Mercy, A Gargoyle Story by Misty Provencher

that I drained through.   Just as I found the air, his words hit me.   He was right: it wasn't fair.   The only fair thing I could see at that moment would be for him to stay with me, forever.   I’d given up so much; he could give me a little.   But there wasn't enough left inside me to say it.   He began to talk again, each word quivering, like he was standing on the end of a diving board.
    "It's my fault, okay?" he said.   He was desperate, maybe frustrated, or even angry, I couldn't tell.   Didn't care.   "I like you, but I don't love you, and I'm really sorry it happened like this.   It's all my fault."
    He had an almost-grin, as if calling our relationship 'his fault' erased the last six months.   Like his fault would leave me any less ruined.   He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the key to my house.   I'd given it to him the week before, and had gone to bed every night since, fantasizing that he'd use it, and I’d wake up with him beside me.   But he'd never once used my key.
    Not until that moment.  
    He slid it to me, with just one finger, over the tabletop.   He finally used it to ruin my life.
    "Okay, well, I gotta go," he said with another shrug.   He put both hands in his pockets and slunk out the door.
    Leaning off the lip of the building now, watching his window, I squint at his apartment window.   The ash-rain falls on my shriveled heart.   Maybe I should've fought harder for him.   Maybe I should’ve fought harder against him.
      Ayla's knock is at the door and he goes to it, glancing through the peephole.   He immediately pulls open the door and Ayla's face is stoic as she steps inside.
    My heart rolls in my stomach, like an extinguished flame floating in gasoline.   I don't want to see her there.   Not being the same fool I was.   I spread my wings up around my head, catching their conversation in the bowl.
    "Are you all unpacked?" she asks.   He nods.   They stand in his apartment as easily as if they are a roof and a basement, like two ends of bread or a thumb and baby finger.   I was always the glue between them, and now, they are standing uncomfortably close to one another, as if they don't even remember how to be acquaintances anymore.
    Ayla rests her hand on the back of his couch.
    "You want a drink?" he asks.
    "Sure," she says.   The Boy goes and pulls a bottle from his fridge and splashes cola into red plastic cups.
    "Hey, um, you still have to show me around," he says, handing her a cup.   He grazes her fingers, but my wings stiffen as he tilts his head and gives her an awkward grin.
    Ayla shuffles her feet.   She takes a drink, blocking his gaze.
    "You want to sit down?" he asks.   She moves in a way I’ve never seen her move, like a marionette that's been glued together at the joints.   She makes it to the edge of his couch cushion.   He sits all the way at the other end, arms in his lap, gripping the plastic cup.   He looks up and gives her an awkward grin, but the grin isn’t the same one that always made me feel like I was full of ping-pong balls.   He's not doing that...yet.
    Mighty Ayla, my best friend that gave me advice about how to handle The Boy, this exact one, is frozen.   Mighty Ayla, her opinion always wrapped in of-course-you-will, is floundering at the other end of the couch, plucking at her shirt.
    "He's rushing it," she'd once snapped at me in the coffee shop.   That was when The Boy had told me that he wanted to do it with me and Ayla groaned when I had confided in her.   "Just don't forget, Maddy... we call the shots, not them!   We own the magic!   If you do it right, you can work him like a Muppet!   And if he's crazy about you, he'll do whatever it takes to stay with you.   And that means waiting, too."
      Ayla didn't take garbage from any of the boys she dated.   I never met any of them, but I knew she wasn't lying, just by the way she treated the boys at the coffee shop.   They were always trying to pull up chairs and