She pranced down the hallway in her neon green short-shorts, swinging her laundry basket. The familiar potent lavender softener smell wafted through the air as she strutted beside me and made her way to the door next to mine. The smell made my eyes water, but I smiled neighborly. Her eyes seared into my skull in response. I finished locking my door as she did the opposite to hers. She fumbled for a moment, almost dropping her keys, before glaring back at me. I felt my veins freeze in response and words blurted out of me before I could even think.
“I've missed you,” I said.
Her eyes softened for just a moment before, I presume, she could think. Her petite and glittery face scrunched up into a scowl. “You sure know how to ruin someone's buzz, don't you?” She flared her nose at me like she had just smelled rotten eggs, a gesture that she's adopted lately in my presence, and rushed through her open door before slamming it closed behind her. I stared at the void she had just occupied and sighed, deflated. I could say the same for you, I thought.
I looked down and saw a lonely rainbow sock, abandoned in the rushed fury that only Lilly could exhibit. When she was truly angry, her tiny frame would shake and she would grit her teeth, ball up her soft fists, and a fire would be lit behind her caramel coffee irises. I always liked when she did that. She exuded a level of energy that only a sweet, baby-faced woman with a vendetta could. I bent over and picked the discarded sock up. I held it up to my face and got the instant headache that only the cheap, fragrant, Mexican fabric softener that she loves could give me.
That smell is probably one of the only things I did not like about her. It permeated my membranes and attacked my poor nerves with its potency. I would often go in for a kiss and have to reel backwards. She would always giggle uncontrollably and smile impishly as I writhed with allergies. She apparently enjoyed my pain. Maybe that was the first sign. Now that I look back of course its obvious, but at the time I was downright delusional. Perhaps I still am, I thought, as I shoved the sock into my bag.
I walked out of the apartment building and out onto the gum marred sidewalk. During the spring and summer, I used to love my walk to work, but now that it was the dead of winter in the oft hot South, the barren trees looked lonely and tired and the light had the sad gray tinge to it that only the toxic and polluted air of cities could have. I sighed as this observation only made me think of my ex-fiancé even more. She had always popped out in contrast during times liked this, her usually colorful outfits seeming to defy her environment. I walked the few blocks down to the red brick building. I worked in a computer repair shop as a diagnostician. I figured out what was wrong with the computers and then handed them off to others to actually repair them.
One of my friends, Beck, found my job extremely funny. He thought it was laughably ironic that I was a diagnostician when he said he could diagnose me with a few problems himself. He was a clinical psychologist at the local hospital and his pastime when we went to the bar was diagnosing all the people by watching them. It had resulted in some drinks being thrown on him by borderline chicks and threats from antisocial dudes, but it had always been so worth it for the Monday morning water-cooler stories. A few desktops and laptops were already piled up and waiting on me. I sighed, wishing I could be at the bar with Beck right now. We haven't been out in months. After Lily had broken up with me he said I was drinking too much and didn't want to enable me by encouraging getting drunk.
I plugged in the laptop and booted it up. While I watched the Windows progress bar fill up I rummaged through my bag and found Lily's sock. I stared at it and I started to feel bogged down with thoughts about her. I guess this is why Beck said I should move out of my apartment and that it would not be a good idea to still be her neighbor. I just hated the thought of leaving my home of five years. If anyone should move, it should be her since I lived there first. She had only lived there for one year. I can still remember being stuck in the elevator with her as she tried to carry one box too many. I had smiled shyly at her and she smiled back, sending a horde of butterflies loose in my stomach. When she had started to drop one of her boxes, I jumped at the chance to help her. Her freckles and blue hair enraptured me. I had never seen someone so eccentric looking or someone so bizarrely hot. I would always go out with straight-laced, take home to mama kind of girls. I spent an hour or so running tests on the computer. I looked over the cubicles and Sarah seemed to be twiddling her thumbs. I gulped nervously and did one last sweep of the room, making sure there was no one else. I sighed and brought it over to her.
“I've got a quick fix for you,” I handed her the laptop and she bent down to plug it in.
“Oh, goodie,” She said as she stood up. She smiled cautiously at me, “So, how's everything been going?”
“Uh, okay, I guess. As good as being next door neighbors with your crack addicted ex-girlfriend can be, I suppose,” I said. It was meant to be a joke but the words hung heavily in the air.
Her face contorted in a mix of confusion and embarrassment. She quickly sat down and swiveled her chair to face the computer. She regained composure and coldly said, “I'm sorry, Luke.”
