The Scrunch in The Graveyard

Spinelli

The monotony of another day at work, punctuated by the usual noise of people announcing themselves into rooms that didn’t ask.

Instinctively I reach for my pockets to snag my earbuds, to plant them in my ears so they can bloom the calm I had before. The audible assault dulled out by the highly curated sounds of my choice. Just enough for sanity’s sake. Just enough to calm my nerves and sheath my tongue. Just enough.

Someone asks my coworker Ashley what she did for her birthday that just passed. My stomach churns out of intimate knowledge, knowing how this will play out. It’s not really a question about her birthday or what she did. It’s more a question of whether or not someone deems her worthy of the effort of celebrating her.

I am the burden carrier of the knowledge, that someone doesn’t. This is even a secret to herself. Or maybe a faked secret. Something she knows but refuses to admit.

She’s uncomfortable. Her body tenses, her shoulders climbing upward to give away her unease. Every fiber of my being wishes I could pluck that question out of the air before it lands on her. Words like murder, can never be undone once they are committed though. The burden is all hers now.

Her piercing blue grey eyes frantically search the room for a time machine to unshackle herself from the question.

“I did nothing,” she says.

Her face is not satisfied with this ending though and chooses of its own will that more must be expressed. The tops of her cheeks crinkle and as they move upward her nose scrunches. Her top lip jumps to catch the bottom portion of her nose like a love affair never quite settled. She turns away from the inquirer’s glance. Her head jerking twice for one motion. A two for one. Double tapping away from uncomfortable truths.

The room sees none of this.

This is beauty. Not traditional clean cut beauty. This is walking through a graveyard on the way to bury a secret and seeing a photo medallion of a woman on a tombstone that stops you in your tracks. That obsesses you. That captures your attention in such an unexpected place. I think to myself.

As if my realization materialized in the air above my head I feel guilty that her discomfort is giving me something I can’t look away from. The memo passes from head to heart. We shouldn’t love this moment. It’s painful for her. My heart gets the message and shoos away the blood collecting there, a good amount of it making its way into my cheeks in a blush. The only slight indication that I had been enjoying this far too much.