No Lonely Nights

The bell shouldn’t have rung at seven. 

   The mailman didn’t deliver that late where I lived but since there was a chance he had, I sighed and pulled myself off the couch after peeling my eyes away from my television. 

   The fool thing practically attached itself to my eyelids sometimes. 

   “I’m coming,” I called after switching off the TV. I would be back at it right after the mailman if I wasn’t careful and I didn’t feel like waking up tomorrow with a binge hangover. Again. 

   Being a newly christened author, I worked from home. Emails were my steps, typing was my exercise, and my editor was my best friend. 

   Or social quota, take your pick. Either was fine. 

   The doorbell rang again and I picked up my pace. To my shame, I was slightly winded, this was perhaps the fastest I had moved in a year. 

   Quarantine hadn’t quite helped my already slothful tendencies. Increased home delivery was another accursed blessing that added to my sluggishness. 

   Even my fingers had felt slower and funny enough, that was the only thing I was truly bothered by. 

   The doorbell began to ring in a quick sequence like a song and I sped up my footfalls to a full walk. Had this hallway always been this long? I couldn’t quite recall. 

   “I said I’m coming!” This mailman was going to receive a poor review for whoever he worked for. 

   I believed groceries were Tuesdays but this could also be the wrong week. I scowled at the possibility that they could be delivering to the wrong person.  

   I wasn’t even sure if I could give them a bad review if that was the case. 

   The ringing stopped suddenly and as I approached the door, I heard something bang against it as if the delivery man had just thought to put down whatever package they’d brought.

   It bothered me so much that I couldn’t remember what it was that I decided I hadn’t ordered anything at all. 

   I might not have. Tonight, as with most others, were meant to be lonely, some quality time with either my television or keyboard if you would. 

   The door sighed, which admittedly was an odd noise for the door to make but who was I to judge? I hadn’t talked to anyone in at least a week or two, if the door wanted to let it out, who was I to judge?

  A door in a hard-knock world. I would have laughed at that little joke if the door hadn’t been right there. We didn’t interact much and I doubted it would take it as a joke. 

   You have to learn to pass your consideration to other things when you take people out of the equation. 

   I would have to give it to this delivery man though, he’d made me motivated enough to get up and then annoyed enough to make it all the way to the door. 

   I pulled the door open with a prepared smile and then stumbled back as someone fell into the newly opened door against my shins. 

   A face I hadn’t seen since high school flipped her head back and smiled, “Hey, King, ya miss me?” 

   It is here I must make a distinction, all the faces I saw in high school? I have not seen any of them since high school. This one just happened to be the one I had remembered since.

  I frowned, “Hello, Danny.” Technically her name was Danielle but she’d never seemed to like that. Go figure, she acted like a boy anyway, pushing and shoving and whatnot. 

   She leaned forward and closed the door in the process. 

   I frowned again, “I don’t recall inviting you in.”

  Danny brushed herself off and smiled again, “You wouldn’t want to leave your dear friend in the cold would you?”

  “It’s the middle of the summer.”

  “In New York.”

  “South.”

  She shrugged, “Whatever, so what have you been up to?”

  I glared at her, “Writing, alone.”

  She’d never been any good at taking hints and waltzed down my hallway in the direction of my couch. 

   “You got anything to eat?”

  “Nothing you’d lik-” My excuse was cut off by a gasp from around the corner and she reappeared in the hallway a moment later with a bag in her hand. 

   “I can’t believe you still eat these.” She said. 

   It was a bag of circular pretzels I’d brought for lunch first day of junior year. Danny, who’d been the quiet one back then, had volunteered a pencil for the effort and we played ringtoss for the whole period and for countless periods afterward. 

   “Not really,” I said. I’d never gotten around to opening them. They’d always felt more sentimental than edible. 

   She popped it open and grabbed a handful before shoving it in her mouth. After a few moments of awkward crunching, she swallowed and wrinkled her nose. 

   “I forgot how terrible they tasted.” 

