Week 2 Short Story - Love Letters for Hire - Broken Things

Goal: 1500
Actual:  1377

Everyone called him “Q” except me.  I knew Q by another name and under a different set of circumstances that he seemed unable to remember.  So I watched him in his tiny apartment.  His body hunched over his desk blocking the only beam of yellow light from an old college lamp that had survived countless moves and evictions.  His hands stroked the few stubs of hair on his chin.  He was trying hard for that beard.  I chuckled but I never dismissed his effort. 

I shouldn’t be here I thought.  I knew it had to stop.  And despite his better judgment he still needed me. 

“I don’t know… Thoughts?  These always seem to go badly,” Q said just as Glenn opened the door into the dark apartment. 

“Hi to you too,” Glenn said as he pushed the door open enough to enter.  There was so much more blocking Q’s door these days.  “Still puzzled by this assignment?”  Q didn’t answer and my eyes narrowed at Glenn. 

“Well let me make it easy for you.  You’re behind.  You don’t have the luxury of being picky about the assignment.  You should be happy that he even came to you.”

Q shook his head, “he came to you.”

“And we’re supposed to be in this together.  Where’s your friend anyway?”

That was my que.  That was supposed to be the moment that I used the little strength I had left to rustle a piece of paper, make a cold chill against Glenn’s skin, knock over a vase, but I hadn’t the energy anymore.  More importantly I hadn’t the desire to.  Though Glenn, for him, I thought I could muster something the moment he got ready to leave.  An accidental slip and head to wall mesh up.  It was that kind of day.

Q shrugged, “He stopped talking to me.”

This was where I had to sigh.  There were fundamental things that Q still had yet understood.  I used to yell “I’m female you idiot” but that grew old quick.  And there was something about observing a guy uninhibited when he knew he was being haunted but hadn’t cared.  Then again Q wasn’t really being haunted and that had been the second thing he hadn’t understood.  Nor had I. 

“And that’s your sign,” Glenn said, “Take the assignment.  This guy will pay just about anything.”

“I don’t know,” Q started, “Why does this guy even want my help?”

“The universe sends you a favor and you spit in its face.  Maybe your ghost friend had something to do with it.  Hell if I know but I do know you need to get out of this funk… And you need to shower,” Glenn said backing away from Q.

Sometimes I hated how right Glenn was.  Swinging Q’s chair around Glenn looked Q straight on, “Look I know I don’t understand everything.  I honestly won’t try to but he’s here and he wants to- hey who’s that?”

“He’s here?” Q and I said simultaneously though no one heard me but Q brushed the hairs that stood up on his forearm.  So maybe.  Just maybe. 

“Who is this?” Glenn repeated.

Q didn’t look back at the sketch and that made me curious.  I walked over, closer to the desk just as Glenn lifted the sketchbook.  I was staring at fifteen year old me as recollected by Q except he hadn’t known that. 

“Who is she?” Glenn asked just as a light tap came at the door.

Q shrugged, “It’s been stuck in my head for a while.  I keep thinking-,” and Q stopped.  I watched as Glenn flipped through the sketchbook.  My breath caught as I watched myself on a backyard swing, another portrait of me smiling, me sleep on a couch, and me aging. 

I looked around the room again.  When had it happened?  I looked at my hands.  When had so much time passed?  The door creaked as a familiar face peaked from the side of it.  “Is it okay to come in?”

Glenn looked at Q and a look transpired between them.  Q’s face registered the typical ‘I just got caught’.  Why should he have felt guilty I mused.  How anyone could be held at fault for what they couldn’t remember.  I was smiling but Glenn wasn’t.  Glenn seemed twitchy, uncomfortable in his own skin.  His face held an odd twinkling and to me, Glenn had never held anything, he was nothing outside of being an acquaintance of Q’s but now I wondered.  Had I underestimated his involvement this entire time?

The client entered then.  The client, Aaron P. Winston III, was a bulky fellow.  A ginger with money and that was all that needed to be said about Aaron because everything else fell within the bounds of stereotypical spoiled kid except the fact that he was in love.  Real bad.  He was desperate for help, having tried just about everything and Q was his last hope according to an ad that had mysteriously flown directly into his frothy beer one evening while out with friends.  Who were all annoying but at least had decent taste in beer. 

Q wasn’t a fixer.  He could be a fixer and had had some successful attempts in the past with words that healed the broken but they never ended quite right in Q’s eyes.  So what does a guy with a knack for composing romantic letters do when he fails at fixing a broken thing?  He draws the love he can’t remember.  He becomes stalked by her odd state of being.  And he addresses her as his ghost friend. 

“Sorry,” Aaron said as he entered, shoving the door and the junk behind it a little bit further into the room to make way for his massive frame.  “Will he?” 

Aaron turned his attention to Glenn but he was still preoccupied.  His eyes focused on the room waiting for something to happen and for the first time in a long time I wanted to move an object.  But I didn’t.

“Yeah,” Glenn mumbled.  Q shrugged, not bothering to argue and headed to his room to change.  This was good.  Q needed this but now I wondered about the promise.  The promise I made to myself.

Q changed quicker than I remembered and was at the door.  “We need to have a session.”

Glenn smiled.  I smiled too.  This was good. 

“I need to know everything,” Q said to Aaron directly.  “Honesty makes for a better sound.”

Aaron nodded. 

“Let’s get this show on the road then,” Glenn said leading the charge as they exited the apartment.  The locks clicked into place.  I was left alone.  The clocked had only sounded for two ticks before the door was opened again and Glenn entered. 

He walked around the room.  His hand roamed across the surface of things, barely touching them, as we walked the entire parameter of the apartment until finally he arrived in front of the tiny desk with its little yellow light.  Q never turned it off and yet the bulb seemed to never blow out.  He never asked why. 

Glenn picked up the sketchbook.  He smiled and my skin crawled.  His fingers caressed a portrait of me.  “I should’ve known,” he started.   “Even if he forgot you won’t let him.  What happened to the promise?”

Glenn stood directly in front of me, his breath on my face, “He’s okay.  So you need to hold up your end of the bargain.”

There it was.  Where it had been the entire time, one of many pieces to the puzzle I’d still been trying to figure out.  Glenn wasn’t some random person, he was a part of it somehow and now I had been found out. 

Glenn sat the sketchbook down and picked up Q’s notebook.  In his rush he’d left it.  “Don’t forget it,” he said as he exited for the final time. 

It was true.  I’d made a promise and I’d broken it often to be near Q.  I knew I had to leave.  There were things I needed to do.  Things that couldn’t involve Q but I would still scout for him even if he didn’t know it.  I had to leave him again but that was okay because I knew I’d be back.