Little Bird [-hs]

015 - my angel

NAOMI

Harry merges through downtown traffic, barely avoiding the taillights of the cars around him. People lay on their horns, but he ignores them. His mind is clearly elsewhere. So is mine.

"Do you remember how to break in through the window?" He glances at me, still weaving through cars. I give a little nod.

"Are we going to see him before it starts?" I whisper.

"For a moment."

"Okay."

"Nothing will happen."

"That's what you said last time," I roll my eyes.

"Last time I said you'd be safe." His hand falls from the wheel, and it lands on top of my knee. "This time I'm telling you, nothing is going to happen." His palm is dry and warm. I fearfully watch the connection, the bridge of skin, reassurance, manipulation, kindness. I cross my legs. He pulls away and doesn't say anything else. I shiver and look out the window.

My heart beats quiet and fast until I can't sit still. I shake away that night, the memories creeping into the light of my mind. They surface on my skin in hot and cold flashes. My back aches against the ropes. The buildings blur. I fidget with the hem of my dress. Harry softly clears his throat.

"What do you like to do, Naomi?" He murmurs, flicking on his turn signal. We're swallowed by the concrete maw of a parking garage.

"To do?" I rasp.

"What do you like?" We venture deep into the belly of the garage. I chew my lip.

"I like poetry."

He hums. "Like your tattoo."

"I like aerials, coffee." I scan the filled parking spots. "Cigarettes and candles."

"Do you have a favorite poem?"

"My tattoo."

He loops deeper into the compound, burying us. Outside the car, the lights flicker dim and yellow. The air thins to suffocating levels. I sit forward and clutch the edges of the seat.

"Why is that?"

My eyes snap to him. "What?"

He's steering with the tips of his fingers, head lazily tipped back against the leather. He loops us around again, three levels of cars underground. "Why is it your favorite poem?" He gently repeats. His voice is soft and low, rumbling quietly through the dry air.

"I don't know."

"Do you know it by memory?"

"Some of it." He turns the car again. Nausea splashes in my stomach. "You don't have to be good," I whisper. "You don't have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting." Each soft syllable hangs in the air like a gunshot. "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

The car slows to a stop.

I sit back. "Anyway, there's more but." My gaze burns into my bare thighs.

"It's nice." He offers, and he turns off the car.

I steal a glance through the windshield, and a hundred feet away sits a sleek black van. The clean paint shows our reflection, the emblem on Harry's hood and the mirrored tint of his windshield.

"Any other poems?"

"A Raspberry Sweater to George Montgomery," I breathe. The words tumble out like a holy tongue. A gospel that will save me from whatever demon stands behind the van. "It is next to my flesh, that's why. I do what I want. And in the pale New Hampshire twilight a black bug sits in the blue, strumming its legs together. Mournful glass, and daisies closing. Hay swells in the nostrils. We shall go to the motorcycle races in Laconia and come back all calm and warm."