EVOL

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  I roll over, rub the sleep from my eyes, and grab my phone from the nightstand.

  No texts. Of course not. Despite my better judgment, I send him a message.

  Me: Plans tonight?

  I’m sure he’s made plans. It’s Friday night, after all. He hasn’t been with his friends and sister in months.

  But I just want . . . a piece of his time. Some time to soothe old wounds.

  His feelings, my feelings; my empathy battles with my own selfishness. It’s a dance they’ve done many times before.

  Gavin: Yeah. Going out with a couple friends.

  Me: Stop by afterward?

  Realization dawns after the action. Sending texts to someone asking them to stop by after a night out isn’t what people in love do. At least, I don’t think, anyway.

  Realization that I’ve gotten to a point where I’ll take any part of him that he’d be willing to part with dawns.

  When did I become this person?

  My phone vibrates.

  Gavin: It’ll be late . . .

  Me: I’ll be up.

  Here we go again.

  My phone vibrates again but this time it isn’t Gavin.

  Sabrina: Want to grab some drinks tonight?

  I ignore the text.

  Sabrina: Or do you already have plans?

  I roll my eyes at her passive aggressiveness.

  I never understand Gavin’s annoyance with my passive aggressive tendencies until I have to deal with my own dose from Sabrina.

  Pain in the ass.

  There’s a knock at the door and I pause, trying not to breathe too loudly. A moment of silence and I start to breathe normally when . . .

  “I know you’re in there ignoring my texts.”

  Fuck.

  I sigh and roll over in bed.

  “Go away, Sabrina. I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Fuck off and open the door.”

  There’s another bang and I’m worried she’s going to put a dent in the door that I’ll have to pay to fix. I get up and stomp to the door.

  “You’re officially the worst,” I mutter as I turn the lock and swing it open.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says as she shoves past me. When Carlos rushes over and jumps on her, she shoves him off a little. “Your dog is a psycho.”

  I roll my eyes and pat the top of his head.

  “No, you’re just an asshole.” I sit at one of the stools at the bar. “What do you want?”

  “We’re going for drinks, shorty.”

  She unbuttons her coat and I scoff at the sight of her outfit. She looks amazing in her bell bottom jeans that sit high on her waist and burnt orange plaid top, tied just right to sit above her top button.

  “Why do you have to look so fucking perfect all the time?”

  I run my fingers through my hair that’s getting thinner and thinner by the day.

  Stress.

  Meanwhile her tresses are longer and fuller than ever in loose copper waves framing her face, completing her seventies vibe. I’d guess that she’d gotten her hair done today.

  I pause. “Extensions?”

  “Bet your sweet ass,” she answers with a nod as she pulls out her phone from the purse she set on the counter. “And we . . .” she’s tapping on the screen and sounds more like she’s speaking to herself than me, “have reservations at eight.” She finishes her statement with a smile and finally makes eye contact.

  “Not going. Sorry. Love you. Not doing it.”

  She sets her phone down on the counter and places her now empty hand on her hip.

  “What? You have better plans?” She stalks toward me. Stalk seems so appropriate when her legs are as long as they are.

  I shrug and start walking away but she follows me, somehow making it to my bedroom door before I do. I glare at her long legs.

  “I refuse to let you sit at home like you’re his goddamn toy, Denise.” She grabs my shoulders. “You were sad, and I can never completely understand it, but I was here. I was here.”

  “Don’t,” I shout out as I yank away from her grip. “Don’t you think I know everything you’re telling me? Like I haven’t recited this to myself over and over and fucking over again?”

  “So why aren’t you listening?”

  She’s staring at me like she has all the answers and it makes me want to close my fist and hit her with it.

  “Love doesn’t work like that.”

  Her face contorts until she’s nearly unrecognizable. She doesn’t wear incredulity well.

  “Ohhh, my G—”

  “Don’t do that.” I push my hair from my face. “I can’t be cold like you.”

  She steps back and it’s like I did hit her with my fist. She shakes her head slowly.

  “Me?” Steps are taken away from me and all at once, she grabs her purse and coat. “The one who held you while you cried? The one who was here, day and night, rescheduling everything to be right beside you?” She laughs but it’s all mouth; no eyes, no cheeks, not her usual laughter. “You must have me mistaken. The only cold one is the person I’m sure you’ll be waiting all night for.”

  She’s shoving her arms through her coat sleeves and the silence between us is filled with Carlos’ nails clicking against the hardwood floors as he peruses the apartment, oblivious to the dramatics only a few feet from him.

  “Look, I—” I sigh, trying and failing at finding the right words to say. It takes a few moments, but I try to say how I really feel in a way that won’t upset her. “I appreciate everything you’ve done and still do for me. But your support doesn’t come with strings. Shit, I hope it doesn’t.”

  She opens her mouth and I hold up a finger, not wanting to lose momentum.

  “No, no, let me speak. Please.”

  She gives me one nod and lowers her hands from the collar of her coat.

  “Just because you’re here and just because you help, doesn’t mean I have to live the life you want me to and make the decisions you agree with. I love that you’re here. You’re my older sister and I trust you more than anyone in this world. Please don’t let that change just because you don’t like me sometimes.”

