One More Night

14

Margo woke with a start that Saturday morning. She wasn't sure why she was face down on the wrong side of her bed, but she assumed she had slept too hard. The time on her fuzzy pink clock read almost 10:00 AM, which was too early for her tastes. The taste on her tongue was sweet, and she vaguely remembered falling asleep with a bag of Starburst minis clutched in her hand.

Head pounding, she made her way out of her room and into the bathroom. She started the water for a hot shower and promptly brushed her teeth to remove the film the candy left behind. Thoughts didn't swirl through her head for once, which was a nice reprieve. She wasn't thinking how large her pores looked as she rinsed her face off after washing it. Then, she climbed into the shower.

That's when it all hit her - picking up Rachel, Carter being there, fucking Macadelic showing up in her box because sometimes Jackson wasn't a piece of shit and the two missed phone calls from an unknown Michigan number.

She had a feeling it was him, so she called them back. Except the person didn't answer, so maybe it wasn't him. Margo had expected to get chewed out by Rio; what with the last time seeing him, he really stressed the need to pick up. She couldn't figure out why he wanted her to answer his calls and figured it had to do with some control issue he had. Except there was a thought that raced through her head that filled her with warmth for the first time in...ever.

Even with Lukas, there had never been a warmth or a feeling more than fear. She only slept with him out of necessity and the previous boyfriens before Lukas left her in a dry spell. That was Tommy, of course. The 24 year old who had gotten her pregnant at 17. She'd revisit that traumatic event at another point in her life.

Margo's thoughts drifted through her previous relationships, and she realized that the healthiest one she had ever had was with Sandra, and they had never been romantically together. 

It was sad to her, regrettable even, that she had never experienced romantic love the right way. It was also unfortunate that her one basis for love seemingly murdered their partner and never spoke about it again. That was hearsay, of course, but it was glaringly evident to a then-six-year-old and now to the 32-year-old version.

Her parents were never happy, and when she was five, her father all but disappeared. There were supposed sightings of him backpacking through Asia, except her father didn't like the outdoors or Asia. That was a fact she had known since she was three and stepped out of the airplane after visiting Adara's cousin who worked in the embassy in China.

The first words she remembers her father saying - other than the obvious 'I love you,' 'No,' and 'Margo, stop' - was him commenting how much of a cesspool China was. It was a core memory for Margo as she recognized the feeling of doubt coursing through herself for the first time. She doubted her father at a mere three years old, and it wasn't the last time he had disappointed her in those short two years together. She had never been taught to hate other cultures. Adara showed Margo various cultures worldwide and taught her to appreciate them instead of judging them. 

One thing that bothered Adara more than a lack of compliance from Margo was racism. 

Margo appreciated that about her mother. Despite everything else, Adara taught Margo respect, which not many people have these days.

Instead of picking apart her relationship with her mother—something that she could do all day—she decided to pick apart the intricacies of her sudden desire for change.

Something needed to change, and she wasn't sure what it was. Or maybe she was. After all, her thoughts quickly drifted to Rio. He had undoubtedly lit a fire in her feelings toward change, and she wasn't sure if she should be grateful or skeptical. She thought of his rough palms against her tights and the look on his face when he saw her in her pajamas with no makeup. She knew he had appreciated her still, and it made her blush thinking of it.