Slush

Sometimes you have to look into the past to understand the future.

Thick, wet flakes drifted down from the sky, dusting the asphalt path that a pair of saturated old school slip on sneakers walked along. Water diffused through the orange cloth and into each and every pore of each and every toe. If it hadn’t been for the slush, the shoes wouldn’t have been so damp. You couldn’t have slush without the snow; the snow was the precursor, the father of the slush but you could have snow without the slush if you were very lucky. Snow was aristocratic, beautiful and serene whereas slush was the snow that found itself mixed up with the wrong crowd, snow who spent too much time with the underbelly, it was chaotic, and messy. Lying in the snow, one felt at peace. Stepping a puddle of slush had the potential to ruin a whole day, as the owner of the sneakers’ day was currently ruined.

The sneakers reached their desired destination and ceased moving a second before the rest of the body figured it out. The body almost lost its balance but somehow managed to re-center itself and not topple into a pile of snow. It’d been snowing for three days straight now and frankly the owner of the sneakers was pretty sick of it. She wasn’t aware of when the Earth had decided to become a giant snow globe replica but she’d like the opportunity to veto it. Long Island wasn’t supposed to be this cold, this long, by March snow was supposed to be a figment of the imagination, not a constant reality. Her waterlogged toes curled and uncurled inside moist socks, wanting to rebel against their prison, trying to comprehend why they were being punished because of her lack of proper snow attire. If one lives in a place where different kinds of precipitation occur, one should own the proper kind of footwear; at least one pair of boots would be nice. Of course that would be too easy, instead the toes must suffer every time water fell in any form from the sky.

The girl who tortured her toes sipped coffee from a throwaway travel cup and waited. Toasty, and surrounded by the padding of oversized headphones, her ears absorbed the pleasant sounds they received from an electronic device in her pocket as she stood on the corner. Her eardrums danced along to the mandolin plucking away, the poetry of the lyrics and the simple underlying beat of the drum. Her feet wanted to tap along with the rhythm but the toes were too grumpy to oblige. They wanted no part of the ear’s merriment until they were warm inside another pair of shoes, preferably a pair that didn’t have a hole in them from being worn every single day of the tenth grade. It hadn’t been ninth grade for ten years now, yet the horrible smelling, holey, very susceptible to total saturation by any kind of fluid shoes were still somehow allowed to be part of her daily wardrobe, thankfully not every day anymore, but often enough for the toes to be quite fed up.

A car whizzed past, spraying pellets of snow and slush into the air that narrowly missed the owner of the amiable ears by centimeters, though a little bit did land on the right foot, which nearly caused a riot. The mostly blue, but with a halo of green around the pupil eyes of the girl noticed the same car come back on the other side of the road les than a minute later. A heavily tinted driver’s side window rolled down and the face of an attractive young male looked out at her. She noticed his lips moving and paused the music.

“Cass?” the voice of the male asked from across the road. The sound waves traveled from his larynx into her warm ears and she felt as though she’d heard it before. Plus her knew her name, which held a combination of mystery and trepidation that excited her. Her toes were excited by the prospect of a warm vehicle.

“Who wants to know?” she asked cautiously.

He laughed, another sound that oozed with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. “It’s Sid. Sid Hughes. Jeez, I haven’t seen you in years.”

“Wow, holy s**t. Christ, it’s been like seven years, how did you recognize me?”

“I could never forget those shoes,” he smiled. “Do you want a ride somewhere?”

“That would be great actually,” she replied. Her feet moved themselves across the street in a flash and sighed with relief as the heat from the car began to dry them. Sid flashed her a smile and put the car into drive. Cass glanced out the window and thought that perhaps her day was not entirely ruined. 

“Where to?” He asked, pulling the car off the curb. She named the local grocery store. “Only you would go grocery shopping in the middle of a snow storm. What were you waiting for anyway, the bus?”

