Logan's Flight (short literary fiction - 1137 words)

Logan’s Flight

I have to stop myself from banging my head against the wall. It has been the longest day at work with all of the nutty patients picking today to come in. My mother is one of them and I can hear her talking at the front desk.

My phone buzzes and I slip it out of my scrub pocket. Josh. A short time ago, seeing his name would have made me smile. Now I feel nauseated. Being dumped for the pretty new girl in your boyfriend’s office tends to do that. The air kicks on and I get a chill, sending goosebumps down my arms. I put on my sweater that I keep draped over the chair and sit at the computer in my room. 

For two years now I’ve been a physical therapist at Jensen Sports Medicine. I like my job but the rest of my life is a shit-storm and I have no idea what to do about it. Six months ago I was on top of the world. Me and Josh—my college sweetheart, the captain of the football team and a member of the Chess Club—had just bought a house and were going to get married. But I guess nothing lasts forever. Not when your fiancé decides to sleep with his pretty new co-worker, Jennifer. I’ve always hated that name.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was that he didn’t even try to deny it when I confronted him. It was exactly six weeks ago. 

“Look, Logan, I told you I’m sorry. I’m only human. It’s not like we’re married yet.” He sat down at the table and interlaced his fingers, looking up at me, his big brown eyes not quite pleading, not quite sorry, just trying to convince me to get over it.

My jaw dropped. “Not married yet? Jesus, like that makes a difference! We are engaged, we live together—“

He slammed his hands down onto the table. “Just stop, OK? I feel bad enough as it is. I had a moment of weakness. You know it won’t happen again.”

“And how do I know that?” 

A week later, he had moved out and I had put the house up for sale. I could still afford it on my own but there is no point staying in a place where I was supposed to be married, have a family and it had already fallen apart. Best to just start fresh. Now all I want is a pill that will take away his memory. Or maybe he could be zapped out of my brain like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I thought he was The One. We had a future. Then he got a new job and met Jennifer, who is the complete opposite of me with her sparkling blonde hair, tanned skin and Cross Fit body. I’ve never met her but I hate her. And I don’t trust anyone who does Cross Fit anyway. No one needs to be able to flip a damn tractor tire. Unless it lands on someone on the farm, in which case Jennifer can lift it and save them. Good for her. 

Last night I had a dream that I was paralyzed. I was sitting in the center of a large, dark room in a metal chair and the only parts of my body that I could move were my eyes. All I could see were the faces of my mom, Josh and a few other friends and co-workers. The creepy part was their facial expressions. As I moved my eyes around the half circle in front of me, their faces were smirking with superior and condescending looks. I woke up shivering, sweating and shaking. I’ve had this same dream over and over again for weeks now. Usually my dreams fade away but I can’t shake this one. It lingers all day.  

Mom is now following Dr. Stein down the hall, her diamond jewelry creating a constellation under the fluorescent lights: two carats in her ears, a delicate sparkling cross lying on her chest and three carats on her left hand next to a platinum band. My step-father is generous to her. But, despite her bedazzled appearance, she’s frowning and looking at the floor, clutching her shoulder. She is an undiagnosed hypochondriac who thinks every ache or pain means cancer. I’m glad she’s not scheduled for therapy with me today. I used to have more patience with her but now the irritation has taken over. In the healthcare industry it’s called “compassion fatigue.” Funny how it sounds so gentle and harmless when it’s really so violating. 

I close my door, hoping I can hide out here for a while. I don’t feel like socializing today. Some days—usually when I’ve had enough coffee or just have the fortune of being in a decent mood—I yak it up with my co-workers. But on days like today, I feel like I will crawl out of my skin if someone talks to me. It’s a slow day so maybe I’ll get lucky and no one will come bursting in with a big sunny smile telling me I have a patient waiting. I sit in an old blue plastic chair and lean against the cold white wall staring into space.

A few months ago, I lived in a 2500 square foot home with Josh in the Victorian District of Savannah and had a sparkling diamond on my left hand. My whole life was finally planned out, orchestrated beautifully the way I had always envisioned it. But you know the saying, “if you want to see God laugh, make plans”?  I am the living embodiment of that wickedly ruthless but true statement. I don’t know why I went to school for physical therapy. The idea sounded great four years ago when I was a senior at the University of Georgia, a few months away from a B.S. in Health Sciences. Many things used to seem like a good idea. But now, I feel like a spider caught in her own web, unable to break free. 

