Password Stories

Middle

The next day, Sunday, their Netflix account reached its twenty-ninth day of activity and Sarah was required to make a new one.

Kevin was avid:

"Babe, we need to do that now."

Sarah automatically moved to the computer. She raised her hands to the keyboard, awaiting the sonata, when it hit her: shit.

NOTHING — she thought — NOTHING IS HERE

She stood up with a jolt.

"I'm going to shower first."

She turned on the shower and cooped herself up on the toilet, watching the steam cataract the mirror and trying to avoid imagining the same thing happening inside her brain.

"Shit," she whispered, "what did I write?"

She recapped the night: there was wine. She drank the wine. The label was beautiful and she wanted to appreciate it more so she drank more of what was inside. Then she went to the living room. A lull. Then they turned to her and she felt like a fish and then:

"Shit!"

The mirror fogged up. She dotted two eyes and streaked a frown.

"Violence," she whispered suddenly.

She ran to the computer:

THE ELVES CUT LIMBS AND SOLDERED WOUNDS

Denied.

She added an exclamation mark.

Denied.

She tried a period.

Denied.

She put '12345' afterwards.

Denied. Everything was denied. Life was denied.

"Babe, are you doing it?"

"No!"

She went back to the bathroom.

"God damn it, Sarah," she whispered to the mirror, "You had to get drunk last night and be the hero. Violence. When have we ever used violence? How am I going to track that down?"

Her password-stories had never been violent. Her choice of Elves was more romantic than violent. At the time, she had been suffering from a lack of romance and Elves magically entered her mind. She was opening a Paypal account. Then she moved in with Kevin.

But this had been outright violence. What happened? Had her appetite for romance mutated into this? Was this going to get sexual? Should she warn Kevin?

These were the deep questions she loathed and avoided.

"Shit."

After the shower she returned to the kitchen. Quesadillas from last night were still on a plate. Her stomach flinched. Quesadillas should never be cold. Very little separates a cold quesadilla from a cold pizza and yet the principles dividing their edibility outstretch oceans. It was sickening. She frowned.

Kevin walked in:

"Did you do it?"

"Who ordered quesadillas?"

"You did."

"I did not."

"You made them."

"What the hell are you talking about? I never make quesadillas. I hate quesadillas."

"You made them last night."

"Shit."

Sarah struck the hard marble of the kitchenette. Kevin bunched up his brow like underwear bunches, or at least, in this moment, that's how Sarah interpreted it.