Charade

Vic

I jimmied the lock and opened the door to an empty cinema. The scent of old stale popcorn and spilt sugar wafted through the air, spilling out into the night. I stepped into the warm air, glancing up at the rows and rows of empty seats.

"Lily?" I ventured. "Are you here?"

I opened the main entrance and peeked at the counter. Nobody was behind it, but I could hear laughter coming from the back. I stepped through the foyer and to the bathrooms, for which there was a hallway with branching off sectors labelled male, female, and disabled. I approached the female toilets and heard the smallest, faintest sobbing.

"Lily?" I asked, cracking open the toilet door. All the stalls were open, save one furthest from the door. The sobbing stopped immediately. "Lily, I know you're in here."

"Fuck off," she snivelled. "I don't want to see you."

Hesitantly, I stepped into the girls' toilets and let the door swing shut behind me.

"Lily, I'm sorry. I should've never said those things about you."

Carefully, I walked up to the locked stall, waiting for her response. When it didn't come, I leaned my head against the door, breathing in the piss-scented air, with my shoulders hunched in defeat.

"I love you, sweetheart. You know that. It's just, when you do those things, it..." I gulped, trying to find the words. "I'm not good at talking about my emotions, and that's not your fault. It's mine. I should've found a way to tell you how I felt without letting it build up."

Again, there was no response. I felt the anger rise in me, but stomped it out before it made things worse. I leaned my back against the adjoining wall and slid down to the floor, sitting just outside the stall.

"When you were born," I said quietly, "more than anything I wanted to be a good father – better than my father was to me. My dad was a drunk and an emotional cripple. He couldn't deal with his emotions either. But I thought that if I could love you and keep you safe, then that would mean I was doing it right, and I thought I was doing that, but I suppose I was wrong. So I feel... I feel guilty, because you're miserable. I feel like I should've have done more."

Silence followed, thick and heavy, as the tears began to fill my eyes. I clenched and unclenched my fists, over and over, as if it could soothe me into comfort.

"It's not your fault," Lily whispered from behind the stall. "I was selfish. I was so wrapped up in my own shit that I didn't think about you or Benji. And I was so used to you just forgiving me and being nice to me. I didn't think about how I was hurting you because you always looked fine. But... I knew you were hurting. I just... I didn't... think about it."

"It's okay," I said.

"No, it's not." She cried. "I'm just a shitty person who does shitty things."

"Then change," I said. "If you don't like who you are, change."

"How?"

"Take the operation. Get healthy."

Silence fell. I could hear the tick of Lily's brain, the slow movement of change.

"I don't want to die," she said.

"You don't have to."

I heard the jimmy of the stall lock, the red turning over to the vacant green. Soon, it inched open and she looked down at me, standing from above. Her eyes were red and swollen and her cheeks glistened with tears. Then, like a small child, she scurried into my arms and clutched my shirt in her fists, sobbing into my neck.

© A.G. Travers 2015