I can still hear my mother talking even though she’s all the way in the front office. Her voice grows louder and I can hear bits and pieces: “My insurance should cover that . . . No, call them again, that is wrong . . . I’m in so much pain.” Her voice has escalated to a whine now. “I guess I’ll just have to have surgery if you won’t help me . . .”

Peeking my head out of the room, I see Stephanie, another PT, walking in my direction. She stops and smiles when she gets to me but says nothing for a moment, just puts her hand on my shoulder. We both watch my mother as she stands in front of the desk, one hand gripping her large Chanel bag on her shoulder and the other hand on her hip. She still has not paused from her monologue. I faintly hear Dr. Stein say, “Anastasia, you don’t need surgery . . .” but I can’t hear the rest. My mother’s given name is Anna but she insists on being called Anastasia. She claims it suits her better. But I know the truth. She believes she’s a Disney princess and not in that needs-to-be-committed-to-the-psych-ward kind of way. Then Dr. Stein is making her way back down the hall and she’s wearing that “I have no choice but to be professional” smile. She sees me and raises her eyebrows, because there’s really nothing to say. 

I am so embarrassed. 

      Stephanie squeezes my shoulder. “Maybe you should transfer to the other location,” she says. 

      “She would just start going there,” I say. 

      “True.” Stephanie gives my shoulder a squeeze. “You could fake your own death.” She shrugs. 

 
      I laugh and head back into my room to wipe down the table for my next patient. “I just might consider that.” 

      That night after making a bowl of Ramen, I open up my laptop and search for one-way tickets to Seattle. My best friend moved there last year and has been trying to get me to move ever since. She tried again to convince me last week. 

     “I absolutely love it out here!” Sarah said.


     “Isn’t it cold and rainy, though?” 

She laughed. “You just can’t leave Mother Dearest. Admit it, you would be lost without her.”

     “You’ve got to be kidding! She drives me nuts. I’d love to get away and start over on my own.
There’s nothing for me here anyway.” I got up and began to pace around the room. 

     “Right. So you’ve said for the past year. Do something about it then. You’re young, you have no kids, aren’t married and you sure as hell haven’t had any luck in the man department. So take a chance.”

     “I know but I can’t just pick up and leave! I’m not like you, I like to plan things out, know what’s going to happen.”

     “Well, maybe you should try something different. You could stay with me. It would be great, Logan. You loved it when you came out to visit.”

     “I did. . .”
     “You’re just scared, Loges. I get it but if you’d stop letting fear control you, God, you’d be amazed, hon.”

There is a one-way ticket on Southwest for $120. I slam my laptop shut. I don’t want to think about this right now. My phone on the table lights up with a green bar in the middle of the screen. It’s a text message from Josh. I haven’t talked to him in two months since our break-up. My heart accelerates as I read the message. He wants to have dinner this week. I sigh and toss the phone onto the couch. I’m not going to respond. See how the cheating bastard likes that. 

I remember I still have a half-finished bottle of wine in the fridge. I pop the cork out and swish the pale yellow liquid around, bringing the opening of the bottle to my nose. It’s starting to sour but it still has a good 24 hours left before it will taste like vinegar. My glass in hand, I look around, staring at the bare whitewashed brick walls. I need some artwork to liven up this tiny apartment. It’s actually not that small but I’m still adjusting to downsizing from our spacious Victorian on the outskirts of town. My third floor loft is situated in the heart of Savannah. I love the noise, the distractions. I think if I had stayed in that big old house by myself I’d have gone crazy by now. I go stand by the big window overlooking Broughton Street and watch people walk home from work, couples walking hand in hand, stopping at Sakura to get take out for dinner.

 I jump when I hear my phone vibrate on the coffee table. He’s being persistent. He always is when he wants something. Let him wonder a little longer. 

Two glasses later, I find a green and white pack of Marlboro Menthols in the back of the freezer. No one knows that I smoke. But I don’t really. Only when I’ve had more than one glass of wine, which isn’t often. I sit on my back patio with my now room-temperature wine and light up, inhaling the thick, acrid smoke. It tastes bad. I haven’t had a cigarette in months and once the first puff goes into my lungs, I feel dizzy. My heart does a little jump and I’m nauseous for a couple seconds. Then I take a gulp of wine and I feel better. I finish the glass and pick up my phone and can’t stop myself. I agree to have dinner with him tomorrow. This is a bad idea, I think as I type the message.    

    “So I guess it didn’t work out with Jennifer,” I say. Josh is sitting across from me at a booth in 

Chili’s shoving salsa-drenched tortilla chips into his mouth. A Dean Martin song is playing a little too

 loud overhead and a baby in a high-chair on the other side of the aisle is starting to get fussy. I reach to my left and grab the drink menu.

