The Sickly Pink Room
“I know it,” she told me when I entered. Plastic covered the furniture. Brushes lay scattered. The walls were a sickly shade of pink - the paint was still wet.
“It’s all wrong,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“Well, things haven’t exactly been working out.”
“I know. It was terrible. Too long coming.”
I sat down on a corner of her bed and clasped my hands together. She’d preempted the speech - speeches - I’d written in my head. I was stuck. She was animated, bouncing. Nothing like the girl I’d first kissed three months ago.
“I can do another layer, but the fucking green - I should’ve used primer like you told me.”
“Oh.” I noticed the buckets of red. Vibrant, violent - not like the color dying on her walls.
“What do you think?” The question wasn’t directed at me. She was talking to the walls.
“I think a change—”
“I want to burn this room to the fucking ground.” She shook her head and held her hands up in resignation. Then she turned to me and looked me in the eyes. I attempted a sympathetic smile. The bright red was splattered across her face, across her blouse. She sighed.
“You’ll still love me even if my room’s ugly?”
I held open my arms. She embraced me in the sickly pink room.
