Page 50 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

“Yeah, no.” I grabbed a napkin. “What’ve you guys been up to?”

I stood with Paulie and Shawn for at least twenty minutes before even looking around to see who else was there and who was sitting at the firepit. The heat against my back was lovely and I realized just how much I missed hanging out with this crowd. I’d barely made a dent in my wine when Paulie refilled my glass, just as badly as the first time. We were laughing about it when I heard my name.

“Oh my God, Sam Travis! I haven’t seen you since…”

I recognized Grace’s voice and turned around. I hoped she wasn’t upset I was there, but it really didn’t sound that way. To the contrary, when I turned, she was waving me over to the fire pit boisterously. I was about to agree that it had indeed been forever, but directly next to her sat Veronica Hamish. She was staring right at me, her eyes growing by the second. Ally McLaughlin sat on her other side, holding her hand.

Yes, here we were. I knew that we would run into one another for real at some point. This city was too small to hide forever, and the queer scene was even smaller. On some level, I knew that, but it felt like it had in the grocery store, only this time with a ripping, tearing feeling in my chest. It made me fucking mad. “Since Veronica left for St. Louis.” I looked straight at her. “How is St. Louis, Veronica?”

A few people along the periphery were still laughing and talking amongst themselves, but the fire pit crowd became very quiet. ABBA or some similar shit was playing on the speakers and I wanted to tell it to shut the fuck up. Veronica’s lips said “oh my God” without making any noise. Ally nudged closer to her.

I took a deep drink of my wine and came a few steps closer, taking my time. My insides burbled like a volcano and my skin prickled like Maudie’s stupid cat was climbing me. “I didn’t hear you,” I said, my voice still calm. “Oh wait, that’s because you’re still here. Still here with Ally. Hi, Ally.” I hoisted my glass to her.

“Hi, Sam.” Ally gave me a terse smile.

“If you wanted to date Ally, you could have just said it,” I said. “You could have broken up with me like a normal human being. You fucking pretended to move out of state. I assume all of you guys knew this?”

“Nope,” Grace said quietly. “I just figured you guys just broke up.” A few people exchanged shifty looks, but many had wide, innocent eyes.

“Sam.” Veronica took a breath as if she was just going to straighten everything out. Always the lawyer. Even in ripped jeans and a hoodie, she reeked of class. She was absolutely gorgeous. And it made me even madder.

“Why would you spend the time and the money and the energy creating this huge fucking lie? Why?”

“Sam, you haven’t always been so stable.”

“And you thought it’d be better to do that than tell me the truth? Did you think I was going to be nice and stable when I finally did find out?”

“Well, that obviously isn’t the case,” Ally muttered.

“Shut up,” I told her. “Or did you think I’d never find out? Did you think I’m so stupid and pathetic that I would curl up in my own misery and never show my face again?”

“Look, we should go.” Veronica made a move to get up.

“No, no, don’t leave. Enjoy the party. Enjoy your goddamn lie. I’ll go.” I clenched my glass, trying hard not to throw it into the fire, and felt it shatter in my hand. Damn it. I could barely see straight but I fumbled in my purse until I found a twenty, tossed it in Grace’s direction, and threw what was left of the glass in the trash. “Have a good night.”

Anger and humiliation swirled into a twister around me, ears ringing, heart pumping hard. I stalked past Paulie and Shawn, who apparently hadn’t heard our conversation because they looked puzzled. I’d closed the gate behind myself and made my way back to the sidewalk before I noticed that my thumb was stinging. Blood was running down my hand and there was a small glass shard sticking out near the base. Good. I plucked it out, thriving on the pain, and tossed it into the gutter.

Swirling, swirling. I could barely breathe. I found a napkin in my glove box, half-assed wrapped it around my thumb, and started the car. A vision of Veronica’s guilty-but-not-exactly-upset-about-it look flashed in my mind and I slammed my left arm into the door, again and again. I might have gone for the window itself, but the most beautiful lilac scent wafted from nowhere. It enveloped me like a blanket, and I sucked it in desperately, trying to calm the rush of adrenaline coursing through my body. As it dissipated, I opened my car door again, searching for the source, but it was gone as quickly as it had begun. I slammed the car door, heaved a sigh, and hit the steering wheel hard.

I made my way down Central, streetlights splashing against my hood, nearly ran a red, then checked my speedometer a block later and saw it hanging fifteen over the limit. I’d never driven drunk and I’d only had about two swallows of wine at Grace’s, but it struck me that this was what it probably felt like. I tried to calm down, tried to slow my heartbeat and my thoughts, but it was all I could do to steady my speed. I could see Veronica’s face and Ally’s and hear Ally’s voice, her condescending tone. We’d been friends. We’d been good friends. And Veronica. God.

Then, it was all gone.

The complete void of darkness and silence birthed chaos. My headlights glanced off the window of someone’s house, and though I hit the brakes with everything I had, there was a sick scraping sound and I could tell I’d hit something. I stared ahead, blinked hard. I had no idea how I’d gotten to where I was, and I seemed to have forgotten how to breathe in the process.

My hand, still wrapped in the napkin, was shaking as I shifted into park. Forgetting to turn on my hazards or check my rearview mirror, I stepped gingerly out onto the street. The breeze caught me right away, turning the sweat that had come from nowhere ice cold. Two wheels were up on the sidewalk, and I’d managed to take down a No Parking Any Time sign. It was still attached to the ground, but bent at an oblique angle, the vertex stuck under the bumper of my car. The right headlight casing above it was broken, but the airbags hadn’t deployed, I was in one piece, and everything was okay. Everything was okay. I swallowed hard, tasting the tang of metal.

A woman in a blue SUV pulled over close to where I stood. “Do you need some help?”

More than you could ever know. I shook my head and tried to smile. “I’m good. Thank you.” As she continued on her way, I ran my tongue over my back teeth. It tasted like the silver fillings I’d had as a teenager, or maybe like sucking on coins as a little kid. I couldn’t quite place it and I had no idea where it’d come from.

I didn’t understand what had happened. Had someone run me off the road? Had I swerved to avoid a dog or squirrel and lost control of the car? How could any of that have happened without me noticing? I’d never had a car wreck that was my fault.

The nothingness. There had been a moment of nothing.

It had surely been just a second, but the lights had flickered, the sound had stopped, the power to existence had been cut. I fell back against the hood of the car, heart pounding formidably, sweat soaking through my shirt and pants. Oh my God, I’m off my meds.

It took some doing, but I finally managed to extract my car from the post. By the time I got going again, my stomach hurt bad but the screaming, spinning, furious anger was gone. In its place were thick reminders of how fucking stupid I’d been. You should have just left when you saw her. You should have pretended like nothing had happened. You didn’t deserve her anyway, you fuckup. Can’t do anything right. Can’t ever do anything right. I drove home slowly, the words moving through my head, banking on each side like a fucked-up screen saver.