“First of all, it was not my idea to go to the store. Second, if my mother had not taken the car this morning I wouldn’t have been waiting for a bus.”

“You share a car with your mother?”

“Well, yeah, okay but only because…” she stopped. There wasn’t a real reason she could think of that she would willingly admit. The truth would be she shared a car with her mother because the whole struggling artist thing didn’t really produce enough money to maintain a car, or an apartment of one’s own. So, it turned out that Cassie became yet another 24 year old with a Bachelor’s degree in some form of Liberal Arts who lives at home and shares a car with their mother and two younger siblings. It was even more embarrassing that the eldest of her three younger siblings had moved out once when he was twenty and never looked back whereas Cassie had moved out multiple times but could never stay out. Somehow everything always started to fall apart and she ended up right back where she started.

“Because why?” Sid questioned with a smirk.

“Shut up.”

He laughed as the car pulled into the parking lot, “I can’t believe you were going to pay for a bus to take you on a five minute ride.”

“When you need milk, you need milk.”

Sid parked the car relatively close to the store, “Would you like some company?”

“You don’t have anywhere else to be?”

“Not particularly and I think if I left you here I wouldn’t be able to stop wondering how you got home until I saw you again, and who knows when that might be. It would ease my mind if you let me shop with you and bring you back home safely.”

“You always were such a mom when it came to worrying.”

“Only with you, Cass, because you were always getting into situations I needed to worry about.” She started to refute his statement but she knew she couldn’t. He was right, she had always had an uncanny ability to end up in the most bizarre or dangerous situations without trying, it made for good fiction and an interesting life, so far, though she felt she could do with a little less dangerous and a little more bizarre. Sid shot her another one of his smiles, which made her brain jump to the conclusion that perhaps with the reappearance of Sid in her life a little more bizarre was already set in motion.

 

The orange shoes were kicked off at the door, along with a pair of expensive looking loafers. Her eyes weren’t paying any attention to the shoes on the floor though, as lips met and feet began tripping over themselves to get across the room. Her heart skipped in its chest cavity as it struggled to keep up with the high demand of blood flow. Her body sighed with relief as it felt the support of a mattress under her spine. His hands gripped the fabric of her t-shirt, pulled it over her head, threw it aside and then did the same for his own shirt. Her fingertips danced along the smooth skin of his back as his undid the button and then the zipper of her jeans. Her skin sizzled against his as their bodies joined together effortlessly as if they’d been molded perfectly for that moment. Her lungs craved a greater supply of oxygen but the rest of her body ignored their short, staggered gasps for the only thing it craved was to reach that one moment of unique bliss that could never quite be replicated even if the actions to get there were exactly the same. Her muscles tensed, then her whole body quivered and his name poured from her lips.

“Sidney.” Two syllables in the same tone they’d been uttered in many years ago. He looked into her eyes with his soft green ones and he smiled.

“I’ve missed that,” and he pushed himself onto his back next to her.

“Sex?”

He chuckled, “No. The way you say my name.” For a few minutes neither of them said anything. It occurred to Sid that he was waiting for her to light a cigarette the way she always used to like she was the heroine in the kinds of French films she always made him watch.

“I quit. Three years ago, it wasn’t cool anymore.”

He smiled, wanting to tell her that is was never cool and he’d always hated it but he was more consumed by the fact that she’d known what he was thinking. Several years and he could still feel the connection between them that had always been so prevalent. She was a part of him, she always had been and even though they’d gone separate ways for a while he’d never forgotten about her. He couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to. Little things would set him off deep into thought about her. A hint of her perfume on someone else as they passed him in the street, a glint in a co-worker’s eye while they flirted with another co-worker, a movie they’d seen together being advertised on cable television, that was all it took for him to be aloof, dreaming of her for days.

“What are you doing back home?” she asked, jarring him from his thoughts.

“My sister is getting married.”

“Which one?”

“Alice.”

“She’s so young.”

