The Beginning of Darkness by Chantal Eisenhauer

Standing on the street corner, I realize I’m not breathing as a woman in a purple coat bumps into me. She gives me a dirty look, and quickly walks away. As if the crowded sidewalk is my fault. Putting my hands on my knees, I gasp for air. The cold strikes my lungs hard. The usual smell of exhaust fills my nose, making my eyes sting. It’s too strong.

“What the hell’s wrong with that guy?” I hear someone say as they walk by. My body feels paralyzed. I can’t seem to move or think. That makes it real. I stand up, wondering where to go from here. I can’t go home and look her in the eyes. That’s all I know. My heart is still pounding, and I still haven’t been able to catch my breath. I try to hail a cab. The sweatshirt I’m wearing dampens, as the rain begins to fall. Her face comes into my head. She was so hurt as she fell to the floor, looking up at me like I was a monster. That one-second may have changed everything. One act of anger, and now, I have everything to lose. I start to walk away from my apartment and away from the mess I made. I feel my sweatshirt get heavy, like the weight on my shoulders is increasing.

The day before I had decided to cook my girlfriend, Ava, dinner. I was stirring the sauce for the pasta as the phone rang from the other room. When I finally found it under a pile of laundry I answered it, annoyed. There was always shit lying around. “I hope you don’t have anything special planned for tonight cause I’m stuck in traffic; there was a really bad accident.” I could hear the frustration in her voice and didn’t want to add to her stress.

“Oh… no, you don’t worry about it. When will you be home?”

“Not sure, probably not until late, don’t wait up for me. I love you, Alden.” I heard the click before I even had time to mutter a response. I waited until the operator came on before I hung up, thinking this was a mistake and she was still there. She always hung up too fast, before I could tell her that I loved her too. The noise of the water boiling over brought me back into the kitchen and out of my daze. It was just another night I would eat and go to bed alone.

I felt Ava get into bed that night trying to be quiet and still, if only not to wake me. The smell of her perfume rushed over me and I was instantly wide-awake. I heard her sigh when her head met her pillow. “Are you up?” She asked quietly, not wanting to wake me if I was already asleep.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She tried to fall into place in my arms. The way she did every night. I rolled over.

Sitting in the bar in my damp sweatshirt, I wish I were home holding her. The bartender looks at me skeptically when I sit down. I don’t look twenty-one. My eyes fill with tears as I remember how Ava looked before I stormed out of the apartment, her cheek red and burning. I don’t know what had gotten into me, but I knew this was no excuse. What she said was unexpected, and I had reacted the only way I knew how. I have never done anything like that before when we fought, and that thought scared me as I finish off my third rum and Coke.

“Can I get another one?” I ask the bartender, noticing that my lips are starting to numb.

“Why don’t you go home and fix whatever mistake you made?” He says, pulling my cup away from me and not refilling it. I feel a pang in my heart, I almost forgot. Standing up, I stumble out of the bar, making my way to the street. My foot burns, but it doesn’t bother me. I know that the pain is there and like that I can think of the pain in a single spot.

“…and then he just left.” I could hear her say. I don’t know if she was on the phone or if someone else is in there with her. Standing in the hallway, I am looking at our apartment door, C5 in the center in gold. “No, please Gabe. Just leave it be.” She paused, meaning her brother was talking on the other end. Shit. I should not have let it get this far. “I really don’t think he meant it.” Another pause. “I just don’t know what to think…since he left. Oh, all right then. I’ll see you in a few.” Everything is telling me to open the door handle and not run again. To face up to what I did and get her to understand. Instead, my past influences me more than anything and I turned to walk away.

When I was twelve, my Dad left my Mom and I. I came home from school and found my Mom in the kitchen making dinner like nothing was different. She was boiling spaghetti noodles, and I distinctly remember her asking me to set the table. I got out three plates, glasses, and silverware before she said anything else. “It will be just me and you tonight, honey.” Not bothering to understand where my Dad was, I did as I was told. He often went on business trips with hardly any notice. His company was always sending him somewhere to fix whatever was wrong. I never asked. He never brought it up.

This went on for almost two weeks until I asked my Mom when he was coming home. She told me he left and that he’s not coming back. She didn’t explain anything. That’s all she said. I thought she was wrong and I told her this. I knew he would be back to see me, but he never was. Not for Thanksgiving or Christmas, He never even called. My Mom told me he had a new family in Utah when I finally forgave her and asked about it. One night, I heard her on the phone with one of my aunts, she said, “If I’ve learned anything from this its to leave before you’re left.”

I used that philosophy in all of my relationships after that. With friends, girlfriends, even family. I always left when things were going good, before they had the chance to turn ugly. I cut off contact with friends, stopped calling my relatives back and had broke up with girlfriends with no explanation, until Ava.

I met Ava when I was seventeen.  Until then I ran from everything and left everyone. I went to four different schools. I would beg my Mom to move or left me get up early to go to a school farther away. After the second school she would refuse, she wanted me to be stable. She didn’t want my Dad’s leaving to influence me, but they were her words I heard that night. So I got expelled. I started Emerson High School in the middle of junior year. Ava was the first person I noticed. Her blonde hair was long and fell well beyond her shoulders. As she walked across the courtyard, I saw curves in her body and legs that seemed to go on forever. She flung her hair around and looked directly at me. I looked behind me to see who was there, thinking this was a mistake. No one else was around. When I turned my face back toward her, she was still smiling at me, her whole face lit up. She waved quickly and continued across the green.

