All Maroon

“I think you should go home now.”

Across the street from Isaac’s apartment, the sun was rising. The streets, still with sleepiness, were being touched by the first whispers of brightness. Ghostly silver light breathed in through the windows and was cut by the blinds into stripes spread out across the old carpet in the shape of rungs on the ladder. Their pattern led his eyes to her shadow.

Bruised, Alyssa sat on his old couch, hugging her knees to her chest. She bit her nails, tasting the dirt underneath. She sighed, hoping to change his mind.

“Isaac…” she whispered, letting the softness of her voice drop into the fleeting darkness with weight. “Isaac, I love you.”

*

Last night might as well have been a dream. All Isaac could remember were the lights blurring from green to yellow to red behind the rain and how he watched them change as he waited for her to move. He recognized her silhouette and as she kneeled on the sidewalk in a puddle, someone ran away with the backpack she always wore. He didn’t see the impact, but only how she fought to bring herself up from the ground, grabbing her face where they guy had punched her. Isaac, without thinking, drove up next to her and pulled her into his car.

                “Alyssa,” he told her, “It’s me. I got you. I got you.”

 They drove off and no one spoke, but the windshield wipers swished back and forth to the rhythm of her breathing. Huddled into a ball on the passenger seat, Alyssa held her cheek because it hurt and the first signs of blues and violets were already discoloring her face. She was looking at him, he could tell, even though his eyes never left the traffic lights.

They walked into his apartment and her clothes were soaked through so he drew a bath. He told her he would hang her clothes to dry while she washed herself off, all the while avoiding looking at her bruised face. He turned his back as Alyssa undressed and stepped into the tub, listening the swish and splash of the water, imagining how the tiny waves looked like as they broke against her ribs. He reached for the door knob and started to leave to give her privacy, but she called to him.

“No, wait. Isaac,” she cried in the same voice she always used, just strong enough to cover the shakiness. It reminded Isaac of the Alyssa he met two month ago. Alyssa, who flirted with him for his coffee money. Alyssa, who smiled until he rolled down the window and laughed in the darkness with him until the light turned to green. Alyssa, who told him she lived at the bus station and that any family she had left would’ve forgotten about her by now.

Isaac turned and he saw her bare, caramel skin under the water. In the reflections she cast, she looked so different then he remembered, not smoky and soft, but brittle and breaking. Fresh bruises surrounded the right side of her face like violent storm clouds of reds and purples and blues, enveloping her eyes. The harshness of light and white of the tiles and bathtub made her look painted, like canvas experiments where the colors were all wrong. He fought against the urge to look at her face, watching the shadows she made instead, watching the arch of her spine instead, closing his eyes and listening to her voice instead.

“Could you just stay with me, please?”

“Sure,” Isaac said and, for the first time all night, met her gaze. When Alyssa realized she was watching him, she broke.

Alyssa sobbed loudly and breathlessly as tears flooded down her face. She shook violently and her mouth was distorted with the realness of the pain she was feeling as if it was the first time she ever let herself feel.  Isaac ran to her and let her clutch onto his shoulders while she cried. The ends of her hair were wet and Isaac could feel them stuck to his neck. But he grabbed her, sank into the water with her, and absorbed the shock of her sobbing.  They stayed in that position until the lights above them flickered, until the water in the tub turned cold. Isaac wrapped Alyssa in a towel and brought her something dry to wear.

*

But now it was morning and the sidewalks were already dry after last night’s rainfall. Now Isaac couldn’t look at Alyssa without thinking of the girl in his bathtub holding on his t-shirt. Yesterday, she was just this girl at an intersection who stopped him every night to ask for change. But now she was Alyssa. She was this real girl now, biting her bottom lip and waiting for Isaac to say something.

Isaac drew the blinds and opened a window to let the fresh air in. He breathed and turned to her.  “How you feel about me doesn’t really matter,” he answered.

Alyssa shifted her weight and sat up, holding onto her knees. “So you want me to leave, then?”

                Isaac wished that he could say no, that it was as simple as him asking her stay and Alyssa saying yes.  He wished had it in him to be that kind of hero, the guy who saves the battered homeless girl letting her into his house. He wished he could muster up the courage to say what he was thinking. Yeah I need you here with me just as much as you need me to take care of you; or yeah, the way you looked at me last night was the first time any one looked at me like I was good enough to save them; or yeah, I love you, too, Alyssa. I love you, too.

                But Isaac couldn’t. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at her as she left, but only heard the door slam shut. The silver light of dawn was already bright with sunrise and he watched Alyssa from the window as she ran down the street, all maroon and blazing, vanishing behind an old building that cowered in shadows etched by the rising sun.