No Escape

She pushed him on the swing set, his little laughter filling the air with each push.

In these moments, she looked down at him and smiled.

These were often Yvette’s most prized moments of the day: spending time with her 4-year-old nephew at the local park. Every workday morning, she would pick him up from her baby sister’s house, take him to the park for around a half hour, and then drop him off at daycare. She really enjoyed this rare time, uninterrupted.

In between her nephew’s high-pitched laughs, she found herself looking up and around. In her view were children of different ages running and playing on the playground. A little girl, probably two or three years old, eagerly played with the wet sand moistened by the recent rain. She was building a mini castle. Her eyes were big and bright and her mouth wide. This truthfully seemed like the happiest moment of the little girl’s life. An older, Xeroxed copy of her sat behind on a bench, serenely reading a novel.

As sometimes happened when Yvette observed such a scene, she felt a slight heaviness in her chest. It reminded her of a life she had long wished for herself one day: to experience motherhood of her own little ones running around on such a playground. Instead, now at age 43 and single, she was grappling with the sobering reality that she probably never would. As she watched on, the nagging thought that had found regular residency in her mind had again made its way to the surface: That should’ve been my life, it said.

As her eyes continued to take in the scene she had such mixed feelings about, she suddenly felt another set planted on her. Like she was being watched. But who? Where?

She again surveyed the area and saw nothing and no one that seemed alarming, at first. But then, there, across the street. She couldn’t be sure, but it was the only person and part of the scene that seemed out of place. Everyone else was either children playing or adults occupied by some other kind of activity. This person, on the other hand, was just…standing. Standing, directly facing Yvette’s direction.

She couldn’t see much of this person—only that they wore a black hoodie, with the hood down and covering most of their head. And they seemed notably short. Likely under five feet.

Yvette tried her best to look but not look. She wanted to confirm whether she really was who this person was looking at but also to get a better idea of what they, themselves, looked like. The only other thing she could make out besides the hoodie and their height was their skin. It was the color of cinnamon, and it had a sort of light bagginess that suggested early signs of aging.

The person definitely was looking. Staring.

She found herself staring back, almost consumed by the moment.

After what felt like a lifetime but was probably only a few seconds, her nephew’s infectious erupted, interrupting her trance and visual showdown. She peered down at him, smiling again. When she looked up again, the person was gone.

After Yvette dropped off her nephew at daycare and drove on to work, she began flipping around the radio stations. She landed on one, just as a familiar tune began blaring through the speakers. It was one of her favorite songs: “Almost,” by Tamia.

She cranked up the volume and belt out the words:

I miss the times we almost shared,

I miss the love that was almost there.

I miss the times that we used to kiss,

At least in my dreams, just let me take my time and reminisce.

I miss the times that we never had,

What happened to us? We were almost there.

Whoever said it’s impossible to miss what you never had, never almost had you.

As she sang along, her mind began to drift to back when she first learned, and eventually fell in love with, this song. It was while she was with her boyfriend Andy of three years at the time. She was so obsessed with the tune, with the lyrics, and played it often, to the point where it had eventually gotten on Andy’s nerves.

“Why in the world do you like that song so much?” he would ask. “It’s kind of depressing, when you think about it.” 

Although the beat and melody made it seem joyful, the same wasn’t the case for the lyrics, so it wasn’t exactly the kind Andy preferred to hear often—let alone, back-to-back, nonstop, as Yvette would often make anyone within earshot endure.

Not only was the song a bit somber, he observed, but it was about love unrealized, so he couldn’t understand why she would want to hear it so often either.

Yvette passionately continued in her car with Tamia:

Should’ve went out on a date,

Should’ve found a way to escape,

Should have turned ‘almost' into ‘it happened,’ and now it’s too late.

How could I celebrate a love that wasn’t real?

And if it didn’t happen, why does my heart feel?

Part of why she enjoyed the song so much was because secretly, she could relate to the words. They made her think of an old, close friend she’d once had strong feelings for, but nothing had come of it. She was too shy to ever express how she felt, and before she knew it, he was in a serious relationship with someone else. And before she knew it again, he and that someone else were married. It seemed like she only blinked, and they now had three kids.

Why couldn’t I have just told him? she would often interrogate herself. Then that would’ve been me he’s happily married to. We’d be happily married and enjoying parenthood together.

Especially in times when she felt particularly lonely or unsatisfied with the current state of her love life, no matter whether she was single or involved, she would think of that song. She would think of him. She would think of the “them” that never was. Thinking of what could’ve and should’ve been.

Of course, Andy never knew that.

