Circling the Drain by Amanda Davis Page A

of bed and walked through the houseand out the front door. And then I started walking towards the road. And I thought about disappearing. About sticking a thumb out and hooking it into another life, the life of a woman who leaves in the middle of the night. A woman who flies away.
    I listened to all that stillness, all that vacant possibility. I stood listening until my toes were cold and my lids felt heavy, and then I turned and went back inside. I climbed into bed and curled around Dingo in the dark. He murmured something—maybe about my cold toes. Dog raised his head and lowered it again. I stayed right where I was and fell asleep.

ENDING THINGS
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    I don’t know when I disappeared, but one day I couldn’t stand the smell of you, couldn’t take the way you paused in the middle of a thought, scratching your cheek. I felt my teeth clench if you stared off while I was speaking or tried to quiet me with a kiss. It was then I first began to leave you, slipping away while you spoke, to a rainy window or a perfect moon—drifting off to a place made of different choices.
    You swept me away when I met you, so serious and sexy in your smudged glasses and rumpled clothes, gnawing your way towards a Ph.D. in art history. I took each book that you returned and held it to my cheek, tried to smell you in its cover, or pored over it to see if it held your reflection. My days belonged to quietly searching the stacks for you, creeping through the old wood-paneled reading room. Reshelving just to be noticed. I wanted to captivate you with charm and wit, to be your muse, your inspiration. I’d just finished college and everything in my world seemed to be made of water, but you.
    We’ll grace each other’s lives , you whispered over wine and cheap gnocchi, and I thought I glowed everywhere I went. Each day I watched you, still sleeping softly as I crept off to my monotonous job, to stand behind a desk and answer simple questions. To move my hand from an ink padto a book and back. I was secretive there, quiet and disconnected—you were what I harbored.
    You loved paintings that throbbed with color, alive with abstract pain. I listened to your endless revelations, your theories and opinions. I let you fill each empty page in me. Your dissertation extolled Helen Frankenthaler. Marvelous , you said as you lifted your fine, soft hands from the typewriter to reach for the strong coffee I made you. Marvelous , I murmured as I watched you, hazed by the afternoon light streaking through the one grimy window, my own rough hands clasped behind my back.
    I stole the books you needed. I crept into my boss’s office and erased your fines. When my co-workers gathered for drinks after work, I slipped away to you and sanctity. Soon you cleared me a drawer and I kept only the clothes that fit inside of it. We spent Sundays in bed with the paper and expensive coffee, our sweaty, naked bodies creating glories that left us panting, full.
    When we made love I wanted to devour you. I wanted to be everything you needed and later I found myself looking for traces of your smell on my wrist, my shoulder. I believed I knew nothing. I believed I was learning life every minute, soaking up whatever I could, gathering the stories and images you tossed like candy. I couldn’t imagine anything else.
    I loved the way you stood in our closet with your feet in fifth position, absent-minded hand plowing your thick red hair as you searched for a sweater, a shirt. I remember my naked body bundled in sheets, but I don’t know what I looked like watching from behind you on the bed. I don’t know what I looked like then at all. My hair was short and spiky. My clothes were plain and loose. There was nothing to draw attention to me. I blended with the blank walls, with the spareness of your life.
    And you became so much to me that I tortured myself with your removal. When you missed your bus one rainy Tuesday, I wallowed in the ache