We sat on the bus heading to the Upper East Side. It was the first time I had ventured out of our tiny Tribeca apartment in two weeks. It was the day I was going to turn my life around.
"I can’t believe you’ve lived in New York your whole life and have never been to the Guggenheim," you said, "I’ve only lived here since I was eighteen and I’ve been five times, at least…" you trailed off.
"Ten years. So every other year on average?"
You messed my hair with your knuckles. It felt brotherly and made me think about Jackson. I ducked away and got that pain in my neck; it reminded me why I was there.
"Besides," I said, "I’ve been to MoMA. Living in Tribeca is like living inside the Guggenheim surely."
You raised an eyebrow at me.
"Do you still want to go to the Empire State Building afterwards?" you asked.
"Yes," I watched condensation run down the inside of the bus window.
"Don’t tell me you have never been there either."
"Of course I have," I said, "with school in the fourth grade."
"Oh man," you shook your head.
You had come to New York with an awe that had never left you, but this was my home town, as familiar and ordinary as the patch in Colorado where you were raised. Yet neither familiar nor ordinary as it turned out.
"I’ll bet I’ve seen more of this city than you have," you leant past me, drew a heart on the dripping wetness of the glass, put an R for you and an S for me inside it.
"You may know the touristy places but I know the real New York. The places to eat, underground music shops … foreign film cinemas," I stated.
"You are so cultured, do you know that? For someone who hasn’t been to the Guggenheim."
I elbowed you in the side. You wiped the heart off the window in retaliation. I huffed; looked out to the street. An old Asian guy sat outside his shop apparently unaware that it was not a summer day and that he had customers waiting inside. He seemed blissfully unaware that some people don’t have time to waste.
"Do you want to get lunch?" you asked.
"No I want to walk around a museum for hours, then queue for the Empire State Building for ages and fucking starve."
You glared at me. I felt like crying, it was all I had done for a solid fortnight. I couldn’t stem the flow. That sharp pain on the left side of my head came back. The doctor believed it was due to tension. It always darted to that spot when I was stressed. The thought of dying was stressful.
"There is no need to speak to me like that’ you whispered.
I watched the people who scuttled down the street and the young kids in the seats in front of ours wearing trendy headphones. I tried to bat the tears away. You held my hand though you didn’t know why. I was being an emotionally demanding girlfriend again.
The miscarriage happened three months
by Kelly Creighton
STAR STORY!