The Key

“Hey! Wait. Stop. Come back. What are you doing with that?” I exclaimed.

Finally, Wally Beaur stopped and turned around. A small silver key caught mid-flip between his fingers. He removed the wireless headphones from his ears and rested them on his neck. Wally Beaur had nothing to say. Big grey eyes watching my every move, mouth chewing at the words that would not form. 

Give it back,” I demanded in breathless anger. 

Reluctantly, he placed the key in my hard hand. Regret reached out with cool fingers as I closed my hand around the metal. Wally folded into his body, hands tucked into pockets. One... two times, he rocked back on his heels.

“I didn’t steal it. If that’s what you think. It was under the oven.” He ran a self-conscious hand through his hair, upsetting the dark curls before locking them down again. 

“Where?” 

“In the kitchen.”

“Here?”

“No, no. The old apartment. I figured it was to something important. So I grabbed it.” 

“Not really,” I said, looking at the key. My heart did a little flip and settled in my stomach. “Honestly, I didn’t know it was lost. Thanks.” I slipped it into my pocket.

In truth, I hadn’t seen the little key in months. I had trusted its safekeeping to another, never paying it any mind. Seeing it now in Wallace Beaur’s hands sent me reeling. Panic led to senseless revenge. I wanted to snatch the key out of his possession and bare my teeth before slinking off to the dark to covet what had been carelessly abandoned. My emotions were a turbulent sea, and I struggled to keep them in check. 

The boy with curly hair caught me off guard. I dissolved into a fast fit of adrenaline. Trying to quell the rage that boiled inside me. He meant well, I told myself. His intentions were good. He had aimed to return the key. But I know how back pockets are in the back of his mind. 

 The fingers of Wally’s right hand now groped for it like a hungry dog snuffing an empty bowl across the floor. Dejected, stopping abruptly, the ravenous beast slumped low and settled. The key felt heavy in my pocket, as if it were a magnet pulling back to him. Like it belonged to him. Slipping it into his pocket was too... 

We were quiet for a long time, lost in the loud conversations of our minds. The space between us filled with talking heads set to work pulling apart our confidences. Smoke from their lungs caught against the glass, and for a moment, I couldn’t see him. I spoke to clear the air. 

“I’m lucky you found it,” I said, tracing a line on the floor with the toe of my shoe.

His smile broke through, and the talking heads snapped shut, humbled. “Yeah. I guess,” he said, releasing a short puff of air. Wally yielded his body to the pros and cons upon his shoulders. One... two times, he rocked back on his heels. 

“Wanna smoke a bowl?” He said, pulling a pre-packed wooden pipe out of his pocket. “I was heading to the park before you yelled at me.”

“I did not yell at you.”

“Eh, I don’t know. You pretty much yelled.” 

Coyly, dryly, with a quick and brilliant smile at the end. The way he spoke hooked me. I could listen to the mellow beat till the earth became the dead light of a starved planet. He opened the door with one hand behind his back, grabbing his keys off the hook. I followed obediently, yieldingly.

We drove to the park with the windows down. The wind whipped our words and faces. The evening light cut through the houses in vicious gold slats, blinding us strobe-like. I listened to Wally Beaur talk excitedly about his day at work. Flashes of brilliance played across his face as he explained his role as a magician of the Pantone. I never tired of listening to him talk about his work. He could talk to me about nothing, and I would still be enamored with him.

He wore his work proudly on his arms in puffs of bright blue, dashes of red, speckles of white, and great blots of yellow. Oranges and blacks streaked his hands with tiger stripes. There was always a little green on his cheek and down his neck. I caught myself tracing the line of green down to his collarbone and hoped he hadn’t noticed. 

He finished telling me about his posse of Chihuahuas, which accompanied him as he aligned screens and mixed paint. He turned his car down a dirt road. The sound of the gravel under the tires made my heart thump. It was the sound of the unknown. It was taking me far away. Wally and I had spent many nights sitting in the secluded trees, endlessly talking of stars and people. 

The world was a limitless bubble of information. All we needed was a little push to get us spinning through the clouds. The bubble cracked open like an egg, yielding the gift of gab. I had never enjoyed talking with someone quite as much as I enjoyed talking to Wally. 

We made our way back through tall grasses, cutting over moss and mud to a tree with exposed roots reaching towards a river. The night was settling in. The air blackened the forest and summoned soft, trilling cicadas. Wally’s profile was visible in the flash of the lighter. I watched it recede to the trees; nose, hair, lips, chin. All gone to the eye. Then back again to dazzle me. He handed me the pipe. I pushed my finger down into the bowl.

“It’s ashed.”

“Here, give it to me.” I roll the pipe into his hand. The heat of his palm rushed me. I snapped my hand back, careful to not touch his skin. Desperate to make sure the key was still in my pocket. Imagining it lying in the dirt. Losing it forever, to never gain it back. To never gift it again would break my heart. 

“You okay?” Wally asked.

“Oh, yeah. All good.” I touched each tooth of the key and leaned back against the tree.

“So, should we… Do you want to head back?”

“Not really. But we can.” I hated leaving our hallow to return to the world where things weren’t quite so simple.

We gathered our stuff, climbing by memory up the small embankment. I rechecked my pocket to ensure the key hadn’t escaped. There it was. Wally and I padded along the darkening path, looking now and then into the grasses or up at the sky. The last lip of dull yellow sunlight broke through a thin band of trees just before the parking lot. The light disappeared as we rounded a curve. The sky a blue-black gradient above.

“Maggie.” Wally had stopped a few paces behind me. I swung back, walking towards his silhouette. 

“What’s up?” He didn’t respond. One…two times he rocked on his heels.

“Listen, Maggie.”

“Stop saying my name. You’re freaking me out.”

“Maggie.”

“Wally.” He was being weird.

“We’re just not going to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t do that.”

What did he want? There was nothing to talk about. I had it under control.

“You know how I feel about you.” He stepped forward. My body drummed as his heat enveloped me. “I know how you feel about me.” One hand on the back of my head. Ever closer.

“You do?” 

“I do.” The green mark on his neck was dangerously close. 

He couldn’t do this. What if I lost him forever? What if what we felt now wasn’t real? What if it tore us apart? What if…He kissed me. Pulled me close. Brought me alive. I sunk into him. His hands holding me in a way I didn’t know I craved. Wanted for the first time in years. Wanted for mind and spirit. Wanted, wanted, truly wanted. I slipped my hands behind him, pulling him close, gripping tight. Hands to shoulders, to hips, then down into his back pocket to slip the key into its rightful place.