Caleb

         “Which one do you want? Jack or Fireball?”

Evie popped out from behind a brown paper bag and eyed me for a second or two longer than she should’ve. I went back to staring at my phone so wouldn’t I have to keep staring at her.

            “Jack.”

She cracked open the top, stuck the bottle between her lips, and swallowed down a forth before handing it to me.

            “Buyer gets first taste,” she said.

            “Fine by me. Don’t you have to drive?”

         “We’re only going a half a mile up the road from here. Don’t worry I won’t get you into too much trouble.”

There was that smile again, that tongue-between-teeth-tease she threw around whenever she wanted a reaction.

The half of me stuck in Charlottesville wanted to hold back, wanted to keep my attention glued to the girl on the silent end of my phone line. But the half of me aching to feel anything other than pain, reacted.

My lips curled up at the corners just enough for her to know I’d noticed her, for her to think that I’d play her game until it got dangerous. Danger made for a good distraction.

            “I’ll take your word for it, Ms. Evie. Lead the way.”

                                                                                   ***

Evie drove into an open wheat field a little ways up from the liquor store. The yellow gold stalks stretched out for miles ‘til they tapered off at the edge of a lonely dirt road down the way. A row of black walnut trees hovered on the horizon, separating the dry crop from the dark green pastures in the distance.

It was almost peaceful, sitting with the windows down, listening to the cicadas screeching the afternoon away from the shadows, while the gnats swam in lazy circles inches away from my skin. But peace only came from pretending, and I’d never been much of a liar.

So I inched that bottle of Jack up to my lips and forgot myself for a while. Drinking meant I could hold on to my sanity a little longer. Drinking meant I didn’t have to be me.

               “C’mon out back! You gotta see the view.”

Evie slid open the window between us and the trunk and eased herself through without too much trouble. Her legs went on for miles but she managed to keep from nicking herself on the way out. I clicked off my seatbelt, grabbed the bottle of Fireball, and followed her outside.

The wheat was high enough to drown in if you weren’t careful. God knows what kind critters were slithering around in the dirt but I hopped into the back before I could think about it too much.

Evie was sprawled out on top of a ratty old blanket, just staring up at the sky like she wanted to lose herself in it. I tried to sit down next to her as quietly as possible, but ended up crashing into the back when I tripped over the side of the truck. I hit the metal with my bad hand and sucked in the air through my teeth to offset the pain.

               “Son-of-a-bitch.”

               “You alright? Lemme see.”

She reached across my chest and wrapped her fingers around my arm soft as she could.

                “The cast’s still alright. Shake it off with one of these, it’ll dull the sting.”

Evie fished around in her back pocket, pulled out two little white pills, and handed them to me.

                 “What’s this?” I asked.

She held out her tongue and a tiny smiley face stared back at me before she swallowed it.

                 “A way out. What’s wrong? You scared?”

I shoved both pills into my mouth and chased them back with Jack.

              “I’ve lost just about everything there is to lose, Evie. Nothing scares me anymore.”

Her head fell towards me, far enough for the distance between us to not dip into being dangerous, but close enough for me to feel her breathing. I stared skyward while her eyes wandered down the sides of my face, slid past my shoulders, and slipped further south.

The tension in the air pulled at my chest and tugged me towards temptation. But I shut my eyes before it drowned me and let the weightlessness of the whiskey and the little white pills carry me away.

It felt a little like floating, like losing yourself just enough to keep your head above water. The pain stopped slowly. Everything hurt, then everything hurt less, then nothing hurt. Everything mattered, then everything mattered less, then nothing mattered. Not even Hailey.

The rush of the wind, the sway of the grass, the swing of the trees came to life in my ears and drowned out the sound of her name. She'd always been there, echoing from some place inside of me. Whether it was the sound of her laugh hammering away at my heartstrings, or her goodnight whispers whistling behind the breaths of my lungs, she’d buried herself under my skin.

But the pills shushed her quiet, pushed her out of all the spaces where she used to belong. The whiskey dulled the sting of her distance. The whiskey made me numb.

            “What do you feel right now?”

Evie’s voice anchored me to the truck but my body ached to cut the chains.

            “Everything. Nothing. It’s good. I needed a little bit of good today.”

            “Wanna talk about it?” She asked.           

The blanket shifted underneath my back as Evie turned her whole body towards me, I felt every inch of her close in a little closer. My head and my heart screamed at me move back, to maintain the distance, but my body didn’t respond. The whiskey’d stopped listening.

            “No.”

            “That’s fine. I’m sorry,” she said.

            “For what?”

            “That it hurts.”

            “Everything hurts, Evie. Living’s just a matter of surviving it.”

She got quiet enough to let the silence do the talking. It filled the space between us with unspoken words and unspoken wants—bad wants. I tried to lose myself again, to block out her smell, and her smile, and the softness of her breath on my skin.

