Tangle

Empty beer bottles line the counter. The caps, she likes to put them in the ashtray. The ones bent in half are mine. She's slumped across the table, her head in her arms. My fingers are running through her hair, gliding over the smoothness of her scalp. I can feel her hair part as I float through. Whenever I hit a tangle, my fingers stop and I pull my hand back to the front of her head and start over.

She says I should stop touching her but I continue. She says, "stop, you're making me cry." I pull my fingers out of her hair and get up out of my seat, going around the table to stop behind her. I put one hand on her back and rub back and forth.

Her head still in her hands, she looks up at me, her make-up two blotches of darkness beneath her eyes, and she says she's ok. I take hold of her wrist and pull. She says, "what are you doing?" Looking at her, I say "get up." She does.

"Where are we going," she asks. And still with her wrist I pull her into my arms. She puts her head between my shoulder and my neck with her arms folded across her chest, in an X. Both of my arms go around her. She says, "you don't have to be nice to me", as she starts to shake in my arms, "you don't have to be nice to me."