untitled or the ocean breathes salty
“What do you want to do with your life?” he asked me, after lighting my cigarette.
I exhaled in a cloud and leaned in, whispering, only just quiet enough: “Die.”
He laughs as if I’m being witty, and I lean back, dragging on my cigarette. People are so stupid when they’re drunk.
“You can’t really avoid that, can you?”
“Maybe,” I let a smile play around my lips. “But I can at least speed it up.”
His face is suddenly calm and serious. He stares at me and I stare back. There is something hard in his gaze; something really dangerous and raw and sensitive.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” he tells me.
I begin to shake at the low rumble of his voice. I know he can see through me now.
Once, I tried to drown myself in a bath tub. I lay on the cold ceramic, while the water hit my feet steadily. It was midday, so the lights weren’t on, but the blinds were open. No one was home, and the silence was eerie and all-consuming. I was so sure.
I don’t even know why I’m telling him this, but it just comes out. “I tried to drown myself in a bath tub once.”
He smiles, but doesn’t look at m when he says, “It takes a lot longer to full up than you want it to, doesn’t it?”
His arm is on the table. It’s pale and vein, with a thick leather band around his wrist,
I flip his hand over, and trace the lines on his palm. “You’re not going to die until your forties. After a law degree, three legitimate children and two wives.”
He leans in to me, challenging me. “How?” His breath hits my face, permeated with alcohol.
“You’ll be one of those psychos with a gun. After your youngest son broke your dead mother’s teapot, you realized there was no point.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah… and you miss me.”
I get up to leave. “Wait!”
I turn and look at him. He’s actually quite gorgeous, if you forget how pale he is. I know he isn’t used to this, to having people walk away from him.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I’m bored. I-I feel we’ve exhausted our conversation topics.”
“So you just predict my mundane demise and then leave?”
I sigh. “Pretty much.” I don’t even know what I’m doing It’s not like I have anywhere exciting to go. But it’s not like he’s different from anyone else, with his hard eyes and morbid humor, screaming to be fucked.
“How about we runaway together? Now.”
It’s so simple. It’s so simple, it’s stupid --
“Don’t.” He looks at me with some shade of hilariously genuine concern. “I didn’t mean to--”
“I’m not---” my voice breaks.
“Look, can you wait a second? We can leave. I’ll get the bill.”
“I’ll be outside,” I say. Everything feels too close. The bad lighting, the raucous laughter, the smell of too many bodies packed too close. I push my way through the crowd and out the door.
After I’m outside, I lean against the brick wall with my jacket in hang. Sobering chills run through me, while I suck in smoke.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, wondering what the fuck I’m doing. I feel my phone vibrate, but don’t check it. I know who it is.
You can’t see the stars in the city. It’s all black darkness. You can think it’s because we outshine them, or you can think it’s because they gave up on us; on me.
Soon he’s out here with me.
“What’s your name again?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the sky.
“Ben.”
I nod in approval. “Ben. I like that. It’s sweet. I’m Lux.”
“I thought you said ---”
“Ignore what I said. My name is Lux. I sign it with three x’s when I write my number on bar napkins for boys.”
“But there’s only one?”
“Only one.”
Ben pulls one of the spaghetti straps back in place. His face is right next to mine, and he’s savoring the moment because he knows that it’s all he can hold on to. I know the feeling.
“Ben, why did you try to kill yourself?”
He’s quiet. “My brother died. I kind of thought, if he couldn’t take it, how in hell did I expect to.”
“I bet I would have fell in love with your brother.”
“You would’ve. He had these amazing dimples. He laughed at everything. They were almost always on his face. “
I think about kissing Ben, but I don’t.
“What about you?”
“Huh?”
“Why did you--”
“Oh. I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t know what I was doing any more.”
Ben rubs his eyes, looking at the ground. “I’m so tired.”
I imagine asking him to come to the beach with me. We would leave our clothes in the sand that turned into moon dust in the soft, dark light. They would act as tiny markers if we needed to find our way back, which we wouldn’t ever need to. But the salt water would bathe us, marry the cloth to our skin. I would pull Ben close to me, and grab his hair, as he pulled me close to him, almost crushing me. We would be in almost pain, but the water would flood our lungs, and help us fly deeper into the ocean, which was a reflection of the sky, which was a reflection of the deep unknowability that we could never quite put our feet onto.
I looked at Ben. “Hi,” I told him.
“Hi.” He smiled back.