Things Seen Over Her Shoulder
Distraught, she spread the pills across the large, mahogany table. Forty little tickets to oblivion rolled, like tin cans set free, across the surface of the table. This was not enough to do her in; she frowned, tossing them back into a bottle.
Silently, she dressed all in black; as she buttoned her blouse she mused to herself that she looked a bit like a Shane. Only in the dark could she pass for her brother. On the bed, her lover snorted and rolled, lost in his own haze of intoxication.
Down on the streets of Paris, she floated in silence; a big black boat in the silence of predawn hours. A sleepy painter was settling his work in a curbside stall; she paused in the middle of the street, backtracked, taking a good, long look at the man's lifeblood spilled onto curb.
She asked, quietly, in schoolgirl French, how much the painting cost. He replied in English, something along the lines of fifty francs.
It was all the money she had left in the world. The painting was hers.
A few miles down the street; the Rue de Catherine was rising. Shoddily dressed buskers stood on their heads for her amusement. She traded the paintings for a few francs, and the francs for a hot cup of coffee and pain du chocolat, which she munched as she walked on.
A group of schoolchildren crossed the street at her opposite right; in grey and green uniforms, bookended by nuns at either end.
They were spit-shined to a level of perfection that no child could truly attain; could be an illusions; it seemed they could be walked through. She didn't try to.
The grass glowed like emeralds in a small park; she took her shoes off and walked through the tender blades. She could crush them between her fingers and inhale the spicy fragrence for hours.
But she walked on.
At last, she reached the bridge; thin and bony, it straddled the Sine. She was oddly reminded of Hunter and burst out laughing as she crossed to the middle.
Standing perfectly still; with the sun rising above her, and the river rushing under her brick-propped feet. She remembered why she'd run away to France in the first place; remembered Hunter's letting go of her, so harshly, when all she sought was to help him.
She stepped onto one of the railings, poised as she leaned onto the heavy metal piping. Now choice sprawled out before her, fat and vulnerable like a baby; jump or don't; sink or swim. Millions of men and women had found themselves in Stephanie's place in their lifetimes; as she took a deep breath and prepared for the impact of water against her skin, a hand cupped her shoulder.
"Don't do it."
She looked over her shoulder, and through her hair. The features of Chris Jericho filtered through the mask of her tangled brown strands.
"I have to."
He shook his head, "Damn, Stephanie; life isn't that bad."
"Your husband didn't dump you on TV, Chris," She laughed, "No, you have a wife, who has absolutely no clue that you're with me."
"Didn't I show you the divorce papers?"
She paused, "Yes."
"All you have to do is divorce Hunter. Do that and we'll be free...Fuck the money, Stephanie. We have us."
She stood perfectly still, her legs quivering, quivering, waiting to fall,
Waiting to jump and not to jump.