27 Feb Under Your Fingernails, By Maeve Hannon
You sit across from me on the couch, a variety of lamps yellowing the dark room, your fingernails tapping against your knee. The silence is filled with my heartbeat pressing against my neck, my wrists, my fingers. The blood gets caught in my muscles. You watch me, awaiting a reply.
“Yeah, I’m okay with takeout,” I say.
“Okay, great, I’ll call,” you say.
You stand and walk to your kitchen. You walk around in circles that I easily follow. Circles that are drawn in the air as you lap the same path. The tiles that were covered so quickly in blood only mere weeks ago. The tiles that witnessed what I didn’t. I never asked how you felt. If you heard his last words. I never asked if you missed him. You never talk about him anymore.
He left in an open display of defiance. Against who, you would ask. I never had an answer. Your fingernails would distract me as they tap against your arm, scratching, flowering blood up into your skin.
The room is separated in two by a large island. Your voice carries through it as you look over at me with concentration. I smile at the way your eyebrows are furrowed. The slight gap between your lips. Your hair, messy from pushing it out of your face one too many times. The glasses only few people see you with. I wish you wore them more, but you insist on your contacts.
“Soda?” you say.
“Sure,” I say.
There are too many lamps scattered around for the room to be this dim. I don’t know if you know how many there are, if you’ve ever considered removing a few. They offer scarce light and clutter the area around the couch. I don’t know if you’ve considered moving. If you feel obligated to stay in this small apartment, one of two bedrooms unoccupied. Never allowing the second to be used. Not even for boxes.
Your voice interrupts the room’s loosely-held silence. Cars drive on the damp evening roads and fill the gaps that your voice leaves—unnoticed as you take my priority. I’ve never seen the apartment so full of silence. It’s always something else. Nothing will fill the room quite like the stained tiles. I don’t know how much bleach we used. The tiles still have a brown tint that disappears under the artificial lights, only visible when the curtains are pulled apart.
He confused you. You never told me any of this, but I want to pretend to know you. There was a silence between you and him. There was a gap in your relationship. Family, maybe. Sharing a space, living together, but still never seeing the other often enough.
I remember when you told me about how you sat on the boulevard as a kid and watched cars drive by faster than the limit. How you couldn’t understand the hurry. The signs with children on them wouldn’t change their speed. How he would bring you sandwiches when you were out for too long. Peanut butter and banana on whole wheat bread.
You look over at me after hanging up the phone. A small smile pulls your cheeks up. Your teeth make an appearance in the room. They have small bits of yellow layered on. Smoke makes a good veil for joy. You never plan on stopping. You enjoy the way it mutes, lessens, your smile. You push up your glasses. You’re never going to get rid of the lamps.