      He sighs and scratches his head and I notice his nails are still as dirty as they always were and his hair is still as messy as usual. “Are you really going to bring that up? That was nothing. I miss you,” he says, his mouth still half-full of chips.

“I don’t miss you.” I slide my Diet Coke closer and lean in, taking a sip. It’s so fizzy it almost makes me choke. I really should order a mojito. Or maybe a margarita.

He laughs. “Yeah right. You’re here, aren’t you? Stop acting like you don’t care. I’m not buying it. We both know you’re going to take me back.”

I sit back into the squishy booth, my hands wrapped around the cold plastic cup, now wet with drops of condensation. The guy behind me at the next table must be shaking his leg because I feel like I’m sitting in one of those massage chairs at the mall. “Oh my God.” My voice quivers a little because of the nervous leg shaker. I sit up straight. “You’re serious.”

“Baby, come on.” He reaches across the table and starts to take my hand.  

I wrench out of his grasp, shaking him off like a huge bug and shove the tall, cold glass, still filled 

with soda, across the table. It crashes into the front of his shirt, brown fizzy liquid flying in the air, 

spraying the table, drenching his shirt and pants. I hear the cup roll onto the floor but I am already up,

my bag slung over my shoulder. “Go to hell,” I say quietly. He’s sitting there like a statue, his hands 

up in the air, his face red with embarrassment or anger or both. Either way, he looks like an idiot. 

The owner of the shaking leg catches my eye and snickers, his elbow on the Mexican-tiled table, his 

hand cupping his chin. Under the table, his leg is shaking even more violently now. I turn on my heel 

and walk away. As I make my way towards the door, a man at the bar smiles at me then takes a sip of 

his drink. I wonder if he saw me throw Diet Coke all over my ex-fiance. 
 

My hands grip the steering wheel tightly as I drive home but I’m smiling. I crank up the radio and sing along. When I get home, I plug my cell phone into the charger and see I have a missed call. Much to my surprise, it’s not Josh but Mom. I call her back and she picks up on the first ring. “Where were you? Did you not have your phone on you?”

“Sorry, it must have been on silent. Is everything OK?” I let myself fall onto the couch and lie the phone on the table, putting her on speaker.

“Well, no, it’s not actually. I couldn’t get a hold of the office today. I needed to know if I have an appointment tomorrow. They have been giving me the run-around anyway, telling me my insurance doesn’t cover this, doesn’t cover that--“

“Mom,” I interrupt her. “I didn’t see you on the schedule but I’m not one hundred percent sure. I can’t check now. You can call them in the morning or I can check when I get in.”

She sighs. “Well, that won’t help. I need to know. I’m very busy.”

“Busy doing what?”

“Logan. Don’t talk to me that way. Just because I don’t work anymore doesn’t mean I’m not just as busy as you.”

I don’t say anything. I’m not in the mood for this.

She sighs again. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to figure it out. Thanks.” And before I can reply, she hangs up. Fine by me. I lob the phone across the room and it lands on a pillow on the chair. It didn’t even come close to breaking. That would have at least been satisfying.

The next day at work I’m typing some notes when Dr. Stein comes into the room. “Your mother is here for therapy. She requested you.” Her face looks pained.
      “OK, thank you,” I say. I pass by a mirror and my face is paler than usual and my eyes are puffy.  

Here she comes down the hall with all of her pushiness swirling around her. She smiles her sad smile, her large blue eyes stare into mine, searching, desperate, commanding me to “recognize this, acknowledge this! I am suffering greatly but I’m a trooper! I’m tough!”

