Reminders of Him

pointing was sexy.
I wonder if I would have found it sexy five years ago, or if I’m
pathetically easy to please now.
By midnight, we’re the only two people left. The other employees
have gone, the door is now locked, and he’s carrying a case of empty
glasses to the back.
I pull my leg up and wrap my arms around it. I’m nervous. I didn’t
come back to this town to meet a guy. I’m in this town with a much bigger
purpose. One he looks like he could derail with the point of a finger.
I’m only human, though. Humans need companions, and even though
I didn’t return to this town to meet people, this guy is hard to ignore.
He walks through the double doors with a different shirt on. He’s no
longer wearing the purple collared shirt with the rolled-up sleeves that all
the other employees were wearing. He put on a white T-shirt. So simple, but
so complicated.

---

He smiles when he reaches me, and I feel that smile slip over me with
the warmth of a weighted blanket. “You came back.”
I try to act unaffected. “You asked me to.”
“You want something to drink?”
“I’m okay.”
He touches his hair now, pushing it back, staring down at me. There’s
a war in his eyes, and I am by no means Switzerland, but he comes to me
anyway. Sits next to me. Right next to me. My heart beats faster, even faster
than when Scotty came to my register for a fourth time all those years ago.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I don’t want him to know my name. He looks like he could be the age
Scotty would be now if Scotty were alive, which means he might recognize
my name, or me, or remember what happened. I don’t want anyone to know
me, or remember, or warn the Landrys that I’m in town.
It isn’t a small town, but it isn’t huge either. My presence won’t go
unnoticed for long. I just need it to go unnoticed for long enough, so I lie,
sort of, and give him my middle name. “Nicole.”
I don’t ask him what his name is because I don’t care. I’ll never use it.
I’ll never come back here after tonight.
I pull at a strand of my hair, nervous at being so close to someone after
so long. I feel like I’ve forgotten what to do, so I just blurt out what I came
here to say. “I wasn’t going to drink it.”
He tilts his head, confused by my confession, so I clarify.
“The wine. Sometimes I . . .” I shake my head. “It’s dumb, but I do
this thing where I order alcohol specifically to walk away from it. I don’t
have a drinking problem. It’s more like an issue with control, I think. Makes
me feel less weak.”
His eyes scan my face with the slightest hint of a smile. “I respect
that,” he says. “I rarely drink for similar reasons. I’m around drunk people
every night, and the more I’m around them, the less I want to be among
them.”
“A bartender who doesn’t drink? That’s rare. Right? I’d think
bartenders would have one of the highest rates of alcoholism. Easy access.”
“That’s actually the construction industry. Which probably isn’t good
for my odds. I’ve been building a house for several years now.”
“You’re really setting yourself up for failure.”

---

He smiles. “Looks that way.” He relaxes into the booth a little more.
“What do you do, Nicole?”
This is the moment I should walk away. Before I say too much, before
he asks more questions. But I like his voice and his presence, and I feel like
staying here would be distracting, and I really need a distraction right now.
I just don’t want to talk. Talking will only get me in trouble in this
town.
“Do you really want to know what I do for a living?” I’m sure he’d
rather have his hand up my shirt than hear whatever it is a girl would say in
this moment. And since I don’t want to admit that I do nothing for a living
because I’ve been locked up for five years, I slide onto his lap.
It surprises him, almost as if he really did expect us to sit here and chat
for the next hour.
His expression changes from mild shock to acceptance. His hands fall
to my hips, and he grips them. I shiver from the contact.
He adjusts me so that I’m sitting a little farther up, and I can feel him
through his jeans, and I’m suddenly not as confident that I can walk away
as I was five seconds ago. I thought I could kiss him and then tell him good
night and saunter home with pride. I just wanted to feel a little bit powerful
before tomorrow, but now he’s dragging his fingers across the skin on my
waist, and it’s making me weaker and weaker, and so fucking thoughtless.
Not thoughtless as in uncaring, but thoughtless as in empty inside my head,
and feeling everything in my chest, like a ball of fire is building inside of
me.
His right hand slides up my back, and I gasp because I feel his touch
surge through me like a current. This guy is touching my face now, running
his fingers down my cheekbone, and then his fingertips across my lips. He’s
staring at me like he’s trying to figure out where he knows me from.
Maybe that’s just my paranoia at work.
“Who are you?” he whispers.
I already told him, but I repeat my middle name anyway. “Nicole.”
He smiles but then loses the smile and says, “I know your name. But
where’d you come from? Why have we never met before tonight?”
I don’t want his questions. I have no honest answers. I move a little
closer to his mouth. “Who are you?”

---

“Ledger,” he says, right before he rips open my past, pulls out what’s
left of my heart, drops it on the floor, and then kisses me.
People say you fall in love, but fall is such a sad word when you think about
it. Falls are never good. You fall on the ground, you fall behind, you fall to
your death.
Whoever was the first person to say they fell in love must have
already fallen out of it. Otherwise, they’d have called it something much
better.
Scotty told me he loved me halfway into our relationship. It was the
night I was supposed to meet his best friend for the first time. I had already
met his parents, and he was excited for that, but not nearly as excited as he
was to introduce me to the guy he considered a brother.
That meeting never happened. I can’t remember why; it’s been a long
time. But his friend had to cancel, and Scotty was sad, so I baked him
cookies and we smoked a joint and then I gave him head. Best girlfriend
ever.