A Slow Death
"You don't care at all?" she wondered aloud.
I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed my smokes. "Do you?"
She was young. Too young to be in a cheap motel room with me, too young to be dirtied up by an impassive teacher. Her teacher. "I'm eighteen now," she'd written on a note once. A couple weeks later, we were fucking.
I probably would've pursued her quicker if I hadn't been off to get married.
"I guess not." She rose from the bed, naked as the day she was born, and swiped a finger over the broken TV in the corner.
I caught the way her nose wrinkled when her digit came up dusty. She was…cute. Beautiful, even. Perky. I had a thing for brunettes with green eyes, even when they were lifeless like hers.
She turned on me and cocked her head. "Are you curious about me?"
No, not really.
I heard enough through the grapevine to know she'd lost her parents shortly before she wrote me that note in class. I knew she lived with an aunt she detested. I knew she couldn’t wait to leave our town and go to college. I also knew she didn’t have the grades for it.
I was her…rebellious phase, I supposed. Her way of mourning.
She smirked. "Never mind."
I patted the empty spot next to me and took a drag from my smoke. "Kiss me."
So she did.
*
Another missed call from my brother. For not being on speaking terms, he called often enough. I wished he wouldn’t. There was nothing to say.
"Morning, babe." My wife was awfully dolled up this morning. She waltzed into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffeemaker, while I hoped for my bank statement's sake she'd get a job soon. Fingers crossed for today's interviews.
"Good morning." I returned my gaze to my phone, my thumb brushing over the button that could block my brother's number. It should be easy, except it wasn’t. Goddammit. I pinched the bridge of my nose, memories cracking down like thunder.
"Not all of it, baby bro. Mom will know if we eat too much." We were once best friends. I was two minutes older, something I used to love pointing out. "But I'm hungry, Avery…" As the eldest, I'd taken it upon myself to look after him. "I'll find something tomorrow in school. Come on, let's get back to bed."
I couldn’t look after him anymore. Scratch that—I couldn’t look at him, period. Sometimes, history was best left buried.
"We should have dinner at that place tonight—what's it called?" She could never fucking remember.
"Castellano's," I sighed. "Sure. I can meet you there at seven." I had a faculty meeting I couldn’t blow off.
*
Unless…
"Fuck."
The walls of the cheap motel room were becoming all too familiar. I ached, tension building up, and went faster. Harder. I chased something, and it was more than a quick release. Which never worked. A quick release was all I received ten minutes later when I drove in deep and emptied myself in a girl who should be at home doing her homework.
I collapsed on the mattress, my heart racing.
My God, what she lacked in the classroom she made up for in spades in the bedroom.
"Holy shit," she panted.
I lit up a smoke, waiting for my breathing to even out. "Yeah."
My phone dinged with a message.
Where are you?
Squinting at the screen, I noticed it was ten minutes past seven. I replied, saying I was going to be late, and then I turned off the sound and brought the ashtray to the middle of the bed.
"Shouldn’t you be on your way?" She pulled the sheets higher and turned on her side. Her hair was fanned out across the pillow, and I found myself reaching out, twisting a silky wave of rich brown between my fingers. She giggled. "You really are a dick, aren't you?"
"Mm." I hoped she wouldn’t forget it, either. "Says a thing or two about you being here, too."
Her amusement faded. "I know." Taking the sheets with her, she sat up, looking too troubled. I supposed our moment was over, so I let my head hit the pillow again, and I stared at the ceiling. "I get this rock in my stomach when I think of things I have to do."
I hummed noncommittally and blew out a couple smoke rings, vaguely remembering my own rock. How it tightened my stomach and gave me anxiety. It'd been a while.
"Then I give up and text you instead," she mumbled. "What's wrong with me?"
So I was an escape. Made sense.
"I don't know what to do, Mr. Becker."
I frowned and tossed her a brief look. "I think it's safe to say you can call me Avery at this point."
She sighed and plopped down on the mattress once more. "What I'm doing now just feels like dying a very slow death."
"Isn't that what life is?"
"Depressing," she noted. "No…life is supposed to be full of happiness, mistakes, lessons learned, and exploring."
I rubbed at a faint twinge in my chest. Had I ever believed life was about those things? No. Life was about taking shit—and then spending the rest of your sorry days hurting the wrong people because it was the only thing that temporarily stilled the rattling box of despair at the back of your mind.
I blew out a breath, exhausted.
There was hope for the girl.
I was going to die a slow death and be missed by no one.
"I wouldn’t mind exploring a certain place between your thighs." I put out my smoke, figuring it was at least partly true. I was getting hooked on this girl's body. But I knew, most of all, I just needed her to shut the fuck up. I couldn’t afford a rude awakening or the longing it would bring. Those days were over.
When she didn’t answer, I faced her. Curious.
She bit her lip. The hesitation was written all over her, and I wondered if this was it.
I offered her my lazy grin, my chest constricting. "Kiss me."
This time, she didn’t.
She wasn’t going to die a slow death.
*
To be extended and continued.
Written by Cara Dee
Writey person of the Aftermath Novels, Camassia Cove Series, Touch, and more.