hannahlea
mist swirls around my ankles like so many protests against what i am about to do. i stride up the walkway and onto the front stoop, raising a clenched fist as though to riot, and then... i knock.
Out of the pouring rain and into the garlic-scented kitchen. This was home and I was inside; safe from the torrents that raged incessantly. Who was in my kitchen, though? The only people who knew my apartment passcode besides me were... well... no one. Unless...
when i'm with him, I'm transported to a new world. An almost new life, for crying out loud. It's like nothing i've ever experienced. How can just holding hands erase my bad memories of verbal abuse as a child? Is it possible that with just a kiss on the cheek, I could forget all the tears i dowsed my pillow in and all those nights i felt alone? it must be. He is my transport. My getaway.
"I'm amused, that's all." the smug grin that wrinkled his otherwise flawlessly smooth face affirmed that sentence.
"Glad I could make your day. Now if you don't mind..." I grabbed the now soiled dishcloth from the counter and proceeded to sidestep his chair. It would have been easier to sidestep a semi.
"Let me buy you coffee. You know, to make up for the one I just spilled."
"Umm, well, considering it was your drink, why don't you go solo and treat yourself. My boyfriend wouldn't like me going to coffee with the freak from the diner." My words were more cutting than I'd intended, but that was one of the side effects of split-second lying. His eyes had narrowed at the word 'boyfriend' and he watched my face carefully, making me uncomfortable.
"You're lying. You don't have a boyfriend, but you are terrified of going out to coffee with someone interested enough to ask." I swallowed nervously. I was the nail, and he'd just hit me over the head.
he sat at the edge of the bog with his fluorescent stick legs poking through the grimy soggy mud bottom of the marsh. His orange beak scuttled along the surface of the water, looking haphazardly for minnows and waterbugs as the sun ticked slowly by in the azure sky.
three strong strokes and we passed him.
"we're faster than last summer," ben comments as paddle the canoe farther and farther upstream.