raised by wolves

She sighed and in the other room I could hear my work alarm going off. I told her I had to go, but that she could call me later. She sniffed again and thanked me, then said she loved me and hung up without another word. I couldn’t get the sound of her pixie-sobs out of my head the rest of the night. But at the end of the conversation, her voice sounded lighter, like a weight was off her shoulders. Her voice didn’t sound pinched or stifled when she said she loved me. It felt like I had accomplished something, but I couldn’t tell you what exactly.

It was another boring night at work. Nola didn’t come in, and neither did anyone else. I missed the regulars. I missed the crowd of new faces, too. I missed tips and making people shitty drinks, and the occasional sound of the bells on the door. It felt like the night would never end, but it did eventually and I went home in the quiet hours of the early morning, when even in the big city, you’re lucky to see a car or any sign that there’s other life left on the planet at all. The city is too bright to see any but the brightest stars, but these I looked up at long and hard before I walked through the door to my apartment building. I wondered where the moon was, if it was full and hiding behind a nearby sky rise or if it was new and invisible somewhere out there in all that dim black outer space.
When I walked inside, the phone was ringing. I knew who it was and my heart began to do the old giddy school-boy thing and fluttered around in my chest.
Nola said hello and said she was sorry she didn’t make it out to the bar tonight. I told her it was okay, there was nothing worth seeing there anyway. “That’s not true,” she said. “You’re there.”
I laughed and told her she was too sweet. I asked what she had done all day. She nervously said “nothing” and changed the subject. She asked if I had off anytime soon and if she could come over and make me dinner. I told her I didn’t have to work the next night, and the plans were made. I asked her what she would make and she asked me what I liked. We laughed and talked and flirted unabashedly and acted like dumb kids in love are supposed to act and then eventually the sun was coming up. She didn’t mention Darren once.