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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “The Beach at Night” Down in the Dirt v212 (10/23) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Instant Karma the Down in the Dirt September-December 2023 issues collection book		get the 422 page September-December 2023 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Something Old, Something New

Dinamarie Isola

    His best friend, Justin, is the first to come around as the early morning light scatters across wet pavement like shards of broken glass.
    U around? His text was sent just minutes ago, and voilà, he appears like he was waiting on the corner the whole time. Did Chase send him to check on her?
    From the second-floor window, Cecily watches as he parks his red pickup and crosses the street. When he spots her looking down, he raises a flat palm to her. For a moment the only relief she finds is from pressing her forehead against the cool of the window’s glass.
    Am I really here?
    Her gaze drifts to the blue-plastic mummified newspapers dotting the mouths of every driveway. At the curb matching recycle bins line the street, brimming with old newspapers and deconstructed cardboard boxes. And in a matter of hours, the newly arrived papers will be outdated and irrelevant, and tossed in the bins, having outlived their usefulness.
    She doesn’t move until the doorbell sounds, not because she wants Justin to wait but because she hopes the phone will ring or that Chase will text that he’s on his way back. Or better yet, that he’ll erase the last few hours in a puff of smoke, his black Jeep caked with mud from some reckless off-road trip he couldn’t resist.
    There were plenty of those.
    How many times was she left waiting for him to show up—to a party, to dinner with her parents, to a business engagement? And he always had an excuse. Even if it was vague.
    “Baby, sometimes my mind travels so fast, it drags the rest of me with it.” A sheepish grin, a caress of her jaw, and then his lips on hers—like anesthesia or a lobotomy.
    How many of her friends told her to dump him? Enough that she couldn’t call on any of them now. I told you so. It would hang in the air, or worse, they wouldn’t say a word. Eyes wide and bulging with the weight of a swallowed scream, they would glance at one another as if she was unaware of their disgust.
    She should have ended this long ago, the first time he didn’t come home because he ran into an old friend or met a motorist stranded on the side of the road. His cell reception always spotty except when he needed her.
    Heat crawls up her neck just thinking about it. And when she tries to look ahead, past this time, all she can see are the ruins spilling into her future like muddy floodwaters. Damaging, staining, and seeping into everything, leaving her with a soggy mess too wet to burn. How can she ever trust anyone again? Most of all herself?
    Justin taps the door with his key. Tick, tick, tick.
    She heads for the stairs. “Coming,” she calls but it’s an unfamiliar sound, like her voice is traveling through water.
    After she opens the door, she remains, cradling the wood to her chest so that everything but her left arm and face are concealed. Hugging wood won’t make her tears flow, won’t let her feel the full weight of her loneliness the way a warm body would.
    Chin lowered, Justin peers at her through his hair like one trying not to get caught staring.
    Lifting a brown bag, he says, “Coffee?”
    “To stay alert and awake?” she snorts.
    With a sigh he pushes his hand through his hair. “That would do you good.”
    Her head snaps up at the insult, but he’s already mumbling sorry, sorry.
    “Why did you come?”
    “Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
    Justin looks away from her tearstained face and swollen eyes, as if he’s walked in on her stepping out of the shower. As a red flush travels across his cheeks, she silently wishes she had a pair of sunglasses to put on.
    He follows her into the living room, past the unopened boxes of china, flatware, and stemware. Boxes that will need to be sent back. Just one more horrible task to add to the growing list, along with formulating responses to questions. What happened? Who broke up with who? Do you think he is cheating? Bile rises in her throat; she swallows the burn.
    I don’t think I’m in love with you anymore. He said it calmly, like he didn’t want to eat chicken for dinner. I’m in love with someone else.
    Three years wasted. Not to mention the money that wouldn’t be refunded at this stage, one month from their wedding date.
    Justin fumbles with the bag and pulls out a coffee. She shakes her head when he offers it to her before taking a sip.
    She doesn’t bother to turn on the lights—the tear-shaped white bulbs Chase hung from the ceiling to create the illusion of a fireplace glow. He called them magic. And when he craved club life, he set them to pulse in time with his playlist.
    “Let’s dance!” Chase’s extended arm was always left dangling. No matter how hard she tried, she could never master dancing with him without feeling stiff and clumsy. What if she grabbed his hand? Would he still be here? Or did she always know she’d never be able to keep up?
