In Her Talons
Originally published in ZEIT|HAUS, now closed.
***
She was tall and skinny as a cane pole. I looked up into those coal-gray eyes, sparks flickering beneath the surface, and I bit my tongue when she asked me, “Have you ever loved anyone?”
I couldn’t lie, not to her. I felt the veins on my hands popping out as I clenched my fists, and I tucked them into my hoodie so maybe she wouldn’t see. We were standing on the dock, the humidity melting us like June snowmen. The lake stretched out in front of us, still and calm, until a hawk dipped its talons into the water and plucked out a fish. The sun reflected off the carp’s golden scales, and I thought I could understand what it was feeling. Mary had me in her talons, and I was terrified she would realize she had picked the wrong fish and let me go. The higher she took me, the farther I would fall, but I knew I could never keep her on the ground.
The first time I tried to kiss her, we were parked in my old Chevy outside the empty high school, the spring air breathing through the open windows. The parking lot had already cleared. I’d been in detention, and she’d asked me for a ride home after her volleyball practice let out. I lingered for a moment after starting the car, and when I leaned in for a kiss, I thought the George Strait rolling through the speakers and my hand on her knee would send shivers up her spine, just like every other girl who’d fallen for me.
She didn’t even flinch, just left me hanging out over the console like a jackass while she flipped through my CD collection. I ran my fingers through my hair and turned the music up so I wouldn’t have to listen to her breathe—it sounded like she was laughing at me. I stretched the speed limit the whole way to her house. She was silent the entire drive. Who did she think she was? I shouldn’t let her get to me, I told myself. She was nothing to me—just some girl who wouldn’t give it up.
I was headed to my last class on Friday. The days seemed to move more and more slowly as graduation approached. It was already the second semester, and I could feel my feet sinking deeper into the soil of this one-horse town.
I saw Mary strolling toward me through the crowd. Her blond hair curled softly into her face, and her eyes pinned me down before I could think of escaping.
“You change your mind?”
I thought she might float by me before I’d have to answer, but she caught me by the arm and pulled me against the hall’s glass windows.
“About what?” I asked.
“Me.”
I looked up into her eyes—the only girl who’d ever made my palms sweat. “I don’t think I ever made up my mind about you.”
She smiled. She knew she had me. She kissed me in the hallway, and her tongue felt like a fish hook piercing my lip.
We were at the senior bonfire when I realized I was in love with her, the first time I understood what it felt like to be afraid. I was sitting on a stump, with her on the ground in front of me, my hands on her shoulders. Our friends were scattered around the fire, faint shadows flickering over the grass, the dark trees looming on the edge of the field. We were all quiet, listening to the night birds and the wood crackling between the fire’s jaws.
I couldn’t even see Mary’s face, but I felt her breathing and realized the danger I had put myself in. She had me, wholly and completely. But Mary was a spirit, a ghost of perfection, and she could never give all of herself to me. I could never ask her to.
I was afraid that if I tried to tie her down, she might just evaporate.
“Have you ever loved anyone?”
I couldn’t look at her. I stared out over the darkening lake with my hands stuffed into my hoodie pocket. “Yes, I have.”
She nodded and was quiet. I waited a moment before asking, “Do you have everything packed?”
“Yes.”
I watched the hawk gaining height, its kill lodged in its talons.
“You’re going to be great at Vanderbilt. You’ll love it.” I kept my gaze away from her, away from those beautiful coal-gray eyes. “And everyone there will love you.”
Stay! Stay! I wanted to beg her, but I couldn’t keep her there any more than that fish could ask the hawk to come live beneath the water. The pain of the fall was getting nearer—I’d known it was coming.
“You’re going to do something great, Mary. No doubt in my mind.”
Her eyes turned on me, shimmering like those of a mermaid just beneath the surface. They reached out, sad and distant, and drew me in like a bucket into a well as she bent her neck to kiss my cheek.
I walked away from that dock loving her more than ever. Mary never did come back from Nashville. I hear she has a kid now—and a man that sticks around on weekends. She’s a soccer mom with an I love my poodle bumper sticker.
I’m a fish baking on the dock where I fell from her talons ten years ago, and she’s a hawk nesting on the ground in Tennessee.
