Empty

Drip, drip, drip.

Joanna’s mind was fuzzy, her spirit weak, her keys a puzzle in between her fingers as she struggled to get one to fit in the lock of her door. There was a dripping sound echoing through the halls of her cold apartment building. Cold, empty halls. The sound of a child’s laughter rang from the end of the walkway. Joanna shivered.

With a tired shove her door gave way, creaking open as she stumbled into her living room. She gripped the knob tightly, wondering if it would break off under the weight of her sins.

The scrape of a chair broke through the fog of her thoughts, and she turned her head to meet the eyes of the man she never thought she’d see again. Everything around them seemed to stop; silence coated the room, thinning the air. Her heart picked up pace under the intensity of his stare. His eyes. They burned with questions, their deep brown irises alight with passion. Those eyes were piercing. Those eyes saw too much.

Joanna broke away from his gaze, eyes closed, cursing herself for every action that led them to this moment. Hatred flooded her veins, only for herself. For him, love pulsated from the pit of her stomach. A sick, nauseating feeling.

He cleared his throat, his focused footsteps making their way across the room. The heat of his body tickled the hairs on her arms. The cold clinging to his jacket brushed against her back, tightening her muscles into a spasm. The smell of him was fresh - so fresh it turned her stomach, knocked against the walls of her insides, and she grasped her belly with a shaking hand.

His hand, large and solid, covered hers, and she gasped lightly. Her eyes locked in on his thumb, gently tracing the curve of her wrist. Anxiety grabbed at Joanna’s chest, squeezing tightly. She ripped her hand out from under his and stepped back, meeting his gaze once again, eyes stinging with tears. And his eyes - his damned all-seeing eyes - flickered. They changed. The warmth drained from them, drained from the room.

He knew.

Joanna opened her mouth, her lips trembling, a million words caught in her throat. She choked on her promises, choked on unspoken names that used to dance around her thoughts, through daydreams. She choked on their future.

He stepped back from her and his eyes narrowed in disgust, traveling down her body, undressing her, exposing her, piercing through her scarred, abandoned womb. He closed them and turned away.

She reached out a trembling hand towards him but paused at the sound of a soft thud. Joanna looked down next to his shoes. The tears she’d been holding back spilled over and ran down her cheeks, burning. She heard him walk away, the door closing gently behind him. So gently it didn’t feel like it closed at all. Why couldn’t he have slammed it shut?

Her knees shook and hit the floor, and she reached to retrieve the dropped object. A pregnancy test, colored with possibilities, scrawled on with sharpie hearts. Joanna held it to her chest, and her sob broke through the silence of the room, ending the spell of the moment. Suddenly everything started moving again; the cars outside of her window, the air flowing through her vents, her heart, beating fast and heavy, pumping hard in her chest.

And the drip, drip, drip, of her tears on the hardwood floor.