I didn’t talk to her when I saw her later in the hall. This school was just another temporary stop on my way to being alone. That’s how I would end up anyway. Eventually, Ava sought me out. Before I could tell her I wouldn’t be around long, she was meeting me at my locker every day between classes. I didn’t really understand this. I wasn’t nice to her. Hell, I was a complete ass. Whenever she asked a question, I answered with a single word or just ignored them completely. I hoped she would go away on her own, so I wouldn’t have to hurt her. Several times I tried to tell her, but then she looked into my eyes. Her eyes were green and with them Ava had become the only person to really see me. Without meaning to, I had let her all the way in. Farther in than anyone had ever been.

Before long, we spent all of our free time together. It was months before we felt comfortable enough with each other to disagree on anything. I had picked a fight with her because I had gotten too comfortable in my new skin. She started crying, and I walked away. The difference this time, was that I had let myself actually care before I decided to run from it.

  I stayed away as long as I could. My cell phone was always off and I missed a week of school. When I did finally go back, I walked down different hallways, taking longer ways to classes. Ava, always persistent, didn’t give up on me. Not this time and none of the times I walked away from her in the future.

I’m leaving the bar for the second time that day when I hear: “There you are you little fuck.” Gabe. I know it’s him before I bother to turn around, knowing his fist would be in my clear vision to my face. Shit. I know it’s only a matter of seconds before I’m lying on the ground. My mouth went dry. I couldn’t say anything even if I have something to say. I know this is one thing I cannot run from. “I told you to never fucking touch my sister,” with that I’m on the ground. My eyes are unable to open as another blow meets my stomach. His boot is strong as it kicks me consistently. I feel my strength slipping away. The little I had anyway.

“I didn’t mean to hit her. It was an accident,” I said, hoping this would stop the pain.

Earlier that day I had planned to meet Ava for lunch at a small café. It was about half a block from her work. I sat looking at the menu alone. Nothing sounded appetizing. I ordered a Coke from the waitress while I waited. With four empty glasses on my table, she asked if I was ready to order.  She knew I was waiting for someone. My frustrations came out as I told her that I would wait a little longer and to leave me the hell alone. Her face immediately changed.

Fifteen minutes after I had yelled at the waitress, Ava has still not shown up. I felt the buzz of my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. I knew before I pulled it out who it was. “Hey honey, I am so sorry. Are you still waiting?”

“Yeah, where are you?”

“I’m still at work, can-“

“You can say no when they ask you to stay, ya know?” I couldn’t hold in my frustrations anymore. I was annoyed. “I left work to come meet you.”

“Alden.”

“Forget it. I’ll see you tonight.” I flipped my phone shut and left some money on the table. The waitress looks at me sympathetically. I don’t need her to feel bad for me. I need my girlfriend to show up when we have plans. I need her to come home for dinner and go to bed with me. I need to make love to her, to kiss her slowly without her rushing off to work.

Ava came home on time that night. Hesitantly, she entered the kitchen where I was making myself dinner. She moved around me quietly, knowing I was in a bad mood. “Do you want me to go stay with my mom tonight?” She asked, not looking at me. “To give you some time.”

“Why the hell would I want that, Ava?”

“I just thought-“

“I don’t see you as it is and the one time you come home when you’re supposed to, you want to leave again just because things aren’t the way you want them to be.”

“Oh yea, you should talk, Alden. You’re the one who just walks away.”

I felt my anger rise, “You have to got to be fucking kidding me! I am the one who comes home every night to make you dinner. I act like I’m fine when you don’t come home. I’m the one that’s here.”

“No.” She said quietly.

“What the hell do you mean ‘no’?”

“You are here, but you are not here for me.” She had stopped yelling. She was quiet and hesitant. Ava’s eyes were looking directly at me. She wasn’t afraid. She was being honest. “If you were here for me, you would know that I cry at night. You wouldn’t roll away from me.”

I turned around to get the frozen fish stick out of the oven. I couldn’t stand to hear it. She was obviously out of her mind.

“I don’t know if I love you anymore.”

This body was no longer mine. I swung around fast, arms in the air.  I dropped the hot pan onto my foot, burning it. I felt my hand collide with something hard. Everything happened in a microsecond, and Ava was still on the floor. It was a blur. She looked up at me with tears in here green eyes. The eyes that changed my world and the eyes that just ripped it apart. I slipped on my shoes and ran out the door.

“Bullshit you didn’t mean it. I saw her face,” Gabe standing over me. He kicks me again before pulling me to me feet.

“I swear. She caught me off guard. She said…she said she,” I sigh. “She said she doesn’t love me anymore.”

“So you hit her?”

“Yeah…” He hits me again. “But I didn’t mean to.” There must be something in my face giving it away, because he sits down. “I was getting a pan out of the oven when she said…well you know. I don’t know how it happened but I must have turned around to fast. I didn’t know she was standing so damn close.” Tears are seeping out of my eyes. Gabe just sits at the table. I was pretty sure he would rather be kicking the shit out of me instead. I show him the burn on my foot. It was still blistering. “I shouldn’t have left. I should have made sure that she was okay, but-“

“But you’re a fuck and that’s what you seem to do.” He cut me off and punches me again. He was getting pissed off again.” Why don’t you stop being such a pussy and stick around long enough to have a conversation”

He turned away from me and walked out the door. I sit down, blood taking over my face. I don’t know if I love you anymore. Her words come back into my mind. I don’t want to face her. I don’t want to see her. I should leave her before she leaves me. If I went back to talk to her she’s going to end it, that I was sure of. Or that’s what I tell myself. How could she choose anything else; after what she said and what I did; I knew that I would never get all the answers I wanted unless I returned to her, but I’m going to just have to live with that. I walk out of the bar, back onto the crowded streets going the opposite direction of out apartment. I was picturing her packing her stuff into boxes, leaving mine alone in the empty spaces that used to belong to the both of us. I walk around until the darkness is almost too much to escape. I find myself standing in the hallway looking at the gold writing: C5. I knock just once, knowing that one knock will seal my fate.