Kelly liked to annoy me in the cutest ways.
I wake slowly, I’m not a morning person. Sometimes she’d lean over me, with her eyes crossed and her tongue sticking out, her cheeks sucked in. I could tell from her freckles that it was her.
“Stop it,” I’d say, my heart thumping. “If the wind changes, you’ll stay like that.” She’d bite me and I’d tickle her. Our bodies ironed folds into the bedsheets. Mine were long and thin because I slept on my side. Hers were a swirl as she tossed and turned.
“Turn here,” she’d say, when we went out for a drive. She’d grin as I tried to navigate my way back onto the road we wanted without turning around. She kept her hand on my thigh. When the sun shone, her freckles were russet brown.
When she smiled, I wished the wind would change so she would stay like that.
It was our seventh anniversary, but something was wrong. We ate and wished ourselves another seven—and more—happy years. But it was her tight smile, the one that didn’t make it to her eyes.
She wore a yellow dress. I didn’t notice until we got home that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. I had insisted we sit opposite each other near the front of the restaurant because the view was famously good. You could look across the road to the stained glass entrance of the cathedral.
She was wearing a short nightdress, the black one. One hand up to hold back the hair trying to cover her face. Her other hand holding up the hem of the nightdress to show me what was underneath. I was full of beer and food. I closed my eyes.
In the morning I couldn’t find her. I didn’t have her number on my phone. Clothes. There were no women’s clothes in any of the cupboards, nor in the washing machine, though we’d done a load the day before and hadn’t hung anything up. I had to lie down. When I woke the wind was strong outside.
And there she was.
I think. Her eyes crossed, her tongue out and her cheeks sucked in. Trying to scare me. My Kelly, always trying to annoy me
This was the best prank yet.
I told her to stop in case the wind changed direction. She didn’t, and she didn’t laugh, and she didn’t bite the end of my nose. And I could see that she—it must be a she?—didn’t have any freckles either.
