#20 Untouched

by Tricia Sankey

Carrie’s tongue flutters around a marzipan bar while Mark talks about the weather, in a fake British accent to the Sprint guy.

“Hang up,” Carrie dares, her lips smacking dark chocolate.

He turns to sneer at her like she’s the one keeping his life on hold, and she feels like the spider up high in the corner, the one they always watch but can’t quite squash and discard.

She returns to her chocolate and then fishes the remote from under the couch. Mark smiles out the window, answering, “Yes, it’s been sunny, how about there?”

In Carrie’s mind she walks to Mark to push a button not found on his phone. Mark’s buttons are mostly blue—just like his eyes, they are soft and reliable. But this hidden spot is the shade of the deepest ocean, reflecting the glimmer of a midnight sky aflame with the wrath of sparring gods.

Before she can say a word Mark hangs up with a snap of his phone. “See you later,” he calls out and runs for the door which faces her back.

But he’ll never see the stain of colors inside her, wrapped in waves and waves of contemptuous grey. He’ll never graze her soft center, so cold; it burns like dry ice, till the steam fills her eyes.

Carrie falls to the ground and laughs till it hurts, laughs till she bleeds a rosy red no one sees, on the floor, up the wall, by the spider, untouched.