“I know but she’s always been impulsive. She says she’s in love.”

“She’s only nineteen, how does she know what love is? I’m twenty-four and I’ve barely got a clue.” As she said it she knew it wasn’t entirely true. She knew what love, at least she could remember what being in love was like but she hadn’t felt it since Sid left. The way his eyes were staring at her she knew that he wanted to say something but his lips wouldn’t let the words out. “As long as she’s happy, I’m happy for her, I guess.”

“Will you go with me, to the wedding?”

“Oh, Sid, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I run into your mother sometimes and she always goes off on these long rants about how we should’ve been married with kids by now, and how I was the only girlfriend she ever liked. I think if we showed up together she’d explode with joy and I don’t want to give her false hope.”

He laughed, “My mom has never been one to beat around the bush, huh? I can’t say that I blame her though, a long time ago I used to think we’d be married by now.”

“I guess I did too, but we were kids then.”

“Being young doesn’t make you feel any less.”

“You’re right, if anything it makes you feel even more.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I’ll think about it, okay but I’m not making any promises,” her eyes happened to fall upon the clock near the bedside table. “You need to go.”

“What? Why?”

She got up out of bed and started picking his clothing up off the floor. Tossing it at him she explained, “My mom is going to be home any minute now and if she sees your car she’s going to ask me a million questions, oh God if she sees you it will be even worse. You need to go, now.”

“But what if we got�"”

“No, stop right there. We are not talking about any what-ifs.”

Sid sighed, pulling on his jeans and then his shirt over his head. He followed her to the door, where his expensive looking shoes were waiting for his feet. He put them on, as she stood there watching him, as if she didn’t trust him to leave on his own.

“It was really good to see you, Cass,” his hand reached out to touch her cheek but she shied away from him. Defeated his hand dropped.

“You too, I have your number now, when is the wedding?”

“Three days.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know.” He nodded as his hand gripped the doorknob and pulled it open. She watched him trot down the driveway and get into his car and she thought to herself, Jesus, maybe I do need a cigarette.

 

“Wait,” a chuckle bubbled from the throat of a slightly chubby male sitting on the couch as he blew out a plume of thick smoke. “What happened?”

Cassie snatched the bowl from his hands, lit it, inhaled deeply, and then let it all out, “You remember Sid Hughes? He went to our high school, he was the same age as me.”

“Did you go out with him or something?”

“Yes, for three years.”

“Was he like a scrawny looking, long haired, tight pants wearing kid?”

She laughed, “Yes.”

“Yup, I remember him. I had a crush on you when I was a freshman and you were a junior, and I remember being really mad you had a boyfriend. I thought I could beat him up if I had too.”

Her hands reached out and pinched his scruffy cheeks, “Aw, you had a crush on me and were willing to fight my boyfriend over it?”

He turned pink, “Yeah well now I f**k you, so who really won, that guy or me?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Cole but he was the first to, uh, f**k me as you so eloquently put it.” She took a hit, “It’s kicked,” she said dropping the bowl onto the table.

“All right, well, whatever, he doesn’t anymore, but I do so I still think I win.” A look of guilt slowly crept across her face. She looked away and hid her face in her hands. “What? Come on, I mean I know we’re not like exclusive or anything but tell me you didn’t sleep with my enemy.”

“I wish I could.”

“You know, if you weren’t the most attractive girl to ever see me naked and not run away I would so stop being hook up buddies with you,” he told her with a slight smile.

“Oh, stop it. You’re a good-looking guy, Cole. You could do better than me if you wanted to.” 

“I sometimes look like a homeless person.”

She ran her fingers through his thick, curly hair and laughed, “A good-looking homeless person.”

Cole grabbed her and pulled her closer to him, “I’m better than him, though, right?”

“Eh,” she shrugged teasing him, “You’re pretty evenly matched.”