I stood there for a moment, racking my brain for an appropriate response, but I gave up and went back to my station. I sighed as I sat down and cupped my head in my hands. I had been dating Sarah before I met Lily. She had been one of those goodie-goodie girls I always went out with and we got along really well. We both, of course, loved computers, we both thought ThinkGeek was the best thing ever, and we both had named our first cars TARDIS. I dumped her on the spot, however, for Lily. I don't completely know why. I ponder about it sometimes late at night. I've entertained the idea that I did it because Sarah was getting to the point of wanting a ring. I had even bought her one. When Lily reared her pretty head, however, I realized how much I had not even experienced in life and now I was going to be forever tied down. Lily was the kind of fun loving party girl I had admired throughout adolescence but had always thought was unattainable. When I realized she thought of me as more than a neighbor I romanticized her, thinking she would grant me the key to the world I thought I wasn't invited to be in.
I can still picture the look on her face when I told Sarah I had cheated on her and wanted to break up with her. A look of pain enveloped her face and she looked like a dog that was stricken by its beloved master for the first time. It pains me to think about it. I thought of the economical yet pretty ring I had gotten for her sitting in my beside table and imagined it on her slender fingers. I imagined the sentimental look that she would hold in her misty eyes as we would exchange her vows and my chest ached for a moment as I pushed the visions to the back of my head. I grabbed the rainbow sock that I sat on my keyboard and shoved it into the bottom of my bag.
The rest of my work day passed by in a blur of dropped laptops and fried motherboards and thoughts of my now purple haired ex-girlfriend. I steered clear of Sarah. I walked onto the lamp lit sidewalk and breathed in deeply, hoping my asthmatic lungs would be greeted by fresh air but really finding that the musky dumpster smell had just wafted over from the next door restaurant. I coughed a few times and started walking home. I pulled out my cell phone and looked long and hard at the contact that read 'Lilikins.' I scrolled up and selected the name 'the Beckster.' The phone rang a few times before crackling told me he must have picked up.
“Luke? Long time no hear, man!”
“Hey, Beck,” I said flatly as I crossed the street. A couple laughed and walked slowly in front of me. I pushed past them, glaring along the way. I felt down into my bag and pulled Lily's sock out.
“You sound down. You okay?” I just sighed in response. “Come on, dude. Talk to me. People pay good money for me to just listen to them complain.”
“I saw Lily today. She dropped one of her socks and I kind of... you know... kept it.” I clutched her sock in my hand.
“That's kind of... creepy. Why'd you do that?”
“I told her I missed her. I've been holding on to it all day.”
I heard him sigh with exasperation through the phone as I approached a restaurant with outdoor seating. All of the tables were full of couples wearing light jackets and laughing, flirting, and eating. I was tempted to cross the street to avoid the loud scene when I heard a familiar, shrill giggle. My stomach lurched and my eyes searched desperately for the source. Lily was wearing my favorite hot pink dress, sitting beside some lanky and nervous looking guy.
“Hey! Are you even listening to me? You're being a prick!”
“I see Lily. She’s on a date with some guy,” I said.
“What? Are you stalking her or something?” Beck asked before I hung up the phone.
I stared over at them for a moment, studying them. Lily was as strange and beautiful as ever. The guy had boring brown hair, boring mud eyes, and a boring, nerdy outfit. In other words, the guy looked like another version of me. I just stood there, anger starting to swell inside me. There she was having fun, trying to trap some other hapless guy, and here I am lamenting our breakup and wishing I could redo my life. Why am I doing this to myself? I thought of all the things she did to me. She tried to kill me with that damn Mexican softener; she pressured me into trying a string of drugs; she suggested I get that horrible, spiky haircut; and she “accidentally” poured bleach on my favorite jacket after our first fight.
I let myself in a small gate adjacent to the building and made my way over to the table. The guy noticed me first. He looked confusedly at me and Lily turned her head. Her face went from interested to completely confused. I walked up and stood beside their table.
“Luke? What are you doing?” Lily asked. I balled up her sock and gently threw it with my wrist into her face. She flinched and held her hands up.
“Hey! What do you think you are doing, buddy?” The guy stood up and tried to look menacing.
I laughed, “I think I'm returning something that I stole, buddy.” I looked over at Lily and her still-shocked face. “And I'm giving you back. I don't want the memories or thoughts of you anymore. You can keep them.” I looked back over to the confused lug standing next to me and decided I'd try to spare him from Lily. “Oh, and in case you didn't know she is a cocaine addict and has a mean case of herpes.” I smiled. “Now, enjoy your meal.” I walked off. I turned around briefly to see them both sitting there, slack-jawed. I grinned and dialed Beck again.
“Oh my god, what are you having a psychotic break or something?! What the hell is going on?!” Beck greeted me.
I laughed, “No, I'm fine, Beck, really. I'm better than I've been in a while, I'd wager.”
“Should I even dare ask what you did?”
“I'll tell you about it when I come over. Do you think you could house a roommate for a while? I think I need a change in scenery.”