Something about her feels imaginary, so at first she thinks He’s just made her up, like some kind of excuse.  Even the name Mary feels idealized, like a collage someone would make of a waterfall, or a paper doll of flower scented paper because what’s haunting Him couldn’t be a person, not a physical one with bones that can break or skin that can be cut and bruised, not something with limited breaths that doesn’t burn forever like a star.  Especially because the more she pries, the more He slams shut like a prison door, holding in whatever it is with no chance of escape. He changes the subject, takes too long to reply—the way a person would when caught in a lie.

Sophie thinks that for a little while.  That she’s—Mary—a story.  She’s His mythology. His folklore. The stuff of legend.  And Sophie can’t compete with an idea but every day she tries.

What the point would be in that—creating Mary—she’s not certain, not for a while, but seeing things as He does is not something she excels at.  Once, she’d thought, it was some sort of means to subtly express his lack of romantic interest, if he caught on to the fact she is interested, or the necessity to be polite about showing her that he is not.  He knows so much about so much, the name of the little plastic bits on shoelaces, but it’s the little things that really matter that seem to give him the slip.

She’s with him about a month when she finds it: an old Polaroid.  The kind she used to take with her friends at their middle school sleepovers, the kind you’d flap back and forth after it rolled loudly out of the camera as though it needed drying.  It’s not a thing she’d expect to find in a children’s book, on grown man’s table. A book even she knew. A book her father had read to her when she was little and still enjoyed the silly stories. A Fly Went By. Maybe that’s what Sophie is to him. A fly that kept buzzing at him and he tried to shoo away.
It’s face down in a book in the kitchen, one he’s left out on a tabletop with the white scrap poking from its top.  Sophie can’t find any reason not to look, it’s left out there in the open, a book about a little boy who watched animals parade after each other because of a silly tin pail on a mans foot. The book is a hard copy, bound with crisp paper that feels old between her fingertips in just the way it bends and slips.  It’s old the way anything can be old. He could have picked it up yesterday from a second hand shop or it could be one hundred years old and a family heirloom.

What doesn’t belong in the book is the face down Polaroid of a woman in jeans and sneakers and a blue billowing t-shirt, grinning bright enough that she’s like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.  Her toes are turned in, she’s pitched slightly forward, knees bent, frozen in laughter; the way she looks meant to be.  Her face.  It’s the kind of face you make when someone you love is behind the camera. It’s her own face on Christmas morning with all those presents and star shaped bows, everything painted with coiled and twisted ribbon. It’s Jake’s face posing at his graduation, Mitchell’s at the birth of his daughter.  Here is a moment, floating like an island in the ocean of a long life. That’s what she is looking at. Something that almost makes Sophie’s eyes turn away on reflex because she’s intruding on something that feels inexplicably intimate. It’s why He’s kept it in a book; face down against the silly rhymes, away from everything. Like something precious placed in a bell jar, or old knick-knacks shoved in a shoebox.

Here is a moment that lasts forever. The way people don’t. The way nothing does. (The way this didn’t.) She doesn’t have to be told that this is Mary.  And this photo, this is everything He is quietly and somberly mourning when it takes him too long to reply, when he closes up like a clam. This is what He’d meant when He said someone. And maybe she wasn’t wrong when she’d decided Mary had to be made of paper.  Because she’s gone now, and this is all that’s left.  An idea.  Mythology. Folklore. Legend. Something that can live forever; something that can never disappoint.

There are footsteps down the hall and the Polaroid goes back into the book, the book back on the tabletop. Sophie just opened a little blue novel when he rounds the corner, buttoning his blue jacket with his slender fingers.

Sophie adjusts, eyes fixed on the same three words in this blue book. “What happens next” becomes a mantra in her head, speeding up as she feels the heat rising from her neck to her cheeks. He is still buttoning his blue frock coat, muttering about slippery buttons. He looks up at her briefly, giving her a reassuring smile, then both their eyes return to their previous points. He finishes donning his usual smirk. She feels relief flush into her, her shoulders relaxing because now the weight she felt has evaporated. That same weight returns though, tenfold, like the world is on her shoulders and the universe is on her chest. She follows his gaze, locked on the children’s book. He seems at a loss for words, his eyes however are dancing in a flurry of emotions, and thoughts, all under his furrowed brow.

Sophie feels veiled in silent agony, she can’t move and she’s barely breathing, her throat constricted in a snake of explanations that can’t escape. The silence is shattered by his gentle footstep. He hesitates, gripping the book in such a manner that he looks ready to throw it. His knuckles completely white. Sophie speaks first, or at least attempts to; all that comes out is a tight and hoarse “Adam”. Adam doesn’t react. Not to her at least. His eyes scan the cover of the book, his left hand caressing it. Adam opens it, gently flipping the dainty pages. He pays no mind to the words or pictures; he knows what he’s coming too.

