The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno Read Free Book Online

moving. They are closing in on me, and he asks if I am okay and suddenly I am not okay. And he looks concerned and he takes my hand in his hand and I think, Please just leave me alone. Please just forget that you have ever met me. Please just let me be by myself and let me be quiet and let me be still.
    “Molly,” he says. “Do you want to get some air?”
    I nod stiffly. Air, sure. I’ve left my coat on my chair but suddenly air and cold are all I need. I leave him and walk down the hall as quickly as I can without running, and I burst out of the funeral parlor and it comes back in a rush. It comes back in a rush of color and sound and conversation.
    I’m in a building. It is a dirty, abandoned building and I am arguing with someone. I’m arguing with Lyle. Of course, my mind says, I am always arguing with Lyle.
    But that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never met Lyle before.
    - - -
    This is what happens.
    Lyle has a bottle of whiskey in one hand, but it’s empty and he throws it against a wall and the bottle breaks into a thousand pieces and I jump backward and I feel scared of him for the first time. And when he sees my face, scared, he stops, and he takes a step away from the wall and he looks at me.
    “You’re scared of me,” he says.
    “I’m not scared of you, Lyle. Right now you’re scaring me a little, yes, but I’m not scared of you.”
    “I’m not going to hurt you. I just . . . Jesus, you can be such a . . .”
    He paces a tight circle. I’m angry. I’m angry with him.
    “Such a what , Lyle?” He doesn’t answer. I can tell he’s not going to answer.
    I’m so angry now that I can’t stay still. I pace; I turn and walk away from him and then I come back and then I walk away and then I come back, and then he grabs my arm to get me to stay in one place.
    “You know,” he says.
    “Know what?”
    “How much you mean to me.”
    “Sure,” I say. “Yeah, I know how much I mean to you.”
    “But that doesn’t change anything?”
    “It changes everything,” I say. “You know that it changes everything.”
    “It doesn’t change everything,” he says. “It doesn’t change your mind.”
    “I can’t help it,” I say. It’s more like I beg. Like I plead.
    “You can try. Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough.”
    “You’d like me to try? You’d like me to try to be in love with you? Do you hear how that sounds?”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    “It sounded like that’s what you meant.”
    “I’m not asking you to . . . Fuck, how can you possibly . . . You don’t even know him!”
    “I know him. Of course I know him.”
    “But you forget him. All the time. You’re constantly forgetting him. How can you love someone you can’t even remember?”
    It’s a low blow and I answer with an equally low blow.
    “I forget you, too. As soon as you’re out of my sight, Lyle, I forget you.”
    He looks like he wants to hit me. All this anger he has crawling underneath his skin, how have I never seen it before?
    “Look, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stay here any longer. I’m missing school for this, Lyle. You said this was important.”
    He yells, “THIS IS IMPORTANT!”
    “You said it couldn’t wait. It could have waited. I can’t afford to miss any more school.”
    His face softens a little. He looks around at the pieces of the whiskey bottle. Like he wishes they could gather themselves up and mold themselves together and fill themselves up again. I imagine him offering a toast to me. I don’t know what else he would toast to.
    “You don’t even know him,” he says. His voice is quiet. His eyes will not meet mine.
    “I know him,” I say. “You know I know him.”
    “And there’s nothing I can say?”
    There’s no emotion anymore. His voice, it’s flat.
    “You’ve said everything.”
    “So there’s nothing I can say?”
    “I have to go.”
    “You’re going?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re just going to go?”
    “That’s what people do.