least I thought this until it proceeded to take a shit on my boots and leave, so...there’s your sign that I’m destined for shit, I guess.
I never used to be this doomy and gloomy, I swear. I actually used to be sort of annoying with how happy I was. Take the entry from last year, for example. Happy as a stupid clam who didn’t realize she was about to get tossed into the frying pan and eaten. Or I guess that would be an oyster—whatever, you get my meaning.
“~February 27, 2015~
‘Elation.’ I think that would be the word? Or maybe ‘euphoric’? Well whatever it is, if feels fucking magical. The song that was playing, the snow melting against our hair, the smell of his neck as my nose brushed his collar bone...yeah, euphoric pretty much sums it up. How the hell did I get so lucky? He had almost kissed me. Kissed ME. I should just go balls to the wall and plant one on him the next time I see him—
—eh, probably too aggressive. But it’s coming. I feel it.”
barf Can someone get me some Listerine so I can wash out my mouth? God I was so gullible. I remember believing I felt truly happy in that moment. Now? Now I feel like total crap. And I blame it all on him—the jackass who was actually nice to me.
Dark rectangles of oak punctuated the thick layer of dust that had settled on the forgotten shelves. The histories which had once decorated the stone halls were gone, along with every trace of the master’s belongings. His pile of journals were no longer on the corner of his desk, nor was the pair of ornate statues of Grecian figures which cost more than the sum of his absent belongings. Where had all the paintings gone? The room looked strange without all the eyes of former masters looking down at whoever was fortunate enough to sit before his desk. I glanced back at the emptiness that once held all that mattered to my master, then closed the damaged door behind me.
The wind stung my cheek as I stepped from the warm hallway of the dormitory. Frost had settled on the tips of the trees, not yet melted by the sunlight that would soon make its way over the four-story building. I sighed, equally melancholic for winter’s impending departure yet delighted as my breath puffed out like white smoke from an invisible pipe. I caught movement from the corner of my vision and the librarian from the east library came into view, huddled inward with nose and chin buried in a red knit scarf. “Hello Ms. Destin!” I waved both hands in the air, smiling as I hurried my steps toward her. She mumbled a hello through the thick fabric and shrugged her shoulders in apology for the muffled speech. I brushed my hand through the air in dismissal and smiled at her again. “Mind if I walk with you? I’m headed toward the library now, in fact.” She nodded, eyes scrunching as she smiled from behind her cover. We came upon the east library just as the sun reached the front steps, turning the cool-colored stone into a brilliant yellow. Coming this early to the library was my favorite. Hardly any other student was there and I often was able to finish my schoolwork by the time the wave of students came rolling in from the first round of classes beginning at 8 am. I finished my research for my anthology paper before anyone else had made it to the library so I decided to peruse the shelves for another book. I had recently tried reading a book recommended to me by one of the girls living in my dormitory, but after the sixth use of the word, “throbbing,” I figured reading it a seventh wouldn’t improve the story overmuch. I dragged my fingertips across the spines of the books as I passed through the nonfiction section towards the fantasy/science-fiction section. Each shelf was labeled with a different colored sign indicating the genre. After no luck in fantasy/sci-fi, I moved to the romance shelf where I found the same series from which the novel I’d been reading came. I chuckled to myself as the cover of each displayed a couple immersed waste-deep in water, one staring off toward whatever lay just beyond the spine while the other gazed longingly at the one half-dressed. “While it might not be my cup of tea, it most certainly is someone else’s,” I silently reminded myself, putting the retrieved book back on the shelf. I finally made my way to the historical fiction section where I swiftly found dozens of novels I hadn’t yet read, but vowed to the moment I returned to my dorm. I pushed past the crowd of students exiting their 8 am classes and walked toward my dorm hall as quickly as I could without running into anyone. I was about to open the front door of the dormitory when I noticed a patch of frost that had yet to melt below the front left window. The grass remained dark with moisture and I reached out instinctively, brushing the wetness with my finger before laying my palm flat against the dirt below. I felt the last bit of frost melt against my warm palm then stood up, staring at my glistening red hand. I had just destroyed winter’s final claim on the earth. What would I achieve tomorrow?