Free Black Iris by Leah Raeder Page B

standing there awhile, letting them pass.
    My body felt like a burned candle wick. I’d spent myself on the mile run. Speech was too difficult. I waited until the L left and touched her coat sleeve.
    We hadn’t seen each other in three months. Three months, one week, and four days, to be precise. I could tell you the hour and minute, too. When she turned we both stood there, speechless. This face. Missing someone is the whetstone that sharpens want , Mom said once. If it was true, then all that was left of my heart was an edge looping in on itself like a Möbius strip, slicing me up inside.
    I breathed her name.
    Blythe pulled out her earbuds and touched my cheek with cold fingers. “Are you really here?”
    The edged thing that occupied my chest gave a sharp twist.
    “We have to talk,” I said. “It’s an emergency.”
    Despite this, neither of us moved. I couldn’t look away from her face. Mist lay on her skin in a gossamer film. She looked fey, unreal.
    “Come on, then.” She slung her bag over a shoulder, visibly braced herself. One glance at me then no more. “And hide your face.”
    I took a Blackhawks cap from my bag and drew it low over my eyes.
    We walked through the red arch that said WELCOME TO CHINATOWN , crossing wet blacktop scribbled with neon likeleaking paint. Rain hovered midair in a diamond-flecked veil. We lit cigarettes simultaneously and both of us laughed, soft, more like sighs. Behind us the trails of our breath and smoke braided into a double helix.
    Blythe picked a restaurant at random and we sat in a vinyl booth under a paper lantern, awkwardly staring at each other’s hands on the tabletop. I stripped off my soaked coat and cap and started shivering. She ordered something, asked where the restrooms were. The server watched us walk in together.
    I locked the door. When I turned she took me in her arms.
    My eyes shut.
    For a long time we didn’t speak. We held fiercely, ribs touching, her heart beating against my breasts, every breath she took echoed by my body. Always falling into each other’s rhythm. I buried my face in her hair and inhaled that dark berry scent, my mind blanking except for her. My shirt was damp, my hair stringy with rain. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.
    “God, you smell good,” she said.
    “Liar. I’m sweaty. I ran all the way here.”
    “I never lie.” She pulled back, put her hands to either side of my face. “Your eyelashes are wet. Like little black petals.”
    I lowered them and she pressed her mouth to my eyelids, one after the other.
    “I’ve missed you so much,” I said.
    Her hands trembled, touching the tiny gold cross at my throat. “I haven’t missed you at all. It’s just that there’s no color in the world anymore, and every sound is the buzzing of flies, and everything tastes like dust.”
    Oh, this was dangerous.
    I wrenched away and paced the bathroom. Sickly white fluorescence on bone-colored tile. The odor of ammonia and grease. I breathed deep, filling my senses, pushing her out.
    “Sweet girl,” she whispered.
    I dug my phone out of my pocket. Returned to her and drove her up against the door. Not sweet now, our old vicious selves returning.
    Her eyes bounced rapidly between mine and the screen. Then lingered on the screen. Then returned to me, slower.
    “Who sent this?”
    “I don’t know.” I slammed my phone against the door, not caring if it cracked. It slipped and spun across the floor, faceup, the damning photo blazing. The three of us, seen grainily through an apartment window. My shirt was off. Just a black bra and their hands on my skin. His hands, and hers. The bloodied shirt wasn’t even in the frame but it didn’t matter. The words said it all.
    I SAW YOU .
    My hands knotted in Blythe’s hoodie, nails meeting flesh. “I don’t fucking know who. But someone saw us. And they know. ”

SEPTEMBER, LAST YEAR
    T he mattress was the last thing left. I was about ready to collapse atop it, but Blythe