Abandonment By Kathryn Lee Willgus

Abandonment

    It was two in the morning, but so what? Will knew that Annabelle was always ready for an adventure, and never shy to drag him along with her. She spoke enthusiastically into the phone, “Just because this small town rolls up the sidewalks at 10 p.m., doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”
    They met at the abandoned lumberyard and climbed the wrought iron ladder to their favorite rooftop hideaway. These buildings had been useless for years, and their once utilitarian purpose gave way to a concrete wasteland that was out of place in the background of this rural, southern, white-bread town. In spite of the broken windows, trash left behind from its original abandonment, and the message Fuck the World scrawled on the wall, this was their home away from home.

    These late night phone calls and spontaneous get togethers pretty much summed up Annabelle’s entire outlook on life from Will’s perspective. If it made her happy, she did it. “Smoking is bad for you.” Really? I’ve never heard that before. “Drugs are bad for your brain.” What do we really do that’s good for our brains?  “What you and Will are doing is really fucked up.” What, I can’t have friends now? He had heard her repeat these conversations with friends and acquaintances time and time again. He was always amazed how such an untroubled person could be so responsible.
    Will met Annabelle through his brother, Steven. Steven thought he was the best singer, songwriter, and guitarist of his age. He had been saying that ‘he was the man’ and could do anything he wanted since the day he turned eighteen. It turns out he couldn’t do anything he wanted, considering he couldn’t hang on to the one girl that was actually worth his time. Steven and Annabelle knew each other biblically, but that didn’t last for long. It made no sense to Will that either he or his brother were worthy of her attention, and Will often wondered whether or not she had traded in one big mistake for another.
    Will liked to think he was her partner in crime. Shockingly, he was her sober partner in crime. Will was a high school junior with no car, a part-time job that he didn’t give a damn about, and no motivation. They had only been friends for one summer, but already they had explored the whole town and had begun branching out to other places. Annabelle provided the means for an adventure, and Will had the interest and courage for them both to continue. She wouldn’t admit it, but he was the only person she liked seeing haunted houses with because of his chronic hilarity. Their mutual love of anything scary and their inconsolable youth made them feel like they could take on the world.

    When they met at the lumberyard, Annabelle suggested they drive down Peabody Rd. and go to a house that had been effectively deserted since the seventies. Will was the only person to whom Annabelle could admit fear, and even then she did not complain but just fell silent and let her shaking flashlight speak for her. He could tell she really believed in that stuff. At this house, a huge portrait, presumably of the previous owner, smeared with excrement greeted them on a porch covered in broken glass, dirt and creaky rocking chairs. Inside, insulation fell from the ceiling and walls and overdue insurance notices were scattered across the floor. Crushed Pabst Blue Ribbon cans told them that they were not the first dumb teenagers to have wandered into this delinquent’s paradise.
    Annabelle didn’t want to go upstairs, but Will put his hand on the small of her back and coaxed her gently up to the second floor. “Come on! We can do this. This whole trip will be pointless if we don’t see the entire house,” he persuaded her, “we have to see it for ourselves.”
They reached the top of the stairs, they found bedrooms still complete with mattresses, dressers, and closets full of clothes. Someone’s grade-school spelling and grammar quizzes from decades ago were strewn across the floor in disarray. Other than the copper wiring being stripped, it seems that most of the place had been left alone.
    “Will, we should go now,” Annabelle said, hesitantly.
    As he looked up at her in order to produce some clever response, he immediately noticed that she was standing directly in front of another staircase. “No,” he said quickly, “we’re going up there,” as he pointed his flashlight above her right shoulder and scrambled to get out of the mess he had created on the bedroom floor.
    “Fucking Christ, Will, I am not going up there with you!” she yelled, exasperated, as if she knew what was coming next. Annabelle turned her back on him as he began to make his ascent, but she couldn’t stay mad for long; half terrified and half fascinated, as he knew she would be, she turned again and let the beams of her flashlight follow him up the stairs, herself staying cemented on the second floor.
    Will climbed the stairs, only half way to appease his trembling partner, and began to look around. He didn’t see much of anything, but he didn’t say that to Annabelle. “Oh wow, this is kinda cool, actually…. You should see it. Well, there’s not really much up--” he paused for a moment, cutting himself off, “what the--wait, what the shit is that?”
    “What is what, Will?”
    Will came down the stairs and looked Annabelle straight in the eye, “I don’t know, but we should leave. Now.” They hurried down the stairs and out of the front door; on the porch he told her not to look back. They walked quickly, him rushing her, but she wouldn’t run, and he thought it may be out of pride.
    “I have to tell you something,” Will whispered once they could no longer see the house from the trail.
    “What?” Annabelle looked at him, worried and breathless, and he thought she was trying to anticipate his words.
    “I didn’t see anything in the attic,” he said in the same tone of voice, but with a huge, triumphant grin spreading across his face.
    Annabelle stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him for an uncomfortable number of seconds. Her eyes looked as if they might pop out of her head, and Will was laughing even before she began screaming. “You didn’t see anything?!” Her voice was a crescendo of anger, “seriously?! Well, you can fucking walk home, you goddamn prick. Give me my flashlight back! Oh, my God! Didn’t see anything! I can’t believe you…” her speech trailed off as she power walked ahead of him and Will, bursting with laughter, had to slow his pace to keep his belly from aching too much.

