Clearer in the Night (23 page)

“What sort of food do you want?” he asked.

I gave him an epic side-eye. “I chose the other night, and see how that turned out for us? You pick.”

He smirked, thought for a moment, then tugged me in a direction. “Do you want to sit down to eat, or grab and go?”

“Sit down, please. It’s disgusting outside.”

“I know exactly the place.” He looked pleased with himself, and as eager as a little kid, as he led me through the busy office workers, stepping outside for their lunch breaks, the college kids hanging around between classes, and the empty-eyed people who didn’t really have anywhere else to be. I followed him, and people watched us go by, and they envied us because we were young and he was handsome, and we were together. It was an interesting change. I was usually the girl that made other women clutch their boyfriends closer even as they smirked and basked in how superior they were to me.

I could get used to this, given adequate time to prepare.

He led me to an Irish bar that had a reputation for a great pub trivia night, as well as awesome burgers. I’d never come here, though; no dance floor.

The hostess showed us to a quiet table, far from the bar. The windows were dark, the glass too thick and brown for anyone to see the street outside, or for anyone from the street to see in. The floor was honey-colored wood, roughhewn; the tables were fashioned to look like slabs of wood on legs. There was, as always, a long mirror stretched behind the bar, and bottles upon bottles of booze on display. There were two TVs up on either corner of the bar; one showed a 24 hour news channel, and the other showed a baseball game. The place was only a few years old, but so much had happened here already. Loves had been lost and won, dreams found and abandoned, lives begun and ended. It had all been poured into every crack and crevice, layered on as thick as the polyurethane on the table tops, only I didn’t think you’d be able to sand this down and refinish it. The miasma of misery and joy—mostly misery—had seeped into every grain of wood, every fiber of fabric. It was twisting up my belly and squeezing my heart, and I thought I was going to be sick, add my own wasted energy to the amalgam that was drowning me.

Wes squeezed my hand, hard. I glanced at him, then at the chair he was gesturing towards. My knees sagged, and I let myself slip down into the chair. We were the only ones seated, and the waitress was already there with a glass of ice water and menus. I gulped at the cold water, hoping my sour stomach would settle instead of making an immediate reappearance. I didn’t look up when Wes told the waitress, who was eyeing me to figure out how much of a mess I was going to make and if she’d be able to get the bus boy to pick it up, that it would be a few minutes before we were ready to order, and thank you.

When she was out of earshot, he squeezed my hand again, more gently this time. “How’re you doing?” His voice was soft and gentle, his thumb stroking over my knuckles.

The taste of other’s peoples’ misery had receded to a slimy sensation at the back of my throat. I nodded; if I said anything, it still felt like more than words were going to hit the air. I pressed the back of my free hand to my mouth, and concentrated on breathing. Slowly and carefully breathing.

He held on, a smile bending his lips. “You’re the one who said no more metaphysical crises, after all.”

“True,” I said. The word seemed small enough to experiment with. My stomach didn’t heave, my throat didn’t clench. I could still hear a thousand voices crying out for attention and to tell their stories, but they were a dull roar, blending together, less nauseating. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” he said, and switched his full glass for my empty one. “Want to look at the menu?”

A small lurch. “Not quite yet,” I said. More water. “Talk to me, okay?” I wanted to hear a fresher story, no more stale ones; a kind voice to change out these desperate ones. My forehead was still clammy, my hands trembling.

“What about?”

“Anything. Did you grow up around here?”

He shook his head. He was focused on the table, suddenly, fidgeting with his silverware, taking them out of their paper napkins, lining them up perfectly.

“I don’t know anything about you,” I said. “Tell me about where you grew up.”

For a long time, I didn’t think he was going to answer me. He kept fine tuning the position of his utensils, and I kept trying not to drown in the residue of all these tiny miseries. And then, finally, he started. “I grew up on my Grandpa’s ranch in Wyoming. The kind of place where you have to drive two hours to get to nowhere. Just him, and me, and all his stories.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Lonely. He was an odd duck, some would say, and it was hard to tell sometimes what was real and what was imaginary. And he was a hard man in a lot of ways. It wasn’t easy.”

“Your parents?”

He gave a shrug that I knew all too well.

“Sorry.”

“It was a very long time ago.”

“What brought you here?”

His flashy grin was back, all of a sudden. “Would you believe me if I said it was love at first sight?”

I felt my cheeks go bright red. “No. Because that might be why you stayed, but you were already here when you met me.” Let’s just skip right over the L-word, okay? Yes, good plan. He raised his hand, brushing his knuckles over my flushed cheeks.

“I was here on business. Meeting someone. I went out to let off a little steam, and saw the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

Was spontaneous combustion even possible? For my sake, I hoped not. “You’re just trying to embarrass me now.”

“Is it embarrassing to hear the truth?”

Apparently, sometimes, yes. “I’m not pretty,” I said.

“No,” he agreed. “You’re beautiful. Which is better.”

