Cherry Wine.
She presses his cheek against his, her eyes sparkling as she points up to the sky, babbling on. Although he can’t decipher what she’s saying. She sounds like she’s 5 feet under water. His mind is swimming in his own thoughts. He tries to come back to reality, see her face that he remembers, so soft and happy. He can’t focus and everything has gone blurry. He blinks rapidly, and she notices by now and stops talking. She tilts her head and burrows her thin eyebrows, tilting her head with compassion. ”Adam, you alright?” Adam presses his fingertips to the inner sides of his nose on his sinuses and tries to play it off. “Oh it must be allergies messing with my head again, keep going, Love.” He pushes past the fogginess and tries to keep along to what she’s saying. Her words are coming in more clearly as he starts to drink the wine they’d picked late October of last year. He likes to remember her then, she’d worn a short summery yellow dress with half sleeves and a floral print although it’d been cool that day and the chilly Pennsylvanian air had stung his cheeks. How vibrant the colours were then, how happy she’d seemed, although it’d only been 6 months ago. Her voice was softer then, warmer and sincere. Her name even seemed lighter, more airy and joyful. He tries to remember where everything had gone sour but couldn’t, everything seemed to be a foggy haze at the moment. He shakes his head and tries to focus on her lips, stained red from the wine and maybe lipstick? He hadn’t paid much attention to her getting ready as he usually did. Usually he’d be kissing her neck gently between every step, the hair drying, the makeup, the dresses she’d model for him until she’d decide on a totally different one. Little pecks on the lips reminded her that he was hers and she was his. He flicks his eyes to the fire burning in front of them, a bonfire with just them, somewhat close to the beach just incase they’d want to swim, which they hadn’t. It’d been windy all day. His eyes watch the flames flicker as he shivers, pulling the blanket around his broad shoulders. He finally makes eye contact with her, as he’d realised he hadn’t in a while, shocked at how icy her eyes had gotten since the last time he’d truly looked at her. He tries to bring up the memories, but his voice is hoarse, although he can’t remember it ever being so hard to talk before. He tries his hardest, but only manages to squeak “Anna, what...” Before she shushes him, manually refilling glass without even asking if he’d wanted anymore to drink. Her eyes seem different than he can remember, her smile once inviting is now pulled into a sly side smile as she's practically forcing the liquid down his throat. He watches her as she seems to laugh loudly, although he doesn't hear anything, the world has gone mute. His vision is back to being a whirlwind of colours, dark midnight blues swirl with the orangey-yellow tones of the fire. Soon enough, Adam finds himself somehow laying down by the fire in a sleeping bag that seems harder than it should.
Adam woke up the next day, hungover. He doesn’t remember much of what happened after his vision went blurry. He looks around and notices Anna limp beside him, her hands lightly grasping the wine bottle from last night. He can barely make out what it says in the bottle says in the early hours of the morning, although when he squints, he can read “cherry wine” in bold black print across the bottom of the label. Adam cringes, waves of vague memories that he can’t quite remember wash over him. He grabs his phone, shielding his eyes as he looks at the screen. It reads 5:12 AM. He rubs his eyes and quietly shimmies to a sitting position, waits a minute, then quickly gets up. His head is spinning. A headache threatens the back of his head if he moves too quickly, he notes. Stepping over Anna’s tiny lifeless body, he pockets his phone and wanders off to the beach to clear his mind.
The beach is littered and foggy. He sits on a nearby rock, closes his eyes and just for a second. He looks out to the sea, grabs a rock and as he goes to throw it, he notices a faint finger-shaped bruise on the inner side of his elbow. “I must’ve fought with Anna yet again.” he thinks to himself. They’re getting bad now, it used to be verbal, but now she’s gotten worse since she’s been off her medication. God damn insurance got expensive over the last few years. The bruise isn’t sensitive, he figures it’ll be gone before they go to visit his mom in a couple days, so long as he doesn’t make her mad again. He examines the bruise closer, it’s a galaxy coloured mix of dark grey and green. He goes to pick up another rock, Just as a faint voice calls from behind him. “Adaaaam!” She calls out, her voice soft as an angel’s. He turns around and looks at her, this time more closely than he did the night before. Her dirty blonde hair is wrapped up in a messy bun at the very top of her head, flopping to one side. Her sweats are old, from her college years, faded and frayed at the bottom, and she wears his old button up flannel with a thin black t-shirt under it . As adorable as she looks, he needs to focus on what she really is. Anna’s gotten bad since she’s been off her medications. She’s gotten meaner, bitter. Her spark has simmered into a fizzle. She wasn’t excited about anything, her eyes faded from the soft watery-blue to a cold icy stare. She didn’t lash out on him like this before; this was new. It’d been three weeks since they’d had their first fight. That time, it’d been about something small, the laundry, and how Adam didn’t change the load like he’d said he would. Anna wasn’t having it. She got the basket full of clothes and chucked it at him full force which was just enough to knock him onto his butt. He was taken back, she’d never acted like that before. She stormed towards him, growling about what a shitty boyfriend he was, how lucky he was to have her and how she should dump his sorry ass on the streets to live like the pathetic loser he truly was. Her words hurt more than being forced onto the ground, stinging like they were being shot by a bow and arrow on fire. Her porcelain skin contrasted by the fiery red in her cheeks. Anna smacked Adam across the face as he tried to get up and kicked him once more. She stormed back up the stairs as he layed motionless for a while. He finally gathered enough strength to get up and avoided her for the rest of the day.The next morning, she made a note of getting up early. The house smelt of maple bacon and chocolate chip pancakes, to his confusion.
The memory burnt into his brain. Maybe he was just a pansy. A small girl with childishly big eyes and thin limbs pushed him around. He was just overreacting, he tried to explain to his brain. His brain was pulling this completely out of context. Maybe if he’d done what he was meant to do, they wouldn’t have argued. Adam realised he was once again zoning out and shook his head in a sad attempt to clear it. She was wrapping his arms around him. She often did that when she wanted something. Her bottom lip jetted out and head tilted hinted that she was asking him for something. He blinked rapidly. “Sorry babe, what?” he mustered. “You never fucking listen to me anymore. You’re such a shit. You’re too busy in your own head.” she takes a deep breath and resets herself. In an instant, she’s back to being sugary sweet. “Anyway,” she say she says with a little too much perk in her voice, “we need to be getting out of here. It’s disgusting and dirty and I need to go to the mall anyway. Remember the sale I was telling you about?” Adam wordlessly nods and obeys her demands.
Hours later, Adam is sitting in their flat alone. He’s packing for their trip to Arkansas to visit his parents. Adam feels a wash of anxiety over him. He fears that Anna will have another breakout and it’ll worry his parents. He tries to push it away with distractions. “Alright. Toothbrushes. Check. Boxers. Check. Brush. Check. Dresses for Anna, oh crap. They’re in the dryer.” He breathes.