    They drove through town, back toward the lumberyard, Will trying to get Annabelle to speak to him the whole time. The lumberyard had been Will’s place. The emptiness was endearing to him. Sometimes it made him feel so small, and other times he felt like he could fill every dilapidated corner of the compound with his thoughts and emotions. Will had brought Annabelle there after the first time they investigation one of the biggest, most famous “haunted houses” in the area. He was not sure why he brought her there. He figured that, if that place could bring him such tranquility, then maybe it would do the same for her.
    They had a regular routine. She would pick him up or he would walk (a whole five minutes) from his dad’s house. Sometimes it was planned. Sometimes, Annabelle would call him, giggling into the phone or completely deadpan, and demand that he meet her. Will was okay with this. They talked about everything, from their favorite TV shows, to medicine, to the existence of aliens. They would dangle their feet over the edge and watch for the parting of the clouds--sometimes it seemed as if it happened just for them--so they could look into the night sky. Sometimes they sat in complete silence. Mostly they just laughed.

    They climbed the ladder for the second time that night and sat and looked at the stars. “Gimme this,” Annabelle said quietly as she reached for his hand and Will’s chubby fingers, which always made her laugh. He didn’t even have to try.
    “It’s not that funny!” Will exclaimed as he launched a tickle assault on her sides and belly. She laughed so hard she was crying and Will enjoyed having the slightest power over her. He tickled her into submission, her back flat on the roof and his face so close to hers that he could smell the cigarettes on her breath. He pulled back.
    “You dick,” Annabelle said, the laugh lines on her face falling flat. She got up and moved around the roof, shooting a hard glance over her shoulder at Will, waiting for his response.
    Will tried to seem confident and self-aware around Annabelle, but when he was around her he was always using the wrong words and tripping over his own feet. Sometimes he hit the nail on the head, like that prank he pulled tonight. He thought back to that moment just an hour before and tried to channel that smoothness and charisma. He stood up to follow her, but instead he somehow ripped his pants on the concrete roof, and everything he had fell out of his pockets, including--to his mortification--a condom. Why did he even have that? What would she think he was trying to do? Out of  embarrassment he picked the thing up and threw it off the building. He didn’t know what else to do. Annabelle laughed hysterically, while Will bent down to shamefully gather the rest of his belongings. He became aware of her growing silence. He jolted up and tried to reclaim his composure, but it was too late. As he turned around he found himself in her arms. He thought briefly about how she works in the most mysterious ways. Annabelle’s petite stature, small features, and the soft contour lines of her body made Will look like an ugly baseball player, contrasting his broad shoulders, sharp chin, and a large and slightly crooked nose. He admired those features, perhaps a little too closely, as he watched her cock her left eyebrow and look at him incredulously.
    “H-hi,” Will said hesitantly.
    “Hush,” Annabelle whispered, nodding her head slightly and resting her finger to his closed lips. “Is your mom out of town?”
    She usually was. After his dad left, Will’s mom was left with all the bills and a house she hadn’t even liked. Environmental stewardship was her passion, but it was a tough job and it meant that she was gone all the time.
    He nodded his head, as if to say yes, but before he could finish the motion she was already down the ladder on the way to her car--a piece of crap from the 90s that she was only proud of because she bought it all by herself.
    He took her to his basement--a man cave, complete with couches, beds, a flat screen TV, and Xbox--without even thinking. They watched American Werewolves in London. Will didn’t hear a word of it over the ringing in his ears. The only thing he saw was the light from the screen reflecting off the bristly, blonde hairs on her legs and how they looked softer as his eyes moved up her thighs. She had neglected to shave. He imagined her saying, in a tough voice, Well, I’ve never had a man shave his legs for me. Will simply called her “Anna”; he did not have the strength to say the third syllable as one of his hands rested on her knee, and the other reaching for her face to bring her lips closer to his.