Interestingly, nowadays when she heard it, she found herself increasingly thinking of Andy. Of how much he hated the song. And of how much she generally missed him. She would wonder what she could have done differently, said differently, for her and Andy to have worked out in the end.

Just as she was getting to the song’s bridge, Yvette’s eyes briefly glanced at her rearview mirror. The car directly behind her caught her attention. It was the same kind of grey Honda Accord she’d had in her earlier twenties. A pretty standard make and model and a pretty common color for a car, but it would forever stand out after she’d had her own for many years.

After noticing the car, she happened to catch a glimpse of the person behind the wheel. Her singing words began to trail off, and her breath stilled. It was the same cinnamon-colored face, still largely shadowed by the black hoodie. The same person from the park.

In the next instance as the person drove, they removed the hood. Long, full, dark-brown curls fell out and flowed around her soft, cinnamon-colored face and neck. Yvette couldn’t be sure, but from the little she could see while driving, the woman seemed younger than before—this time, maybe 22 or 23.

“Who in the world are you?” Yvette said out loud to herself.

She thought the woman looked vaguely familiar—a bitter ex of an ex, perhaps? A jealous old friend? One of her little sister’s friends?—but she couldn’t place her. Her growing eyes locked with the woman’s for several seconds before a random honk nearby reminded her that she was actively behind the wheel. They then quickly darted back to the road ahead of her, and her hands corrected the vehicle that had begun slightly drifting. Once she confirmed she wasn’t about to hit someone or run a red light, her eyes jumped back to the mirror. A red Ford truck now filled half of the the rear reflection. No longer in view was the grey Honda. Yvette looked around and didn’t see a single one in sight.

She found her breath again and was disappointed to discover her beloved song had also ended.

Finally at the office later that morning, Yvette stared blankly at her computer screen. Tauntingly staring back at her was a system she had seen and used many, many times.

“Hey, Yvette, do you have that report yet?”

Yvette could barely find the energy to look up at her coworker John. When she finally did, that was all she could do, with no words actually coming out of her mouth. John had worked with her long enough to know what that choice silence meant.

“Ahh okay,” he said, “Well, just try to get it to me by the end of the week?”

Yvette looked back at her screen, giving him only a hint of a slow nod as acknowledgement.

“Why am I here?” she muttered to herself, once he walked off. 

Yvette hadn’t had the enthusiasm for this job in many years, if she ever did. She often found herself just going through the motions. Coming in and too often doing the bare minimum, basically just to collect a check. No corporate-climbing aspirations here. No going above-and-beyond. Doing just enough to keep herself from getting fired.

But, in moments when she would let her mind wander, it would often wonder whether she maybe should be fired. If she should just throw her hands up, say forget it all, and walk out. Or make the company push her out. Just so that she could finally get to what she had really wanted to do: Creatively write for a living. She could finally write a few novels, some poetry, dozens of short stories, even songs. Even blogs! The possibilities were endless, she often thought.

As her mind went down this track for a thousandth time, she imagined what her life might have been if, instead of continuing to take the easy, predictable, comfortable road, she’d had the courage to walk away from this dreary safety net years ago. She indulged in thinking how so much more fulfilled she probably would have been. So much more at peace. So much more…happy.

As they often did, her eyes did its routine survey of disgust around the large, bland office floor, with its painfully neutral sandstone cubicles and walls. Why am I still here? She repeated mentally and aggressively.

Her trail of thought was suddenly interrupted by a concerning familiar sight. It was her…again. The short woman with the cinnamon skin and dark-brown curly hair.

This time, she was in Yvette’s workplace.

She was standing in the corner of the floor, again just staring at Yvette. If Yvette had any doubt before about this woman’s stalker intentions or whether she was being followed, this encounter certainly crystalized the answer. This person was in her freaking workplace.

Now that she got a real good look at her, she felt confident in thinking the woman appeared to be more in her thirties—certainly younger than Yvette.

The woman also appeared very sad. Her eyes, which Yvette now observed were an emerald green—a specific kind of green that reminded Yvette of her mom—seemed almost empty.

Without hesitation or taking her eyes off of the woman, Yvette jumped to her feet and stormed over to the security officer who occasionally walked the floors.

Just as she was about to approach him, she felt a sudden tap on her shoulder, which startled her out of her sharp focus. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Yvette, but are you OK?” It was her coworker John again.

Yvette looked at him wild-eyed and in mixed confusion and frustration.

“I saw you practically fly out of your chair,” John nervously chuckled, “And run over here, so I just wanted to make sure you were alright!”

