Artificial Peace
She’s here.
I can’t see her, but my body spent far too long knowing hers to not be able to feel her presence. After all, it’s only been a few days since I was looking down at her head on my chest. Her eyelashes were resting on the tops of her cheeks; the tacky extensions were a sacrilegious covering of the soft eyes I’d grown accustomed to. There were plenty of things that felt unfamiliar about her in that moment, but I guess a person can go to great lengths to make themselves different when they want to. If the superficial changes are any indication of just how badly she wants to become unfamiliar to me, then maybe I’ll finally be able to rid myself of the images of her that fill my mind soon. I know just what will do the trick.
I push my weight off the wooden bar I’ve been resting against and let my feet drag across the ratty, checkered floor tiles towards the bathroom. I wave my friends off when they try to follow; it’s going to take the rest of what I have. I tip my head back and throw the last of the liquid from my cup into my mouth and let the burn migrate from my tongue to my throat to my stomach before I feel a warmth spread over my whole being. I toss the plastic cup towards the trash barrel in passing, not looking to see if I hit my mark.
There you are.
I catch a glimpse of black hair flipping over a shoulder, and I don’t need to see her face to know who I’m looking at. As she turns to react to something the man standing to her left said, her eyes meet mine instead. It’s only a second, but I can see every thought that passes through her mind as I drag my eyes across her, starting with her hair. It’s darker than it was a few days ago, which is quite the feat, considering her hair has always been dark…and it ends abruptly in the middle of her chest. It makes me think of all the times I would call her hair black, only for her to correct me with a fiery tone and explain that it’s just a “dark brown”, but black is definitely the correct label now.
She blinks at me like I may disappear when her eyes open again, like a deer in the headlights of an 18-wheeler. Her eyes look heavy…maybe being weighed down by the extensions I debated tearing from her eyelids a few nights ago, or maybe from something else. She’s got a hoop sticking from each nostril, slightly off-center from each other – those are new, looking foreign on the face I see every time I close my eyes. The clothes clinging to her body are nothing I’ve seen before; somebody’s been indulging in some retail therapy.
As I reach the corner to turn into the restroom, the man beside her grabs her shoulder to recenter her attention on whatever he said before she got stuck in my gaze. I expect the sight of his hand connecting with her bare shoulder to ignite some sort of indignation within me, but when I see the obviously exaggerated smile she directs toward him, I understand. I am not convinced that anyone could see that kind of smile as genuine, but maybe it’s because I know all too well how her face lights up when a real one paints her face. I cross the threshold of the restroom and shake the thought of the girl on the other side of the door out of my head. My fingers tear past the elastic of my sock, finally finding the crumpled packet: my lifeline. I kick my foot out behind me to catch the stall door and pull it closed behind me as I fish a dollar bill and my phone from the pocket of my jeans.
No longer constrained by the limits of my pocket, the bill curls in on itself, as if it knows its sole purpose is to deliver me to a place of artificial peace, and it is happy to serve me. I watch my phone’s screensaver light up with a notification of a new text message, but the words are obscured by the uniform white tracks that are now turning an eerie shade of blue against the glow. As I lower my face to the surface, I am assaulted by glimpses of a face full of disgust and fear, staring at me with tears threatening to spill over and lips puffy from being caught between her teeth to keep a wounded noise from escaping. A familiar stinging fills my nose, and if anyone outside the stall hears the sudden, distinct inhale of breath, they don’t make it known. When I raise my face, her face is gone, and I let out an exasperated laugh.
She’s gone.
He’s gone.
As he disappears behind the wall separating the men’s room from the rest of the bar, I turn to my left and feel a strain in my cheeks from how hard I am smiling at the man beside me. The hand on my shoulder is shooting fire through my veins, while the gaze that was just broken seconds ago has me chilled to my core. I turn my back to the space betweenhimand mebecause I am unsure if my knees are strong enough to withstand another round of visual dissection without falling tohisfeet. And I am nauseated by the fact that despite the changes I’ve made to myself, one look from him makes me realize that I am not any different than I was days ago, weeks ago, or even years ago. He looked straight through me; the disguise didn’t convince him or me. The handsome stranger in front of me finally lets his hand fall away from my body, and I exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
My head is buzzing, and I’m suddenly aware of how suffocating my skin is. The man has told me his name twice now, but I don’t care what his name is or what he’s studying or what is in the small glass he slips into my hand. A door slams behind me as I let the drink coat my tongue, forcing a new wave of rebellion to overtake me. My new placeholder smirks at me and nods towards the doors at the front of the building. I allow him to lead me past the sparse groups of bodies, weaving our way towards the exit. I crash into the back of him when he stops abruptly at the wooden counter, making small talk with the bartender as he fishes his wallet from his pocket to pay the tab we racked up tonight, which was more than usual for me. There’s no way I would ever be here, with him, sober.
A distinct sound invades my ears and alerts me to the presence of the black hole standing only a few feet from me. His atmospheric pull shifts my gaze to the other side of the bar top, and I’m met with the side profile of the living ghost that haunts me. His lips are parted, and the sound of his laughter is no different than daggers being thrown at me. His chin tips slightly, and the sides of his eyes locate me almost immediately. The peripheral glance transforms into direct eye contact, and while I want to look away, he knows exactly which thread to pull to unravel any self-resolve I can muster up. Then I see it.
It’s not him.
The autumn-colored irises of his eyes have been overtaken by the darkness of his pupils. I know the look of his dilated eyes on an intimate level – it’s like an entirely different person possesses him. His look sharpens, and the corner of his lips curls up in a knowing smirk. My body is conditioned to respond to this look by cowering away and doing everything I can to appease the threat building in his bones and threatening to spill onto me, but I fight against the instinct to give in to pressure pulling me towards an apology. I break eye contact and turn back to the man I plan on letting take me home tonight. I wasn’t planning on paying any attention to the man grabbing my hand more than a friendly conversation and drinks, but the heavy pressure boring into the back of my head, and the liquid courage, are pushing me out of my comfort zone.
I tighten my grip on the foreign-feeling fingers and force my feet to carry us to the double doors. My feet are sticking to the floor with every step, and I can’t decipher if it’s from the spilled drinks coating the tile or my insides telling me this feels wrong. As I push open the glass doors and am hit by the chilled February air, I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. The anticipation of a hand wrapping into the hair on the back of my scalp nearly makes me turn around, but with every step further down the sidewalk, with the consistent weight of a hand in mine, the sharp edge of panic I felt melts into a new sense of apprehension. The silence of the outside world forces a hyper-awareness of just how unfamiliar the person I’ve tethered myself to for the night is. The adrenaline that fueled my heated rebellion is slipping away, leaving me feeling hollow and cold.
He isn’t him.
