Acquiesce: Short Stories

Mel

I never knew how big of a contrast pale hands were to a black front dash until I got into her car. The starchy gauze was itching my knuckles, and I was just waiting for the blood to seep through the threads and to turn the gauze red, just like her hair - but her hair was perfect and I was... I was not.

    The road in front of us just stretched on for as far as I could see, but my glasses were smashed on concrete of her boyfriend's front porch. Maybe the road wasn't that long at all, and the blurry night sky just blended into the asphalt. Maybe I just didn't want the road to end, maybe I just wanted to be trapped in the suffocating car with her for hours, and an ending road didn't mean there were hours left.

    "You didn't have to do that," she choked on the words as if they were a bitter pill. Her name was Mel, and her voice was as sweet as the warm, thick desert hair around us. "You didn't have to punch him. We were fine... we just fight a lot."

    "But I wanted to," my voice cracked, I was weak.

    "You wanted to punch him?"

    "I wanted to deck him in the face for upsetting you. There's a difference."

    The only response I got was her sigh. Maybe she was weak too, maybe I was just hard to deal with. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, too tight that her knuckles turned ashy against the wheel.

    I took the time to let my eyes wander, rolling over her skin. The way her neck dipped and curved as it became her bruised shoulder. The almost black splotches on her dark skin, mixed with red was almost breathtaking but the sight churned my stomach. This wasn't just a first occurence, I knew that but at the same time I didn't. I just guessed that she was okay, she hadn't a reason in my mind to be anything but okay.

    Her shoulder smoothed into her arm, which became shrouded in orange from her shirt. Her shirt to her hand, to the wheel.

    I wanted to tell her that I saw her now, because I did. I was at her house for the second time. It was a weird friendship. She was kind smiles in the hallways at school and pearly white teeth that gleamed as she laughed. Mel was also fierce though, she had two box braids and she would stand up for anyone that was the butt of a joke, meanwhile she was the butt of a joke to her boyfriend. She looked like someone who would use a punching bag, when that's what someone used her for.

    "Would you like to tell me how you feel?" my voice was still meek, hiding as if I was a child who had done wrong.

    "I'm upset," she started as her voice flicked with shock and annoyance, "Lucy, I'm upset. That wasn't your place to punch him in the face."

    "He came into the house, Mel," my voice started to mimic her tone, "he came into your house, and he was drunk. First of all, he shouldn't have been driving, and second of all, Mel, he shouldn't have started to yell at you."

    "It was fine."

    "He got right in your face!" My body had started to shake as the anger of my own words seeped down into my own skin. "He was about to hit you! It looks like he's done it before."

    As if it was an instinct she reached across herself to tug up the falling orange sleeve and let out another sigh. Her lips parted ever so calmly, "We're running out of gas."

    "What will we do?" the anger left my body as if it was a ghost.

    "We'll run out of gas," she turned the wheel, slowly sliding onto the side of the barren road, and then takes the keys out. "Get out."

    My heart, at that moment in time, it fell. Not like a waterfall with water falling in a beautiful elegance, but like an asteroid hitting a planet. It fell in the most destructive way possible. To think you're helping someone, but you just make it worse.

    "What about a Triple A?" my voice broke, "I heard that they can give you gas?"

    "Batteries don't work like that. Get out."

    My hands shook as I unhooked the seatbelt, slowly sliding it off of me. My saliva hardened in the back of my throat.

    "Thanks for the bandages," I commented as I had opened the door, "I'm sorry-"

    My words cut themselves off as I had heard the distinct unhinging sound of the driver's door. I had turned to watch as she stood up, a foot on her seat, but it disappeared as she crawled up onto the car roof. I just had to follow her lead.

    Suddenly, we both were laying side by side without the weight of the world on our shoulders, only surrounded with the thick air of the desert.

    "He never wanted to watch the stars with me," Mel's voice was sad, "he said it was stupid, that they can't take away my problems... He told me once, that he was the only star I'd need, but all he did was give me problems."

    I nodded like I understood and a piece of my blonde hair fell across my face.

    "I guess stars fall sometimes, and that's why the sky is beautiful. It drops it's problems."

    "You deserve more," I told her that night on the car, because it was something I believed and she did what I did. She nodded as if she understood, and I hoped she did.