EVOL

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  I realize what it is she’s saying, and I face her.

  “You’re the artist?”

  She nods and smiles, a slow spread that is full of something that reflects wisdom internally. She’s young but something about her looks like she’d been on this earth a little longer than the rest of us.

  “You want to feel better?”

  It’s my turn to nod.

  “You really have to trust yourself. And if you can’t do that, trust the universe. Trust that no matter what you do, your fate will come around to kick you in the ass if it needs to.” Her smile is so bright and genuine that I want to believe her.

  Someone clears his throat behind her. A man, whose long hair is tied behind his head. He’s holding a little boy’s hand while a girl holds his other hand.

  “Take Dylan to the car, Phoebe?”

  Even though the little girl, who looks about ten, doesn’t look like the rest of them, her eyes slanted and her jet-black hair slick and straight while the little boy has soft brown curls, she reacts as if she’s always abided by this man. The children walk off, and the woman beside me stands.

  “Ready?” he asks, his now empty hands at his sides.

  “Always,” she answers him and looks down and smiles at me. “Remember what I said?”

  “I will.” I stand, and we hug. It should be awkward; an embrace between two strangers. But knowing that our bodies have held life and let life go before makes it more soothing than strange.

  When she lets go, I look over at the man waiting for her. His eyes are on her, following her as she makes his way to him. Only once her hand is firmly in his does he look over at me and smile.

  They start to walk off and I hear bits of their words.

  “We have to talk to Miranda about her language around the kids,” the man starts. People enter the room and I am no longer privy to their private words.

  But once I’m alone, for the first time I don’t feel lonely.

  I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.

  I wasn’t supposed to lose myself in this.

  And now . . .

  I’m not supposed to love you anymore.

  I’m not supposed to press our memories into paper,

  Like dead flowers.

  But here I am,

  Still yours after all this time.

  Day 87 Post-Gavin

  Sitting in the dark, I can hear the even breathing beside me. I’m close enough to feel his body heat. A few hours ago, that warmth soothed me, chasing away any unwanted thoughts. Now it smothers me, making me feel heated with guilt.

  I don’t sit up or turn over. I don’t want the movement to wake him. I don’t want to answer the question that I’m sure he’d ask.

  What’s wrong?

  I don’t even want to answer my own question.

  Why did my dream feel so real?

  It felt as real as the relationship had . . . while it was happening. But now that it was over, like our time together, I realized that it wasn’t as real as I thought. I was tricked, duped, made a fool of. And even in another man’s bed, I was still playing the fool.

  That dream, though . . .

  How could it not be real?

  One white dress, two smiles, happiness cocooning us like we’d morph into something even more beautiful in time. Time way past what we’d been granted.

  The way he looked at me . . .

  My eyes travel little by little up the body next to me before looking in his face. I rarely focus on his features, but I take my time now. If only I’d give him this amount of focus more of the time. Like when he’s actually awake.

  I will always be a little distracted, never quite focused on the picture, always checking my rear view, leaving doors unlocked and dreams open. Always room for one more.

  If I knew what was good for me, I’d let my feelings go. But letting go was proving impossible when Gavin had the nerve to sneak into another man’s bed to haunt my dreams.

  They say if you give someone enough rope,

  They’ll hang themselves with it.

  But you didn’t work that way.

  I gave you rope

  And you tried to hang me instead.

  Day 95 Post-Gavin

  “I think Carlos is sick,” I tell Sabrina. “He hasn’t been eating and he’ll hide from me, under my bed.”

  She hums.

  “Have you taken him to the vet?”

  My head shakes violently before she finishes the question.

  “I think I’m too terrified to.”

  I know when something dark is around the corner. I knew it before and I know it now.

  “Take him, before you regret it.”

  My phone vibrates, and I don’t reach for it.

  “Him again?” Sabrina asks from her massage chair beside me. She’s assessing the polish she picked out, a frown on her face as if she’s trying to figure out life’s mysteries in that tiny bottle.

  “Yep,” I tell her after glancing down at my phone screen.

  Antonio.

  The man I’d been lying in bed with when I dreamed I’d married Gavin.

  We met on the T, laughing at some strange woman who was trying to raise money for some cause that didn’t quite make sense to us. She claimed to be an energy reader. I called bullshit when she walked right past me and didn’t wither and die.

  My energy was a little poisonous these days.

  Antonio was sitting next to me and he’d whispered something to me. I had to pull out my headphones and ask him again what he’d said.

  His smile when I did so was slow and enough to make me wonder what it’d be like to feel it between my legs.

  It makes sense that we’d only have sex a few times and that be that. While our meeting was something close to cute, it wasn’t like a lightning bolt.

  Once I’d experienced that, I couldn’t—wouldn’t—go back.

  “Someone’s turned into quite the little savage,” my sister says once she’s put the bottle down. “What happened? I thought you liked him.”

  “No. You hoped I’d like him, even though it was only ever sex and I told you this a ton of times.” I squeeze the massage chair’s arms when the man in front of me starts massaging my feet, one at a time.

