I hear the distant bellow of a loudspeaker, and then a voice telling us to stay still; that help is coming.
There are hands on me and a gaping hole where the passenger’s side door used to be.
Flashes of yellow and black uniforms come into view as they pull me out, but every time I’m turned away my head shoots straight back to her until she is gone from my sight completely.
I hear Anaise howling.
Shifting my eyes I see her face lit up by the hard lights as she’s loaded onto a stretcher. She’s so tiny in the arms of those men who are so much more capable than me. So much more worthy. Her cheek is slick from a gash on her forehead, and mascara paints the rest of her face with black streaks.
“She’s not moving. She’s not moving,” she keeps saying.
I want to tell her to shut up, that she’s just knocked out and she’ll come to any minute once the firefighters get to her. But it’s a lie I can’t even fake.
The rain is relentless and it pounds down on me as I’m carried through the air.
I see my legs, mangled—the right nearly snapped in two. It was bone sticking out.
I think about all those drunk-driving PSA’s we were forced to watch in high school, where the driver is sitting on the curb crying, sobbing about how it’s their fault.
Except she hadn’t been drinking.
This wasn’t her fault.
It was my idea to leave the party early. I didn’t want to stay. I wanted her all to myself.
I’m laid on a flat board then strapped down.
I’ve lost so much blood.
Countless voices tell me to relax, that I’m safe now, that I’m going to be alright, but I don’t believe them.
I feel like I’m dying, and I’m happy.
I’ll get my wish.
I can be with her, because I can’t have a life without her.
Another work week down.
Another week made harder, and brighter, by his presence.
I can’t keep my thoughts in check whenever he’s near me, but the shop's a desolate wasteland when he’s not around.
He’s proven himself right so far, he doesn’t need to be here all five days. But I’m already battling with myself over whether or not I should teach him the payroll programming and our ordering systems just so he has to be here Wednesdays and Fridays as well.
Hell, I’ll even give him the twenty-five dollars an hour he was pushing for. All he has to do is ask. And if he lifts up his shirt again… Shows me that barbell… Asks me if I want to touch it… Fuck, I’d probably agree to any amount.
I couldn’t sleep Thanksgiving night at my parent’s place. Having him as close and drunk as he was, looking at me with what my intoxicated brain was interpreting as suggestive stares,had my dick hard all night. And when I dropped him back off at his brother’s place the next afternoon when the blizzard died down, I know he wanted to keep hanging out. I could see it in his eyes, but sobering up had changed their intention.
The kid is lonely. He’s abandoned. He wants a friend.
But I’m not his brother, and it’s not my responsibility to make sure he’s occupied every waking second. I gave him a job, I appreciate him here, I don’t need to be his friend as well.
I don’t need any more friends, period. Austin and Anaise have been blowing up my phone all week like it’s a planned attack to make sure I’m never alone with my own thoughts for too long for anything to fester. So if I want to spend time with people, I have other options.
My relationship with Carey is professional and transactional.
We share a common enemy. That’s it. I don’t need him coming back six years later because I had a moment of weakness and fucked him after one too many beers at our Christmas party—