    He couldn’t recall if another woman besides his mother had seen him naked (and that was when he was still a kid) and it scared him. It was as if he was watching an actor play a way better version of himself on TV. Like an out of body experience, she was naked and he couldn’t recall exactly how. She opened her body to him and Will could barely comprehend her beauty. He kissed her hard on the mouth and she anchored her fingers in his curls and moaned. He kissed her neck and breasts and hips and he looked into her eyes and she nodded, with heavy lids, that she wanted him to continue. She moaned more and more as his tongue played with her lips and opening and he could not believe he was doing this correctly. Her body shook as he reached her clitoris and he focused there, reveling in her pleasure. She mumbled something to him, a question maybe, but he couldn’t stop long enough to ask her to repeat or answer her. He didn’t want to stop at all, not for anything. She was asking him if he had a condom. Will pulled away to where he and his brother kept some and thought quickly back to the condom he shamefully threw off the roof. What a waste. He slipped the condom on as gracefully as he possibly could; they came together and Will couldn’t think about anything but the pleasure, almost debilitating him, that coursed through his entire body. His ecstasy was growing and he was feeding off of her movements and noises, until they became more forceful. Her palms on his shoulders were no longer pulling him closer; Annabelle started pushing him away. Her knees dug into his ribs.
    “Will….Hey, listen….I can’t….Please, don’t….Will, I asked….Stop! Do you hear me? Please, stop it….Get off me….” Annabelle wailed, trying to get through to him. The movement of her lips and the desperate pleas lingering in the air came together, and he collapsed in the corner, realizing what she had been saying and slinking away from her, with a knot that had formed instantaneously in his stomach one step behind him.
    She was silent, but even in the dark he could see she was struggling for air. Will tried to comfort her, moving his fingers gently through her hair and caressing her shoulder, but she was not letting him in any longer. “It’s okay,” he told her over and over, lightly resting his hand on Annabelle’s shoulder, her back turned toward him. But he didn’t know what else to say. He hesitated and spoke almost silently, “What’s wrong?”
    “I’m broken,” she coughed up the words like a cyst, “I’m ruined.”
    Will did not know what that meant. He wanted more than anything to know what that meant. He tried to comfort her anyway. “Come on, you’re not broken, you’re--” he was cut off by her loud sobs. He had no idea what was happening and no clue if it was his fault.
    “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Will, there’s something wrong with me. Why am I crying? Weren’t we just having sex and enjoying the hell out of it? I definitely want to. I don’t understand…” she said, her sentence trailing off as she had only enough breath in her lungs to accommodate her sobbing. “I think I’m fucked up.”
    “Hey, hey, shhh… it’s okay, I don’t care about anything of that. I just need you to know that you are worth so much more than this. One day you’ll see what a tiny speed-bump this was in your wonderful and fulfilling life,” he tried to sound as convincing as possible. Somehow that worked. She still wouldn’t look at him, but her cries became softer.
    “You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had, Will,” she mumbled under her breath. He believed her.
    They watched Supernatural for hours. It felt like it could have been days. Will made her laugh with his stupid jokes, celebrity impressions, and his stubby, little sausage toes (which he didn’t mind if it meant she would feel better). She made fun of his middle school hair-do and his awkwardly tiny nipples. Will tickled her furiously and ultimately won their little battle by pointing out, with little originality but a lot of truth, that she was only five feet tall. They smiled at each other so naturally that it was almost hard to believe that hours before they had such an emotionally ravaging experience.
    She tried three times before she could actually leave him. “Nope, this doesn’t feel right,” Annabelle said, almost to herself, as she paced from her car back to Will’s arms. He said nothing, but allowed her to take as long as she need as he held her. She kissed him passionately over and over again. She didn’t want to go and he didn’t make her, but they had been together for hours and he could see that lack of sleep was having an effect on her. She glanced at the clock.
    “Do you have work?” Will asked her.
    “Technically…. yes,” she replied hesitantly.
    “Holy shit, Annabelle, you need to go. You could maybe get an hour of sleep before…”
    “Nope. No, I don’t want to leave you.”
    Will knew that he should but couldn’t find it in himself to let go. Annabelle kissed Will once more, giving him a smile that reflected some exhaustion and some whimsy. He pretended not to see how heavy and puffy her eyes had become--it didn’t really matter, he enjoyed the light that came from them anyway. Annabelle finally detached herself and walked to the car, Will’s eyes following her the entire way. She begrudgingly kicked her fender and got in, slamming the door, as if she was all of the sudden enraged with whatever force that compelled her to return home. He heard her tires creak and squeal as if the machine didn’t even want to tear them apart. Will didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time Will and Annabelle saw each other for a very long time.

