Me, Myself, and I

maggie

"So, how'd you find me?"

My feet were glued to the welcome mat. She was fitted in a tight crop top, summer shorts and tall tennis shoes. Had her brown hair tucked into a messy but sculpted bun. This town. Encapsulated in cornfields. A time capsule.

I couldn't get my shoulders straight. "W-what are you doing here?"

She rolled her eyes. "I live here. Why are you trespassing on my property?"

I caught a glimpse of the entryway behind her. Same pictures and dull decorations she always had strewn around the house. I spoke to the door rather than her eyes. Those things that could twist and distort and hurt.

"Does Dad know you're here?"

She put out her cigarette. "Does he know you're here?"

"Does it matter?"

We were cut off by the loud shrieking of a smoke detector. She cursed and sprinted back inside. I hesitated, then charged in after her. I didn't notice Ben's footsteps behind me, instead focusing on the cookies I'd smelled. She had yanked them out of the oven, blackened on the edges. She waved an old towel in the air at the alarm, cursing at it to shut up. I stepped beside her and turned off the oven.

She grabbed the alarm and threw the batteries to the ground. "Who's the guy?" she spoke to the ceiling.

Ben had wandered into the living room. Hands in his pockets, he circled around like he was touring a museum.

I focused on her belly button piercing. "I thought you were—"

"Locked up? Sorry to disappoint."

"I'm—"

"Can I ask you something?" I didn't answer. "Was my letter addressed to you?" I still didn't answer. "Then what the hell are you doing here?"

My hands stopped fidgeting in my pockets. "I wanted to see you."

"Why?"

She let her hair drop to her shoulders. Small brown waves hung by her ears. I realized I didn't have an answer. I felt like I was on an island, motion-sick to the swaying waves around me. Sinking in sand that didn't want me, not really. But didn't know what else to do with me other than let me go down.

She tried again, moving into the living room where Ben still stood. "You here to tell me off or something?"

Her polished nails rubbed her eyes. My chest boiled. Through my insides, heating my head, my face. But my hands were cherry lime popsicles. They snuck back into my pockets.

For the first time, she looked at me, really. Not like I was a painting, but like I was here, because she wasn't imagining me, and I wasn't imagining her. Her eyes were a deep-rooted brown, just like his had been. Inside them, I still saw him. I broke the hold when a siren wailed from a distance, it whipped by as I turned my head to my hands, then hers, halfway into her pockets. They looked full, baggy around her small frame.

"I'm..." I started.

I turned my hands around, studying them, pulling them further towards myself once more. Ben was a frozen statue in the corner. Looked hungrier for knowledge than I was.

"Can I show him around?" I pointed. "He came all this way and I've done nothing but feed him waffles."

Her smile was thin. "I'll show you both." She beckoned towards the stairs, to the top bedrooms. Ben froze a moment before I waved him over.

She had most of the house arranged the same way. Same posters and family pictures. Same table cloth on the dining table. The items she usually had tucked into her bedroom were strewn farther across the house. My room empty besides a couple of familiar scratches on the walls. As if she could pretend she'd never left the place. As if I'd never lived here.