Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

Like floodwaters after a hurricane, every single sound that’s ever seemed
to trigger me comes rushing to the forefront, ghosts haunting me after a brief
blip of peace.
My eyes shift to Elena, who’s watching me instead of the show; I can just
barely make out the soft slope of her nose, the shine in her golden eyes, the
outline of those plump, pink lips. Slowly lifting my hand, I press my palm
into her cheek, and suddenly, the noise stops.
Everything just... settles.
My response to the stimuli doesn’t, but as the absence of misplaced noise
washes over me, eventually the racing of my heart and the tightness in my
chest lessen, too.
“Are you okay?” she leans in to whisper, splitting my heart right down
the middle.
“That’s my line,” I return, smoothing my thumb over her cheekbone.
She scoffs. “It looked like you checked out there for a second. Sorry for
caring.”
When she moves to pull away, I shake my head, framing her face with
both hands. “Don’t apologize for that.”
Her eyes turn glassy, tears shining in the spotlight reflecting downstairs.
Dropping her gaze, she sighs. “I can’t do this right now.”
Gripping my wrists in her hands, she pries me off her, shoving my hands
back so they’re in my lap. The rejection stings, like stepping on a bee in your
bare feet, the sensation spreading through my nervous system. We sit quietly
for the next several acts, our stony silence worse than any other possible
sound I’ve heard.
An intermission finally takes place, the lights in the auditorium
brightening just so the patrons can see their hands in front of their faces.
After jostling in my seat for several minutes, trying to get the anxiety
coursing through my veins to dissipate, I exhale, pushing up on my armrests,
and get to my feet. Elena turns her head, looking at me, and laughs to herself,
although the expression looks completely devoid of humor.
“When you’re ready to come talk, you come find me.”
I start to turn around, moving toward the stairs, and she hisses, “Stop
trying to make it look like I did something wrong here, Kal. You lied, you
fucked up. Not the other way around. If I don’t want to talk about it, then I
sure as fuck don’t have to.”
My mouth opens to refute her words, but I clamp it shut as I realize...