Reclaiming the Sand

For some reason, his words made me flush in embarrassment. His memory sounded about right. I had had very little patience for Fly

“How the hell to do you remember stuff like that?” I bit out, flustered. Fly

“Is there a problem?” I asked coldly and the woman’s eyes widened for a moment before scurrying off toward the counter. I had that affect on people.

I turned back to Fly

I turned my face away, breaking our eye contact. Fly

But Fly

“I’ve seen you at the community college. Do you go there?” Fly

“Yeah. I do,” I told him, not offering details.

Fly

“I saw you outside my studio. You were watching me.” I flushed again and this time with mortification. I didn’t know how to respond to his forthright observation but I also felt relief that he wasn’t aware of how often I had looked for him in the past few weeks.

“So?” I mumbled, eyeing the door behind his back, ready to make my quick getaway.

“You used to do that a lot. Watch me draw. I liked it,” Fly

“Yeah I did,” I admitted, trying to control the twitch in my lips that threatened to curve up into a full-blown smile.

“You can come by and watch me. It would be nice. That way you can look without standing in the hallway,” Fly

“It was just the one time. I saw you and was curious about what you were doing there. That’s it,” I lied, shuffling my weight from one leg to the other. I was aware that we were standing in the middle of the coffee shop and were obviously the most interesting thing these people had seen for quite a while. And no amount of glares would make them look away.

“I use the art studio three times a week. I couldn’t bring a lot of my supplies with me so I’m using their kiln,” he said as though that explained anything.

“Okay,” I replied. I wanted to ask him why he had moved back. I had thought that out of all the places in the world he could live, Wellsburg, West Virginia would be the last place he’d end up.

I wanted to know about his art and what he was working on. I was curious about what he had done with his life in the six years since I had seen him last. I wanted to know if he hated me and blamed me as I suspected he did.

But I didn’t ask any of those things. I could never give voice to the fascination that I always had for Freaky Fly

“I could get you another coffee,” Fly

I looked down at my brown stained shirt and shook my head. “That’s all right. I think I’ve had my fill of coffee for one day,” I told him dryly.

Anyone else would have looked ashamed for dumping coffee on an i

“You like your coffee. I’ll get you another one. Or here, take mine,” he insisted holding out his to go cup and I crunched my teeth together hard enough to break enamel.

“I don’t want a fucking coffee, Fly

Fly

“I’m not mad. I just don’t want any damn coffee. Look, this has been swell, but I’ve got to get to work.” I moved around him, careful not to brush against him.

“I’d like it if you could come by the studio and sit with me sometime,” he said before I could leave.

I should have left it. I should have ignored him and kept on moving. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to end this before I allowed anything resembling friendship to infiltrate our non-relationship. I was not going to repeat past mistakes.

I pivoted on my foot and turned to face him again. His eyes met mine and then skittered away nervously.

“Why would I do that, Fly

“Why would I want to spend time with you? It’s been six years since I’ve seen you and truthfully I could have gone another six quite easily.” My heart slammed into my ribcage and I felt a strange twisting in my gut as I threw my words at him like knives.

He didn’t look at me. He stared resolutely at the floor and I wasn’t entirely sure he heard me at all. He closed in on himself and that a

I let out a frustrated breath and turned around, my back to Fly

I stood there a moment, looking up and down the quiet and desolate street, my chest painfully tight.

I wanted to look over my shoulder, back into the coffee shop. The urge to turn around was overwhelming. But I wouldn’t let myself. I denied myself the right to look again on the man I had just torn down as easily as I had done six years ago.

But it was for the best.

If there was one thing I knew it was that Fly

And I had learned that the past was best left behind us.

-Ellie-

I was drunk.

I had just lost the contents of my stomach along the side of Shane’s Chevy Challenger, which stopped all efforts on his part to put his hands down my pants.

“Fucking hell, Ellie!” he screamed, pulling the over on the side of the backcountry road to have a look at the damage.

“You pinstriped his car, Ells!” Dania cackled from the back seat. The sweet smell of the joint between her lips wafted my way and I waved the smoke out of my face. My throat started to constrict and mouth began to water.

I was going to puke again.

I shoved the passenger side door open and collapsed on my knees as I heaved again. My head was pounding and my stomach clenched in a vice. Why had I agreed to a shoot out with Stu? Why had I thought it a good idea to slam back six shots of Evan Williams?

I collapsed into the gravel, my face an inch from the pile of vomit I had just expelled.