      I watch as my mother struggles to lift the two-pound weight with her left arm. “That’s good. Try five more,” I say.
      She sighs loudly. “This exercise is too hard. It hurts.”
      “OK,” I say. “Take a break.”
      “I need a permanent break from this! You’re killing me!” She drops the small blue dumbbell to the floor.
      “Anastasia, I’m trying to help you.”
      Her brows furrow. “Why do you insist on calling me that?”
      “It’s your name,” I say, picking the weight off the floor.
      “I’m your mother.”
      “Yes, but right now you’re my patient and it helps me to call you by your name. Just go with it.” I hold out the weight. “Would you please try five more?”
      She yanks the weight out of my hands and begins her dramatic struggle again. “You know, your old mom is tough.”
      My blood is starting to boil and there is a burning tightness in my chest. I turn and roll my eyes. Here we go. I look up at the clock. We have twenty minutes left. It’s going to be a long twenty minutes.
      “I am,” she continues. “I’ve been through so much and I just keep going. Honestly, I don’t know how I do it.” She does her last rep and places the weight gingerly on the table. Folding her hands in her lap, she purses her lips and watches me for a moment before speaking again. “But when you don’t have a choice, you don’t have a choice, you know?” She laughs, a forced, high-pitched sound and stares across the room with big, sad puppy-dog eyes. “Your step-father is always working and I just do my exercises at home, well, what I can do before I get tired. Most of the time I have to run all over town to have more tests, more x-rays—“
      “Go ahead and start your next set,” I say, cutting her off. “You know, the bicep curls.”
      She huffs and picks up the weight again.
      I swivel on my stool and slide back a few inches. “You’ve had all the tests in the world and they found nothing. You have mild tendinitis in your shoulder, that’s it. How bad is the pain right now?”
      She looks down at her shoulder and moves it around. “Did you hear that crunching sound?” I don’t hear it and I tell her so. She frowns. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if I have a fracture. It shouldn’t sound like that, should it? It’s pretty bad and those exercises you make me do are making it worse!”
      “Your x-rays do not show a fracture,” I tell her. She narrows her eyes. “And you played tennis yesterday.”
      “Well, some days it is better than others. You seem like you don’t believe me. I need you to support me! I might have cancer in my shoulder—“
      “You do not have cancer in your shoulder,” I say a little too loud. “At the most, you have tendinitis or bursitis, which is something almost everyone gets at some point. It’s not even close to being serious. And I do support you. That’s all I do. It’s always about you.”
      “Now, listen. I was so good to you. I gave you everything!” She drops the weight to the floor again. It makes a loud thud and it’s only a matter of time before someone comes to check on us.
      “Did you ever stop to think that I need you now, too? Just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I don’t need you to care.”
      She stands up from the table. “You are a spoiled brat! I suffer so much, day and night, with all of these health problems but I don’t burden you with them! I just push through it. You have no idea what I go through.”
      I see her selfish, pitiful face and then another face flashes through my mind. Josh. The way he looked at me last night, his eyes half begging my forgiveness and half knowing that he had me. Knowing that I would come running back. Something clicks inside me and I hear the words coming out of my mouth before I know I am speaking. “You’re a bored housewife. Rob ignores you. But, he gives you plenty of money so you can stay home and wallow in your insurmountable problems, carefully plan how else you will get your necessary attention from all who will listen. You bathe in your pain, your self-pity and your narcissism. You are self-absorbed to the furthest extent. This has been going on for years. Ever since you married Rob. And I don’t know why. He’s a nice guy. And you can’t be bothered to care about me. Your singular focus in life is all of your made-up illnesses. You get a diagnosis of tendinitis and you act like it’s cancer! You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met. Do not request me again when you come in—“
      I realize I’ve been yelling when the door opens and Stephanie peeks her head in. “Everything OK in here?”
      “Yes, we’re fine. We were just finishing up.” I stare at Anastasia and wait for her to leave the room. She mumbles to herself, yanks her bag from the table and rushes out of the room.

That night, I text Josh and tell him I’m moving. I can almost hear his jaw drop on the other end of the line. He has woken up but it’s too late. He begs me to stay, says he’s sorry, asks me to forgive him but I tell him it’s not about him and I wish him the best.

Two weeks later I am squeezed in a narrow seat, my carry-on bag tucked under the seat in front of me. I paid a few extra bucks for the window seat which helps with the claustrophobia. Next to me is a large man wearing tiny silver wire-frame glasses reading his Kindle. Every few minutes, he sniffs and snorts, wipes his nose with a big white handkerchief. I didn’t know people still used those. I hear a baby softly cooing in the row behind me and in the mother’s low and nurturing voice, I can hear a note of nervous tension as she silently hopes he doesn’t start screaming and crying on the five-hour flight. I put my earbuds in and press play on my “Relax” playlist. I smile to myself and lock my phone as the soothing sounds of a piano and strings start to flow into my ears. I can feel the cool plastic of the wall on my shoulder as I lean to my right and adjust my pillow. We are moving now, the vibration becoming stronger and stronger as the plane gains speed and the windows of the airport rush by. Finally, we are in the air and my stomach feels like it is still on the ground for a split second. Pressing my face up against the small window, I look down at my little town and watch as it shrinks smaller and smaller, the streets crawling with toy cars, passing by white and beige buildings that look like faded Legos left out in the sun too long. The world is such a big place and I want to see more of it. I can always come back to visit Savannah. Maybe next year.