crimson murder

Hands resting in his lap, head resting against the headrest, he lets the engine idle just so he can breathe. In and out. The night swirls around him in ultimatum until he finally backs out of his driveway. Rain pelts the window, washing his dirty car anew, pooling on the window wipers like he’s watching the world through tears. It’s all so foreboding, so anxiety-inducing, he momentarily thinks about pulling over on the side of the road. Instead of doing that, his hands choke the wheel in hopes that it’ll tether him to reality.

The feel takes him back to Arizona and the flat, fire-red desertland that flapped by his open window. His grip was suffocating back then, too: he feared that if he relaxed his would-be-shaking hands she’d see through his blasé facade to the anxiety-addled teenager he really was. So he clutched the steering wheel, ignoring the need to pull her closer and the condoms that had sat in his central divider since the summer before, even though she was fine with that sort of touching. 

 He was eighteen that sweaty summer everything changed for him. He’s twenty-eight now, speeding down the highway in an ill-fitting tux. Ten years and he’s still as desperate as ever, with hunger where his heart is, but at least he remembered to bring a nice bottle of champagne as a gift. 

In and out. Golden lights flash through his car windows and pass him by as he flies down the freeway. The large roads are largely empty, which is odd for five p.m. on a Saturday evening, but he doesn’t mind. He likes the way the street lamps ignite the falling rain to look like shooting stars. If he could, he’d make a wish, even though he’s grown distrustful of all methods of manifestation.

“Take the first exit,” his GPS tells him, and he obeys. It feels odd to have an address related to her on his map after so long apart.

In Arizona, they’d pulled off the road to watch the sun set over jagged red mountains. Red sky against red rock, like lovers mimicking each other. He knew the feeling, he’d just spent all summer mimicking love with her, and if he was asked at the time, he’d confess that he wanted to mimic love with her forever. But he couldn’t stop the red from dissipating, replaced by pink and lavender intertwining with indigo across the horizon and stretching until eternity while the rock remained the same.

In and out. He’s almost at the venue and, since he’s been tapping along to the rhythm of the radio with his thumbs, the all-consuming dread coiled in his chest has abated a little. Only a little. 

Rain continues to fall outside, rendering the pavement so slick it mirrors the red light he approaches. When the red in the puddle turns green, he continues on, splitting the reflection with his car. Five minutes left. He wonders if his heart should hammer since it doesn’t. He’s in too deep, now.

In Arizona, they lay half-dressed in his truck bed, tracing their fingers over the open sky. She commented on Vega and Aquila, rattling off the mythology that kept them relevant while he stared at the wrinkles on her knuckles. 

“You know, in Chinese mythology, Vega and Altair represent the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl: forbidden lovers separated by the Milky Way,” she recalled. Her breath, only visible in the moonlight, fogs in the shape of a heart. He pressed a kiss against the mole on her shoulder to signal that he heard her. 

“For the cowherd, it was love at first sight. But she was a fairy, so he stole her clothes so she’d have to remain on Earth—bad, I know—but, despite it all, they fell in love and got married,” she continued. “That is, until the Jade Emperor found out and forbade it, stealing the Weaver Girl back to Heaven.”

The sky yawned over them and their youth seemed like forever. He didn’t care that summer was ending or that they would be going to separate colleges. That was an issue for future-them, which they weren’t yet. Right now, he was just a boy listening to a girl speak.

In and out. His breaths ghost over his sweaty hands, which still choke the steering wheel as he stalls in the venue’s parking lot. The gift bottle of champagne sweats in his passenger seat, the glass a delicious shade of olive green. He let his head rest between his hands on the steering wheel, head still turned to stare at the gift. 

He could leave even though he’d replied yes to her invitation. She was a problem for past-him, a face that was better relegated to faded Polaroids and fond memories. His life was made up of bad decisions so what was one more?

No. Arizona was ten years ago and had no power over him—he wouldn’t let it. With steady hands, he unclicked his seatbelt and resolved to face his past head-on. Outside, petrichor rose from the asphalt, a ghost of the passing rain. 

In and out. He waves hello to the faces of her past: her parents, old friends, the Arizona-red sashes that hang around the venue’s Roman columns. He deposits the champagne at the gift table, letting his hands linger on its body too long at the thought of leaving the only new thing behind. 

 As he weaves through the room, whispers follow in his wake. He hears her aunt asking is that the old Country Club waiter? Which he was, but that was a lifetime ago. 

“Excuse me, where’s Delilah Aegis?” he asks a passerby after minutes of wandering. They point deeper within the crowd, so he has no choice but to wade through the depths to say hello. 

In and out and…hold. Static buzzes across his body when he sees her standing next to her husband-to-be, hair falling in the same curls he used to run his fingers through, cascading down her back as she laughs at the man’s joke. It’s the same laugh that followed his jokes ten years ago—the same shoulders and moles he used to kiss, which is the most egregious considering it’s all on display with her strapless, Arizona-red dress. 

