The Carpet Cleaners

A breath and an opening chord, and my heart shatters.

Without reason, without warning I’m tragic and foreign to myself—my skin doesn’t fit, my fingers are too long, and my toes scratch weirdly against the inside of my sneakers. I feel as if I’ve never been this heartbroken, and I feel as if I have grown five feet in the wrong direction, and surely—surely this time someone has noticed.

But I’m the only one in the house, and there are bells in my ears, so I wouldn’t be able to hear anyone mention it, anyways.

Embarrassed, I go to the utility room for the Cajun broom and the Home Depot dustpan, wondering if she’ll notice—because the carpets have just been cleaned and she was so proud, and do hearts stain, anyways?

I feel silly as I kneel down and hurriedly sweep the pieces into the dustpan. What kind of person—?

But it’s never been right, for me.

I glance to the side, and I see a smudge in the carpet that isn’t there, an imprint on my mind—a memory of what should have been. Just the other day, I think to myself, I melted because of a letter, and there was proof, there was a stain-- And there usually are stains, buried everywhere in the carpet in this house. It helps me remember, helps me think that these things that I feel aren’t an elaborate sham, something I trick myself into believing.

But the carpet cleaners have come and gone and I find myself wondering if there had been a letter, if there had been a reaction, if there had been anything­—because I can’t find the stain and the letter—

It never existed, I decide, and I stand up.

Motions awkward and unfamiliar, I take the three jerky steps towards the yellow trashcan—and it used to be in the bathroom, I know it—and dump the dust into the gaudy container. I straighten, wincing as my spine makes its loud complaint, and I wonder idly about nothing until I’m back in my room, hating the carpet cleaners and feeling foolish again.