How About Them Apples? (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
applespice) wrote2011-10-29 02:53 pm
applespice) wrote2011-10-29 02:53 pm
LJ Idol - Week 2 - Three Little Words
We need to talk. The sentiment hung between them like stale cigarette smoke, though neither spoke the words aloud. That heavy silence - the kind that always seems to hover between people right before a fight - was the reigning attribute of their marriage. Gwen liked to imagine all those words, the ones nobody said, floating around their heads in cartoon thought bubbles, crowding the air and occasionally glancing off of someone's temple, but otherwise studiously ignored.
She first became aware of the cartoon-thought-bubble we need to talk when Charlie started banging around the coffee cups in the kitchenette. It was 9:47 PM, watery yellow light seeping through the blinds and a dog barking somewhere down the street. Charlie'd just got off his shift at OK's Pizza, and the smell of pepperoni and burnt cheese clung to him like a greasy shadow. Anger clung to him, too - the slow, sludgy, why-me anger that Gwen hated so much.
When she couldn't bear another rattle-clunk of ceramic on the peeling vinyl countertop, she unstuck her tongue and pushed out the words.
"What's wrong, then?"
He looked up at her, his eyes narrow and black in the weak light, his curling hair greenish. For a moment she wished she could draw back the poison of her words - the exasperation of them - and make them sound like they would've six months ago, before they were married. Before they lived in a shitty double-wide and ate shitty pizza leftovers most every night, before she'd lost the baby, before they'd learned to hate each other. Then he deliberately thunked down the pink-polka-dotted mug the other cashiers had given her on her last day at the Piggly Wiggly, and anger flared like hot breath on her neck. It made her tongue loose, the words flashing from her lips like sparks.
"Can you stop doing that for one fucking second?"
Thunk.
"You're an asshole, you know that?"
Thunk.
She threw up her hands. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to throw a mug in his face and break his teeth. Instead she spun on her heel and stormed back toward the TV, Wheel of Fortune flickering brightly on the fake wood paneled wall.
"Was she mine?"
She stopped. The words flowed through her, tingling hot and cold at the same time. She turned. "What?"
"You know." Charlie was in the same place, his eyes still grim and black, his skin waxy. "Was she mine?"
"You -- You --"
"I know you were fucking that fatass deli manager," he said, his voice climbing two octaves in quick succession. "Ty told me."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" But her voice was higher, too, and with every double-thump of her heart she felt the words bouncing off her head - he knows, he knows, he knows.
It had been July, the month before she came up pregnant and Charlie'd bought her a ring from Sears with all his college savings. She'd been with Charlie for seven months, just long enough to get bored of the Red Box movie nights and the smell of pizza on his skin. Her nerves were tight and jangling, begging for release. Sam worked in the deli department, and he'd always looked at her with those mean little eyes of his - looked at her so that she could feel his thick fingers on her, in her, even before the first time she'd followed him into the walk-in freezer.
She thought it would only be once. The wrongness of it had appealed to her, but just for a minute. How could anyone want that more than once - back pressed up against cold metal shelving, polyester pants around her ankles, sour breath on her neck? She'd go back to Charlie, go back to her life. It would be easy.
But it happened again, again, again - in the freezer, her car, his mother's apartment. And then the stick had two lines instead of one, and she had a ring on her finger and a date set for October.
When she miscarried, she felt destroyed and reborn all at once. The baby would have loved her, she knew, and it killed her to have lost that. But what if she had been born with Sam's squinty eyes instead of Charlie's curly hair? What if she had slid from between Gwen's thighs with a confession stamped on her face - one that Gwen never planned to make? Who would take care of her then?
And there it was, the tiny pinprick of relief that she carried in her chest that had rotted her from the inside out every day since.
Now Charlie was staring at her, his eyes full of hurt and anger and maybe even hate, the words ballooning up between them like cumulus clouds. There were so many things she could say --
"It was nothing."
