No Backsies

Paula knew she wasn’t supposed to be here, especially, after Josh made it clear she wasn’t welcome. Regardless, her feet had lead her over frozen ground; first down the street and across the block, through the all-but abandoned park covered with graffiti, cutting between two buildings that had been abandoned so long she could barely remember what had inhabited them once. After the alleyway short cut, Paula was only mildly surprised to find herself in front of Josh’s house.

The blue shutters seemed faded against the gleaming white plastic siding; something Josh’s father had nailed into his place himself, a fact he was always happy to share. Paula felt her stomach sink as she studied the house, now seeming so daunting, looming over her the same way the truth had lingered between them the last they’d spoken. Well, the last she’d spoken—Josh had yelled, mostly. Which, she couldn’t fault him for truthfully, but she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t ignore his wishes and try one last time.

I should’ve called was the thought that echoed around Paula’s head as she raised her hand, forming a white knuckled fist, to rap against the chipped blue paint adorning the door.

“Oh.” Josh’s disappointment wasn’t hidden, Paula would guess that he hadn’t even tried to shield her from his disgust at her presence.

“Listen Josh, I know—”

“No,” Josh interrupted, without hesitation. “I made it clear, Paula, I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. I never even want to hear your name again or smell your perfume or walk on your goddamn street!” Josh’s face was flushed, his chest heaving from the effort of his words, or perhaps, the effort of not screaming them in her face.

“Josh—”

“I said NO, Paula! I’ve screened your calls, I’ve ignored your texts, I’ve not read your e-mails, and I have no intention of going back on that! At this rate, you’ve got me researching other schools!” His voice was irate now, his green eyes narrowed down at her, his teeth gnashing against each other with such force, she could nearly hear them. This anger was out of place on Josh, but well-earned, she could see that.

Paula stepped back, his tone worming its way through her brain’s filters. His words snapped around her brain like a rubber band and she couldn’t stop the volatile reverberations.

“I hate you, Paula.” Josh whispered, the words encircling her like a noose. Like icy vines, they slapped against her skin and slithered beneath her flesh, lapping at her veins and allowing the cold to spread until her body felt like a corpse. If it wasn’t for the sharp, pulsing ache of her heart cracking in her chest, Paula would’ve assumed she’d already died.

A staggered step back and a hand rising to clutch her chest was the first response Paula showed; followed shortly by her broken whispered reply.

“Josh, you can’t take that back.” To his credit, Josh took a steadying breath and analyzed Paula closely for a long, scrutinizing moment. He could remember a time where her brassy hair made his heart race, and her brown eyes looked like melted pools of amber that he couldn’t resist staring into, and the way her bronzed skin was always so smooth and soft and seemed to glow—none of that remained as she gawked up at him. She looked like a sullen bird, petulant when shooed away from him.

“I know, Paula.” the words were leaving him before he was sure he even meant them. Though, as they settled, Josh felt it; he did mean them. He hated Paula. The girl who had been his best friend since first grade; his closest confidant since before he truly needed one; the one and only person he ever shared his fries with, even the curliest ones; there was no one that filled his mind like Paula, until last week, when she’d blown him off once again. Josh had lost count of how many times she’d left him waiting on her somewhere, but he knew that was the last.

“How many dismissive texts did you think you could send, Paula? I mean, really?” He asked, his jaw set and his tone terse.

“Well, I just—” Josh’s heaving sigh interrupted what was going to be another long winded and well rehearsed excuse. “Right. You’re right.” That was new. Paula never said that before.

“I know.” Josh retorted, which was also new. Paula tended to just talk and Josh would just listen.

“I’m sorry.” Josh’s face softened just slightly, but no smile broke across his stoic features.

“I could’ve guessed as much.”

“It’s not enough this time, is it?” Paula’s whisper was sad, nearly dejected entirely.

“No, it’s not. Not this time,” Josh’s reply lacked the pain and shock of Paula’s. “I wish things could be different.”

“You wish I could be different.” Paula corrected, sounding self aware for maybe the first time in their decades long friendship.

“I do.” The truth was out there and Paula could ignore a literal elephant on her chest easier than the damn truth. “But you’re not.”

“But I’m not.” She agrees, but it doesn’t lessen the blow. “So, this is it?”

“This is it, Paula…we had a good run.”

“A good run.” Paula agrees, again, but Josh’s attempt at consolation is the worst thing she’s ever heard. Worse than fork tines on an empty plate during a silent dinner. “I, uh, won’t come back here again.”

“Please, Paula, don’t. Don’t even call.” Josh’s voice is almost distant, even before he skulked back into the house, his stocking feet silent on the porch.

“See you around.” She doesn’t know why she says it, but the fact that Josh just shakes his head and shut the front door behind him, the lock clicking into place saying everything he refused to.

Paula feels the reality settling into her skin as she steps back down the porch stairs, Josh long gone back inside the house’s warm walls. The finality of it all reminds her of last year’s snowstorm that ambushed her on her walk home from the library; the way the sleet had slammed down into her skin, icy and piercing like thousands of tiny cuts, determined to chip her flesh away inch by inch.

Paula tucks her sweater closer to her chin as she begins the trek back to her house.