Learn to Live With It

Theresa wished she’d gone to jail. At the time of the trial she hadn’t, but when the dust settled and life was supposed to go back to normal, her mind left survival mode and turned on her. Raised Catholic, she’d felt guilty her entire life for nothing in particular, so her mind knew how to use guilt against her. This guilt wasn’t about some lustful thought she’d had or how she had sworn too much—this guilt was deserved.

On the bus, she hitched her shoulders up around her ears and stared at the ground. The bus jerked forward and slammed to a stop four times, her body listing with the movements. The frigid air bit at her skin, staining her cheeks pink and sucking the color from the rest of her face. Her numb fingers curled around the stems of a few flowers tied together by a string. Absentmindedly, she flicked at the string.

The bus was something she got used to. She’d lost her license and even if they hadn’t taken it, she would have burned it. The thought of getting behind the wheel sickened her.

On the fourth stop, she got off the bus. The sky, a dull gray, hung over her, and painted the houses gray with its light.

The clomp of her boots accompanied her to the third house on the street. The house with the overgrown grass, the pale siding, and the discarded basketball getting swallowed by greenery. Theresa’s heart slammed into her chest as if the muscle wanted to leave and not be associated with her—she could understand that.

As she raised her fist to knock, that damned survival instinct kicked in, hoping no one answered. She clutched the flowers to her chest and rapped against the door. Retreating a half-step, she waited. Her teeth tore at her lips, peeling dried skin back, and she didn’t stop when the tangy taste of blood prickled her tongue.

A man opened the door but left the screen door closed. It acted as a second barrier should the flowers not provide enough protection. His hair looked as disheveled as Theresa’s and his eyes were red-rimmed and blank.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice hoarse.

Theresa had to suck in her breaths, the air turning its back on her too. She thrust the flowers outward. “I…”

He glanced down at them then back up at her. He didn’t move. “I don’t want your fucking flowers.”

They remained outstretched as she answered. Her eyes busied themselves with counting how many nails stuck out of the porch. “I know. I didn’t know what else to do.”

The screen blackened the interior of the house behind him, and it seemed as if the two of them met at some secluded border between warring lands. Her eyes began to burn and her nose betrayed her, snot accumulating and clogging up her airways. She opened her mouth to breathe, shooting white puffs away with each exhale, further muddying the air between them.

He shook his head. “There’s nothing to do. Not anymore.”

The burning in her eyes intensified, undeserved tears building before she could scrape them away. Her leg bounced, shaking her whole body, the edges of her jacket rubbing her thigh. “I’m sorry.”

“If that’s all you wanted to get off your chest,” he said, his hand, which had never left the edge of the door, began pushing the door closed.

“Wait!” Theresa scrubbed the tears away and stepped closer. “That can’t be true. There’s got to be something. I’m sorry, I really am, you have to believe me—”

“I don’t have to believe a goddamned word you say!” he said, surging forward, white-knuckle grip on the door, teeth bared. “You’re some drunk cow who killed my wife and got away with it! So, move the hell on! You got away with it—but no, you’ve got to make it about you.”

Theresa let the tears fall unobstructed this time, keeping the rest of her face impassive. She forced herself to listen to him. “You’re right.”

“I know I am!”

“I can make it right,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”

“The only thing you can do is never come here again.”

He started to close the door again, but she dropped the flowers and pushed her hands against the screen. It bent inward under the pressure and he reflexively took a step back.

“I wish I would have died,” she said, voice wet, face shining with tears. “I wish it every night. I wish I could fix things, switch our roles. I wish I never learned how to drive and never drank.”

“I don’t give a damn what you wish,” he hissed, not moving forward.

To see such a tall man cower from her made Theresa’s gut twist even tighter.

She forced a smile. “I’ve got a plan, though. It’ll help. I promise.”

“Nothing can help.”

“This will.”

Scooping the flowers back up, a few damaged petals fell off and twisted to the ground as Theresa straightened them in their string. She propped them against the side of the house. Fixing her hair as she stood back up, she shoved a fist into her jacket pocket, her knuckles grazing against a chilled coin.

“I don’t have a gun,” she said. “But I could use a kitchen knife or jump from somewhere.”

The man blinked. “What?”

Dragging a sleeve under her nose, the red skin burning at the motion, she nodded. “I mean it. I promise.”

He drew closer to the door again and looked down at her with wide eyes, his hands ghosting over the screen. “You can’t do that.”

She shrugged.

“No,” he snapped. “This isn’t a shrugging matter. You’ll just have to think of something else to make yourself feel better. I get you feel shitty, but you’re just going to have to learn to live with it like the rest of us. I have to live with what you did,” he said, jabbing a thumb at his chest, “so you do too. You can’t just take an easy-out.”

Shuffling her feet, she said, “Nothing easy about it.”

“I think there fucking is. You can’t make this better. You can’t fix it. So, doing that would accomplish nothing.”

She shifted her weight, the tear tracks on her cheeks cold. “I thought—”

“You were wrong.”

“There’s got to be something—”

“There isn’t. Live with it.”

Theresa didn’t start crying again. She nodded at the man and complied with his earlier request, never stepping foot on his property again. The bus ride back home, to an empty apartment, stretched forever as she mulled over their conversation. Four stops later, she walked off onto her street.

The sky, black and full of stars, breathed above her with light exhales of breeze. She hiked the stairs to the third floor of her building and twisted the key in the lock. After depositing her keys and bag on the kitchen counter, she strode to her living room. On the coffee table, a neatly folded piece of paper waited.

Taking a deep breath, she snatched it up. The front read in shaky script, ‘I’m sorry’. She didn’t want to look inside, didn’t want to think about what the letter signified, didn’t want to think she would have gone through with it.

Taking the letter to her bedroom, she held it over the wastebasket, but didn’t drop it. Instead, she slid a book off her bookshelf and tucked the letter there, re-slotting the book onto the shelf.

She’d learn to live with it, she thought, but she wouldn’t forget it.