"She was yours."
"I love you."
But she didn't. She never would, not even to save herself. And when she walked out of the double-wide that night with the Sears engagement ring in her pocket and Charlie's hidden pizza savings in her purse, the words that she hadn't said followed her like a balloon on a string, darkening her face with its shadow.
She first became aware of the cartoon-thought-bubble we need to talk when Charlie started banging around the coffee cups in the kitchenette. It was 9:47 PM, watery yellow light seeping through the blinds and a dog barking somewhere down the street. Charlie'd just got off his shift at OK's Pizza, and the smell of pepperoni and burnt cheese clung to him like a greasy shadow. Anger clung to him, too - the slow, sludgy, why-me anger that Gwen hated so much.
When she couldn't bear another rattle-clunk of ceramic on the peeling vinyl countertop, she unstuck her tongue and pushed out the words.
"What's wrong, then?"
He looked up at her, his eyes narrow and black in the weak light, his curling hair greenish. For a moment she wished she could draw back the poison of her words - the exasperation of them - and make them sound like they would've six months ago, before they were married. Before they lived in a shitty double-wide and ate shitty pizza leftovers most every night, before she'd lost the baby, before they'd learned to hate each other. Then he deliberately thunked down the pink-polka-dotted mug the other cashiers had given her on her last day at the Piggly Wiggly, and anger flared like hot breath on her neck. It made her tongue loose, the words flashing from her lips like sparks.
"Can you stop doing that for one fucking second?"
Thunk.
"You're an asshole, you know that?"
Thunk.
She threw up her hands. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to throw a mug in his face and break his teeth. Instead she spun on her heel and stormed back toward the TV, Wheel of Fortune flickering brightly on the fake wood paneled wall.
"Was she mine?"
She stopped. The words flowed through her, tingling hot and cold at the same time. She turned. "What?"
"You know." Charlie was in the same place, his eyes still grim and black, his skin waxy. "Was she mine?"
"You -- You --"
"I know you were fucking that fatass deli manager," he said, his voice climbing two octaves in quick succession. "Ty told me."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" But her voice was higher, too, and with every double-thump of her heart she felt the words bouncing off her head - he knows, he knows, he knows.
It had been July, the month before she came up pregnant and Charlie'd bought her a ring from Sears with all his college savings. She'd been with Charlie for seven months, just long enough to get bored of the Red Box movie nights and the smell of pizza on his skin. Her nerves were tight and jangling, begging for release. Sam worked in the deli department, and he'd always looked at her with those mean little eyes of his - looked at her so that she could feel his thick fingers on her, in her, even before the first time she'd followed him into the walk-in freezer.
She thought it would only be once. The wrongness of it had appealed to her, but just for a minute. How could anyone want that more than once - back pressed up against cold metal shelving, polyester pants around her ankles, sour breath on her neck? She'd go back to Charlie, go back to her life. It would be easy.
But it happened again, again, again - in the freezer, her car, his mother's apartment. And then the stick had two lines instead of one, and she had a ring on her finger and a date set for October.
When she miscarried, she felt destroyed and reborn all at once. The baby would have loved her, she knew, and it killed her to have lost that. But what if she had been born with Sam's squinty eyes instead of Charlie's curly hair? What if she had slid from between Gwen's thighs with a confession stamped on her face - one that Gwen never planned to make? Who would take care of her then?
And there it was, the tiny pinprick of relief that she carried in her chest that had rotted her from the inside out every day since.
Now Charlie was staring at her, his eyes full of hurt and anger and maybe even hate, the words ballooning up between them like cumulus clouds. There were so many things she could say --
"It was nothing."
"She was yours."
"I love you."
But she didn't. She never would, not even to save herself. And when she walked out of the double-wide that night with the Sears engagement ring in her pocket and Charlie's hidden pizza savings in her purse, the words that she hadn't said followed her like a balloon on a string, darkening her face with its shadow.