by Ace Gray
“Nothing.” I try to wiggle my sleeve down at the same time I pull away.
His grip doesn’t budge. “I saw the words broken and don’t believe in love. What is that?”
“They’re just words,” I say softly, still trying to pull back.
“Words cut deep.” He bends down to make sure he catches my gaze. “Are you okay?”
“James, just leave it okay? Not now.”
“Yes, now, Mina.” There’s a roughness in his voice that I know means he’s about to break. I scrunch my face in confusion. “Tell me.” He yanks on my arm, forcing me awkwardly across the bar. His eyes scan the words over and over, but he can’t see them all with the way his hand is squeezing on my skin, tighter and tighter, as he completely unravels.
“No. I said not now.” I yank even harder, but I still can’t budge.
“I believe the lady said no.” Swany steps in, looming over James’ shoulder, using his words from the Solstice against him. The bar goes silent. I curse the forces that put us all in the same room again. Maybe small town life isn’t for me after all.
But it’s James that silences my thoughts. Something wild, panicky, flashes behind his eyes a second before he drops my hand. The thud of my bones against the old oak jostles me and jogs my memory too.
“I think it’s about time you got out of here. Maybe even out of town.” Swany puffs his chest up and points to the door. “You bother her, you hurt her, and that makes me want to bother you. Hurt you.”
“Shit,” I murmur and it’s not because Swany is making a scene. Or threatening James. It’s because I realize what James was really asking and why he was asking just a few moments too late.
“You heard me. Get the fuck out.”
James stands and faces Swany. Fearlessly. Chest to chest, James is taller but thinner. Where Swany is youthful, riled up brawn, James is serious, deliberate and severe. Power radiates off of him. Fists clenched. The easy fluidity of his movements, gone. His jaw is clenched so tight that the muscles in his neck feather in fury.
But he just turns on his heel, shoulders hiked up to his ears, and shoves out the front door. The glass rattles against the doorframe before snapping shut.
“Fucking finally.” Swany chuckles as he takes James’ seat then his beer in a single swig. “He’s no good. For you, for any of us.”
But the last of his words fall away. I’m sucked back to that day, that conversation. James was screaming fuck in the walk-in. Quiet, unassuming James was screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. The red rings around his eyes said more than the swear word ever could. It was the first time he opened up and showed me his soft underbelly. It was the first time I held him. Hugged him. Whatever.
I sprint from behind the bar toward the door.
“Mina, come back here,” Swany calls. “He’s not worth it.”
“James,” I yell as soon as fresh air kisses my face. “James.” