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While my mother’s eyes had lost the shadows of a woman recovering from being abandoned by her husband and having to struggle. Mine had grown dark, not only in color but weight. The only blessing was the lighter gold that reflected, giving them depth and emotion that I did not feel.
The door of the elevator opening pulled me from my thoughts. The all-around glass walls gave me a view of the Nashville city life. The sun was still high, but I could feel the oncoming night. Spotting Gary, the night guard, I gave a wave. The shorter, elderly male smiled his badge shining in the fluorescent lights above.
While many in the building looked at him as a joke, I respected his devotion and professionalism to his job and hadn’t hesitated in sharing the thanks giving left overs my mother made along with a few moments of conversation.
I didn’t fear the elderly, nor did I feel the need to treat them like foreign objects. They were what we all would be one day, old…and eventually, dead.
Nodding, I continued on my way outside feeling the natural giddiness that came with leaving work. The August weather was still stifling hot, and my light skirt and camisole still felt too heavy for the weather.
Shaking off the bit of shock from the heat, I proceeded to respond to my mother’s post.
“Yes, I’m coming. And Wear the blue one, it makes you look shapely.”
Immediately, an answering ding resounded. The dinner had to be hugely important to my mother, otherwise she would take at least five minutes to answer at most. I would bring up the message two days later.
“Are you sure? His favorite color is green…”
I bit my lip and case my eyes across the walk way. I didn’t know what was better honestly, my dating experience had been a blur of sexual encounters that were always followed with brisk departure and faint disappointment. Adjusting the phone in my hand, I quickly texted.
“…Either way, he’ll love it…After all, he loves you.”
I just wanted it all it to be over. Ever since my mother had gotten back into the dating scene, she’d been like a teenage girl in love. Flirting, being flighty, and generally being a live action version of Twilight. For a sociopath, it was akin to having an annoying pink colored gnat around all the time. I was happy for her, but I also wish she’d move past this honey moon era.
There was nothing for a beat, and I turned my attention to getting to my car. Setting my phone into my thin coat pocket, honestly, by the time I made it to my car a block away, I wished sorely I’d left it in the building.
“So, your moms really going to introduce you to the guy?”
Turning my gaze away from my reflection, where I’d been attempting to recreate the perfect wing eye-liner, I nodded before returning my attention to my reflection. “Yes, Laine, she’s finally decided I won’t kill her boyfriend, and he’ll be safe around me.”
Laine scoffed at that. Laine was a soul-searching artist I roomed with in our two-bedroom studio apartment. She was well known on Instagram as loc-goddess, and an art enthusiast whose job was the entire opposite of her demeanor. Being an IT specialist was all math and lines, her naturalist ways also threw people for a spin. Her entire left arm was tattooed, with butterflies made of wires and metal parts.
She shifted so that she leaned against the wall of my room and could watch me. Her chin length hair was slightly wavy, as if she’d just run through some rain, and her light skin was reminiscent of a soft, white chocolate, who came with a half-black father and a Puerto Rican mother.
She also knew my secret; I felt like my roommate should know who she lived with, especially when my therapist occasionally did dropsy’s to ensure that I hadn’t murdered her yet. I wish she’d get it through her skull I had impulse control. Either way, she would show up at my apartment at random to lecture me about taking my medication and controlling my anger.
Anger wasn’t how I felt when I did something. I shouldn’t be judged by societal standards. A weird calm would come over me, and I just knew what I was doing was something I had to do. I can’t say whether Laine merely enjoyed having such an anti-social friend. While she was wholly aware of my mental illness, she didn’t know how I sometime alleviated my boredom.
I used my elbow to push my phone towards her. “Take a look, she’s been spamming me about it for the last hour.”
Reaching for my phone, she checked out the messages and laughed. “Is she really asking what color underwear she should wear?”
“I stopped answering after she started saying we should match.” Setting my eyeliner down, I quickly gave myself a look over. The simple pale-blue summer dress made of lace revealed my shoulders just enough to hint at my slim sensuality. The outer skirt was loose, while the under skirt shaped to my upper thighs. I had decided on softer make-up, I didn’t want the man to know I was a threat right off the bat.
“So, what are you going to do if she decides to tie the knot with this guy?” Laine asked as she held my phone out to me.
I mentally chewed over her question, what would I do? Was there anything for me to do? I didn’t want to be the person who halted my mother’s road to happiness anymore. She was so much happier now than she’d been in the past. She actually glowed, I shrugged. “I guess I’ll deal with it when it happens.”
“Hmm, it’s really all you can do.”
Laine walked me to the door, grabbing my shoulder purse and tossing it to me. Catching it mid-air, I gave her a saucy wink. “Time to go play daddy.”
“You, get ‘em, girl.” She fake growled as I walked out of the apartment.
