North

North

She lived 20 miles away. I slid my phone into my fresh jean pockets and reached for my wallet. This time of night on this particular day, the cops would stop me for anything, from a weirdly-angled turn to a blinker signal turned on too early. I needed to make sure I had everything before I left, so I closed, locked the front door four minutes after I sent her the text, "leaving now". This little gray lie picked at my finger tips as I cranked the car, but it was a forgotten memory by the time I hit interstate.
I never liked to blast music on the radio when I drove, that's why no one ever heard any of those mainstream country songs in my car. Instead, when I'm alone under aluminum and the nighttime nothingness, I roll down all the windows and listen to the wind's angst. Angry, invisible fingers running through my manageable hair was always the best melody to my ears. Fifteen miles to go.
The closer I got to her house the less headlights I saw. Two orbs of electricity getting larger and larger and more blinding by the second steadily became as rare as golden nuggets in the midnight California-river-soil air. I have to admit, by the ten mile mark I was pretty anxious. I don't get any texts that often anymore, so when I got one I instantly got surprised, and when I saw who it was from I instantly got happy, and when I saw what it said I instantly got dressed. I felt like my heart was tied to a string and hung outside my open windows, rising and jerking in the air like a less than graceful bird. Thinking about being with her soon made my foot press the gas a little harder.
Five miles away now. By this point it's just me on the road. I didn't know whether to attribute this loneliness to the early morning time or my isolated destination, but the seclusion was much appreciated. The closer I got to her house made me more and more skittish, causing me to press the gas even harder than before. When I turned onto her timid, reclusive road, both my chest and my engine were roaring from their efforts. To my right there was only one insignificant dwelling that I've never stopped at with a ditch separating the road from it, and in front of me now loomed her house. My yellow-white headlights caused her front windows to glare menacingly at me, as if they were heavenly eyes enraged by my presence. I turned off the car, and the eyes snapped shut.
She was sitting cross-legged on her couch when I opened the front door. I could smell the vodka as easily from the back of her throat as if it were soaking my own. She wasn't deterred by my presence at all, so I closed the door behind me and squatted in front her.
"Hey," I whispered. She looked at me but past me.
"Hiii," she responded with her breath. Alcohol enveloped my nose and eyes as she leaned forward for what I assumed to be a hug. Water and hard sobs on my shoulder proved me wrong. I let her fall into me.
Her messy hair itched my face, but I didn't complain. I could tell she'd been holding this in for some time now, possibly longer than the last time we spoke. The sound of her shaking, gasping for breath between the tears and the cries felt like a branding iron against my heart and tonsils. We both fell back onto the littered hardwood floor, and I held her as closely as I could. Her arms hung nooses from her shoulders.
I don't remember how long we both sat like this, but it seems like immediately I too started crying. Her sadness was mine, her pain was mine, her tears were mine-I couldn't understand her suffering, but I sure as hell felt it. My tears tasted salty against the side of her neck. The bitter wind of misery made her shiver in my arms, but no matter how much warmth I tried to give, her bones preferred the cold.
"Sssh-ssshhhhh," I combed her scalp. Our tears were coming less and less often, and instead we both sniffed back our snot beside each other's ears. When the only thing left for me to hold was a shaking, silent body, I took her shoulders in my hands and put her face in front of mine. Her skin was a blotch of dark and bright pink, and her eyes were the color of mistake. She blinked a few times at the back of the inside of my head. Then, slowly but far too quickly, she kissed me.
Her lips tasted like honey drizzled on glass. Like everything else we'd ever done, it started off local and friendly but quickly devolved into international passion; and passion, like the spark it is, fueled our fire with nothing but flames. We were energy, saying inside of each other's mouths what we couldn't inside of our eyes, and we both always did have a lot to say. First our shirts were abandoned, then our shoes, then our selves, then our pants. We somehow wormed and bumped and stumbled and spun and crawled our way to her bed without ever disconnecting our teeth.
There were no lights shining in her room that the moon didn't shyly provide, but I could still see her perfectly in the dark. For the first time that night I felt like I was actually there, actually touching her and actually experiencing this mood. Her body was a message, written in a language that neither of us spoke but both of us understood-I felt every word, every letter, every urgent emotion in her skin. It told me that part of her wanted me, and I knew part of me wanted her, so we both had each other, and it didn't matter how long it'd been since we last spoke or what we had said at that time or what else had happened between then and this bed. We had nothing between the two of us, not even our clothes.

Reviews

[Brian F. Lockard]

This has potential for sure...loved the honey on glass line-very unique analogy. And also, I can relate to the nerves in the beginning of the chapter, going to meet someone new like that. Will definitely read more when I get the time. I'd say keep writing this book, if it isn't done already..
Cheers,

Brian