Anemone: A Short Story

Anemone.

He was an utterance of undoing with a shy smile and plain brown eyes. He had tousled, almost black hair and glowed with both poignancy and tribulations. Every time I thought about it, thought about him, all I recalled was him being a dreamer and a lover and very talented at both. When I was with him, insecure and stressed, I forgot all those inconvenient times where holding on to him was almost second nature, and how my hands left bruises.

I still did not know which was worse, the fact that I had memorised every single thing that he liked or the fact that I couldn’t manage to shake the way his fingers felt when they traced the scars of a happy childhood on my skin. It was December and there were permanent wrinkles on my forehead

He was with his friends and I was with a swelling belly. He looked at me once, and I knew there would never be room for another. I knew I couldn’t have him and I was there for some other guy, but I couldn’t help but look back and smile. He sat down next to me with a beer firmly in his hand, abandoning the people who told him not to--leaving the friends he should’ve listened to.

“Always drifting back to one another,” he started.

And I told him, “As we should,” like I deserved to have him in my life. I remembered right then how there was nothing poetic about him. He had no rhythm, no rhyme; there was not a pause amidst his words or lisps, though he seemed to have worked through those. There wasn’t a universe in his eyes, and no love from me for him between my thighs.

“Or shouldn’t,” he murmured. The thing was, he held on instead of letting go and I thought he was mad for all of it but, somehow, I read his soul in seven million ways and I thought of nothing other than that he was beautiful. “This always costs me,” he added.

I kept

Was I okay? I had been running like crazy, and maybe I should have been late that day. I remembered how one of my heels broke and I had one shoe one and one off. People kept staring at me. I thought my success was something I should celebrate with my fist up in the air and a loud gotcha darling as the doors closed right behind me. That was one of the last times I actually laughed, a real laugh, I mean. The kind of laughter that started in your tummy but expanded so quickly you were doubling over and your entire body shook with it.

“Will this ever be worth it?” I echoed his question. Someone else 's child was growing inside of me. The tears were blurring my peripheral vision with every drop of pent up sadness. “I come here to remember everything,” I barely managed to say. “Can’t we just...”

“Need someone else?” he finished for me. I noded. “I’m trying. It looks like you are to.” He pointed towards my stomach. Her name would be Marlene. I’d name her after our dead child, like it would be an honour. It’s not. It would’ve made you angry. “I’m happy for you.”

“Me