    With a flop, she heaves herself on the sofa. And all that churns in her—hurt, anger, embarrassment, and desperation—seems to take hold of Justin, who paces like he can shake off the bad. Every step he takes winds the tension in her until she can’t control herself.
    “Please stop,” she cries out. “You’re making me feel worse.”
    He freezes.
    “I never make things worse. That’s Chase’s job. Be thankful he pulled this now and not in a few months.”
    She flinches, his words a slap to the face.
    “Getting a divorce is a pain in the ass and it’s expensive too. Trust me,” he adds.
    She didn’t know him then, but Chase told her how destroyed Justin was when his wife of two years left him for someone else.
    Blowing out a breath, Justin looks at her, lets her see the moisture gathering in his eyes. “I’m done with him too.”
    At this Cecily finds herself standing without remembering when she pushed up, her pulse throbbing in her neck.
    “You’ve been friends forever. You don’t mean that.”
    “Even now you’re worrying about him? When he’s off with someone else?”
    “I don’t want to be the reason your friendship breaks apart.”
    “He’s the reason. Not you.” His face twists. “He’s a liar and it rubs off on everyone around him. I’m tired of it.”
    She won’t ask Justin how naïve she’s been or what lies he kept for Chase. It won’t ease the pressure pulsing in her chest. Besides, she embraced the delusion, believing herself to be as mysterious as Chase made her feel every time he whispered in her ear. Her, riveting? Her, alluring? She knew better. Still, she hoped his ability to infuse the energy in a room would alter her own cells, transforming her into the version he needed her to be.
    But how could Chase stay interested when she preferred to read about adventures rather than experience them? Isn’t that why she booked a hiking tour of the Dolomites as part of their honeymoon, to prove she could break out of her comfort zone of art museums and cathedrals?
    “Who is she?” Cecily whispers.
    He shakes his head. “No one worth knowing. And when he realizes his mistake, your job is to remember that he cheated so you never let him in your life.”
    This Justin is different from the one she met three years ago. It took her over a year to feel accepted by him. And now, for the first time, she recognizes the seriousness he carries is a deep ache. Will she wear her scar for years to come, like he does? She looks away, afraid that if he sees her eyes, he’ll know what she’s thinking.
    “He wants me to pick up some things,” Justin says.
    “So that’s why you’re here? Because he sent you?”
    Gripping her elbows, he shakes his head. “I told him to screw off. But if there’s anything you want me to remove, I will. I came here for you, not him.”
    She’s tempted to hand off the china, just to inundate Chase with boxes and clear the clutter from her life.
    Hadn’t she told him? “We don’t need fancy plates. Our everyday dishes are fine. Besides, we don’t have the room.”
    Chase’s solution was to rent a house, though it made more sense to keep their smaller apartment and save to buy a home. And then he insisted that they have shiny new things to start their shiny new lives. He selected three types of dinner plates, as if he couldn’t be wedded to just one. Heirlooms, he called them, that their children would have long after they were gone. Sometimes, at night, she secretly removed things from the registry that she thought were ridiculous or overly expensive, like the marble-wrapped candle for $900.
    She looks at the boxes devouring the space, swallowing the air in the room, and shakes her head with disgust. I let this happen.
    “What can I do?” Justin says it so softly that she thinks she’s imagined it until he repeats it.
    One answer circles her head. “Get me out of here.”
    They work quietly. She rifles through her drawers and closet, handing Justin only those items she loves best—her go-to jeans, the teal sweater her mother knitted that matches her eyes, her black boots that she can walk in for hours. Anything that reminds her of Chase gets stranded—the floral dress she wore on their first date, the red silk blouse he bought her for Valentine’s Day, and the black jumpsuit she wore when he proposed to her. And when they finish a lone suitcase is all she needs to move on.
    “Where will you go?” he asks.
    She shrugs and starts for the door, but then turns and marches into the living room. Twisting her fingers around the string of lights dangling from the ceiling, she yanks them. They clatter to the floor like spilled marbles. Cheap lights, not magic, was his trick.
    Justin stands, eyes wide, gaping mouth, and blows out a breath, a faint smile gracing his lips.

* * *

    She insists on loading her bag into her car, and he stands watching her with a smirk on his face. Before she can change her mind, she takes his hand in hers and presses her key into his palm.
    “You’ll be fine,” he says with certainty, pulling her in for a hug. “But I’m sorry I lied for him.”
    Her throat, thick with emotion and fear, is too tight for words. Instead she returns his hug, holding on until she feels his breath warm her hair.
    And when she drives away, squinting against the glare of the morning light, she knows that the newness that awaits her is better than anything she’s left behind.

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