October Thirtieth

[chapter three]

Chapter Three
October 31st, 2016

Silence.

The teal stereo spouted a few jazzy notes. The second hand on the crooked clock thumped like a heartbeat.

"Jones?" she whispered, her eyes squeezed shut.  She didn't want to look.

"You alright?" he murmured, squeezing her hand. 

"I'm fine," she lied.  Margaret had kind of wished that something big, something drastic had happened.  Fireworks, gunshots, confetti, death, you name it.

She slurped some of her second cup of hot chocolate. By now, it was faitly
tepid and her nose crinkled.

"I wish there was something new, you know?" Margaret shared. "Life just feels like a broken record by now, and sometimes I — sometimes I wish that there was more to life than just—"

A gutteral sound escaped Neal's lips and he clutched her forearm, his jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed shut. "You're telling me to meet you at a park . . . You punch my arm. You say — you say you wish you could live life a little more. I say that's exactly what we'll do."

Margaret's forearm felt sore. "What the hell are you going on about? Let go of my arm!"

She tried to pry his hand off of her arm, but he looked possessed. Terrified. Somewhere in between.

"I meet you under a tree," he continued, his grip faltering. "I hand you some sort of wilted flower, a daisy or something. You laugh and tuck it in one of your pockets. One of your coat pockets. The red coat."

Her eyebrows scrunched together, looking at his tense face, his jaw twitching, a tear escaping his eye. "I kiss you on your pale cheek and you're suddenly grabbing my hand, pulling me forward and we just take off. Down the streets and through markets, stopping only to try on aggrandize hats and big, bug-eyed glasses."

"Jones, listen to me."

"We stop by a small café and I buy us two drinks with whipped cream, a neon sign pointing us out the door. We visit an art museum where we pose next to the paintings, mocking their expressions and transfiguring our arms and legs to look like them. After, we throw pennies in a fountain I turn and face you and you're smiling.  We both are, I think.  I can feel it."

Margaret's chest was raising at an odd pace. In, out, in, in, out, in, out, out, out. It was shaky, unsteady. "I don't understand.  Jones, what's happening?"

He chuckled lightly, his. fingers slipping from her forearm, letting go of her coarse coat. "You — you call me Jones there, too.  Outside, there are these cramped, ovular things.  People are getting into them, and . . .  The buildings drift amongst the clouds.  Looks like we're in New York City or something. You look younger, somehow.  Younger than you've ever looked before.  Your red hair ripples down to your waist and you've got really light freckles; I didn't know you had freckles," he whispered, his hand pressing against his temple.  "Your eyes look like they're glowing, your mouth is moving so fast I don't know what you're saying and I'm just laughing at how you say that what we did was truly living, and how you wanted to do that forever, and—"

Margaret pushed Jones down on the couch, flat on his back, the palms of her hands on his chest, her nose only inches from his. Her eyes crossed. "You need to take a deep breath."