The Tinted Sky

The Beginning Of The End

The girl stared at me for a second and blinked mechanically.
“You’re not one of those creeps are you?” and I laughed, sweat beads were beginning to form on my face, little beadlets of moisture at the top of my forehead, just below my hairline. I willed them not to drop, I knew I shouldn’t be doing this everything in me was screaming not to, but she looked like Mara, maybe she was Mara, she was definitely the closest I was ever going to get to her. 
“I promise I’m not a creep, I’m looking for someone to come with me on a little adventure, somewhere fun, it would just be me and you” she looked down at her shoes for a moment and then back up at me her eyes squinting at me, and her lips pursed, I tried to focus on her eyes and not those lips, the lips of someone I did not know, the lips of someone who got something I did not. When her eyes looked back up at me, she nodded,
“Disney?” I laughed again and nodded. 
“Anywhere you’d like” she smiled revealing a missing tooth in her bottom row of teeth. I looked around slowly and made sure no one was paying any attention to us.
    Manhattan looked the same bustling and too busy to notice a man stealing his wife’s child. I grabbed her hand, and we walked to where I had parked my car. I opened the door for her, just how I would’ve done if she were Mara. She thanked me silently and sat on the black leather. She looked around the car silently, and I found myself wishing I had taken it to the wash today. I went around praying that she wouldn’t decide she didn’t want to do this and make a run for it. As I quickly shuffled into the car and turned it on, she eyed me quietly.
“I need to make a stop at my apartment first and make a few calls then we can go wherever you’d like” she nodded still quiet like she was trying to decide something. As I was driving home passing by things I’d passed my hundreds of times in the past few months but hadn’t bothered to pay attention, everything seemed more colorful. Everything seemed brand new almost. I called out of work telling them I must’ve caught a big. I didn’t know how long I’d be gone, so I left it at that for now. I adjusted my mirror “What’s your name Mister?” the little girl asked me. I could see her in my peripheral vision her head was at an angle, and her eyebrow was arched.
“It’s Nate” I mentally face palmed as I realized I gave her my real name, now it would be even harder to give her back. Would I give her back? 
“My name’s-”
“No that’s okay we’re going on the road we don’t need real names anymore” I looked over at her again. She smiled at me, she thought this was a game, she didn’t realize just how real this was right now. “My name isn’t Nate anymore it’s Samuel, what do you want your name to be?” she thought about it for a second cocking her head again. 
“Lilith,” she whispered, and I nodded. 
“Okay then good, Samuel and Lilith’s adventure,” she smiled at that and looked out the window. I sighed and tried to focus on driving and not on Lilith. Now that she had a name her being Mara seemed a little less real and that hurt. As she looked out the window, I could see how she could be Mara, the resemblance was uncanny. 
“Nathan” I jumped and the car swerved sightly. 
“Watch it,” the little girl shrieked and shook her head, grimacing at me slightly. I looked into the rearview mirror, and there she was, after months of not seeing her, she was there in the back seat of our car like nothing had happened. 
“What the fuck are you doing?” she shook her head and moved up in her seat to where she was speaking right into my ear. I could feel her breath against it, and it made me shiver. 
“I’m taking the last thing I have left of you” she laughed into my ear, but it wasn’t because she thought it was funny. There was a pain in it, one that I wished I could fix. 
“Oh, baby” I felt her press her cheek to mine and inhale, just the way she used to do when she was sad. “Let her go, Nathan, let me go, please, you don’t need to live like this,” and I looked ahead as I made a left onto our street. I whispered,
“I can’t Mara, you know I can’t,” and just as quickly as she had come, she was gone. 
“Are you crazy?” I looked over to the little girl, and she had her eyebrow arched again. “You were talking to yourself,” I laughed and shook my head. 
“Not crazy, just tired. Your parents never talk to themselves?” she shrugged.
"Not like that"
    I didn’t know what I was going to do. When we got into the house I told her to have a seat and I grabbed Mara’s rainy day fund. We had a good amount saved up for a house, a house that now neither of us would ever see. I packed some clothes for me, and I left a note on the kitchen table for Amayah telling her I was going to be gone for a few weeks and that I would call when I got back into town.
     When I was done, I set down my bags and looked around the house, the pictures of Mara hanging all around, getting dusty from the lack of cleaning I had been doing. I felt a hand on my back.
“You don’t have to do this, Nathan,” I turned and faced her head-on. “Just give her back, tell them you found her roaming around” I shook my head,
"They would never believe me, she’d say something” Mara shook her head, and I could see the tears gathering in her eyes
“Why?” She brushed away the tears as they fell. “Just live your life, Nathan!” she yelled. A shiver went down my spine, and I shook my head and looked down at my feet. 
“If you were real you’d understand,” and I walked out leaving Mara there, crying.