“We were talking about you,” I said, but then the waitress came back, and Wes nodded that we were ready to order, so I scrambled through the menu while he rattled off a complex order about burgers and toppings and fries. I settled on wings and a salad, and the waitress left again after giving me another long look. “Tell me more about your grandpa,” I said, determined to get this much, at least, out of him.

He actually squirmed in his chair. “It’s hard to talk about him without discussing things you said you didn’t want to talk about.”

I sighed. “It’s okay, I guess. Trying to ignore them isn’t really helping them not happen.” The voices surged up in my ears for a moment, when I acknowledged them, and then settled down again.

“It’s getting worse.” He wasn’t really asking.

“It hadn’t been. But then, I haven’t been around so many people, for the most part, since the accident.”

He looked around the empty bar and raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe they’re not here now, but they have been.”

He nodded. “It’s going to get worse. As the moon fills. And then it will ebb as it wanes. But it might get…difficult for you to be around people, for a little bit.”

“How difficult?”

He shrugged. “Verging on impossible? At least at first. Control may come with time.”

“So that’s the only option? Control? Stopping it won’t be possible?” The quiver in my voice was humiliating.

He sighed. “I promised you a normal date. We’re not even trying. What about you? Did you grow up here?”

I wanted to be stubborn and force him back to my questions, but I set my jaw and answered him. “Yes. Vermonter, born and bred for five generations now.”

“Family?”

Oof. I deserved that sucker punch. “Just my mom and I, now.”

“Sorry.” He mimicked my tone precisely. I gave a ‘what are you going to do?’ shrug. We sat in silence for a few long minutes. “So,” he said, finally, “What else do people talk about on normal dates?”

I snickered into my water glass. “Hell if I know.”

He rolled his eyes. “If you don’t even know what it is, how do you know that you want it?”

“I hear good things,” I said. The nausea had faded, finally, and I focused on him, and the warm curls in my belly that he caused. I smiled, big and broad.

“Well, you’ve been talking to liars. Or the incredibly uninformed. One or the other. Normal is incredibly over-appreciated.”

“You don’t think it would be nice to have a little house with a yard, two kids, a cat, a dog?”

He shook his head almost violently. “Honestly, I’d have a hard time thinking of anything more oppressive.”

I leaned back in my chair, laughing. “So long, American dream. Tell me what you do want, then.”

His eyes were sparkling with intensity. “Passion. Joy. A life on the road, for as long as I can live. Never stopping, never letting the dust settle. Never staying anywhere long enough to be known. I want to pull into every town as a mysterious stranger, and leave while they’re still wondering what to make of me.”

Energy was sparking out of his fingertips and making his hair want to stand on end. He would do this. He’d thrive on it, too.

“And in this road life fantasy,” I asked, surprised at how breathless and thin my voice was, “is there room for anyone else in the car?”

He stroked my palm with his thumbs. Why did that make me shiver so hard? “Maybe. If she was the right anyone else. What do you say, Caitie? Do you want to go away with me?”

Why did I let him call me Caitie? No one else was allowed, ever. I’d screamed at my best friend for doing it less than twenty-four hours ago. With anyone else, Caitie was someone that I used to be, someone I used to pretend to be, but with him, it was new and fresh and a starting over. A chance at all the things I’d never had.

I opened my mouth to answer him, but I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say. I was conveniently rescued by a plate of chicken wings. If I smiled too gratefully at the waitress, neither she nor Wes seemed moved to comment. He didn’t ask again, and I was far too busy with buffalo sauce and blue cheese dressing to answer him anyway. And then his burger and my salad arrived, and we were both too busy eating to continue this conversation. By the time the waitress was back to ask about desserts, the moment has passed. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or not.

“Do you still want a coffee?” He threaded his fingers back through mine as he led me out of the bar.

“Sure.”

“Where to?”

“Oh, I don’t know, which is your favorite?” Being a normal girl made me want to gag. What was I even doing to myself?

“I don’t actually like coffee,” he said, as if he was merely stating a preference and not a major malfunction in his character. I managed to continue walking forward, but only through dedicated effort.

“Tea, then? You’re one of those tea drinkers I read about in books?” I tried to make my tone light and humorous, and not like he was strangling kittens in front of me.

He shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

I stopped dead in the street; I couldn’t help myself. “But…what do you drink when it gets cold out?”

He was staring at me like I was the one with the character deficiency. “Water?”

I’d had sex with him of my own volition. I had no one to blame but myself.

He was smirking at me now, the jerk. “Do you think you can handle this? Or will it shatter things between us forever?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll get back to you. But I know this for sure.”

“What?”

“You’re buying my coffee.”

He did, too. I made a big show over debating—latte or mocha? Vanilla or hazelnut? Maybe almond? He sat through all of it with a smile, and didn’t flinch at the fact that my fancy coffee cost nearly as much as my chicken wings. That was kind.