By Litsa Dremousis
“My name’s Starling.” She pauses. “Like the bird.”
I try not to laugh because my dorm room is two doors down and she always introduces herself the same way, “Like the bird.”
It makes me want to reply, “My name’s Pussy. Like the cat.”
She wears tortoise shell sunglasses and tan leather sandals and looks a little like Marianne Faithfull, but often as not reeks of weed. I can’t tell if it impedes her memory or if my scar makes her nervous, forcing her to search for something to say, no matter how repetitive.
My scar seems to make everyone nervous.
Well, except for me.
I’ve had it 11 months now, this deep red gash swerving across my forehead. And while today I snapped at a guy on campus, “What are you looking at?” when he gawked, that had more to do with his Nixon button. By now, I usually ignore the stares and stammers.
I mean, why bother? It was a car accident—it’s not like I was mauled by a bear.
That’s the good thing: if the glass couldn’t end my life, who can scare me? I’m not invincible—I don’t think anyone is, no matter how hard they pretend—but somedays now for fleeting moments, paradoxically I feel unbreakable. And that’s kinda cool.
But back to Starling.
She continues to stand in front of me, in the grip of anticipation, or a perhaps a milder substance tonight.
I debate pretending that this is the first time we’re meeting, but can’t conjure the energy to lie.
“Starling, we’ve met a few times. I’m Mia, remember?”
She takes off her shades with great flare like she’s in a Jacqueline Susann novel and it’s the first thing she’s done that makes me like her.
“Miiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaa!”
“Yes?”
She just poses now. Maybe she’s expecting me to fill in the blanks.
I need to go. I walk toward the elevator and call “Have a nice night!” over my shoulder.
She runs after me. “Wait, Mia! Hold the door!” and I hear her sandals flapping.
She gets on. It’s just the two of us and for the briefest second, she holds my hand.
“I never know what to say around you,” she whispers. “You’re so different and beautiful.”
I experience a different kind of crash.
Hey eyes are lovely, shimmering and green.
For the first time since the accident, I’m scared.
* * *
Litsa Dremousis (she/her) is the author of Altitude Sickness (Future Tense Books). Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it one of the all-time “20 Books Every Seattleite Must Read”. She recently left the Washington Post, where she’d been an essayist who wrote extensively about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Her work has also appeared in The Believer, Esquire, Flash Fiction Magazine, Flare, Hobart, Jezebel, The Literary Underground, McSweeney’s, Monkeybicycle, NPR, NY Mag, NYT, PEN Center USA, P&W, PW, The Rumpus, Salon, Short Beasts, Slate, et al.