    Three days later, she was gone; on the road to some far away state that might as well be a foreign country, chasing a dream, and willing her broken down car to drag her far away from this old town. They were supposed to meet one last time, in their favorite spot, at 2 a.m., but he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye. He ignored her calls, pretending that he was asleep, feeling sheepish and cowardly and afraid.

＜ Messages                                                                               Annabelle                                                                                                        Details

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       


                                                                                                     Yesterday 11:45 PM

When do you want me to pick you up?
Will?

                                                                                                      Today 12:35 AM

Are you awake?
You said you wanted to hang out before I left
What the hell?
Dammit Will!

                                                                                                        Today 9:47 AM

                                                                                                                                                   Sorry, I totally fell asleep on accident.
                                                                                                                                                    I hope you have a great trip. Be safe.


     He could not manage to go see her that night, just like he couldn’t think of how to tell her all the thoughts swirling around in his head. Did he feel guilty? Yes. Was it his fault? No, but…. Could he fix it? The answer to that question was an overwhelming, resounding no. No, all he could do was pretend.
      But then she was gone and he hadn’t said bye and he didn’t have a way to get to her and he felt stupid and angry. How could she just leave? He wondered, but he grew to understand. Annabelle cried on the phone the first time he called her back at school, telling him again, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” She called him occasionally when she needed to talk to someone who, as she said, actually mattered to her and actually cared. Sometimes it was hard for her to understand what was happening in Will’s life, but he understood. He didn’t want to talk about him anyway. She apologized for not keeping in touch, and Will tried to explain to her that he had no expectations of her from so far away. She was going to do her own thing, just as she had been for years. Despite whatever was going on--gossip in her chapter meetings, back to back research papers, or her drunk shenanigans--he always managed to make her laugh out loud, even from hundreds of miles away. Will knew that, even though he felt abandoned, Annabelle felt freed. And he was happy for her.

​

 Bio: Kathryn Lee Willgus is an aspiring writer from Georgia, based in the quaint and quirky college town of Charlottesville, Virginia. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English and Russian and a Creative Writing Certificate in fiction from Sewanee: The University of the South in May 2016 and spent the last nine months in Russia on a Fulbright U.S. Student Award. Kathryn’s work appears or is forthcoming in Coldnoon and Nailed.

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