I put her picture in a frame on my end table, and every time I look at it, I get excited. Maybe feel a little regret. She wasn’t very beautiful, but she was cute. Cute in a way that makes you want to poke her cheek. Right there at the dimple. She had only one. Only one dimple. I think I loved it. I loved her dimple, and I might have even loved her.

I did.

Her photograph from that day at Cofféa on the end table stares at me.

I don’t like it anymore.

Her photograph on the table watched it all. Watched me cook pasta for her the first night she came over. Watched the first movie we watched together: The Lion King. She cried when the dad died. I didn’t.

Watched her burn her thumb taking the tray of Halloween cookies out of the oven. I didn’t have an oven mit, so she wadded up some paper towels. She wasn’t very bright when I think about it. Couldn’t have been if she stuck around with me.

I should have taken them out.

Her thumb was all black and blue. She wore a band-aid with some ointment I had in the bathroom cupboard and iced it for an hour or two before taking the bandage off. She tossed it in the bathroom trash. Right on top of everything else. Right on top.

Her kid was mad at me about that. Called me on the phone when Sarah was in the shower to tell me it was my fault her momma hurt her thumb. I had only met the kid once before then.

She came over with Sarah a couple of weeks later. We played the game of life and ate grilled cheese.

“Grilled cheese is Jordan’s favorite,” Sarah said.

“Easy enough,” I said. I smiled and pulled her in acting like I was going to hug her but tickled her instead. She laughed, or rather giggled. A cute giggle. Not quite beautiful. Not yet.

I’m good with women. Usually know what gets them going, ya know. Sarah was no different than any of the others before her, but I liked that. I think I liked that she was easy to figure out.

She would have hated me saying that to her. Would have hated to know that. Called herself a feminist. It was cute. Said she had to for Jordan.

“I have a responsibility as a single mother to an intelligent little girl,” she said our first time out for coffee. “I have a responsibility as a mother.”

She paused and waited for my response. That was how she told me she had a kid. I didn’t say much. Just nodded knowingly, as if I understood the version of her she wanted others to see. I didn’t care to. I didn’t care about that version, the candy-coated Sarah.

“That doesn’t bother you does it?” she asked.

“Makes things messy sometimes,” I said.

Her face knotted up only slightly.

“But that’s life,” I said with a smile. A good one too. I could feel it was a good one, and after watching her demeanor shift, I knew it was.

“I’m a mother first,” she said with a smile.

“That’s good,” I said.

“Admirable,” I added.

She smiled and sipped her latte. She got almond milk, but when I asked if she was lactose-intolerant she said no. She just likes the taste. A little dumb.

She just liked ordering something special, not quite as basic.

That’s the day I took the photograph. I took it with my phone. Good enough quality to print as a 4x6.

I take her photograph out of the frame and place it in the box with the napkin from that day. I grabbed it when she went to the bathroom. Put it in the pocket inside my jacket flap.

It had some of her lipstick on it. A pinkish shade. A little darker than natural, but not too slutty for a coffee date. For a first date. I wondered how long she took to pick that one out. It wasn’t quite her shade. She could have done better, but I’m sure it took her a good fifteen minutes to decide.

It’s pretty smeared on the napkin. She should have dabbed her mouth, not wiped. She should have known that if she was going to wear a lip color.

A little un-put together. A little confused about the details.

I used to wonder if she did it on purpose, ya know, liked the attention from the little oddities she possessed. I think sometimes, but not all of the time. That’s almost worse.

It is.

I take the photo, the napkin, and the band-aid and hold them together with one of bobby pins in the box.

There are six here.

She took them out once when she stayed the night. Jordan was with Sarah’s unassuming roommate, and Sarah had put her hair in a bun before we went to the concert. It wasn’t a big concert. Just some local band playing at the bar downtown. A good time, and she wore her hair in a bun.

She took it out in the bathroom before our shower. That was a fun night. I enjoyed myself.

The sex was better than usual. Hit it from behind, which meant I could avoid her persistent need for eye contact. Probably had something to do with all of the cheap wine she had consumed earlier. I felt good. Good enough to smile through the pillow talk she insisted on afterwards.

Mundane things. Dumb things.

“I decided I wanted to name my child a gender-neutral name the minute I found out I was pregnant,” she said.

“Yea? Why’s that?”

“Because no child should feel confined to one gender stereotype or the other,” she said.

“Seems reasonable,” I said.

She showed me pictures of Jordan as a baby. She’s five now.

She showed me five years’ worth of pictures of her daughter almost always dressed in purple or pink or holding a Barbie doll.

Seems reasonable to name her Jordan then, Sarah.

These kinds of things were what really made me mad about her. Her declaration of being forward-thinking. Giving off the vibe she knew more about life and the big picture.

She didn’t.

Couldn’t have.

The next day, after she left for work, I saw the hair pins on my bathroom counter. She just left them there. All six. She never asked for them later, so they sat in my bathroom drawer until she was gone.

She wore a nose ring too. One of the small silver hoops that sat on the side nostril. I hated it. She used to say she wanted the one in the middle. A septum ring. I told her not to.

“Maybe just wait on that one,” I said.

“Why?” she asked. She immediately tensed. Got defensive. She loved arguing with men about dumb things. Was probably jonesing to tell me I didn’t have a right to tell a woman what to do or not do with their body.

“I just worry that employers will look at you differently,” I said. Wrong thing to say.

“Well it isn’t okay for employers to judge employees based on appearance. It’s shallow,” she said and then waited.

“You’re right,” I said. She wasn’t.

“Just make sure you’re doing it for you and not to make a statement to anyone else,” I said.

She was silent. Right response.

“You’re right,” she said. “It probably wouldn’t fit me anyways.”

Really, it probably would have fit her. Those piercings are trashy. She wasn’t trashy at that point. Not quite, but she was on her way.

She’s lucky I was around to stop that before it happened, really.

I don’t know why I kept the nose ring. When I say I hated it, I really mean that I did. Metal in the face is disgusting. Takes away from a woman’s beauty. Obstructs a space that isn’t meant to be filled, but I kept it.

It has a little blood encrusted on it. Not a lot, and not from me. From her not cleaning it that morning.

I haven’t cleaned it either. I’ve thought about it.

Feels wrong. Like I’m tainting a perfectly constructed memory.

It’s immoral to taint the memory of someone passed, to change their truth even a little when they’re not there to defend what’s real.

I go to the kitchen and grab some rubber bands out of my supplies cupboard. They’re sitting next to the duct tape, and I grab six rubber bands. Six just in case.

Before I close Sarah’s box, I take another look at the photograph taken that first day I saw her. The first day we met. Our very first date.

She had an iced latte in one hand. A metal straw jammed into a plastic cup. Almost enough to save the turtles she tweeted about.

She was wearing black dress slacks that hugged her ass in the way I liked. I wonder if she knew that when she bought them. I believe so.

The jacket that covered her bare arms and maroon blouse matched her pants. She was wearing flats. Not heels. Cute, not stunning. She wasn’t looking at the camera at the moment. The moment in the photo captured the seconds before we made eye contact and she smiled at me.

I wonder if she knew then. I wonder if she knew I’d be the one to help her.

“Hi, I’m Jason,” I said.