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“You aren’t scared.” You wanted me to be; you wanted me to take a few steps back. Take back my invitation to help you. Offer you the number to the taxi service to chase after your witch on her broomstick.
But you soon find out, Enzo, Phoebe doesn’t let anxiety control any part of her anymore.
“Fear is limiting, hasn’t gotten me anywhere being scared of the unknown.”
“Kenzo, well, everybody calls me Enzo.” You decide to take a risk shaking my hand, and I consider it too.
“Phoebe.” I move my first aid box under my arm to shake his hand. “See you around, Enzo.” And I walk away without daydreaming about possibilities.
I try to think back to when my memories didn’t remind me of you. There are years without you, yet you have infiltrated my mind like a savior needing a synagogue. My heart had been starving before it met you. It wasn’t bulimic; there weren’t even others that I tried out and swallowed before throwing away their impressions down the toilet. No, my heart was anorexic from love before I found you.
It’s a weird analogy to use, but I understand the meaning. My mother’s example had taught me she could never be pretty enough. No matter the pounds she lost, the attraction she gained. I watched the smile on her face many afternoons, but the emptiness behind her eyes as she pushed her food towards me. The few bites she took, and I ate them because I thought somehow filling my belly would fill hers also.
Enzo, wherever you are, I hope you know…I hope you feel it.
The broken bits you left me to sweep up against the wood floor in the cabin near one of the world’s largest volcanoes. I’m not even mad about it. I can’t fault you for finding your own path in this world. Being a companion to mine may have detracted you from your own. If it did, I am sorry, but also not ashamed.
Spoken up before every flight, after every downtime. Where we slept for a day from jet lag to regain our sense of adventure. I go through these fits of sadness, empathy, rage. I can’t focus on one emotion to give you because you ignite all of them with this separation. Because if you didn’t like the way things were going, you should have said something.
Remind me, Enzo, what was the perfect scenario you thought I needed to be in for you to stay? Because if I remember correctly, I was doing just fine before you came along, and I am doing splendidly without you again.
Chapter 10
Kenzo
35.1495° N, 90.0490° W Memphis, Tennessee
Ididn’twanttolike her; I swear I tried to call Phoebe insane and have my brother wire me money for a flight home. But Phoebe had a calmness about her. She felt genuine, and I hated how peaceful she infected me to be. Even as my world was burning down to the ground.
After Kassidy, my girlfriend, bailed and stole all our shit; I am sure she had this planned for months. Leaving me, that is. And I just picked the wrong minute to fight. If the woman from the parking lot heard me say it, she probably would have said there is no wrong time. It was going to happen; it needed to happen.
Fine if it did, but fuck, Kassidy didn’t have to be a degrading bitch and put our boy between us. I am his protector; he is my little king. I can’t shake the look out of his falling tears out of my head.
“Hey, I lost my keys to my hotel room.”
The guy behind the desk doesn’t even lift his head from the keyboard.
“What room number?”But when the dark spirit floats behind me to the hallway, he feels her presence.“Good evening, Phoebe.”
“Ralph.”With a nod, she flicks over to me and waits.
“Sixty-three,”I say it out the corner of my mouth, still locked on her attention.
“I’m going to have to charge you for the extra card keys.”Ralphhands me them with a pointed snarl.
“Feel free to do whatever the fuck you want. Charge me a whole buffet of cards. I don’t give a shit, man.”I grab the keys and rush past Phoebe, hoping she won’t pollute me with her kindness.
But I hear her whisper goodnight to the front desk-fuckhead, and I wait a few extra seconds at the elevator to see if she will wish me the same.
She doesn’t even look back as she makes her way down the hall to her room on the first floor. Not one single peek, and I know because I watched her the whole way.
I get up to the room and open the door.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I shouldn’t be yelling at this hour, but who the fuck cares right now.
Everything is wholly trashed, like dumping me on our vacation wasn’t enough. Stealing my money and the son I have been a father to since he was a baby isn’t enough. Kassidy had to rip apart my world and destroy everything she could. To make me suffer, make sure I remember who is in charge.
Maybe it’s finally waking up from a coma after years of abuse, but I think I finally hate her enough to not lie down and take the beating.
