03
“Whatever. If that’s what you want to do, then do whatever.” I stood and grabbed my shirt off the coffee table. Not bothering to put it on I headed to the door.
“Wait,” he said. I didn’t.
“Wait” he said again, inches away from me.
Two frail hands crossed themselves over my chest like a fleshy target sign. I wanted to extricate myself, to pry his hands off me and walk through the door without as much as a glance back. But I couldn’t.
“Why should I,” I said after a moment and thought of fissures and sleeping fossils.
“I want you to stay. You could do that, right?” His ear was pressed to my back.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. You drink and call me filthy. Accuse me of being disgusting for things I can’t control. Do you know what I was doing this past week?” I paused until I was sure my voice wouldn’t crack. He stood behind me, not saying a word, his head moving higher up. I felt his feathery breath against my nape. “I bought tickets for a Local Natives concert. I was going to take two days off work and drive us to Miami. I reserved a hotel, planned what we would do after. Everything and—”
His right hand covered my mouth. His other my heart.
“I hear the ocean when I do this,” he moved his ear to my back again. “And when I do this,” he sniffed my skin, “I smell cigarettes.”
“And when I do this,” he let his hands drop then raised them to my neck. I felt his fingertips graze the arc to my shoulders, then arms until he reached my bawled fists. He squeezed them and tugged. I turned around and looked him in the eyes. They were bloodshot and as a result, a bright blue with flecks of yellow, like dried leaves on the surface of a pool.
He inched his face to mine.
Whiskey. Cigarettes, with a vague trace of cologne.
“You can’t keep doing this to me—” he kissed me, eyes closed. Again and again. Every kiss sent a jolt through my spine until my knees buckled slightly.
From behind us sunlight slipped through the venetian blinds of patio doors. He opened his eyes and slipped his fingers between mine, my shirt falling on the floor. “Stay,” he said, confident.
“Stay.”
