Landscapes for the Dead

Road Etiquette

The day was normal. There was an average number of cars on the road. A slight wind gently tossed Yvonne's hair so that it swayed on either side of her face. She carried nothing except for the bag slung over her shoulder containing her purse and her phone. She had been walking with her friend Ashley, and Des, Ashley's boyfriend, but she'd split off from them half an hour ago. Ashley had been wearing a loose-fitting lacy top, cut low to reveal cleavage and often her brastraps, which a fortnight ago Yvonne would have bet her life that her friend would never wear. Times change, she thought. People change. She didn't know if she liked it. She herself hadn't changed much. She was practically the same girl she was seven years ago: averaging B+ at school, receiving compliments on how well she could paint, writing poetry and showing it to no one. Ashley, on the other hand, was getting depressing to be around. Their conversations mostly were self-conscious questions from Ashley about her appearance and personality, and reassuring comments from Yvonne which weren't always true. One time Yvonne and Ashley had been sitting on Yvonne's bed, chewing on Starburst lollies and watching Pulp Fiction for the thousandth time in their lives, and Ashley had asked her if she noticed anything about her face that might be turning off Des. She'd replied "of course not". A month beforehand they would have only asked that question ironically, and probably would have received some kind of smart ass comment like "yeah the whole lot of it". For some reason that no longer seemed tactful. For some reason.

She actually knew the reason. Yvonne was fairly close with Des and he had spoken to her about Ashley on more than one occasion, something she felt guilty about on moments like these when she retreated into her thoughts. She wondered what Ashley would think if she knew her best friend and her boyfriend talked about her when she wasn't around. Well of course when you state it like that it sounds bad, she thought. What they talked about wasn't scandalous or backstabbing in any way: Des had just confided to her that he was getting, bored, in a way, with Ashley. He said he didn't think that he and Ashley would last much longer, only because he didn't feel anything there any more. "I don't want to use that 'it's not you it's me' cliche, but that's how it feels," he'd told Yvonne. Desensitized was the word he used. Yvonne angrily tucked her hair behind her ear to stop it flicking her in the eyes. She felt raw. Why couldn't someone else be the one caught between them? Desensitised! As though her friend was a corpse, or a foul smell! What an ass.

But he wasn't an ass, not really. He hadn't even tried anything with other girls, since he was "officially" still with Ashley. He never pushed things too far, either. He knew when to call it quits. Not like the other guys in their grade who just escalated things, trying to one-up each other. There was an incident with a rotten banana found in one of the boy's bags, which at one stage in the bickering hit the back of Yvonne's head. At least Des hadn't been involved with that. He was a coward though, she would let herself admit that. She wished she could surgically attach a pair of hairy, lopsided testicles on him, because he didn't currently seem to own any.  She wished that she could take control of him and force him to break up with Ashley. What he was doing was dishonest, in a way. It was like he was saying 'I still have feelings for you' when he clearly didn't. I have control, she realized. She could bring it all out between them and just let them work through it. Like some kind of teen movie. Yes, she decided, I'm going to do that. Next time she saw either of them she'd tell them how the other felt. Or she could just message them both now, start a group conversation between the three of them, say what she had to say, then remove herself from it. But that would be cowardly. This probably similar to how Des felt himself when thinking about Ashley. Yvonne wondered how many times he'd psyched himself up to break up with her only to not follow through. Yvonne doubted it was a high number. Most of the times she saw them together he looked merely bored, not like he was fighting an internal argument.