Sophie has stepped to him now. Watching his usually frantic hands. Now their composure is precise and even a little stiff. She hears a sudden, sharp, intake of breath and directs her attention to him. He’s frozen, eyes shut, like he was put in suspended animation. She knows he’s on the page with the Polaroid. She notices his hand, gently fingering for grip at its corner.

“Soph, I left this out here. Did you go into it?”
“No.”
She’s lying. She knows it, but the cold inflection of his voice is making her skin crawl.

In one swift motion Adam removed the Polaroid, shut the book, returned it to the tabletop and with his free hand gripped her arm as anger finally seeped through him, his eyes glistening with ferocity and even gloom, like a ghostly haze.

“DID YOU SEE HER? DID YOU SEE MY MARY”

“My Mary” rolled off his tongue smoothly, as if it was a common phrase for him, but despair tainted his annunciation. The words hit her core and wounded her like a corrosive acid. She felt weaker and weaker as the words swirled in her mind.

Adam’s breathing is erratic, and his thoughts are irrational, and his next actions are inappropriate.
He’s screaming at Sophie, at God, at everything. His hand with the Polaroid is flailing dramatically. Sophie stands in horrified awe, at this animalistic man, this savage she dare say she loves. Adam starts yelling at Sophie again, spewing and hurling words like acid and daggers. Sophie pulls her arm back to silence him, but before she can he finally says what she feared,

“SHE’S DEAD SOPHIE. I LOVE HER. I’LL ALWAYS LOVE HER. I DON’T LOVE YOU.”

She can’t help it, her heart is pounding and her head is flooding so she does it. The sound of the crack in the air as her hand hit his cheek could silence the world. Adam is stunned to say the least but the hatred in the air is vibrating off the fuming man.

“You… you can’t say that to me. I’m not stupid, or pathetic. I wasn’t trying to find it.”

“It’s not it, it’s her. You lied.”
Sophie took her chance.

“I love you.” Her voice frail and small. “I don’t care about your past, I’ll leave your things alone. You can move on. You have to let go of Mary.” Sophie pleaded. The name tasted bitter as she spoke. Adam was still, mouth agape. He was blank. Well mostly, his eyes held a force in them, one that made her shiver. Soon though the storm inside unleashed, with a thunderous, humorless laugh. He started snickering, cackiling more like, with tears starting to fall. The cackling was soon drowned out by throaty cries, and groans, and wailing, and tears rushing, and gushing out his eyes like a dam that was broken. He was shaking, hands running through his hair and he started pacing. Each step seemed to coincide with a gasp for air. She couldn’t understand him, she caught bits and pieces of what he was saying. “Mary.” “ Love” “Dancing” “Everything” “Laughter” “Gone.. gone gone gone.” “Come back. Come back. Come back.” “Love.. love” “ Love… you..forever” “Why’d… you… leave.. me..”

Sophie just stared in awe. His eyes looked like sunshine shining through whiskey. They were beautiful, and honest, a version of them she’s never seen. He’s looking at her now, sitting, almost in the fetal position, arms hugging himself so tightly. Thumbs rubbing circles in his arm as he continued to let the emotions flow freely.
“you..said..you..loved me…tell.. me..again..” His eyes have left her now, focus on the Polaroid, he sets it down tentatively, still straining to control his breathes and tears.  He doesn’t look up, waiting for Sophie’s voice to fill the air.

“I love you, Adam.”

He bolts, still shaking and sniffling, his eyes though flooded, seeped with pure, filthy fury as he latched onto her arm and dragged her away. He ignored her cries of displeasure and protests, his own choked sobs drowning her out. He throws open the door, and moves her out onto the front steps.

“You.. you .. don’t.. under..stand.”

He’s not angry now. He’s solemn, she thinks, she changes her mind, when he slams the door in her face. She waits thinking he’ll come back. It was like a moment, when you miss a train, or the bus, and you stop and stare after it for a while thinking it will come back for you. But it doesn’t. And neither does he.

She walks home, alone, confused, and thoughtful. She analyzes him now, his smile, how it always looked a little put on, like if he didn’t, he’d scream, but that would be too honest. Wandering now, her thoughts follow suit. She wonders what he’s doing now and what he did before. How Mary came into his life, and how one person could impact a life so much. Like a comet striking the earth. It’s never the same after it hits. Maybe, she wonders, maybe it’s a good thing he let her go. For now, she will never know what happens after that comet hit.  And maybe that’s a good thing, that picture isn’t the only thing he hides, away from where anyone might see.