  She snorts and walks over to the counter before sitting on a stool. After a few second, she waves me over with just a hint of impatience.

  “Fine. You’re right.”

  My eyes widen and Sabrina waves me over again with a frustrated sigh.

  “I won’t say it again.”

  “The fact that you said it once was enough,” I confess with a little laugh. I sit on the stool beside her and tug at one of her loose curls. When it falls easily into my hand, I let out a gasp and drop it on her lap.

  “Oh, you little asshole.” She reaches for my shoulders again. This time, I duck out of her reach, nearly stumbling from the stool.

  “Calm your liver,” I tell her between bouts of laughter. “I’m sure there’s more where that came from.”

  I squeal as she lunges. One of her long legs buckles as her heel gets caught on the edge of my rug and I laugh even louder when she hits the floor.

  “You fucking moron.” I have tears running down my face as I fall to sit beside her.

  She can’t even hold a straight face, finally succumbing to her laughter.

  “Imagine if one of your clients saw you like this. Or heard you cursing up a storm when you’re not decorating one of their fancy houses.”

  She lies back on the floor and pushes Carlos’ face away with a grunt when he rushes over to lick her.

  “Fuck it.” She turns her head a little to look at me. “I’d love to dress mannequins. They don’t talk or complain or doubt my genius.”

  “Take the pay cut and you can,” I remind her. When she rolls her eyes, I snort. “Exactly.”

  We sit in silence and I start to wonder about this mysterious reservation she made for us when she turns her body completely to face me.

  “You know, we aren’t that different, you and I.”

  I sit up against the side of my f
avorite wingback chair.

  “No?”

  She shakes her head. I, for some reason, glance at the extension now lying on the floor a few feet away. And then back at her.

  Whenever I’m asked to describe Sabrina, I always want to say that she’s a more put together version of me. Her hair is always perfect, her outfits are just on the brink of edgy, never too far out, always looking artfully placed and well-planned. Her nail polish is never chipped, and her shoes are never scuffed. She never has stains on her clothes and her makeup is always . . . perfect.

  Perfect.

  But I never say that. The wrong person might think I begrudge Sabrina her fortune, but I don’t. I never could.

  She’s more bark than bite, this one.

  Besides, she would give me all her sparkle if she could.

  But then she’d give me shit if I didn’t live exactly how she wanted me to.

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  She smiles and reaches for my hand.

  “I love you most.”

  I squeeze her hand and shake my head this time.

  “Impossible.”

  ●●●●●●

  You’re my magician.

  You practice black magic,

  Turning my hope to ash

  And my happiness to sadness.

  My magician turns my joy from colorful to clear;

  Tears down my face.

  It’s a little after one in the morning when I lock the door behind Sabrina with a smile.

  Not five minutes later, I hear my phone vibrate.

  I wonder what she’s left behind this time.

  But when I look at my phone, it isn’t her name that has me smiling again.

  Gavin: Wake up.

  My smile grows wider.

  Me: I told you I’d be up.

  Gavin: You did lol. On my way.

  Me: Okay.

  I glance around the apartment, scrambling to pick up the extension Sabrina left on the floor. I stuff it into a nearby drawer and make sure Carlos is in his bed before I put up the gate, keeping him in my laundry room.

  I light a few of my vanilla-scented candles and rub some of my coconut lotion on my skin.

  When I hear a knock at the door, my pulse jumps.

  I take a deep breath and unlock the door.

  And there he is, smiling his smile, eyes devouring me. I want his body to follow suit.

  Like he’s read my mind, one hand reaches for my waist to pull me in and the other grabs my jaw.

  He kisses me like he owns me.

  And maybe he knows he does.

  I wonder, did he kiss others like this? Before me? While he was away? Will he after me?

  I taste the tequila on his lips and I wonder who served him drinks. I wonder what women caught his eye as he loosened up and gained even more superficial confidence. I wonder who he flirted with and, had he not been here with me, who he might’ve gone home with.

  These thoughts make me want to shrink into myself until I reemerge as a woman with a little more self-confidence and a little less fucks to give.

  I want to cry against his lips and let him taste my sorrow and uncertainty. Would they taste as delicious as his choice of poison?

  I just want him to know how I hurt, to make it not hurt so badly, to care that I love him, to . . . love me.

  But I know I can’t make these things happen.

  There are no words, no soothing old wounds as he removes my clothes from my body. We only break our kisses to reveal more and more. He finally steps away to remove the rest of his clothes.

  All the while, I hide the hurt that threatens to bloom inside of me.

  “You’re more you than you’ve ever been,” he whispers in my ear.

  He doesn’t know. My clothes, my panties, they litter the floor along with the shards of my hardened heart. He steps over them easily, maneuvering his way toward me.

  Love shatters and lust soothes. Even momentarily.

  I relish in the feeling of his smooth warm skin on me. We look like caramel and milk. My freckles stand out like cinnamon sprinkled here and there.

  We look so sweet on the outside, yet I’m so broken inside.

  We kiss at each other’s shells and it isn’t enough.

  “What is it?” he asks as he removes his mouth from mine.

