Stains

Old Friends, New Benefits

 She had a cast on her foot and multiple bandages all over her decrepit body. When she moved, she felt like an old woman turning her whole body to get into another position just to sit down. She had to redress her wounds often and she had never been so concerned with how exactly to tie her hair up with one arm. They gave her a room in a cabin far away from the town she'd stopped in. The cabin was hardly a stable house and the walls were so thin you could hear someone's every activity from across the house. On top of that, the walls only went up seven feet, then it was exposed cross beams and nothing. If one light turned on it lit every room near it. In the morning, someone would come in with a tray of food and would hand her the remote to the television. At night, they would take the remote to promote sleeping. It was quite the routine. She figured they held no trust in her so she was checked in on every now and again and was only allowed up to use the bathroom.

The longer she stayed, the more she found out. Apparently. the house was in fact a cheap cabin owned by one of the men's mothers. She lived there and allowed her son to do some of his activities there. They used it as a haven for all of their boys who were shot or in need of a home. There was always a room open at the Cabin on Woodland Road. And the mother had a garden in the front and all along the grounds near the house. She was very proud of her garden as well. Mare went for a short stroll through the land-not as much a stroll as a hobble as she carried a crutch-and saw all of the blossoming flowers and the beautiful trees she felt her inner child begging to climb. On her stroll, she came across a load of Forget Me Not flowers and imagined Lyndsey in an old age digging a small hole for the flowers. She imagined Lyndsey holding the flowers to her face and taking a long sniff of them and smiling. She'd still glow with youth because she was just that gorgeous.

Lyndsey no longer visited Mare. Not in dreams or illusions. There was an annoying silence on her half. Mare figured it was because she was straying further from death. She was healing and living. Two things Lyndsey was not doing.

She was broken away from thought when a snapping of a stick came from behind her. She slowly turned around and looked at the boy approaching her. As she stood in shorts and a large shirt, her company was in jeans and the leather jacket uniform. Under it was a white shirt that had red stains on it. But who he was meant more to her than the jacket or the jeans. He had a square jaw and an olive tint to his skin, a defined line between his cheeks and the hollows beneath it, and eyes the color of ice. He was much younger than the other men and she knew exactly who he was.

"Hey." He said drawing back as she faced him. Her mind told her it was another ghost, but he was very much real. He had a shadow, he was never declared dead.

"Hi." She exclaimed. He motioned towards the garden bench not so far away from where she stood. She could hardly take her eyes off of him.

"I just heard about you being here." He said sitting down. "I would've come sooner, but I've been working. How are you?"

She leaned down towards the bench and held onto the back of it to lower herself down. He held out his hands to catch her just in case. "I'm, well right now I look miserable. But usually I'm much better than this." She said. As she sat down, a low groan came from her lips that she didn't expect to hear.

"How was everyone after I left? Did Greg finally settle down?" He asked. His name was Riley. Her brain was given a reminder like a gunshot, it came back so quickly.

"No, he gave up about a year ago. He never held a relationship longer than six months. And Johnny was about the same through and through. Julien got lazy. Daisy actually stayed longer than we thought." She said running it off her tongue without much thought behind anything she said.

"I was really rooting for Greg to find someone. He seemed like he needed it." Riley said. "How's Lyndsey?" He asked. Then she remembered he left a while before she died. She went quiet and looked at the ground feeling the old wound reopening. There was a lot of regret associated with Lyndsey and specifically about how they never got to have a wedding or even a chance at adopting, they didn't even get to celebrate their five-year anniversary. "Oh. What happened?" He asked noticing that she was withdrawn. He was merely a bystander to Mare's life, an audience in her theater.

"She died. About five years ago. For the longest time, I thought it was a suicide, but in recent events I was told otherwise. Julien locked her up in a car and drove it over a bridge." Mare said. Her eyes met Riley's and for a second, it was like Lyndsey's death never happened. She was gone, that was apparent, but she was still living to someone else. She jealously prayed for his ignorance and thinking Lyndsey was still alive. In his shoes, he would occasionally imagine Lyndsey and Mare together. Maybe a flash of a thought where they would walk down a street. Maybe it was a whole plan of them with kids. Maybe it was them breaking up.

"Did the car ever get recovered?" He asked. He sounded hopeful. "Maybe she got out."

Mare shook her head and smiled. "It was recovered. Johnny went to identify her body. I couldn't do it." She said.

"Wow. She must've been something to hurt like that." He said she wanted to cry, but she nodded her head and imagined the same hurt that shot through her body when Lyndsey was declared dead. He put her arm around her shoulder and gave a comfortable little squeeze.

"So, what about you, how has it been here?" She asked shaking away her sadness.

"Down here? Not so terrible. I came down here with twenty dollars and a week's experience pushing heroin. And then they branded me." He said pulling up his shirt to his rib cage where a white scar outlined a saggy dog. Around it was a collection of tattoos, none so violent as the scar.

"Damn, why a saggy dog? Their emblem is a python." She asked looking at it closer and running her fingers over it.

"Saggy dogs go to people who changed over. Trade secrets for their lives. Like the dog Droopy, they think we're all smart and outwitting our enemies. Their logic is flawed, but now I can't leave unless I want to cut off a square of my skin." He said slowly putting his hurt back down.

"And you thought the Julien card was bad." She joked.

"You should've left too." He said.

"I couldn't. He was crazy." She said. The idea of Julien alone was a crazy one. He was a miserable piece of man that would've served a better purpose if he would've been inspected by scientists on an island somewhere. He was useless.

"I'd ask what happened to your leg, but I want to assume that you got in a fight and won." He said laughing at her miserable cast.

"Well, I beat up a shark and then a bear decided to get me from behind." She joked as she looked down at her leg. It was sad in itself never mind the bruises all around it. "I now have a fur coat and a wet suit." She laughed.

"Must've been a gnarly fight considering your face too."

"That's quite a way to tell someone they look great." She said and they smiled to each other. She looked towards the house then back at Riley. "I'm really hungry. Can we go grab a bite?" She asked.

"Yeah, let me help you up." He said. He jumped up and stood in front of her.

"Let me do it, don't make me feel old." She said. She used her good leg and tilted all of her weight onto it. At the same time, she felt a pop in her hip and her good leg faltered sending her to the ground. She landed on her stomach. Riley rolled her onto her back and held up her head.

"Oh my god. Are you okay?" He asked. She looked up into his eyes and felt their cold gaze on her skin. A chill went down her spine.

"I lied. Please help me." She said. He laughed, but it was in such a way that said he wanted to punch her for scaring him and hug her for being okay.