“You can’t even lie and tell me my penis is bigger or something? Anything?” he chuckled. Leaning in to press his lips to her neck the scruff of his unshaved face rubbed against her cheek. She laughed; her cheek loved the way his scraggly, reddish brown beard hairs felt against her soft skin.

“You’ve got like a solid inch on him,” she told him before titling his face up to look at her and kissing him.

He laughed, “Thank you. That’s much better.” Cassie smiled as he flipped through the channels looking for something halfway decent to watch. Her head rested on his shoulder and she yawned. The toes in her socks wiggled themselves happily for they were quiet warm as they nestled next to his. Her blue-green eyes were tired and slowly began to submit to the regime of the heavy lids weighing them down.

Her stomach grumbled loudly from underneath layers of blankets, clothing, tissue and muscle, so loudly that the sound of her own stomach was what woke her up. The sound of the shower running was audible in the distance but she couldn’t be sure who was actually in the shower, Cole or his roommate, Steve. She looked around the bedroom, Cole was missing but he could be anywhere. Every time she fell asleep at his place he was up way before her. He claimed to naturally be an early riser but part of her thought that he liked waking up before her because waking up together was a little too intimate. She had to admit it was a little too intimate for her too; there was something about one person being the first thing another saw when they woke up that made her slightly uncomfortable. Her arms and legs stretched out and she let out a large yawn before throwing the blanket off to the side and climbing out of bed.

Her feet wandered into the kitchen, though her most of her brain was still in the bedroom, sleeping. Cole stood behind the stove, flipping something in a frying pan. She pulled a chair out at the table and plopped down into it, running both hands through her dark brown hair.

“Morning,” he said, noticing her presence in his kitchen. She grumbled something back at him which he understood and responded to, “Pancakes.” She smiled, enjoying that sometimes she didn’t have to speak real words, Cole just knew. Originally they’d started out making music together. He drummed and could play an assortment of random instruments and she played guitar, keyboard and sang. Even though they’d gone to high school together, he was two years younger than her and they’d never met until the owner of a bar that had open mic nights introduced them. Now, a little more than a year later she could grumble at him and he knew exactly what she was saying, Cassie liked the progression.

“I always pass out after I smoke with you, I think your weed is laced with roofies.”

He laughed, “You pass out after everything. We write one song and your exhausted.”

“I think you roofie my oxygen supply.”

“Yeah, you caught me. You’re in a constantly roofied state whenever you’re here.”

“I knew it.”

He grinned, shaking his head and continued to cook. Within a few minutes he deposited a plate of pancakes in front of her. Her stomach leaped for joy as her fork stabbed three and pulled them onto her own plate then slathered them in syrup. “So, are you going to this wedding?” he asked between bites.

“I told you about that?”

He nodded, “Last night, I think you were half-asleep.”

“Oh.  I don’t know. Part of me thinks I should, I mean I’ve known his sister since she was like ten but the other part of me does not want to open that flood gate. I think us breaking up hurt his mom more than it hurt us. I don’t want her to think that me going with him means anything.”

“Why did you guys break up?”

“College, I guess. He got into Chicago University and I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to go to school away from here, and we knew that long distance wouldn’t work. He’d worry about me all the time and I’d get myself into trouble, we’d end up jealous and hating each other. We wanted to end our relationship so that we still actually liked each other. We kept in touch for a little while but then life happened, you know? People change, they become caught up, they want different things. To be honest, I didn’t recognize him when I saw him.”

“Do you still have feelings for him?”

“He was my first, everything. I’m sure I’ll always care about him.”

“I think you should go, to the wedding.” 

“Why?”

“You seem confused, I think going to the wedding with him will help you figure out what you want.”

She sighed, she knew he was right, seeing Sid again had stirred up all sorts of emotions she’d hidden away. She had tons of old feelings coming up to the surface and no clue how to deal with them. The wedding would be as good of a place as any to figure them out.

