We’re pleased to share this moving tale of violence and resilience by Cheryl Suma with you today. Our SWFFP judges found it  “artistically written” and  “heartbreaking,” so they awarded it an honorable mention in this year’s flash fiction contest. It will move you, too.

 

To Breathe Absent the Presence of Others

 

If you dance with the devil long enough, you start to pick up some of his moves.

You might even breathe him in.

 

* * *

“Hello? Detective Wilson here.”

I nodded along without speaking. I wasn’t surprised you’d been in a fight, so I couldn’t offer the expected defensive rhetoric when he said you were the instigator—the flame that licked at open wounds until a brawl blossomed.

I was just glad you and your rage had not been home.

* * *

The night we met, I liked how small my hand looked in yours. All my intellect, all my accomplishments—diluted down to the delight of my hand in your hand. 

I’d always preferred to hike alone. To breathe absent the presence of others. Only then could I find my balance, hear my own thoughts.

 A stranger, yet you offered to help me climb over the rockslide blocking the path. I shook my head no, but took your hand.

 My hand in yours. Soon after, I forgot how to listen to the quiet spaces. I liked this new noise.

 

* * *

 “Not sure I’m calling the right person. Guy had no I.D. Found a picture lying nearby on the sidewalk, this number on it. Hoping maybe he dropped it, and you can tell us who he is?”

I knew that picture. You kept it in your back pocket, to show men you met at the bar. To brag about your hot girlfriend and how lucky I was you put up with all my shit.

 

* * *

 You laughed when I laughed. That, and my hand in your hand, was enough for me to agree to a start.

 The early signs, your anger that flared out of nowhere—drowned out by the noise of you wrapping your arms around me. I became a cliché; I was safe. I pretended that the butterflies hadn’t seized control of my decisions. I could still go for walks alone if I wanted to, I told the butterflies.

 If I wanted.

* * *

“Of course, Detective. I can come. I’ll head out now.”

 

* * *

 You invented a past for me, then accused me of denying it when you offered it up, all shiny and new. So I learned to give you a good story. You needed my secrets, even if I didn’t have any left to give.

Where was I going? Why? You began monitoring my every movement. Jealously was your demon and anger your brother. I lived with three men, and only one loved me.

Sometimes, most times, I was afraid I was losing myself. Yet like the deer, I was frozen.

 You claimed you loved me, yet I could never please you, no longer wanted to please you. Had to please you. That’s all there was—building a better me in your eyes so it could end.

 Then the delight of my hand in your hand would return. When we picked up the pieces together.

* * *

“There’s a lot of swelling, might not look familiar at first.”

Nodding, I leaned closer until I smelled your cologne. Scents can trigger memories, bring us back to happier times.

I smelled beatings that went on until I fell unconscious. Until there was just the dark, my fear, and your cheap cologne. Now here we were—the same horrid smell, only you were the one who couldn’t wake up.

I picked up your hand, rolling your fingers between my own until I revealed the devil tattoo hidden in between.

My hand in your hand. I was grateful the Detective had called. Called me first. The air felt suddenly lighter.

There it was. A little piece of you, just floating around inside me.

So I let it out.

* * *

 

“I don’t know this man.”

“You sure? Take another look.”

“A friend must have dropped the picture.”

He frowned. So I danced a little more.

“He has a tattoo, though, between his fingers. You might want to mention that to anyone else who comes.”

* * *

I want to regret the lie, but I can’t. I’ve come to accept the piece of you that now drifts inside me. It helped me forgive myself, after all. For misplaced offerings. It reminded me I could still breathe absent the presence of others.

All I had to do was let go of your hand, and walk.

 

Cheryl launched her writing career with a self-published YA fantasy novel, Habitan, which made the Longlist of the 2019 Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards. She recently won first place in Blank Spaces Flash Fiction Contest (pub June 2020 issue), was longlisted for Pulp Literature’s 2020 Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest, and her second novel, gods Playground, was a ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition Semifinalist. Her poetry has appeared in La Piccioletta Barca and Public Poetry’s Enough Anthology. In 2019 she was also a Semifinalist for Ruminate Magazine’s VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and Shortlisted for: Hippocampus Magazine’s Creative Nonfiction Contest, Blank Spaces Flash Fiction contest and the Erbacce Prize for poetry. She is currently working on a third novel and has developed a passion for flash. Cheryl has a Masters of Health Science in Speech-Language Pathology and a B.Sc. in Honors Psychology.