  “You’re way too ticklish for this shit.”

  My lips are pressed together to keep from laughing and Sabrina shakes her head.

  “So, what went wrong?”

  I swipe at my screen and dismiss the missed call notification.

  “There wasn’t enough there to actually go wrong.” I shrug. But there was a small part of me, a part that I both despise and admire, that loves that I have the power.

  I’m the one calling the shots. I’m the one pushing him away.

  I’m the one who is still intact after our time together.

  And while I’d insisted in the short time together that we keep a certain distance from each other, he still fell.

  And it fed the ego that’d been starving.

  Once I got a taste of that power that I’d always known I had somewhere inside, it was impossible to stay with a man that I didn’t feel enough for.

  Sabrina shrugs but her focus on her phone feels like a charade. She looks up at me when I continue to stare at her.

  “What?”

  “You’re worried.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Nah. I’m happy you finally got laid. You’re a lot more relaxed now.”

  “If only you’d find a willing penis.”

  She gapes at me and looks down at the woman currently buffing her feet.

  “Sometimes, it’s like we weren’t raised together.”

  My snort makes her laugh. Both endured the pits of hell together. Look at us now.

  “We were raised together all right. But you’re much better at hiding your roots than I am.”

  “You let me know if you’d let white trash decorate your million-dollar home. Or your penthouse.” She sets her phone down and leans forward to watch the
woman paint her big toenail.

  “Oh. No, no. It’s not right.” She pulls her foot away and I watch with my mouth partially open as she waddles toward the polishes and picks a few more bottles. She hobbles back and sets the bottles down.

  “They look exactly the same, you pain in the ass,” I whisper. The woman who’d been doing her toes looks up at us as if she’s been chastised.

  Sabrina ignores me.

  “Could you try these? I think that one is a little too streaky.”

  “She only did one coat,” I mutter to myself, but the woman is too busy removing the polish she’d just coated part of her toenail with.

  Sabrina settles back in her seat and looks over at me with a smile.

  “I’m sure they’d rather us talk about penises than have to deal with you wanting to try a million of the same color.” The man painting my toes a deep maroon is smiling and I try to get Sabrina to notice, gesturing toward him, but her eyes are glued to her phone.

  “Whatever. The customer is always right.”

  “Oh, yeah? What about plaid couch guy?” Sabrina visibly shudders.

  “I have nightmares about him. The fact that he can tell potential clients I had anything to do with that . . .”

  I notice her smile as her words die away, her eyes devouring something on her phone.

  “Are you texting a boy?”

  She glances at me, back at her phone, and then back at me, like she’s finally understanding what I asked her.

  “Well, yeah. You’re the one who said I needed penis.”

  My laughter is loud, and I accidentally pull my feet up toward myself, to the annoyance of the pedicurist.

  “So sorry,” I tell him, humor still on my lips.

  “They’re probably so sick of us,” Sabrina whispers.

  I rub my thumb against my fingertips, and she nods, concurring that we’ll leave them a good tip.

  “Who is he?”

  She places her phone down, only for it to chime with a notification. She smiles, glances at it, and then puts it in her purse.

  “His name is Peter. He’s an investment banker and I really like him.”

  “An investment banker? Tell me more.”

  All while Sabrina fills me in on Peter, where they met and what he was like, there is this feeling that clings to my back. It reaches down my throat and squeezes my heart.

  It’s fear.

  I fear for Sabrina. Because if Peter breaks her, she will never love again.

  It all starts off so sweetly, just like this.

  And then you’re left as half a person with a whole broken heart.

  I don’t tell Sabrina to guard her power. I don’t want to be that broken girl to warn her sister that a man would come riding in, with promises and love in his eyes. And as quickly as he offered, he would snatch it all away.

  So, I let Sabrina believe in the perfect man with the perfect future and a perfect little home someday.

  And I worried about the big bad wolf who’d come to blow it all away.

  His hands were entirely too small to hold me.

  And still I tried

  To make myself smaller to fit him.

  Until one day I thought,

  Maybe we’d grow large enough to know

  Women don’t need to be held at all.

  Day 232 Post-Gavin

  Having to put Carlos down was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. It felt like I was losing everything around me when I found out he’d had a tumor in his brain.

  But losing Carlos forced me to wake up. One day, I did just that. I woke up and realized that I was still here and there was still color and life to be had.

  And I forgave Gavin. For his lack of understanding. For his misunderstanding leading to a lack of patience. For not having the patience to attempt to understand me. It was a cycle of bullshit that led to us only ever exposing our worst to each other.

  Women should never build shrines with the pieces of their broken hearts.

  No man can ever compete with the god you create from memories.

  Gavin was crushed under the expectations I’d placed on him; what he’d said all along made sense, but I wasn’t emotionally healthy enough to see it for what it was.

  I would never shoulder the entirety of what happened to us, but I was no longer the victim. I was a participant in all of it.

  Nothing happened to me. Everything happened to us.

  Once I forgave him, I started to remember all of the good things.

  Which made not speaking to him harder than I ever thought it could be.

