Jason Reives

The mud on Jason’s boots smelled like charred pine & wet ash. It clogged the ridges of the rubber, flaking off onto the rug where he had kicked them. He did not look up from his hands. His knuckles were raw, scraped down to the pink under-skin from 4 days on the line. "I don't want to argue. Stop being clingy," he said. His voice had the flat, dry texture of someone who had spent 96 hours breathing smoke on the wildfire. "I'm serious. I'm done." The kitchen clock ticked. The sound was too loud in the narrow apartment. "Because I kissed you when you walked in?" The words tasted bitter. "That is why you are throwing 2 years away?" He dragged a palm down his jaw, pulling at the dark stubble. He stood up, his shoulders stooped under the weight of a fatigue that felt more like contempt than tiredness. "You did your best. It just wasn't enough." He walked toward the bedroom. He paused at the door frame, his back a broad, unyielding shadow against the hallway light. "You're crying. I can hear it. Don't make this harder than it already is. People break up all the time." The bedroom door clicked shut. The latch caught with a finality that felt hollow. The keys were on the counter, resting on top of the mail. Her phone sat right beside them, its screen dark. Leaving them felt less like a choice & more like an instinct, a need to strip away everything that tied this room to the outside world. The air in the stairwell smelled of concrete & old dust. Downstairs, the lobby was dead. The night doorman's crossword puzzle lay open on the desk, a pencil rolling into the crease of the newspaper as the elevator doors groaned shut. Outside, the rain on 4th & Camden was a cold needle-prick against bare skin. The harbor water lapped against the pier, black & thick as oil. The softness that had always dictated the compromises, the quiet endurance of his shifts, felt heavy, cold & entirely useless.