   I nodded, “I don’t know why I bought them.” I did of course but that didn’t mean I had to tell her. 

   Danny smiled, “Come on, you don’t remember playing ringtoss with these guys?” She tossed one into her mouth and it clattered on her teeth before it fell in. I remembered counting how many she could make in a row for her. 

   It felt like forever ago. 

   She crinkled the bag closed and sighed, “What happened to ringtoss, King? What happened to us?”

  “I don’t recall there being an us.” 

   Danny rolled her eyes and I followed her towards the small kitchen my apartment managed. 

   “So you didn’t invite me to prom, I’m alright with that, it certainly wasn’t a dealbreaker even if it was because you wanted to keep your precious writing schedule. I don’t think that means there wasn’t an us. Why else would you have played ringtoss with pretzels?”

  “Maybe I was bored.” 

   “Like you couldn’t have read a book.”

  I was beginning to recall more and more of the little details about her that I found both endearing and maddening. More of the same each of them. 

   I shook my head, “How’d you find my apartment?”

  “I asked your mom. She said to tell you to check your phone.”

  “I called her yesterday.”

  She shrugged, “I made the last part up.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  I snorted, “Yes, and a pathological one at that.”

  She crossed her arms, “I am not.”

  “Then I suppose you have a good reason for visiting me so suddenly?”

  Danny sniffed, “Maybe I was bored.”

  I pushed past her into the kitchen and took the pretzel bag, “Don’t do that.”

  She tilted her head in mock innocence, “Do what?”

  I sighed, “You know what. I don’t need to tell you, you just like to hear me say it which makes you, ta-da, a pathological liar, it’s like you want people to believe them.”

  “That is the point of lying isn’t it?”

  I scowled, “Go lie to someone else then.”

  Her hand fell on her shoulder and it took me a moment to remember I should want it off. 

   “Whatever happened to us, King?” She whispered into my ear. Her breath tickled the back of my neck and I shrugged her off. 

   “I got a career and you flunked high school.”

  “I didn’t actually. There were two graduations.”

  “Liar.”

  “Look who’s a smart one. Do you want a cookie?”

  I turned away to bat away her lie and then stopped when I saw she actually did have a cookie in her hand.

   I would have even believed she’d brought it too if her other hand hadn’t been in my pantry. I pushed her hand away but she caught her fingers on mine and held them for a moment. 

   I breathed and stared into her eyes for a moment. 

   Danny stared back and smiled, “You’re not going to let go first are you?”

  Something caught in my throat and I swallowed before I took a step towards her. I felt her pulse in her wrist and took another step towards her before I shook my head and stalked over to the refrigerator. 

   “Did you come here for food then?”

  She sighed, “Does everything have to be a lie?”

  My fingers were still tingling from her touch and I hesitated, “With you, I guess so.”

  “I’ll go then.” I heard her step away and knew she was looking back waiting, just waiting for me to take pity on her. 

   How I’d had the poor luck to meet such a girl in high school, I had no idea. How she’d stuck around made for even worse fortunes.

That was what I tried to believe anyway. That was the idea of living alone anyway. 

   I turned around knowing full well she hadn’t taken more than a step away, “Danny... “

  She looked up through the few hairs she’d tossed over her face, “Yeah?”

   I felt a hot spark burst inside at her extra attempt for pity before it faded under a whole lot of something else. 

   “Would you…” I sighed, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  She hid a smile behind her hand, “You’re sure?”

  I scoffed out a laugh, “Like I could get rid of you.”

  She let her smile out of hiding and pulled a cat-stretch, “You make me sound so bad.”

  I pulled out a frozen pizza, “Is pizza good then?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  For all her purported love of dogs, the woman acted like a cat more often than not. Particularly when I saw her. Her coy eyes, her slow, lying lips, and the way she moved… 

   I held back a shiver and went to the hazardous task of inserting the pizza into the oven.

   A few years ago, I would have been joking about it actually being a problem but given that most of my recent meals had come in a box that had itself, come from a car,  it seemed more daunting than I remembered. 