“But the Cowherd refused to let his beloved go. So he made a magic coat from the pelt of a magic cow and chased his wife across the sky,” she spoke to the stars when his truck bed was the best place in the world. “But the Queen Mother of the West drew a silver river—the Milky Way—to separate them.” 

In the cavity where his heart should be, there is only hunger. Like longing for someone to speak in the lull of conversation, or hear them laugh at the end of the phone after ten years of not speaking. This starvation he has for her is a sensation he would cut out of himself if he could, but that wouldn’t do anything except let it ooze from him like a gas leak, and stick to him like a cloud of smoke.

“That’s unfair,” he told her then, drowsiness slurring his words. “They just wanted to be together.” 

“Yeah,” she said. Her eyes were still full of constellations as she sighed about the injustice of it all. “But the story doesn’t end there.”

Behind her, ten years later, he clears his throat and lets whatever happens next happen.

Outside the ballroom, under an overgrown overhang, a breeze ruffles the leaves with the scent of rain. A bonfire’s red firelight shoots their shadows halfway across the parking lot as they glance at each other to the rhythm of the music still playing inside. Stars arc overhead, and her breath, once again, fogs in the vague shape of a heart. 

She’s looking at him with a distant fondness, lips quirked in a barely-there smile. Occasionally, her gaze flickers into a thousand-yard stare, chasing some memory glittering on the horizon. When she is fully present, her eyes slide over his face, aching and slow.

“What?” he says, grinning. 

“No—nothing—it’s just,” she’s sheepish, wincing at her next words, “you’ve grown up.”

He raises an eyebrow at that. The riot of butterflies in his stomach has quieted, calmed to a gentle rocking beneath his buzzing skin; the hunger in his chest has been replaced by champagne bubbles. Aquila glints above them, suspended by fate.

“You too,” he tells her, voice gentle.

“I know, but the last time we saw each other…I don’t know, it just feels weird seeing you with wrinkles.”

“We’re the same age, if I have wrinkles, you do too,” he retorts.

She rolls her eyes, smiles, and steps closer to him. The world shifts in tandem as cold air sears his lungs.

“I missed you,” she says, wrapping her arms around him. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot.”

In and out. He reciprocates the gesture, cradling her head against his chest as her scent of lilies and summer intertwines with that of the dewy foliage and asphalt. They sit in the embrace: breathing in each other’s air and letting the night pass them by.

“Witnessing the Cowherd and Weaver Girl’s love for each other, a magpie was filled with emotion and summoned its brothers to form a bridge across the river so the lovers could reunite,” she says from Arizona, even though that version of her is as good as dead.

In his truck bed, she turned over to look at him, letting her eyes linger on every curve and jut of his face. Though surrounded by constellations and majestic rock formations, her eyes held everything he ever needed to see. She had the type of gaze a person was meant to bask in forever. 

Now, she’s pressed against him in an Arizona-red dress as something in his chest reaches out for her. He’s missed her since 18; ever since the inevitability of autumn ripped them apart. But he can’t find the words to explain it—not now, not when the life she’s built for herself is just a doorway away. 

“Are you happy?” he asks instead of everything else, staring up at unwavering Aquila until she steps back, breaking their embrace. When he meets her green eyes, he doesn’t find the girl from ten years ago—not that he expected to: the boy he was isn’t the man reflected in her pupils.

Her smile is bittersweet.

“Yeah. I think I am. Are you?”

“Yeah. I think I am, too.”

For a moment, they stand there, assessing each other.

“Okay,” she says, like it’s goodbye forever.

“Okay,” he replies, knowing it wouldn’t be. It would only be different.

“Okay,” as she steps away from him and towards the door leading to the party. The light falling through the windows paints her golden.

“Wait,” he says when she’s halfway through the doorway; one foot in her new life, one foot out. “I missed you too.”

She stays in the doorway, eyes wide with his words. Then, she melts.

“Okay.” She smiles before disappearing with a click. 

In and out. Head tilted back and resting against the wall, he stares up at the foliage blocking his view of the stars. The night is quiet, nearly silent save for the rumble of a stray engine—nearly pitch black save for the moon and stray headlamps. He sighs, his breath fogging in the moonlight, as he wonders if he’ll starve forever. 

“Ever since that day, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month—Chinese Valentine’s Day,” she had told him with her head nestled in the crook of his neck. His fingers were busy tracing spirals around the freckles on her shoulders.

It’s one a.m., he should be home. Instead, he lets the memory infest his body and he dreams of Arizona for one last time. 

A breeze kicks up, surrounding him with the scent of dew. Moonlight falls through rustling leaves. He forces himself to say goodbye, pushing himself off of the wall and towards the parking lot. 

He was 18 when he fell in love for the first time, 28 when he realized that some types of love just aren’t meant to last forever, and he’ll spend the rest of his life teaching himself that it’s okay.

He unlocks his car and slides in. With nowhere to go and nowhere to be, he can go anywhere.

With an inhale, petrichor engulfs Arizona until the memory fades.