The Fall

We lie in bed next to one another, breathing hard. Is it from the fighting or from the sex? I’m not sure.

Last year, upon our first arrival in Maine, this dreamy, cool paradise, we could find nothing more than a twin-sized bed to rent. We were both so slim, and the nights were so chilly, that we had motivation to embrace.

But the bed this year is altogether too big. I have to reach across it if I want to touch him.

Sometimes I’m not sure I do.

He’s headed far away from me, back to California, back to the worst of places to my mind: Los Angeles. I refuse to go with him; I will not follow.

So, we fight.

He’s leaving soon, the summer coming to a close, and I am so angry. I am so tired living a life shrouded in the unknown. Work? Marry? Play?

Die?

I look out the window at the yellow and orange leaves falling from the trees, and I despair. I know there is only one choice for me, only one place I can go to where I am assured a roof over my head, no matter the anger of my father and his false ideals.

Home.

After Brian leaves, I am the last one left in the big house we all rented for the summer. A little field mouse scurries across the floor, and I am inexplicably terrified. I could stomp that little fellow under my boot if I weren’t so afraid.

I step out onto the front porch. The blooms on the snapdragons I planted months ago have finally dried and fallen to the ground. I look down at the dog I’ve been left with, then sit on the front stoop. She sits down beside me, and together we guard this place, this last stand between college and the real world. I grip onto her collar when the delivery truck passes by because I know she will fearlessly go after it, snarling and barking and running at top speed, ready to attack.

But I know the truth: that boldness, that fire, comes from fear, even though she is the pursuer. She fights me, desperately trying to untether herself from my hold. I watch as the driver gets back into the truck and puts it in gear. The dog watches, forlorn, as her prey drives away.

We go back into the house, and I can’t help but think that she’s got it all figured out.

Madness over logic as she chases the truck.

Is it a choice?

Because she’s not wrong.

But maybe, after years of choosing logic, I am.