 

Cassie regretted her decision the minute Mrs. Hughes caught sight of her. The hopeful look in the older woman’s eyes nearly broke her heart. She tried to avoid talking to her but it was useless. The venue was small; there was no place for her to hide. Thankfully somewhere between toasts and dinner, Sid whisked her away onto the dance floor, although in actuality dancing didn’t make the situation any better because now Cassie just felt like everyone was staring at them. His hand on the small of her back made her incredibly anxious. She could see them all, wondering if they’d rekindled their romance after all these years. Her lungs felt like they were breathing in fire, her heart tried to jump out of her chest multiple times but crashed against the bone cage keeping it there.

“Are you okay?” She mumbled something. “What?”

“This was a bad idea.”

“What do you mean, aren’t you having fun?”

“Honestly, no. Everyone is staring at us.”

“Because you’re beautiful.”

“No, because they expect us to be together. They’ve always expected us to be together. I’m starting to think that might have been why we didn’t break up sooner.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that if you really think about it, half the time we spent together was out of comfort and expectation. I mean honestly, I’ve been thinking about our relationship and I think it went on much longer than it should have.”

“Are you saying you weren’t in love with me?”

“No, I would never say that. I did love you, I do love you but I’m starting to question how long I was actually in love with you. The kind of love that makes you unable to live without the other person, the kind of love that keeps you up at night because your mind is racing wondering when you’re going to touch them again. The kind of love where you want to wake up next to that person every day because you can’t imagine opening your eyes to start each day looking at anything else.”

“Cass, I feel that for you. I always have. Being with you the other day reminded me of how perfect we were together. I want that back, I want to be with you, you were the only person who ever made me happy.”

Cassie’s feet stepped away from him, her body distanced itself from his, “I’m sorry, Sid but we were never perfect. Love isn’t perfect; love is a mess, its chaotic and passionate. Love’s sneaky, showing up when you least expect it. Its hearing someone grumble and knowing exactly what they’re trying to say. Its…” Cassie stopped. Her brain smacked itself for being so dumb, for missing what was right in front of her. “I have to go. I’m sorry, I really, really am but I have to go,” her feet began to carry her out of the venue as quickly as they could. 

“Cass, where are you going?” Sid called after her but she didn’t have time to stop or to answer him. She had to run.

Cole heard the pounding on the door and got up from the couch to answer it. She barely waited for the door to open before throwing herself onto him, her lips crashed into his as if they magnetic. His feet stumbled back a few steps as her body leaned into his, throwing him a bit off balance.

“Gross,” Steve said, walking past them from the kitchen to the living room.

They broke apart into laughter briefly. Once they’d regained composure, Cole looked at her with a dreamy gaze in his eyes, “What’d I do to deserve that?”

“You’re my best friend, Cole. I look at you and I can tell what you’re thinking just from the expression on your face and when I mumble inaudible noises you understand everything I’m trying to say. You make me laugh, I don’t think you have a bone in your body capable of harming anyone, you’re the most talented musician I have ever met and I’m in love with you.”

Cole’s mouth spread into the widest smile it’d ever made as his arms lunged forward, grabbing her into a tight embrace and his feet spun around in circles. Her hand planted itself on the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers. His tongue invited hers to a tango, which it happily obliged.

Once again Steve served as the interruption, “Seriously, I’m gonna throw up.”

Cole laughed, a sound that traveled through Cassie’s ears and warmed her entire body. Without a word he carried her into his bedroom and slammed the door.

“These walls are paper thin, just so you know!” Steve yelled.

Cole chuckled and ignored him as he tossed Cassie down onto the bed as if she weighed nothing at all. He leaned over her and touched his nose to hers. “So does this mean you want to like, be my girlfriend or something?” he asked, smirking.

Cassie pushed herself onto her elbows and touched her lips to his once, “Or something.” 

Author's Note

Any and all comments welcome. I appreciate anyone taking the time to read it.