Done

SandOlore Sykes

“I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.”

Engine idles. Low hum.

Her face mostly gone. Just a slice of it visible. One cheek catches the light. The rest swallowed in shadow. Like those opera masks. Half a face floating there.

Drake low in the speakers. Stereo lights breathing blue. Then purple. Then blue again. Cheap system but the colors look deep in the dark.

Dashboard glow touches the steering wheel. Hands at ten and two. She’s talking. Goes quiet.

Phone buzzes against his thigh. Silent mode but the screen bleeds blue-white through the gray sweatpant pocket.

His hand drops over it. Just rests there.

He pulls the vape from the cupholder. Takes a slow pull. Exhales. The car fills with the cloud. Blue lines of light cut through the smoke.

The field in front of them a smear of dark shapes. Something out there. He flips the headlights on.

The field jumps into view. A gazebo collapsed in the grass. The roof tilted, like it’ll slide off. The wooden frame split open. Boards spiking.

Looks like a busted umbrella. Or bones.

Like the dinosaurs at the museum. That first date. She ducked under the barrier and snapped a selfie inside the jaw of the skull, smiled back at him, those green eyes.

He rolls the window down. Watches the vapor drift out, the cloud moving slowly across the dark field.

She’s talking again. Something about her brother, work, something someone said. His thumb taps once on the wheel. Feels the bass in his feet.

Drake hits that line. What you doin’ that’s so important?

He hums along under his breath. Turns the volume up.

“…it’s been a rough time for me lately…”

He blinks long, slow. Eyes up. Back down.

She’s still going. His eyes drift past the gazebo. It’ll be over soon.

Puddles scattered across the grass from the river spill. The headlights make them twitch with wind.

Further out the river itself. Barely visible. His eyes follow the little flicks where the current catches the light.

Left to right. Like reading. Back again.

Phone buzz. Slides his hand into the pocket and flips it over, less light.

Could he get out, stand in the headlights facing her, look like he’s just checking the time? Have a look at the messages, just for a second? No, she’d start asking questions.

“…with work and my brother and the breakdown of the—”

He grips the wheel. Pulls himself up straight.

“I deserve to be someone’s number one priority,” he says.

Shallow breathing, like air is stuck in her throat.

“It’s just so much’s been happening,” she says. Her hands go to her face, her head hangs low, almost touching the dash.

“…getting him into rehab, cleaning out the apartment, the understaffing at the hospital…”

“I mean,” he says slowly, “it’s always about you.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

“I don’t have anything more right now,” she says finally. “I’m burned all the way down.” Her hand reaches toward the stereo. She turns the volume low.

“That okay?”

He shrugs. Then, “No, leave it.”

No way to tell if she’s surprised.

She wipes at her eyes. “Sorry. I’m being dramatic, aren’t I?” The faint scrape of her nails against her eyelid.

He glances over.

Her curls draw a silhouette against the window. Her face dark. He draws on his vape, lets the smoke slowly out of his lips. Her shoulders are shaking and the blur of his smoke makes the outlines of the curls worm.

He tries to imagine her face, draw it in, but he can’t.

“I can make changes,” she says so quietly he can hardly hear. “If you could maybe just be patient with me. I can fix this.” Voice getting louder, she kicks out her legs, sits up straight. “Wasn’t always like this, right?”

Used to be when she looked at him her face stayed burned there. Like looking at a light— the image still there when you turn away. At the gym, at the plant, driving the highway— her face looking at him. Making him feel like, what, the best version of himself.

Once he watched her cross a street toward him and felt himself stretch 3 inches taller before she even reached the curb.

But now she’s scorched out. A dark halo instead of a face.

He turns toward his window. His reflection there a second. Smooths his eyebrow with one finger.

She says, “There’s got to be something I can do, baby.”

The river flickers again out past the grass. Left to right. Left to right.

“I don’t feel seen,” he says. Comes out flat.

She reaches her hand toward his. “Come here,” she whispers.

He doesn’t move.

“Please,” she says quietly. “You’re my everything.”

“But I’m not, am I?”

The phone vibrates under his hand.

She sees it this time, the lit square of light through his pants. Damn, wanted this to be clean — don’t show your cards, man, don’t be that guy.

“Who keeps messaging you.” She spits it out. A breath. Then sweetly: “You should check it.” But it cracks on the way out.

He knows he’s just got to cut the thing, stop dragging it out. The car stereo light says 7:09, still time to… but then he remembers the hour’s wrong.

Just do it.

“I’m not feeling it anymore,” he says. “You’re not giving me what I need.” “Is this really it?” Voice coming out pinched, trembling.

“Yeah.” Says it loud. To make it hit.

His eyes move back to the gazebo. Round and round the wooden ribs.

He waits until there’s no more sound. Could he look now, just a second, see what time it is?

After a moment he says, “I’ll take you home.”

“I’ll just walk.”

“No way. Not letting you walk.”

She wipes her face. “Are you sure about this?”

The stereo lights fade from blue to purple again. Last look at the gazebo bones and he starts the engine.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m sure.”

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Vote for Done

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Sandolore Sykes sits in a pool of water and puts her fingers in the sockets for you. She writes on doorways, on the inside of her wrist, on the underbelly of overpasses. She lives in France, in her own personal sensory overload. Her words are the only thing that make any sense to her. Find more about SandOlore on Substack