[WP] This would be the last time they ever spoke and the first time they ever spoke truthfully.

From the Heat, It Settles

She wears a thin, peach colored skirt and her legs are fresh shaved. She commands into the apartment like she always does. Noticing the humidity in the room, she opens the French casement windows and more hot air settles in.

They sit on an Indian rug he got from the now defunct shop on the other end of town, in front of the windows. The trees outside bolster with humidity and the cicadas are loud enough to hide the sound of cars dragging along the town road beneath them. He’s in shorts and sandals and has not showered yet, hair stringy. She hands him a white Styrofoam box and a plastic fork and a handful of napkins.

“They’re sweating”, he says finally, poking at the food in the container.

“What?” she asks not looking at him.

“The fries. They’re all soggy now. Damn it, I hate that.”

“You asked me to go.”

“And the bun. Did you stick it out the window or something?”

“You asked me to go and I went. I don't control the weather.”

It’s like calloused fingertips pretending not to be—this dance again.

“Hand me a beer”, he says sharply, picking at the container still.

She shakes her head. “You drink too much.”

“What? Did you not get any?”

“It’s too early”, she reiterates.

“It’s two o’clock; who cares? I asked you.”

“And I went. And you drink too much.”

“Jesus Christ. Whatever. I have some left anyway.”

He gets up in a fuss and goes into the kitchen. The open refrigerator feels good in the unwavering heat. He wants to just stand there, not go back to her. He imagines he’s a patch of ice in an ocean, frozen and alone, unmolested by the current surrounding him.

He grabs one of the last two IPA’s he has and slams the fridge, making sure she hears it. He comes back into the room and sits down, crossing his legs.

“Really? You aren't even gonna offer me any?”

“You just gave me shit for it. You know you don’t want it. Don’t be like that.” The hiss of the bottle opening feels like narration.

“See? You never consider me. Not even once.”

“You’re always upset about everything”, he says shrugging. “What’s the difference?”

They eat across from each other in silence. Birds outside the window chirp. Hot wind rustles leaves. His neighbors, Margie and Ben, are heard outside below, giggling underneath the awning of the building’s entrance. Ben must be picking her up over his shoulders because he can, or looking down her blouse as she barks coyly at him; both playing the part of the glittering lover.

They can hear Margie and Ben get into a car and drive away, and then they’re alone again.

“Can I at least sit next to you?” she says with her head at an angle, breaking the silence. He’s cautious, but accepts her requisition.

“You don’t need to ask.”

She unfolds her legs, gets up to be near him, and when she does, he can see up her skirt. She wears a pair of red laced underwear, the expensive kind. He can tell it’s the one that runs low on the waist, worn flat around the cheeks and hugging, delicate but intentional. It makes him angry for a reason he doesn't understand yet.

They would usually have to apologize to neighbors and close windows, sometimes barricade them with sound catchers like blankets or overturned mattresses when they’d make love. But now he’s angry about lace and doesn't know why.

He attempts distraction, almost desperately.

“You wanna go to Wildwood tonight? We can grab a room by the beach. Or Cape May? We’ll have banana waffles in the morning, like you like”, he says.

“That’s sweet. But I’m going out with Grace tonight. I gotta leave soon, anyway. I told you, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Just hanging out?”

“Yeah; nothing exciting.”

That’s a lie, they think.

“Just a quiet girl’s night, huh.”

“Yep”, she says not looking at him.

“You gonna call?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“If you don’t, it’s okay”, he says, taking a heavy bite from his sandwich.

“I’ll try.”

She approximates a smile at him. He nudges her shoulder with his, like affection, like it’s the right thing to do, but his mind is elsewhere.

“You look good today”, he says lifting her skirt, what he thinks is playfully. She quickly folds her legs.

“Wish I could say the same to you…”

“Okay…Well, I believe in understatement”, he says quietly.

“What?”

“…Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. Or you wouldn’t say it. A million other words, you know?”

“I mean I like who I am.”

“All the time?”

“You don’t?”

“I mean, no one can. Or what’s the point?”

“What?” he asks with a tinge of bitterness.

“About learning and stuff; life, you know? Can’t just stay the same always. Things change.”

“Like me?”