   Of course, I just set it in and was done with it. Then the only problem left was Danny. 

   She’d found the remote and had flipped through half my channels before settling on Animal Planet. She’d always had a soft spot for animals, particularly if they were fluffy. 

   “Remember when you used to dress up like one of those?” She asked me. 

   I frowned at the memory, “It was for service hours.”

  “And that makes it so much better.” 

   “Do you want food or not?”

  Danny stretched against the couch and stuck a leg up. To my own credit, I looked away. After sneaking a glance of course but I never claimed to be an angel, she was wearing shorts after all. They even reached her knee, she’s a saint that way. 

   “I’ll eat, you wanna come over and watch Rufus score a touchdown?”

  “That’s a rerun.”

  Danny turned up to look at me. Amusement sparkled in her eyes.

  “How would you know?”

  “Those play during the Super Bowl and it’s the middle of the summer. You’re the only one nutty enough to watch these things.”

    She crooked a finger at me, “We can make it two.”

  I checked the timer on the pizza before I walked over and sat on the opposite end of the couch. Danny raised an eyebrow at me but just turned back to Puppy Bowl as Fluffy dealt a devastating blow to Rufus with a rubber chicken. 

   “I think your Rufus just got a concussion,” I said. 

   She gave me a look, “I’m going to give you a concussion.”

  “Good thing I know you’re lying.”

  Danny pursed her lips but laughed, “Oh, I don’t know, I’m thinking of making it real.”

  “Better thing I know you couldn’t.”

  She scooted over towards me, “And why’s that?” 

   My thoughts decided to find somewhere better to be in that moment and I stuttered as she took another scoot closer to me.

   “You’re a girl?”

  “That’s a low blow, King, even for you.”

  She punched me in the shoulder, “And also wrong.”

  I rubbed my arm and frowned, “I don’t suppose I get to punch you back do I?”

  “Nope, I’m a girl right?”

  “I’ll just tell the officer you started it.” 

   I scooted closer to her. By my count, we were about one more scoot away from each other. 

   She smiled and gave the final scoot. Her shoulder bumped against my new bruise. 

   “Small couch, you got here.”

  I shook my head to hide a smile, “It’s to ward off company.”

  “That would explain the lack of lighting.” She reached out and flicked the light off. 

   “Danny, wh-” I felt her finger on my lips. 

   “Shhhh,” She said, “No more talking.”

  I snorted in the darkness, “Love this dead girl walking?”

  She shoved me, “It was a phase,”

  I smiled, “Sure it was.” 

   I could barely make her eyes out with the light from the oven timer. According to her eye’s reflection, I had about five minutes before mozzarella started burning. 

   “You’re not going to get that?” She asked me. 

   “I will.”

  Danny put a soft hand around the back of my neck and pulled my head towards her. I wasn’t entirely certain what parts of her were where and I kept my hands down as she pulled me closer and I felt her breath on my lips. 

   “Whatever happened to us, King?” She asked me. 

   I swallowed, “I remember us,”

  I could feel her smiling into my lips a few centimeters away, “I just don’t remember us this close.”

  Then I tasted salt as she closed the final distance between our lips and then felt it pull away just as abruptly. 

   “I don’t remember that part of us,” I murmured and leaned forward to kiss her again. Her lips connected with mine again in the darkness and I smiled into her mouth as we began again and again. 

   Each time brought back a memory from before and I couldn’t imagine why we had ever stopped all those years ago. 

   Meeting her freshman year when she’d hardly spoken a word. Bumping shoulders and sharing smiles in sophomore year. Wistful glances in junior and then whatever silly things we’d done in senior before it had all ended. 

   I had been the one to run I suppose which is why I suppose it makes sense that the next morning I awoke to the smell of burnt mozzarella with my arms enclosed around a pillow where she’d been a moment before I’d fallen asleep. 

   Because this time she’d been the one to run. 

   This time, she’d been the one too afraid to continue, and now, I suppose it was my turn to find her again.