  I’d stopped looking for solace in others. Stopped taking numbers with no intention of calling, stopped getting drinks and having casual sex.

  My purpose was never going to be found beneath another man. I was never going to be okay so long as I tried to soothe old wounds while creating new ones.

  I muse over these things as I flip to a new page in a new notebook, ready to write about something, anything, other than him.

  It was like trying to kick a habit I’d gotten used to for so long.

  Where there were words, where there was beauty and pain and art, there was Gavin. When I went to museums and galleries, I thought of him.

  Because I’d learned to appreciate all of the facets of my previous relationship when faced with men who didn’t come close.

  Toxic thinking.

  Still, I press my pen to the fresh page.

  My mind draws a blank.

  And my phone vibrates.

  Gavin.

  Just seeing his name filled me with fight or flight shock; like cold water over my nerves. He was paralyzing and that alone was terrifying.

  I wonder what time it is in Pakistan. I add nine hours and get two thirty in the morning.

  My fingers are tapping at the screen to read his message before I can even think the actions through.

  This isn’t good for you, Denise. I try to remind myself that contact makes me backpedal.

  Gavin: I can’t lie. I miss you.

  Me: That hurts to read.

  Gavin: But I do.

  Me: You’re just going to confuse me and I’m trying really hard to get over you.

  Gavin: Okay. I’m sorry.

  Me: Don’t tell me you miss me unless you’re going to do something about it.

  It’s easy to tell yourself that you’re over it. You spit the words out to others like a mantra, never knowing that you’re secretly trying to convince yourself. You’re looking for him in others. There is an emptiness that you push aside, in the hopes that it’ll somehow fill with something you don’t know you could love with even a fraction of what you gave before. It’s so easy to lie to yourself. Easier than it is to lie to others.

  I’m so tired of lying. And of being the only one who hurts. Who feels.

  He was going to get over this conversation. He was going to move forward from it like nothing had happened. But I didn’t work that way. I’d mull over it for days, thinking of things I should’ve said, second-guessing my word choice, wondering if he meant anything he’d ever said.

  Wondering if he thinks of me while he fucks other women.

  Because mixing an overactive mind with a broken heart created a dangerously potent cocktail. And I was like a recovering alcoholic.

  I had to quit him, cold turkey.

  Don’t let someone else

  Fall in love with me.

  Day 365 Post-Gavin

  Snow is a thing of beauty. So beautiful and so fucking dangerous, I think to myself as I nearly slip on a patch of it.

  Okay, so perhaps my choice of footwear wasn’t the most practical, but I wasn’t going to let even the strongest force, also known as Mother Nature, dictate who I’d be tonight.

  My lace up booties make me feel like the fiercest woman to grace this packie.

  I yank the door open and rub my arms as I’m hit with a blast of heat.

  “Cold, eh?” the guy at the register calls out. His brown hair has seen better days,
all knotted and sticking from beneath a beanie.

  “Fucking right,” I mutter. I take a quick glance at the shelves. Wine, wine, more wine. I grimace and turn back to the cashier. “Hey, where’s the Jäger?”

  It’s his turn to grimace. “Bang a left and it’s on your right. Terrible shit right there.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say as I reach for a 750 ml bottle with a grin on my face. I head back to the register with it clutched to my chest.

  Beanie dude peeks at my cleavage and I let him.

  “Could be tequila,” I say when he takes the bottle I hold out.

  “Tequila, huh?” He grabs a brown paper bag as I reach for my wallet. “They say your choice of poison says a lot about you. I’m more herbal, myself.”

  “Jäger’s full of herbs.” I reach for the bag, knowing a stoner when the conversation turns to the subject of herbs. He reeks of it, which makes me want to laugh.

  “Not really my thing,” he announces, and I take the alcohol from him. “But if you were ever a tequila drinker, man? Wicked emotional issues.”

  “That so?” I tilt my head to the side, interested. “What does tonight’s choice tell you?”

  He smiles and it’s actually stunning. Straight white teeth combat that awful hair.

  “You just want to have a good fucking time.”

  It’s my turn to smile and I shrug.

  “I’m off in an hour if you’re looking for someone to party with?”

  He’s smiling again and it’s just as brilliant as the first time around. But that hair is killing me.

  “Another time,” I tell him before rushing out with my bottle. The slush outside won’t even stop me as I turn the corner and rush toward Sabrina’s apartment. She’s only lived in South End for about a month now, so I’m still getting used to the neighborhood.

  I’m about to climb the steps of her stoop when I feel my heel slip a little. It’s a feeling no woman in the world is prepared for; the sudden instability where you don’t know if you’re going to end up with a bruised ass or a broken neck.

  I feel a hand grip my elbow, steadying me. When I gather my wits about me, I turn to see who my hero is—only to be faced with a chest. I look, up, over the flannel shirt where black buttons are sewn, up, past the collar that’s tucked into a brown leather jacket, up, past a jaw that hasn’t seen a razor in a pretty long time, judging by the length of the beard. Then I meet eyes, bright brown eyes that once looked so familiar a lifetime ago.