“No, not like you.” A beat, then in a way like she would console a child scared of a flu shot, though to him seeming saccharine, she continues,

“But I wish you would.”

“About everything?”

“No. But some things, yeah.”

He finishes his sandwich and pushes away the Styrofoam carton. She finished eating minutes ago and is looking at the door with intent. He gazes lazily outside at the trees tops and the power lines that cut through them. He sighs, not really understanding why. He pulls a cigarette from a box under his leg and a lighter from his front pocket.

“Do you have to?” she asks him almost immediately.

“This?” he says holding up the white stick.

“I hate the smell. It gets everywhere and doesn’t come out. I don’t like kissing you.”

He rolls his eyes and stuffs the cigarette back into the red box.

“Fine. Anything else I can help you with?”

“Don’t say it like that. You know, other guys would never say that to me.”

“The fuck does that mean?” he asks.

His eyes are trying to pierce through her. He doesn’t understand where it’s coming from, but the anger in him glows like a fire.

“It doesn’t mean anything. Jesus. I don’t know. You do things I don’t like.”

“So do you.”

They hear cars gurgle by on the road below, choked by the heat. It’s uncomfortably warm in the apartment. He wonders if opening the window did anything to help or just made it worse.

They remain silent for a while until she unceremoniously stands up.

“Well, I’m going”, she says dryly.

“Okay”, he says rising with her.

“If you want, I’ll call you.”

“Sure”, he replies.

That’s a lie, they think.

“Ugh. It’s too hot for this.”

“I know, I gotta get the AC fixed.”

“I’ll come over then.”

“Not tonight?”

“No, not tonight.”

“Tell her I say 'hey'”, he says as he walks her the few steps to the door.

“Who?”

“Grace.”

“Oh, right. Sure.”

“You look good today”, he says again when she steps into the dingy hallway.

“Thanks”, she responds sheepishly, her eyes not meeting his.

She nods and moves her arm like a wave and he approximates a smile at her in response, then closes the door.

He drinks his beer and watches her from the French windows as she walks from the awning of the complex entrance to her car on the opposite side of the street. He can almost feel and see the relief coming off her, like heat from asphalt. As if to confirm, she speeds away in her car not once looking back up for him. He continues his drinking.

When night falls and the cicadas are oversung by crickets, he repeatedly glances at his phone, waiting for something to happen. For what or why, he doesn’t really know.

The whole night he imagines her red lace sliding off her smooth-like-marble legs and her voice calling out for someone that’s not him—it doesn’t matter who in his head—like a poem without words everyone else somehow knows the meaning to. He doesn’t know if he’s angry at himself, at her, or the just profundity of being. The night always has a way of baiting the ego like this, but he’s either too drunk to care or too embalmed by sweat to want to.

He drinks more that night until he falls asleep hot and drunk on his Indian rug. The scraggly, tough fibers stick to his skin and lips, and eventually the heat becomes too much for a shirt.

The moon whitely shines alone over his apartment, bandoleered by a few wispy, slow moving clouds. If he was awake, he’d drunkenly wax philosophic about its color; its size; maybe the way it shined like a floodlight onto everything and yet was not bright enough to command a certain obedience like the sun did. Not many people care about moonburns, afterall. So it is left unrequited, shining above him in disregard. Which, to him, seems painfully typical.

He dreams that night of being at the top of a Ferris wheel, maybe overlooking a branching, winding river like the fractal veins of a grapefruit. Opening the lock that holds him in the suspended carriage, he swan dives from the crest of the wheel’s arc. Wind batters his face, a howling in his ears once thought too aggressive, to him now a lilting falsetto in E#. He crashes into the water cold, instantly shattering into enumerable pieces that, over time, slowly drift and collect back onto shore. He imagines children and old couples walking the sand or cobblestone, catching opaque and battered bits of himself, pocketing it as they comment on the stillness of the water.

He wakes up in the morning curled around his phone, stale sweat like sugar clinging to his back. He is weary, partly dazed from the heat and lack of alcohol and partly because of a reason he can’t quite articulate.

He doesn’t check his phone for messages or missed calls. He just goes about drinking more of what he had bought from the night before, stabbing his back against the cold breath of the refrigerator, waiting. For her, maybe, but really, he doesn’t know what.

He figures she’ll call back when she can.

She doesn’t.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread