Lips Like Coffee

cup: 8

Pen

"It hurt my feelings," she said, elbowing me in my side (it hurt more than I thought it would).

I flinched as I clutched my side, but I tried to laugh it off. She was so strong to be so small. Sometimes, I wondered how much she was capable of doing. How far could she be pushed, until she lost her humanity? What made her tick?

"Being homeless, even for the short amount of time I was, it takes a toll on you."

"What do you mean a toll," I asked, dropping my hand from my side.

Norma paused for a moment, so we walked in silence as she thought. It was a solid minute before she said anything again.

"It makes you full of regret, and being regretful makes you miserable."

I never thought of it that way. She had a valid point, the more things you regret –whether it had been done or not– the more miserable you felt. There were more than a couple things that I regret that weigh on me. And my little slip of the tongue earlier was one of them.

We walked on for a moment, in what I called 'city silence'. Car horns and other people's voices sound around us, while we moved without words being passed between us. The rain wasn't heavy, I didn't even mind it and it was a bit surprising. All pun intended, the rain dampened my spirit most of the time. Gloom begot gloom. Yet, I could care less about my hair sticking to my skin, or my sweatshirt being completely soaked. It felt weird to be okay.

"What's your real name?" Norma finally spoke again, and the question almost made me stop walking.

"I don't remember," I lied, and she looked at me with her eyebrows creased.

"How don't you remember your own name?"

I shrugged. There was no way in hell I was telling her my real name: I hated it. My name was the bane of my existence, and it got me in a lot of trouble when I was younger. When I got to middle school, and a friend gave me my nickname (which took a long time to stick) I could have kissed him. Pen was my name from there on out.

Just because I hadn't forgotten my name, didn't mean I didn't want to. It was so, flowery.

"You're really not going to tell me?"

"Nope."

Again, she became quiet. That time, I knew she was thinking because she was picking at the right side of her mouth. It was something I noticed she did about a week ago: I was starting to notice some of her small habits. Norma was less of a mystery to me, and becoming more of a puzzle. I knew a few pieces of her, I just had to gather the rest and figure out how they fit together.

What did she think of me? Did she have me figured out already, using her super spy skills to get information about me. I wanted to know more about her time in the Army. She was deployed at such an early age, and suffered so much in so little time.

"Your rank must have been pretty high for you to have commanded your own squadron," I commented, and Norma pulled the left side of her mouth back.

"Eh," was all she said.

"You must have been the youngest person in command there, how did you manage to gain respect from older troops?"