It was so early in the new morning that the sky outside the small window over Roger's work desk was brighter than apartment 18C. Even the illuminating red light from the small alarm clock resting beside his laptop seemed dim, the blinking two dots between the hour and the minute a constant reminder that seconds really did seem like days here in the dark. Theodora always prided herself in having near perfect eyesight, and she was anything but proud that she was ruining it here in her sparsely-decorated living room.
Perched on the sinking couch whose belly nearly touched the floor, she carded through small pieces of glossy photos stored in the shoebox by her leg. They had previously lived like hermits in the back of the stored closet in the bedroom, never once opened in the longest time. It almost seemed a sin to even think about it. If it was, she was surely going to hell as of this morning.
The tattoos on her arms were nearly invisible in the darkness as they rippled, muscles moving beneath her inked skin as she picked up the top-most picture in the box. Young faces she hardly recognized stared back at her from the stillness of the photograph. A miniature version of herself clinging to a thirteen-year-old Nathan's back like a koala. The next photo was years younger, in which she saw herself eighteen or so with a string of ancient gold necklaces strung around her neck and rings adorning her fingers. Sam's grin flashed at her even from the past, along with the small crown sloped over his moppy locks, and Nathan's arm was angled oddly, giving the impression he had twisted the Polaroid camera to take a selfie. Those kids all looked thrilled, eyes twinkling, egos enlarged from finding their very first treasure. At the time, it had seemed like they were at the top of the world.
Now, here on her sofa with a half-empty vodka glass in her other hand, she felt as if she couldn't sink any lower.
Theodora exhaled a barely-audible sigh from the bottom of her chest and dropped the picture back in the box. She lifted the liquor to her lips, exhausted eyes roaming the desolate living room. If she listened hard enough, she could hear Roger's small snores from the bedroom. If she thought hard enough, she could picture Sam somewhere in the city, probably at a neon-lit bar having his usual whiskey that was the perfect partner to her own vodka.
Brow furrowing to create a dent on her forehead, she skipped through a few other pictures and produced one that nearly stuck to the bottom of the shoebox. She held it up to eye-level and she pressed the vodka glass to her chest in some attempt to cool the magma invading her heart.
It was taken just a few months before the Panama job. Theodora had just turned nineteen and Sam thirty - the age he had always dreaded. Or so he said. He seemed the happiest he had been in some while, arm wrapped securely around her shoulder and his gaze lost somewhere in the plane window to his right. Her arm was extended, showing him something she had discovered in those thick volumes she used to carry around in her oversized backpack. She couldn't remember what it had been. Most likely something important, judging from the way her lips were parted and her eyes alight with a fire extinguished a long ago. Her leg thrown over his in a show of trust and relaxation; the way his fingers were pushed in the middle of twiddling with one of her dreads.
She supposed she had forgotten just how in love they really had been. Or perhaps she had pushed it out of her mind and locked it in a steel vault.
Theodora dropped the picture back in its hiding place and shifted her gaze to the alarm clock. There was just a half hour or so until the sun began to crawl upwards over the horizon and the first light would hit the city. Something inside of her wanted to get up and walk out the front door, race down to the docks nearby and wait for another fifteen years. But she suppressed it, head twisting to look at the ajar bedroom door. She had left that life behind her, furious and stubborn, after what it had taken from her. And how that it had given him back, as if apologizing, she didn't know how to accept. She felt like a magnet caught between two others, being tugged both ways and never able to get farther than a few inches before being yanked backwards to the middle.
She had to remind herself she wasn't a magnet. Mrs. Platz' words from the previous day came to mind; she had said something about having free will, something about being able to do whatever she wanted, when she wanted. She looked at the clock again, fingering the shoebox top, before acting on a whim that presented itself for just a fleeting moment. She tucked the box beneath the couch in a flurry of shadows and silhouette shows, then changed her clothes, left a scribbled note on the kitchenette counter, and made sure to shut the door silently behind her.
They said New York was the city that never slept; whoever came up with that had never been to New Orleans. Theodora didn't have the money for a car, so she walked through the damp streets to the docks, and she was gifted with a few shows better than Broadway. She passed a couple fighting outside a twenty-four seven-hour convenience store, and she gathered that they were arguing about a pair of boxers in her car that didn't belong to her partner. She saw a few people loitering outside a gentleman's club, almost as if they were trying to pick up a few beats from the thumping music through the brick walls. The trip to the docks was eventful to anyone not unfamiliar with the area, but she considered herself familiar with every area from here to Boston. There wasn't much she hadn't seen since the day she left her hometown up north. Though, she did have yet to see a male stripper; and god, was she looking forward to that day.
When she reached the edge of the city, the sunrise was in the middle of painting the murky, oil-ridden water an almost pretty mirage of pink and orange. This early, the only people on the maze of catwalks were workers and night fishers - and the two men standing against the railing outside an office. She hastened her stride and raised a hand in a lame greeting when one turned.
"Theo," said Nathan when she joined the brothers. A small grin blossomed over her features when he enveloped her in a hug, strong arms practically swallowing her whole. He had always held a few inches over her, but she liked to joke that he purposely did his hair to stand up over his forehead. He smelled like mall cologne and a small trance of lemongrass and violet - Elena, his wife.
When they separated, she gave him a shove against his chest. "You asshole," she said when he raised a hand in exasperation. She gestured to the eldest brother. "When did you know about this?"
"A few hours," said Sam for him. "Go easy, tiger, I found you first. Figured I could hit you both in the same night if I didn't double back."
"Well, thanks," she said with sarcasm dripping like venom from her tongue. She couldn't really explain her anger with her ex; she knew she didn't have any reason to be mad at him. It wasn't as if he could have contacted her and explained his situation. Perhaps she was just upset that the normal, boring life she had settled for was suddenly being rocked like a ship at sea. She hesitated when he opened an arm, a silent invitation for a reunion embrace, and it seemed like her feet were weighed down with lead when she leaned into him. She half-expected to fall right through him, as if he was a ghost. But the solidness that greeted her, the hand that gripped her tight, told her he was as real as she was. Her skin tingled where he touched her, and it didn't dissipate when they pulled back.
The trio, shells and echoes of the group they used to be, all leaned together against the sea salted, rotting wood of the dock railing and watched the calm water lap against the stilts. It stayed ever present as the minutes ticked on, as the city woke for another day, as they all tried to get re-accustomed to one another's presence.
"Alright," said Nathan. His voice cut the quiet like a knife, stabbing the other pair in the back with a cold, sharp element of surprise. "We're all here, Sam. What's going on?"
Sam whisked a cigarette from seemingly thin air and produced a lighter after it, flipping the metal top over on the hinge and striking a light. The end of the smoke caught the dancing flame and he inhaled a deep drag, eyes fluttering slightly as if he hadn't had one since the day he failed to escape that godforsaken prison. "Well," he said and glanced at them. "It goes like this..."
YOU ARE READING
lie to me → s.d.
Fanfiction" aren't you supposed to be dead?" " aren't you supposed to be my girl? " in which theodora thatcher must come to terms with the fact that her ex, after a tragic accident, is still alive and begging her to save his life one mo...
