aphrodite
The day was warm, sun shining unbearably hot on my dark shirt. I was covered in a thin layer of sweat when I reached the bus stop, sitting down in the shade of the street lamp in a feeble attempt to cool down. I set my backpack at my feet, rifling through my collection of items. Two shirts, one extra pair of pants. Socks and bandaids. A wallet full of change and crumpled dollar bills. A lighter and a pack of smokes. I counted the remaining cigarettes in the pack: 15. I had smoked five on my first day out, not thinking of how long I needed them to last.
The bus squealed to a stop and I dusted off the dirt from my jeans and boarded.
I chose a random man on the bus. I imagined he would have looked beautiful in another lifetime, but instead he just looked tired, knuckles cracked from working in the sun, dirt smudged in the corners of his sharp jawline. His eyes were green, rimmed with full lashes, and they brightened when I moved from my corner to his.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
“Oh, just out of town, I needed a break from the city.”
He smiled.
His name was Joel. He worked in a cattle ranch just outside the city limits but had gone downtown to visit his mother. I could see by the pain in his smile as he spoke that she was sick. Very sick. He wrung his hands when he spoke about her, eyes aimed at the grating on the bus floor.
“Just glad I had a break from work.”
“I’m sure she enjoyed the visit.”
I tell him my name is Sarah. It’s the first fake name that I choose for myself and it sounds right. Rolls off the tongue just right. Both ordinary and pretty. I tucked a tendril of dark hair behind my ear and stuck my tongue behind my teeth, smiling coyly.
“Where’s your stop?” he asked, scooting closer.
We travel for a few hours before I decide I am far enough away to rest for the night. I know we are still a few stops from Joel’s ranch but he follows me anyway. Struck by curiosity or simply bored, I don’t care. He won’t make that mistake again.
The room looks as tired as I feel, a slouched sofa leaning into the pale pink walls, bed resting in a corner. The motel bed is small, the smell of bleach rising from the sterilized sheets. The mirror in the bathroom was cracked in one corner. I drop my bag and step closer to Joel. Up close I could see the flecks of gold in his green eyes, the stubble growing at the edges of his jaw.
“Don’t be a stranger now,” I whispered.
We kissed with fire, hands entangled in hair, sliding and grasping at hips and thighs. Like we were starved and hungry for this. Just this.
As he sleeps, I see it slip from parted lips, floating effervescent in the dim of the bathroom light. I pluck it out of the air and hold it close, staring. It glimmered and I could feel the heat of the sun at midday, the smell of manure and grass permeating the room. I heard the grumbling inhale and exhale of a ventilator and I felt, tired. Not truly sad, but relentlessly exhausted and empty. The sadness was water dripping into the brim of an empty well, striking dry ground, never filling.
I clutch it in my hand and hold it close to my chest, feeling the steady thump Joel’s heartbeat from across the room. He is still asleep, breath heavy and calm. I take my piece of him and tuck it into my box of cigarettes. I leave before the sun rises and smoke at the bus stop a mile away.
The next day, I was Avery to a boy named Will. Baseball cap and unripped jeans, his smile gleamed. He was wealthy and playing pretend, taking the bus to the town over.
We stayed in his studio apartment on the upper floor. The bed was soft and made for two, looking out to the balcony where the sun set in blazing colors. I could taste his guilt when his hands tugged at my shirt and held my lower back, running fingers down my spine. His soul was imprinted with the smell of honey perfume and felt like running, running with no good reason, marked with lipstick kisses. I smoked two cigarettes to get his taste out of my mouth.
I was Emma and Ava and Scarlet. I began to lose track of my names and theirs. They weren’t reaching for me but for an escape, a distraction from the mundane. I could taste their tears and anger and pain, smell the sweat of their work or the perfumes of their many lovers, and I took it for myself. I kissed each one like I had never wanted someone more, which was the most beautiful lie.
The last man I remember is Sebastian.
“What’s your name?”
“It’s Bella.”
“Bella? A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”
He invited me home and we sat in his kitchen, taking swigs of vodka and orange juice from plastic glasses. The vodka burned and bubbled at the back of my throat, but I kept it down laughing each time he spoke. We twirled and danced by the light of his living room lamp, stumbling, utterly intoxicated, and for a moment I forgot I was running. His kisses were sweet caramel, deep brown eyes meeting mine. That night we shared a cigarette and as we slept I could taste his tears, burning like the vodka on my tongue.
It was the only fair exchange.
I left a smoke on his nightstand as I left at sunrise. I smoked the rest of my pack that day.
I coughed out dust as another car rumbled past me, the yellow headlights the only reflection on the road ahead. Above me, the desert sky blossomed, stars glittering through the thick swathes of clouds. The breeze lifted up and rustled through the dry trees, kicking up dust and sending shivers down my bare arms. When I coughed I could taste blood and the remnants of tobacco. I had smoked my last cigarette two days ago, but I still clutched onto the empty pack like the box would provide me the nicotine I needed, bloody and scratched knuckles grasped around the the colorblocked packaging.
I burned it that night in a pile of tumbleweed and dry tree branches, the warmth of the flame chasing away the chill of the night. As it burned, the pieces of them scattered with ash, blowing into the empty desert. I breathed in and the smoke smelled of cologne.