what's in a name

Agnes Dillon

Sitting is what she does best. Or at least, that's what she prefers people to think.

This is her favorite bathroom stall because of the graffiti. More here than anywhere else in the gas station. She wonders why they chose these walls out of everywhere else.

It was a shrine to whatever they were thinking at that minute, she guesses.

She chews on her cigarette, it weighing on her bottom lip, as she reads two lines in front of her nose,

"Be kind."

and underneath, in a different color pen,

"I tried."

She hears a knocking on the door and the silence falls broken at her feet, like a smashed glass.

"Aggie? Break's over."

She rolls her eyes from behind her round glasses and pushes her hair behind her ear as she snuffs the cigarette.

She walks out of the bathroom to face a customer who's eyes automatically drift to the scar on her nose.

Typical.

---

Now it's ten o'clock. It's a school night, but whatever. She can handle it. She'd already had countless mornings full of silently cursing her past self from just hours ago. She could do it again.

She's out tagging.

The night is just blue enough so she can see her feet in front of her, hitting the crumbling concrete next to the freeway, but dark enough that nobody notices her walking alongside there.

Her backpack clings to her, a familiar weight on her back, but uncomfortable, and not as good as how a partner would feel hugging her from behind.

This is a place she had been scoping out for a while now. The smooth, empty space above the busy road, right between two other tags, seemed to be taunting her on her bus ride home every day. Now she finally had the chance to mark it as her own.

She shrugs off her bag to the side of the road and rummages through it until she pulls out her can of spray paint. She liked to tell herself that the round, cold weight of it in her hand is better than any hand she could be holding. She knows it's not, though.

Then came her favorite part. She unzipped her hoodie and let it fall and catch on a branch next to her. The area around was suddenly lit by the slightest white-gold light. She fondly looks cranes her neck to look behind her. Her wings are as soft and unreal-looking as usual. After five years, she's still in disbelief they're there.

She shakes off the feeling of wonder and instead lifts herself off the ground. She lets her feet hang and rests a tentative hand on the concrete wall. She prays the light she emits is just bright enough to make the passing cars only wonder, not pull over.

Alex had called her an angel, she remembers. They would stay up late under the blankets together, just looking at each other with soft, angry music playing in the background.

She shakes her head again, hard, and tries to rid the aching feeling from her chest.

The next morning, she leans her head against the cold bus window and watches the raindrops fight each other against the glass. Her phone had rung nonstop that morning, and she had only checked it minutes ago. It was Alex, saying they were sorry.

She looks up when they pass the overpass, soaking in the sight of the spray-painted cartoon devil in blue. She hears a mutter behind her, "Wonder how that got there", and smiles to herself.