Where I Live

"Why are these under your bed?" She slid out a stack of pictures. Prints, photographs, old movie posters. "Are you going to hang them up?"

"I plan on it." Which was the truth. I'd put them there for the time being, while I situated everything else. But time being turned into time itself, and that was where they lived. The finishing touches.

She took the Butch Cassidy poster. "Hey, I gave you this."

"Sure did," I said.

She held it up over my bed, moved it to the dresser, the space above my desk. A place where it should live. She went back to the bed. Back to the dresser. Back to my messy desk.

"Why did you come over?"

She turned to me. "You asked me to come over."

"That's not really an answer." I watched the knuckles on the frame turn white, the slight scratching of nails against the glass cover. She leaned the picture on the wall.

"I guess I'll go then."

She took the bag she'd filled and left. I picked up the poster, Butch and Sundance, frozen right before their death. And flipping it over I saw the heart she drew, faded and there after all these years. I loved the way she drew hearts, I'd always tried to copy her. But I could never quite do it.