Light House
Light House
A tower containing a beacon light to warn or guide
Faye’s hair whips around her face as we stand on the pier. It has been an angry day; morning began with cracks of thunder, and night eased in with an orange blanket. I spilled coffee on my favorite shirt, and Faye found her car dressed with a parking ticket. I decided against changing as we were already late, of course. She smiled in the car at my disarray as the radio muttered something regarding a whitecap warning. Now, we find ourselves watching waves lick the light house as the weather roars on again.
“We shouldn’t be here, and you know it.” She is nervous.
The wind rips at her hair and she anxiously tucks it back.
“We’ll be fine. We always are.”
Her mouth warps while we continue on. Even though this is our spot, she grows weary as we slip through the cold gate, chains catching on my backpack. Thick sounds of thunder add to her discomfort as she jumps beside me. The lighthouse looms down the wall, praising itself, igniting its dark red body as the weather carries pools of water onto the gray asphalt. Last time, I made the mistake of bringing bottles instead of cans, and we watched Stellas shatter when I slipped halfway down the break wall. Now we both snicker as we pass the uneven concrete.
Faye reaches out her hand and finds mine. I feel the ease of her rings, leaving familiar indents on my fingers. Then I think to the box. A box so perfect in its entirety. A box that I only believed in for her. Month after month I beat and bruised myself up over something so insignificant, but a sale and a good salesman can draw anyone in.
My knee begins to dampen against the pavement as I kneel before her. Her back is to me but the moon is high and large leaving her outlined in a soft glow. I think back to that stupid Lite-Brite game as a child and how I’d always lose the pieces. My mother would come in our small living room and yell about them getting stuck in the vacuum. Her voice filled the air from corner to corner, I was constantly piecing together light houses because I thought they’d be nice and quiet. Safe. Tucked out in the water only connected by that thin fragile break wall. She’d never reach me there, her fury rising in large waves of rage. Twelve years later and here I am, out in the wind with the thrashing sea around me and the same feeling resides within. The first time Faye met my mother, the dinner cloth was beige and we had chicken. Faye wore a yellow blouse, drinking red wine as she laughed at my mother’s jokes about my childhood. Half way through the main course, she asked if Faye had a boyfriend, and I coughed broccoli onto my plate. My mother was not dumb, my hand had been on Faye all night; under the table, on the walk to the kitchen, simply passing the wine.
“Your father will not stand for this” she said sharply. Meticulously she moves her tightly crossed arms to leave fingernail marks on my biceps, her knuckles white with anticipation at my response. The brutal truth that he never would be back, that she’d be alone now that I had found Faye, that maybe she just might get sick of yelling at herself. Faye and I stopped at a bar on the way home and had a shot for her.
Inside my left jacket pocket sits the box. Eagerly my palms begin to sweat. I look up and Faye has turned to me now, green eyes wide at my imposition. At first she does not notice the ring perched in the center of my palm, but her smile broadens as her name slips from my shaking lips. Our hands find each other again instinctively, and I place the ring onto her finger. A thin silver band with three small emeralds spaced accordingly. They are her favorite. Her hands move to my face as I stand, and I notice the unfamiliar cold of the ring on my cheek. The kiss is long, hot, leaves us wanting. When we pull apart the chilled air nudges us closer together. I unzip my backpack and pull out a bottle of Knob Creek, another favorite. She has never been the champagne type, even over a celebration. At her brother’s graduation she perfected the keg stand, and broke her leg after an unknown amount of tequila shots on her 22nd birthday. I fell in love with her over a bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes. No, never really the champagne type, so when the fifth caught the moonlight she smiled fiercely.
“To us. To what we are and what we will be.” My voice hummed between our bodies and ricocheted off the lighthouse as water began to collect around at our feet. The whisky burned my lips, but Faye surrendered and knocked it back. To us, to us, to us; echoes dispersed as we found ourselves embraced again. For the first time I noticed the repetitive light swinging through the darkness from above. Around and around again.
The water hit me first, pushing on my calves, slipping under Faye’s feet. My mind snapped back to the car radio warning. She screamed and I felt her nails on my forearm, just like my mother’s, as she was swept into the tide. For a split second I found it funny to think of my mother. A rogue wave leapt the break wall and caused her to immerse before she could cry for help. Farther and farther, she was lost in the wrath of the water. The last thing I remember was her face pleading for air and the distance consuming my voice.
To us,
to us,
to us.
