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“Of course. She’s my best friend.”
“And do you care for her?”
“Yes…” I lowered my voice.
The heat of her mouth felt so close, and her questions were met with a gluey, wet gloss over her eyes. I felt like I could see myself looking back, unsettled by the noise of gunshots from the T.V.
“I know you do. I knew it the moment I saw you. It was the same look my husband gave me.”
“My look? What look?” I asked desperately, needing to know. Mrs. Harrison was an oracle of sorts, reading my eyes like she could tell the future. I wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad, but her nails suddenly pinched into my leg.
“It’s the look of love…” she choked, releasing a single, unthreatening tear. The way her lip quivered caught me off guard.
“Love?” I repeated cautiously, the word round like a big balloon in my mouth. I almost suffocated.
“Yes, and not just any kind, but the most incredible type. Love that can change a life in the most spectacular and powerful of ways. I can tell it scares you, and it should… there’s so much potential there.”
“Potential for Gemma?”
“Just for her,” she guaranteed. “Something so precious that it could only come from answered prayers. But you care so much, and I know you’ll do what’s right, because this type of love is nuclear.” She snatched my forearm, letting her cigarette fall onto the sofa.
“Nuclear, as in a bomb?” I worried as the ashy tip of her Marlboro rolled towards my thigh.
“As in thebiggestbomb. And this kind of love takes everything. It explodes, and it’s magnificent, and blinds you so much that you can’t see anything, not even the damage it caused. It transforms the very being of your existence till all you are is the explosion itself.” Her neck grew stiff, corded and strained, “Do you want to hurt, Gemma?”
Her thumb pulled at the corner of my eye, stretching it open, forcing me to absorb the entirety of my senses: every word, every scent, and every taste made me feel less like a person, and more like the wet ink to a manifesto.
She. Absolutely. Terrified. Me.
“No… never…” I finally stuttered, blinking slowly, incapable of missing a moment.
“If you love her, you’ll save her from that. You’ll spare her from what happened to me. And don’t say no, don't say it won’t happen because I see it in you, Parker. There is a love that has killed me, that has led me to who I am and the things I’ve done. When that bomb blows, it takes you far from home, and leaves you somewhere different than where you came from. And here, where I am, is dead.” She curled her hand behind my neck, holding it still.
“I want to leave…” I whimpered, struggling to pull my arm away.
“Promise me that if you love her, you’ll listen to me, because the older you get the worse it’ll be.”
“But you’re older… don’t you love Gemma, too? Can’t I be like you?”
“You could never be like me. Someday you’ll be a man. You’ll become a problem. Now look at me, and tell me you’ll be the friend she needs, never the bomb. That’s how you’ll hurt her.”
“But… I could never hurt her.”
“What you think and what you know are different. You didn’t mean to burn your finger on a match, but the fire got too close, didn’t it?” she asked, as my thumb continued to ache. “That’s you, Parker; you’re the flame, and the closer you get, the more likely it is that you’ll burn Gemma. So I’ll ask you again, do you want to hurt her?”
I wanted to shake myself free, but her cold insistence dug into me, haunting like a shackled ghost from the future. Could she really see that in me? She was right about everything else; about what I felt for Gemma, about what I struggled to say and describe. Every word, every sense she produced coiled itself to my core, pulling me closer to her lips and words. If she knew this already, then could she know my future too?
“I don’t want to hurt my Butterfly,” my lip shook, horrified by what she saw in me.
“Then, promise me, swear on your life that you’ll never get close enough to love her, to be the man who ruins her life.”
“I—” I barely trembled out.
“Promise you won’t be like my husband, the man who left, who Gemma’s out there looking for. Now, promise!” she shouted, causing me to flinch. She was broken in the most horrific of ways, burrowing into my mind like a dirty seed, and what she said made no sense, especially about where Gemma was. Her father left years ago, but Mrs. Harrison’s panicked look made me feel as though it had just happened.
“I promise…” I inhaled, blinking as she finally let me loose, my arm stinging worse than my thumb. My own tears threatened to fall as she turned away.
Mrs. Harrison sniffed, her palm a rag to her tears as she reached back into her purse, pulling out a quarter, dropping it into my hand. “No one needs to know about this. No one needs to get hurt. If you keep her safe, you’ll always be a sweet boy…” she squeezed my palm shut and leaned in to kiss my cheek, her lips wet with tears. “Thank you for holding the match.”
