Free Paper Dolls by Hanna Peach Page A

heart, the other half that she already owned.
    Would this be that day?
    When I turned around, would she really be there? Did I dream that Salem showed up? Did I imagine this? Wishful thinking? Temporary insanity after three desperate years of searching?
    You stopped searching, remember?
    Did Salem know that I gave up on her? I turned slowly as if I were facing a firing squad.
    But Salem wasn’t there.
    Holy shit. I was going mad.
    I heard movement in my bedroom. Moments later she appeared, walking back into the living room.
    I wasn’t going mad.
    Salem was here.
    She was here.
    In my apartment.
    She dumped her bag on the floor of my small living room. “Nice place.” She plopped down on my couch and lifted her booted feet up on my coffee table.
    That was Salem.
    “You gonna offer me a drink or what?”
    “Drink. Right. Water?”
    “Coffee.”
    “Milk? Sugar?”
    “You have any whiskey?”
    “In your coffee?”
    “It’s called an Irish coffee.”
    “But…” I blinked, staring at the lime-coloured digits on my microwave. Yes, it was still morning. It was 8:36 a.m. No, the numbers weren’t flicking around like crazy so this wasn’t a dream. I had read somewhere that was how you knew whether something was a dream; if the clock numbers spun or if you couldn’t read words. Or was that a movie I saw? I don’t know. My memory had never been any good. “But it’s still morning.”
    When I looked back at her, Salem gave me a searing look. After all this time I recognised that look. It was the ‘chill out, man, stop being so uncool’ look. It was the look she used to give our neighbours behind their back when the old bat told me off for stealing the cherries out of her tree. I would never be game enough to climb any trees, it was always Salem that did it. But somehow I was always the one who got in trouble. I would never rat Salem out though. I would never tell on her. I just took the scolding.
    When did I become uncool?
    You were never cool. You were only cool because you were with Salem.
    “Fine,” Salem drew that word out and combined it with a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll just have it black. Like my heart.”
    I somehow made it into the kitchen and fumbled around with cups and spoons and a half-empty container of instant Nescafe Gold, as the water roared away in my shitty plastic kettle.
    Fuck. I didn’t drink but damn if I needed one now. Whiskey at 8 a.m. didn’t sound half bad. I kept sneaking glances over to Salem, now flicking through one of the magazines from under the coffee table that I think Flick must have left one time.
    As I poured the water into the mugs I watched the granules dissolve under the heat, turning the water to mud. I added milk to mine, disguising the darkness, and left hers black. The spoon dinged sharply into the thick silence broken only by the rustle of pages.
    Salem is back.
    I tried that again, saying it slower in my head.
    Salem. Is. Back.
    She came back to me. I let her down. But she still came back to me. I gave up on her. But she came back to me.
    I carried the two coffee cups over to the living area, walking slowly, trying not to spill the contents or my sanity onto the carpet. Salem dropped her feet from the table and threw the magazine aside. It skidded on the side table before coming to rest, partly flopped over one edge.
    I sat her cup down on the low table, placing my own aside hers, twin red mugs, one with the lip chipped from that time it was knocked down, hers rolling with steam.
    I sat down on the other side of the couch, grabbing one of the cushions to place in my lap and began to play with one of the corner fringes, the space between us, like the last three years, yawning open like a canyon.
    She nudged her chin towards her mug. “Thanks, Rosey.”
    Rosey. I hadn’t heard that nickname in years. When we were children she started calling me Rosey because my cheeks would turn into red roses whenever I got embarrassed. They still did. Salem never had that