La Llorona

The cold wraps her arms around me and I think she's trying to pull me back away from the water. I still want to jump in, though.
The crying woman is there again. She stands on the opposite shore, waving her hand, beckoning me to swim to her. I place a foot on the ice. A loud crack echoes across the valley. The crying woman laughs.
She's whiter than usual tonight. He glow is like the moon. Her hair, long, dances with the wind. I want to go to her.
I shed my coat, and the cold's embrace becomes tighter. I shiver.
"I should go," I say.
The crying woman nods her head. She laughs again. All I hear is the wind whipping around my frozen ears. I step onto the ice. It moves. Another crack and I'm floating on a slick raft, bobbing on the shallow waves.
I reach back to the shore and grab a heavy rock. I put it in my pants pocket. I grab another. The ice moves. I take another step and my foot breaks through the ice. The water reaches my knee, stabbing through denim and biting my leg. I follow through with the other leg.
The crying woman hugs herself.
The cold isn't embracing me anymore. She slaps me across my face, and pummels me along my body. She's angry. She can't stop me. I climb forward onto the ice and force it to break. The ice floats away from me, leaving open water. It's up to my neck, and the cold now strangles me. I stop breathing.
The crying woman is smiling, though tears still descend down her cheeks. She claps her hands and it sounds like more ice breaking. The valley is silent.
"I'm coming to you," I call to the woman, but the wind steals my words.
She stops smiling and turns away.
"Don't go," I say.
The words fight to leave my mouth. My teeth chatter and my jaw clenches. Warmth radiates from my body and the night gets darker. The crying woman walks further on. I can hear her sobs now. I look back to the shore, and it is miles away.
"I can't turn back," I say.
It gets darker. I am not cold. I look back to where the crying woman stood and see nothing. I look up and see the moon, frowning. I want to sleep.
I inhale and go under.
The cold is angry.

It Means So Little

I had to marry her. Or else I would have lost her,
She sent me a letter while I was deployed. The jist of it being I don't know if I can wait any longer.
I called her the night I got it. I sang our favorite song:
"If you can wait 'til I get home," I sang. "Then I swear come tomorrow this will all be in the past,"
She stayed. I came home. We married. And now the irony that I sang her a breakup song has not been lost on me. I sit at my desk, typing her a letter.
I'm leaving.
I type, I should have never asked you to wait for me. I should have let you leave. I'm sorry. I just don't love you anymore.
It's been three years since we wed. I'm not actually sure when I stopped loving her. This morning, I watched her sleep, from across the expanse of a king-size bed, snoring lightly. I tried to see the girl I loved, the one I fell for in high school. I tried to remember what it was about her that made me beg her to stay. All I could see was a skinny, silent blond bundled up in blankets.
I type, memories are all we have now. When did we last talk?
A gigantic silence has grown between us, and the weight of it threatens to take down the whole house. It has a routine. I come home, and eat her cooking while she does homework in the other room. I wash my truck while the sun goes down and then watch TV. She's never around. I fall asleep on the couch. When I do get to bed, she's already quiet and breathing shallowly, facing the wall. She doesn't even move when I lay on the mattress.
"Good night," I usually say anyways.
I type, we haven't done anything wrong. But can we honestly call ourselves a couple? Do we even know each other?"
I hit and hold the backspace. The letter's too sappy. Too dramatic. I just want to tell her I contacted a lawyer yesterday. I'd tell her in person, but I don't know where she is tonight.
I hear the front door and then someone punching in the alarm code.
"Cheryl?" I call.
"Hey, babe!" she calls back.
Heels click against hardwood and linoleum, through the den and kitchen, and then down the stairs to my office. She walks up behind my chair, wraps her arms around me and kisses my neck. She smells nice.
"New perfume?" I ask.
"Yep. Beth got it for me," she says.
"Oh."
She's wearing a short and tight blue cocktail dress. Her legs look amazing.
"You went out tonight?" I ask.
She sits in the la-z-boy in the corner and kicks off her heels. She brings her legs up beneath her and lets her hair down. It pours down her shoulders like a fountain of gold. I catch my breath.
"How was your day?" she asks.
She pulls out and lights a cigarette.
"Good," I say. "Um, good. I got a lot of work done on those reports."
"Reports?"
"Yeah. The ones to track my unit's spending? There's been some discrepancies, and now Gunny is on my ass because they were due..."
I trail off. She's passed out. Her cigarette burns between her fingers. Her head bobs to the side.
"Babe?"
"Hm?"
She comes to and shakes her head, knocking off an earring. She takes a drag from the cigarette, There's a hickey under her left ear lobe.
"You went out tonight?" I ask again.
"Mmhmm. Beth wanted to."
"Oh."
The heavy silence is there then. I swear I hear the floor creak under it.
"Did you have fun?" I ask.
"Yep," she says quietly. "Maybe too much. Do you have any leave available?"
"Um, yeah," I say. The question surprises me. "Of course. Why?"
"We should take a trip."
"Yeah?"
She takes another drag from her cigarette and rubs her feet. Her toenails are painted pink. I love her toes. I think about giving her a foot massage.
"Yeah. I mean."
More drags.
"We need some time together."
I nod my head. I read what I typed. The confidence I felt while typing earlier is wavering. I delete a word. And then another.
"Where'd we go?" I ask.
She puts out her cigarette. She brush a few strands of her highlighted hair behind her ear. Her thumb brushes the hickey. It's fresh. Still wet. She wipes her thumb on her dress. We make eye contact but then quickly look away like strangers on the street. As if it were an awkward accident.
"How about Hawaii?" she says. "We never did get our honeymoon."
"We didn't."
"So, let's go."
She's back behind me with her arms across my chest. She smells so nice. I hit control-a and then delete.
"Were you writing me a letter?" she asks.
"Um. Yeah." I say and chuckle. I hope she can't hear that I'm holding my breathe. I don't know how much she read.
"Aw," she says and kisses my cheek. "Like you used to in high school!"
High school. I loved her in high school.
"Yep. But it was bad. I don't write like I used to."
"I'm sure it was great," she says and rubs my chest. "I wish I could have read it."
She hugs me tighter and gives me another kiss. I glance at her and see the hickey.
"I'm going to go get dinner started. Hawaii," she says.
"Yeah, Hawaii," I say. "Can't be too expensive. When?"
"Soon."
"Ok, soon."
She kisses me one last time and runs up the steps, leaving her heels on the chair. There's a slip of paper in one with a phone number on it.
I can't leave her. Or else I'll have to admit I've lost her.