Mariah Fletcher
Last November the cold began to sit heavy on my shoulders. It was the kind of evening that called for well-loved sweaters and baggy jeans. It was the first truly cold night since March.
Life looked much different in March.
We had huddled beneath a blanket he had stolen from his friend’s car; it smelled like campfire smoke and laundry. The cigarette that passed between us burned our throats, but not quite like how the air burned our skin. He was soft-spoken in March; he was sweet like fruit before it began to rot.
“You look like you want more.” He smiled, blowing smoke from his nose.
“Got anything worth wanting?” I stole the cigarette from between his fingers.
“I’ve got enough.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Enough isn’t more, you said I looked like I needed more.”
“You make enough seem like a low offer.” He stole the cigarette back, “Want, not need.”
I laughed, getting closer to him. “I am not one to gamble for the sake of enough.”
He blew out smoke that had gotten confused with his breath, then rolled up his pant leg to reveal a 777 tattoo.
Jackpot.
I had refused to speak to him months later after a misunderstanding neither of us could stop to untangle. I then had the unfortunate encounter of seeing him out buying a drink for a girl who had the opposite features of me. I guess I had put all my cards on black, then the board spun to red.
I should have known better than to believe the words from a drunk man’s mouth. Especially his mouth. His drunken liquor words are sweeter than candy.
“You are everything I ever wanted,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. His words stuck to my neck and ears. He knew I would fall victim to his perpetual, rehearsed sweetness. His breath smelled like cheap liquor. I would be stupid to trust him, stupider to listen.
Then he mentioned the Las Vegas trip we had planned one night after attempting a liver-dissolving suicide. I told him I didn’t gamble anymore. He just spun me around and laughed. The Las Vegas trip planned between gin bottles that stood as soldiers between both of our knife-like words months ago. The trip was planned when life called for well-loved sweaters and baggy jeans.
If I were in love, I would have kissed him then and there. But I was not in love, this wasn’t about love anymore, and I was not gambling on him being in my future.
“Did you make a bad bet?” He smiled, his compelling smile. I wonder if he knows how easy this would be for him if I were more naive.
“Once or twice,” I said.
“We’d hit the jackpot if we tried.” He pulled me closer.
Not long after trying to love the man who gambled his future, I learned every day that he loved wrong, except for when he put all his cards on me. He seemed to exist only in those two worlds. The first one was harsh, a world built on sharp edges, where promises were placed the way gambling chips were; with no intention of keeping them. The second one was soft, made of empty hands after a loss that would reach out to none other than mine.
Deciding to gamble again, as addicts do, I fell into his empty hands again weeks after. This time we sat on the laundromat carpet together sharing a bag of vending machine chips. I studied, and he would look over my shoulder, giving me the wrong answers now and again.
“Do you think clothes ever really get clean?” He asked, obviously bored.
“Not here.”
I tapped my pen against my paper, avoiding biology questions at all costs.
“I have this old jacket I refuse to wash because it still smells the same way that my Papa smelled, like cherries and cigarettes.” I smiled, thinking about the flannel and denim jacket. “Clean enough for me,” I said.
He stared at the wall of machines slowly washing our clothes.
“What about that stupid brown sweater you love so much? Does it have an attachment?”
I chose not to answer, focusing on my biology homework instead. The brown sweater was just a sweater, and that is why I loved it so much. It did not have grief in the stitching; it was one of the only possessions that did not ask me to mourn.
Grief found a way to creep under us in the laundromat. Grief doesn’t come to you; it just finds you at laundromats.
“Some things should stay dirty.” He almost whispered.
I chose to gamble a bit more before the Earth swung into full summertime. So I ended up in his small attic bedroom, where the ceiling forced us to be closer. The bed was unmade, a box fan was blowing the hot air back at us. There was just enough space on his twin sized bed for him and I to look out at the sunset through the window, knees touching. It was one of those sunsets that was easily forgettable. He has asked me if I liked his childhood home. I told him that I did, just not his company.
“Ouch, you know that I love you.”
I rolled my eyes, the eyes fixated on the easily forgettable sunset. “You love wrong.”
There was silence between two gamblers on a twin sized mattress. I could feel him becoming restless towards me, slightly bouncing his knee. I could almost hear his defensive thoughts slicing through my statement. I was sure he wanted to tell me I was misunderstanding and unfairly judging him. However, I believed he was out of gasoline for defensive arguments.
The silence was thick, almost tangible. My sharp words were a knee-jerk reaction, but the truth. He did love wrong. He was mean, restless, unloyal, deceitful, but could also be very gentle despite everything else. I guess I was the same way sometimes, he knew this. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to shove the words back into my mouth.
“I love you,” he said. I could feel his eyes trying to meet mine. The eyes that were busy on the forgettable sunset.
“Prove it,” I said. I could never save myself.
So we sat there, two gamblers on a twin sized mattress, knees touching, pretending they were not. Four eyes fixated on a forgettable sunset.
I left him the way you should leave gamblers: pockets empty at dawn, finally done believing the next hand would be different.
Sometimes I rediscover that love:
I find it shoved in the corner of a junk drawer, rotting away between a ruler and corroded batteries.
Sometimes I pick it up and realize it does not work anymore.
It may be something I do not want anymore.
Sometimes, I rediscover his love in a mound of laundry or in my favorite brown sweater.
It is perfectly folded from last November. It smells a bit like a campfire and cigarettes.
I may have tried it on, and remembered how tight and itchy it became on my skin.
Suffocating.
It doesn’t fit like it used to.
I may have packed the sweater away. Just in case.
I may have thrown it into a donation pile; so the itchy sweater can find love on another’s collar bones.
He was a gambler, needing to play the game, not caring for the winnings. I was an addict, craving the rush and disregarding the wounds.
I suppose that was my gamble; mistaking the thrill for something worth keeping.