I opened my eyes to a sky so blue and sun so bright it hurt. The colors made me dizzier than her closeness. My hands ached to touch something, my mouth burned to taste something else other than bitter whiskey, but the only something around was her.

I listened for Hailey in my heartbeat, trying to find a memory of her strong enough to put out the fire in my blood burning for trouble. But I couldn’t. The only sound left to hear was the hollow echo of her absence. Gone, gone, gone.

            “You ever been in love, Evie?”

            “No, don’t think so.”

            “Good. Keep it that way.”

She sat up on her elbows and stared down at me with blue eyes brighter than the sky.

            “Why? You love your girl don’t you? Ain’t it a good thing?”

            “She’s not mine to love anymore, so it doesn’t matter what it was.”

            “It matters. Being in love is better than being lonely.”

I didn’t wanna admit that she was right, so I stayed quiet. At least I’d had somebody worth loving for a little while. She didn’t have anything but loneliness.  

            “Can I ask you something, Caleb?”

The space between us shifted again. This time she came close enough for me to feel the heat off her skin. I balled my fist to fight the urge to touch her and tuned out the whiskey’s whispers in my ear.

            “Depends on what it is.”

            “What’s it like kissing somebody you love?”

           “It’s easy. You don’t think about it, you just do it ‘cause it feels like you were born to. It’s almost like breathing, like living through another person and knowing you’re alive.”

I waited for to her speak, for her to fill the silence like she always did, but she stopped asking questions. She stopped wanting answers. She stopped being a soft voice, and soft breaths on my skin, and became a kiss. The dizzy warm wetness of her lips dissolved against mine ‘til I felt her everywhere.

The taste of her tongue, the fiery cinnamon behind her breath, the brushfire burn of my skin melting against hers. I pulled back, desperate to put at least a few inches between me and temptation. Evie opened her eyes slower than slow, taking in the moment before I could take it away from her.

            “Stop,” I said.

            “Is that really what you want, Caleb?”

            “It doesn’t matter what I want. I need you to stop. I didn’t come here for this, or for you.”

She winced at the sting of the truth but tried to hide the hurt behind a faded smile.

            “What’d you come here for then?” She asked.

            “I don’t know.”            

I pushed her leg off mine and sat up before she could pin me down again. She reached out and tugged on the corner of my t-shirt, eyes pleading, but I kept moving. I got to my feet, threw my legs over the side of the truck, and ran back to the passenger’s seat.

The hot summer air felt too heavy to breathe while the weight of the whiskey suffocated the life out of a conscious I thought I had. My hand moved towards the lock, towards the last wall of separation between me and a surefire mistake, but Evie pulled the door open before I could shut her out.

            “Why’d you come here with me if you didn’t want me?” She asked.

Her eyes. I couldn’t stand her eyes, and the disappointment welling up inside them faster than tears. Hailey’d had those eyes the other night. That quiet resentment, that ugly sadness. I didn’t want anybody looking at me like that again.

           “I don’t know.”

 She stepped in towards me, dangerously close.

           “You do know. You kissed me back, Caleb. You wanted to. I know you wanted to.”

           “You don’t know anything.”

Her words, her eyes, her desperation, pushed something inside me to the breaking point. The whiskey sparked a fire under a lust laced temper that didn’t feel like my own. I pulled her to me, lifting her tiny body off the ground and into my lap.

The weight of her crushed the last bit of will power left in me to resist her. The whiskey became my hands and lips all over her. My teeth tore away the buttons on her shirt, exposing her skin a bite at a time. I reach up and pulled her ear towards my mouth and traced her skin with my tongue.

            “Is this what you want, Evie?”

            “I just wanna to get lost with you. I wanna to feel something other than lonely for once.”

I felt her eyes again, begging for me to fix her, begging for more answers. I buried my lips against her neck to hide from her gaze, from her constant cries for help. Evie’s desperation was too familiar. Evie was no different than me.

She stood up and I slipped her out of her jean shorts the way I used to Hailey. We’d had so many nights in this car, talking, singing, staring at the stars, making love. Today I was screwing her shadow.

Evie peeled herself out of her panties and hovered in front of me while I unbuttoned my jeans. I reached for my wallet, fished out a condom, and pulled her in close.

             “You should know something,” I said.

She dropped her gaze to meet mine. She almost looked happy. Her happiness made me sick.

             “Anything,” she said.

            “I’m never gonna want you the way you want me to, Evie. I’m never gonna like you. I’m never gonna love you. I’m gonna use you until I get tired of using you, and then I’ll leave. I’ll always leave, ‘cause it’s always gonna be her I’m running to.”

Evie nodded like she understood, like my words wouldn’t break her. They already had.

I wanted to forget this mistake, to pretend that the body moving against mine was Hailey’s, not hers. But she moved in, slowly, carefully, and closed the last space left between us. I felt her warmth everywhere, and the rush hit me harder than a sucker punch.

            “All I want from you, Caleb is right now. I don’t care if it hurts later. Just give me right now.”

So I did.