Largely ignoring him, Yvette turned to address the security guard, who was also looking at her in growing bewilderment.

“You see that woman over there?!?” Yvette asked as her eyes finally found their way back to the corner where the woman with the green eyes had been standing.

“What woman?” The security guard’s and John’s eyes both followed hers but didn’t see anything or anyone particularly out of the ordinary in view.

Yvette no longer saw the woman there, either. She frantically looked around and didn’t see the curly brown hair anywhere.

“Umm,” Yvette stammered. “I’m sorry, there just—” She tried one last time to see if she spotted the woman, but, nothing. “Sorry, never mind,” she finally said. “There’s no woman. Forget it.”

Yvette walked off, her head lowered in embarrassment as John and the security guard looked on, still confused

Who in world is that woman, and where did she go?!? Yvette thought, as her eyes darted around, still quietly searching for her. Am I losing my mind? Yvette asked. I know she was just there literally a second ago.

After work, Yvette stopped by the gym for a quick workout.

It was already Thursday, and she was beating herself up for this being her first time going this week. She had vowed to herself on New Year’s to start going at least three times per week. It was mid-March, and so far, she was averaging around one and a half, if that.

As she began her usual pre-workout warmup on the treadmill, she found herself looking over her shoulder, keeping an eye out for the green-eyed woman.

On the treadmill beside her was a woman sporting a hot-pink sport bra, spandex shorts, and a mean six-pack in-between. Her shoulders, arms, and legs were like a finely carved wooden sculpture, Yvette observed. 

I bet her breasts don’t even need a sports bra, Yvette pondered. And they probably stay still even as she runs.

Yvette peered across the floor, at the big yoga mat and a group of women stretching—their perfectly Coke-bottle figures moving exactly as they instructed them to along the way.

She looked at her own reflection in the mirror nearby and noted the loose skin and flabby fat that swayed enthusiastically as her arms moved beside her. She shuttered at sight of the cellulite scattered throughout her closely immeshed thighs that seemed to have taken permanent residency, no matter how hard she tried to have it evicted. And her belly and back. The ever-growing rolls vibrated and moved on their own, separate from the rest of her body, like the independent waves of an ocean.

Three times a week, Yvette, she thought. Three times a week. That’s all you’ve had to do. And watch your eating. And yet, here we are.

She was so disgusted with and disappointed in herself that she barely noticed the eyes. Those emerald-green eyes.

This time, they were in the far corner of the gym—opposite from Yvette’s treadmill.

Yvette rushed off of the machine, tripping and nearly falling along the way, and tried to beeline towards the eyes. The woman turned and calmly walked towards the exit.

“Hey!” Yvette called out, startling others around her. “You! Come here!!”

Yvette sped after her, but by the time she got outside, she looked around in the now-darkness of the night and, perplexingly, didn’t see the woman anywhere in sight.

“Ahhhh!! What the FUCK do you WANT!?!?!?!?” She screamed. And nearly broke down crying.

People walking by looked at her in mixed surprise and concern.

“Are you OK?” one man asked. 

Yvette looked at him and couldn’t find the words. Was she ok? She was trying to figure that out, herself.

She gave up on the rest of her workout and, constantly looking over her shoulder, decided to go home.

Later that night, Yvette breathed a slight sigh of relief, knowing she was finally in the comfort of her own, highly secure and alarm-installed house, where it would be much harder for someone to follow and stalk her—especially without being caught and by more than her. She had 24-hour outside security cameras on every possible entry and exit surrounding her home.

Thinking and worrying about this woman all day, along with the rest of her usual thoughts, plus work, had her exhausted. She was ready to really relax and hopefully, eventually, turn in for the night. She would deal with the green-eyed stalker woman issue tomorrow.

After stepping out of a hot shower and covering her body with a towel, Yvette walked over to the sink and stepped on the foot stool to begin washing her face and brushing her teeth.

True to form, the shower steam had greatly fogged the mirror, but it wasn’t so foggy that Yvette couldn’t see the outline of a figure she once again felt she could and should have done more to have in better shape. 

Three times a week, she continued to scold herself.

She used a corner of her towel to wipe the glass. As she often did, she counted to make sure there weren’t any new wrinkles or gray hairs that had formed since the last time she inspected. 

Every sight of a wrinkle always made her think of how much she wished she had used more sunscreen, and stressed a lot less, when she was younger. And perhaps if she wouldn’t have stressed so much and had treated her hair with more care over the years, she wouldn’t now have so many grays now.

She stared at the green eyes staring back at her and again began carefully assessing her cinnamon-colored face, swiping her brown curls out of the way to get a better look.