I am not it. It is me.
“Robin?”
It made her shiver, something crawl and run. He knew. Despite her efforts, the resolve was out of her hands. The way she’d started zoning out in the middle of a shift was a beacon, blinking and bold.
“I said, does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?”
Steve tries again, something small, just enough to ensure a smile or god–he would be thrilled for a shove, anything. She nodded, fingers twitching against the register like they were trying to find a rhythm of a song she could not hear. The way her hands kept creeping toward the inside of her palms, rubbing back and forth, over and over, something compulsive. Steve knew it and it killed her, she barely seemed there—talking too fast, laughing at things that weren’t funny, biting at the inside of her cheek hard enough that he winced just looking at her.
Until that look in her eyes, the one that made his stomach twist, something cold unfurling in his chest. Because for the first time, he wasn’t sure she recognized herself either. But deep down, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was…off. Like there was something in the way she moved now. Something godless about it.
It had been one of those muddy nights that slicked itself against her arms. Oily and restless, the kind that sat a pound too heavy. Chewing a wire and surprised by the shock: she’d been running in her own death. Talking too much and too fast. Kicking at rocks with the toe of her shoe–still pissed, still chewing on the inside of her cheek. Oh. The way he looked at her. The way it said: This isn’t yo u, Robin. It drove her mad, she knew better. This had been me . Sher pleaded with a violent shove against Steve’s earnest attempts.
She didn’t think about it, just turned into the trees, legs moving on instinct. The rainbow eucalyptus loomed tall, slick with color in the streetlight glow, their trunks stretching too high, branches bending low like something watching, something waiting still she stumbles through each step–shaken. Panting and fingers rubbing against the inside of her palm in some kind of soothing repetition. Back and forth. Back and forth. The distant hum of a car on the highway, the loud stomps as she thuds, thuds, like an impetulant child—had been swallowed by something thick and pressing, like the air itself was holding its breath.
Like milk in water, something felt off, wrong and impeding in a steady pedal. She was angry, selfish, and somewhere inside that was repentance. Self-punishing in a way she’d always been. Then came the sound. A bow string snapping, the tension ever so pressing it could not be ignored. It was the betrayal of almost human, but it wasn’t quite unhuman either. A woven thing in nature layered and shifting, something weaving in and out of itself like static caught on her old CD player—a ring of nearly coherent and other. Close to laughing, pushing bark and whine. Robin stilled, left shoulder, right shoulder, looking between the light and the night to find something that'll sate this overreactive hunger buried in her chest.
It beckoned. Not from tree. Not from path. Somewhere in spite of. Something bent and corroded. Thud. Thud. Like February rain against her skin, against the ground pooling between the spaces of her boots. Right shoulder: as the trees grew impossibly tall. Left shoulder: her vision flickering like burning film, skipping between every other frame and stuttering.
It wasn’t static, or laughter, something tangible to pin onto the strap of her backpack. A crude whisper not meant for ears like Robin’s. It had no face, not a real one. A labyrinth of nearly recognizable and a nightmare, she had after all been thinking of it. It required a host, a vessel, and no protest came of it. It escaped so easily, with no recourse.
She was standing in her driveway, blood coating her nail bed all too familiar. Something that came out of impulse but this—didn’t feel guiltless. Felt predatory. Felt sin. Her hands were shaking. Her skin felt wrong. Even as she turns to look in an attempt to find it there was a chilling revelation. Something was seeing but not seen.