Page 107 of Play Nice

“Well,” he says, and I recognize something sour in his tone.

“Well?”

He stands and steps down to the walkway. “I’m kind of worried about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem…”

“What? I seem what, Austin?” I say, suddenly on offense. He’s judging me. I knew he would.

He looks down at his Vans, runs his hands through his hair.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I tell him. “I don’t need you to worry about me. That’s not what this is.”

“I thought…” He looks at me again. He expects something from me. He’s waiting for me to intuit what he wants to hear, and then for me to say those words and to be pretty while I say them.

So I say nothing.

Because what I want, what I need, is for him to just be here and not want or need anything from me.

I take another swig from the bottle.

A minute passes. He sighs and says, “I can’t tell if it’s me or if you’re dealing with…”

“Dealing with what? I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient that I don’t just exist to fuck you.”

His mouth falls open. He laughs. “What?”

“Never mind.”

“You can talk to me. About stuff. I’m not just here to hook up.”

“You don’t want to hear about my problems.”

“That’s…that’s not true. At all.”

“It is,” I say. “You’re here because I’m fun and because this isn’t serious. I start crying to you about my feelings, then I’m not fun anymore. Then I’ll be too much. And then you’ll go find fun someplace else, and then I’ll be alone and all fucked-up. So let’s just quit while we’re ahead. It’s for the best. Because where was this really going, anyway? I work in the city. I live in the city. And you live out here. In your mother’s basement.”

He adjusts the thin chain around his neck, bites his lip, nods. “For what it’s worth, you’re already alone and fucked-up.”

He starts to cross the lawn, walk away.

“For what it’s worth,” I say, “only douchebags wear chains like that.”

“It was my dad’s,” he says without turning around.

—

I sit on the front steps until Austin is out of view. Until he is gone. I take another sip from the bottle. Another. When I finally manage to stand, I teeter on rubbery legs, stumbling as I turn to go into the house. I left the front door open, and a breeze comes through, pushing it all the way back against the wall. It’s like the house is welcoming me in.

The door slams itself shut behind me.

I crawl up the stairs on all fours, my balance off from the alcohol. I haven’t had anything to eat today except a few fries and a single shrimp. There’s no food in the house.

The sheet of paper on the dining table remains blank. As does the one on the coffee table. In the kitchen. In Leda and Daphne’s room. In Mom’s room. In my room.

“What? Now you’re shy?” I ask.