  “It . . . hurts,” I whisper.

  “Kissing me?” As if to see for himself, he bends a little to press his lips to mine. “That?”

  I sigh into him.

  Because I can’t explain to him what it feels like to stand in front of a stranger I’m so deeply in love with. How my heart aches over it. How uncertain my body feels.

  Gavin used to make me feel like he’d created my body, he was so right for it.

  But with him, my body would only go where my heart led.

  “I love you,” I whisper and kiss him. Once, twice, just to try to self-soothe.

  He doesn’t say anything, and I lean back a little to see his face.

  I don’t tell him I love him to hear the words repeated back to me but . . . it’s been so long since I’ve heard them from his own lips.

  He doesn’t look away, placing his hands along my jaw.

  “Love is so easy for you.”

  I want to tell him that he’s wrong. Love is my choice. But that would be a lie. I feel more like a slave to this love than anything.

  “I don’t think I feel the same as you . . . well, I know I don’t.”

  Can’t he see the pieces of my heart on the floor? How beautiful we are, how honied we look, how I still offer myself up; a broken and beautiful sacrifice.

  “I’m not in love.”

  I step away, instinctually.

  The room feels so cold, suddenly and I hear Sabrina in my head.

  The only cold one is the person I’m sure you’ll be waiting all night for.

  “Denise . . .” He reaches for me, but I back up farther and reach for something, anything to cover my naked skin.

  Ever feel alone in a room with a person who was once your whole world?

  I glance at the leggings I’d been wearing and hold them against my body.

  Gavin becomes a blurry image in front of me as tears build.

  Still, I can see him when he comes toward me and pulls me against him.

  “Why does this hurt so much?” I cry into his bare chest.

  He presses a kiss to my forehead.

  “You fell so hard.” The words rumble in his ribcage, my ear against him.

  “Because you told me I could.”

  The statement sits between us, with me in his arms. He breathes in and out and I close my eyes, rationalizing that if I shut myself away from my other senses, I’d have a clearer memory of the sound of his breathing.

  You think hurt cancels out love. Or that your brain has even a fraction of control over your emotions.

  These are the musings of a fool.

  I control so many things in my world. But I cannot control the way my heart beats fast when Gavin is near. Or the way I melt when he presses a kiss to my forehead even after he’s told me he isn’t in love with me.

  I relax in his hold and his hands roam over my skin.

  We’re sweet shells again as I let myself fall into the moment.

  Kisses turn impatient and with every touch, I turn breathless, gasping and waiting for the next point of contact.

  When he sits on the bed and takes me with him, I relax further into him.

  Even though I’m hurt and even though I am so far from repaired, I embrace Gavin. We take pleasure from each other and after the heated moment has cooled, I lie beside him on my stomach.

  I don’t regret it.

  But maybe I will.

  “I do love you,” he whispers as he kisses my shoulder. But even in my sleepy haze, I recognize the sound of a fairy tale.

  Something told only to keep a dream alive.

  “No,” I whisper. “You don’t.” I get up slowly, wrapped in my comforter, and walk out
of the room. Hard enough to sleep in a room filled with fragments of myself. I refuse to sleep next to a liar as well.

  I could tell you what I need one more time.

  But my voice is hoarse,

  And my back is tired from the weight of this;

  Unevenly distributed effort.

  So I’ll remain quiet as I watch this die . . .

  Silent and mourning.

  Day 378

  “Put your damn phone down,” Sabrina says before she smacks at one of my hands. The sting makes me look up at her, bewildered.

  “What the hell?”

  “Seriously. I didn’t invite you to lunch just to watch you pine over him.” She grabs my phone and sets it face down on the table beside her.

  “I’m not pining,” I mumble.

  She snorts, and I eye my phone when it vibrates.

  We were mid-argument. Typical.

  I hadn’t heard much from him the last few days and the less we spoke, the more I turned into this monster who poked the beast in him.

  There would be no resolution if we both kept this up.

  Sabrina looks at me and I can see all of my personal opinions looking right back at me. When I’m not clouded by thoughts of Gavin, I think exactly what she’s thinking now, looking at me with those sad eyes.

  He doesn’t deserve your best anymore.

  But the less love he showed me, the less patience he had for me, the more I poured my love into him, willing him to remember what once felt like fate.

  Fate had been fleeting.

  I look at my sister, with her ever-present strength, and I hate that I feel like I’ve somehow lost mine. She’s put together and I’m just a wreck.

  But that’s how it’s always been. She’s my rock and I’m her tumbleweed. My phone vibrates again and I ignore it, staring at Sabrina instead, finally giving her my attention as she looks around.

  Her dark roots peek from her usually perfect burnt orange color.

  She tucks her hair behind her ears and glances around some more before briefly touching the crown of her head.

  “You look fine,” I tell her.

  Sabrina’s always looked a little more Greek than I do. I favor my Irish father while she looked like our beautiful mother.

  “I couldn’t get an appointment in time and now I’m wearing a hat everywhere,” she mutters before taking a sip of her sparkling water. No flat water for Sabrina. I sip my own complimentary glass of flat water and look around the restaurant.