What Didn't We Do Today?

I grab the coffee off the counter and turn to walk out of the busy mid-afternoon Starbucks rush. I slide my sunglasses back down over my eyes and fix my hair as I push the door open and go back out into the world. It’s one of the increasingly less frequent days where everything in my life is satisfactory. Nothing is falling apart. My sundress flutters in the wind and the sun feels good on my shoulders, like a gentle reminder of today’s stability. This sense of calm is uncharacteristic for me. I am a whirlwind most days—not my life, just me in general. I keep walking across the parking lot, full of suburban mothers herding toddlers to their minivans and angst-filled preteens hovering around the frozen yogurt place at the other end of the strip mall. I get to the crosswalk and wait for the little orange lit up hand on the box across the street to disappear. It seems strange that on a day when I feel so unusually invincible that the only thing stopping me from keeping going is a little orange hand. My eyes shift to the sidewalk opposite mine. A man stands there. I hadn’t noticed him. His eyes are on me. I return the glance and look away, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other and pretending to check my phone. I glance up again. He’s still looking at me. Something about him makes me feel uneasy. Logic tells me it’s the incessant staring, but I look at the way his eyes sparkle, and the way his shoulders look in his t-shirt, and the way his hair is disheveled in that way that it’s obvious he did it on purpose. He smirks. I smile back. I still feel uneasy, but I’m pretty sure it’s attraction. I think I can feel it from him too. I have this terrible habit of trying to find significance in everything, including this little exchange of looks I’m sharing with a stranger across the street. The light changes and the little orange hand disappears. The exchange is over. We walk in our respective ways. As we pass, he nods his head to me and my breath catches in my throat. He keeps walking. I do too. I move on, reminding myself that there doesn’t have to be any significance to a stranger staring at me on the street. I turn right and walk for half a block, taking a sip of my coffee. I turn left into the parking garage where my car is; It’s the same parking garage that my best friend and I sat on the roof of the night we graduated, discussing life and looking at the stars with our feet hanging off the edge, and the same parking garage where this girl I was on yearbook staff with went sometimes to hook up with her boyfriend during off-campus lunch. One time in my very own angst-filled preteen years, I scaled a fence in the back of the parking garage to impress a boy I liked. The sun disappears under the concrete ceiling as I walk in, smiling at the memory. My car isn’t far. I’m almost to it when I hear footsteps behind me. I grab the door handle and suddenly feel the press of metal against my back. I turn. It’s the man from the crosswalk. His eyes aren’t sparkling anymore now that the sun can’t reach us. They’re empty. I can’t recall ever seeing anyone with empty eyes before. The gun now presses against my stomach. I drop my coffee and phone, fumbling for the door handle, and I open my mouth to make a sound, but before anything can come out his face turns from blank to menacing.  His breath is hot on my neck and he smiles. He pulls the trigger. 

I would just like to sincerely apologize for not updating this blog lately. I’ve been really busy with other things and I’m on vacation. Please don’t hate me. I love you. I’ll post some stuff in a minute.