Run
Chelsea Voulgares

 
It’s the summer before my sophomore year in college, and I’m working at a store that makes copies. Not FedEx—an off-brand place. My parents got divorced over spring break. I blame myself because I came out after high school graduation and all hell broke loose. My mom sends me postcards from Florida of six-toed cats, Mickey Mouse, bright orange drinks with little pink umbrellas. My dad comes home from his job at the rubber plant, pours two fat fingers of whiskey, and spends the rest of the night painting WWII miniatures in the living room, his police scanner to keep him company.
 
#
 
At work, my manager Alex is in a shitty mood. The store’s hot, and we’re both sweating. We have a huge order for golf brochures, but two of our color copiers are down. She watches the remaining machine with suspicion, and when a pretty girl with a shaved head and a pencil skirt asks to make copies of her comic book, Alex rolls her eyes and says we’re busy. I apologize, say my coworker’s on edge, and promise I’ll have her project done in two days. Her name’s Bridget. As I talk her through prices, I feel Alex’s glare on the side of my neck.
 
After Bridget leaves, I put my hand on Alex’s shoulder. She flinches. We had sex in the back room after close two days ago, tasting each other until my knees quaked. She grew up Baptist, though, and isn’t out yet. When we first met that didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was she has these brown eyes, with yellow sparks toward the pupil and green flecks circling her iris. We’re just two months into our relationship, if you can call it that. I’m ready to tell her I love her. She’ll barely look at me.
 
When I get home, my dad is passed out on the couch. He got two more minis done, tiny Americans swathed in green. One brandishes a flamethrower, the other a rocket launcher. Pretty soon he’ll have an army of imaginary men.
 
#
 
Alex and I still have one big project to finish even though it’s closing time. I lock the door, and she pulls down the massive safety blinds. She pins me against the copier and puts her hands on my breasts, my thighs, my face. Behind me the machine chugs, shooting out stacks of flyers.
 
#
 
Alex has the next day off and I use it to work on Bridget’s comic book. I make the copies on the best paper we sell, then run my finger across the ridge of one particularly detailed drawing; it shows a huge battle, the protagonist bruised, bloody, victorious. Because I touched it too soon, the ink smudges. I save that one for myself.
 
Bridget returns to the store in another skirt, this one ruffled, the kind flamenco dancers wear. She’s got on a low-cut top. I see a tattoo of a colorful shrimp in her cleavage. Original, I say, and blush. She says they’re her favorite animal. They’re beautiful and delicious, she says, and some of them dance. I give her the comics for free, and she invites me to an art show she’s having next week.
 
#
 
Every time my mother writes, Dad throws the mail on my dresser. The happy picture postcards gradually get replaced with long letters, my mom’s looping cursive an attempt to make amends. She says her flight from us wasn’t about me. She loves me, but my dad hadn’t touched her in half a decade. They went days without speaking. Then I came out, went away to school, and she realized she could make choices too.
 
Come see me, she says. The sea-life here is amazing: live tuna, dolphins, fish. Bring a friend. The handwritten pages are wrapped around an airline gift card and a booklet about the ecology of Mom’s town.
 
#
 
It’s a sweltering, cloudless weekday. Everyone in town is at the community pool, so the store’s dead. I try to convince Alex to close early. Maybe we can go to the pool too—on a date. I rub the base of her scalp. The bell jangles for the front door. She pushes me away from her hard, and I smack my hip into a storage cabinet.
 
At home I undress. The bruise blooms purple and is warm to the touch. I wonder how far I can reach for Alex before I give up. From my room I can hear Dad hum to himself as he paints.
 
#
 
The next day, as I ask Alex to go to Florida, I concentrate on the feeling of my wound as it rubs against the inside of my clothes. She tells me I should go home. It’s not busy, so she’ll watch the shop. I wanted time off, right?
 
#
 
Bridget’s art exhibit is that night. The gallery is filled with people: guys in Buddy Holly glasses, grey-haired women in expensive dresses who look like they teach yoga. When Bridget sees me, she rushes up and we embrace. Her hair smells like petunias. The hug lasts a long time, and the pressure relieves some of the pain in my torso. Before she lets go, she kisses me on the cheek.
 
She drags me around the room, introduces me to everyone. She brags about how much I helped her. I’m so patient, she says. So charming. So good.
 
At the end of the night, I know what to do. I close my eyes and mentally say goodbye to Alex. I pull Bridget aside to tell her about the booklet my mom sent. There’s a river near my mom’s new apartment. In a few weeks the shrimp will run through it on their way to the sea. I’m not sure if they dance, but Mom says they surge toward the ocean in a powerful wave. Bridget smiles and puts her hand over her tattoo. I’d like to see that, she says.
 
<End>
 










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About the Author: 
Chelsea Voulgares lives outside Chicago, where she is Editor in Chief of the literary journal Lost Balloon. Her fiction has appeared recently in Passages North, JMWW, New World Writing, and Jellyfish Review. You can learn more about her at chelseavoulgares.com, or follow her on Twitter @chelsvoulgares.

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