Coming Friday
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Eve Connell
Author of:
EXCERPT:
AMELIA
We had the fight
moments after I slipped the robe off my shoulders into a pool around my feet. I
had one foot on the shower base, one on the plush rectangular mat.
At that moment,
my fiancé, Kristopher, knocked from the other side of the bathroom door, which
I’d already locked for privacy.
He had this
tendency often. The first word he would speak to me all day? As I stepped into
the shower. Was it okay if he went out with his friends instead of the dinner
reservation? As I stepped into the shower. His solution to cancer? As I stepped
into the shower.
Clenching my jaw,
I awaited the question.
“Aftershave,
Amelia?” he asked.
I sighed. “You
should have gotten it when I told you I needed to shower. Or while I collected
my creams and lotions and make-up. Or while I sniffed around for a clean towel
in your stash in the corner.”
The soap—as we
both knew—was irrelevant in this argument. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if
we stayed together out of laziness. And maybe we did. Because I hated many
characteristics about my fiancé. Especially his ignorance of this anniversary.
It was September
twenty-ninth.
This year I
called my boss’s mobile at the crack of dawn to fake a sick day, playing up my
groggy tone as a terrible sore throat in addition to a nauseous tummy. She told
me to get well, and I swallowed the news with a lump in my throat, guilty for
lying. I was an assistant for a medium-sized advertising business and handled
paperwork, invoicing and calls all day long—it wasn’t like my absence would be
of consequence to day-to-day activities. I’d pick it up tomorrow.
Last year
Kristopher and I made dates apart with our respective best friends, and I’d
spent it eating all the ice cream along a strip of shops down the coast. I’d
thrown up once and then kept on going. Jaffa flavour, I remember.
I’d licked and
slurped the drips down the paper cup, and only thought twice of the
anniversary. Once on the drive down to the beach, and then once as I’d clutched
the sides of a rusty public bin and spewed my guts up to the backdrop of
disgusted gasps from passers-by.
I don’t know what
Kristopher did that day, but he came back when the night sky was a deep sapphire
blue, whisky on his breath as he climbed in bed behind me.
The year before I
took a day off from work and spent $600 buying cocktail dresses I would never
have occasion to wear. The next day I donated them to charity.
Six years ago
today, I died. Hence, it was the one time of the year we didn’t forget the
date. Unlike some years when we had to shop for Christmas gifts at two am on
the twenty-fourth.
I stared down the
white door of the bathroom, one foot tingling with the sharp cold of the shower
base, hand clutching the knob. I stepped back onto the tiles, accepting defeat.
“Come on,
Amelia,” he said in a low tone. “Just one Goddamn bottle of aftershave. That’s
all I need.”
“No. Just wait
till I’m done.”
“Babe.”
“Amelia,” I said.
“Amelia, please,”
he said, voice breaking. “I haven’t showered and I stink. I just need a few
fucking sprays, and I’ll be out of your way all day.”
I gritted my
teeth and hobbled from toe to toe, the cold seeping up my legs. If we kept
going on like this staying out of each other’s way was pointless. We knew how
to nip at each other’s sensitive spots in a way learned from several years of
being together. I saw the forthcoming crash, clenched my eyes shut against the
pain. My shoulders heaved, bracing for impact.
Was this what
happened to me just before my crash?
Was there a
moment of wide-eyed fear as my corded, muscled arms grabbed the wheel at the
proper ten and two positions, and I flew through the air, reduced to a thin,
crushed and crumpled body at the bottom of the lake?
Hot tears grew
heavy behind my eyelids as something inside me snapped. I shut the gate to the
horrific visions.
It was too late
to shower.
Kristopher banged
his fist on the door, the boom echoing. I bent and hurried on my
new clothes folded on the counter.
“Come on. This is
beyond a joke. It will take you a few seconds to pass it.” The door rattled,
the handle jerking, but I’d locked the door already. “Amelia.”
I slipped my arms
into the cardigan and threw open the door, despite the bags under my eyes and
the chill settling over my chest because of the unbuttoned front.
I said, “Have it
all,” pushing the aftershave bottle into his chest, then rushed past him.
And I didn’t look
back.
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Writer, kid-at-heart,
awesome partner, graphic design dabbler, book lover.
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Blog/W: http://www.eveconnellauthor.com
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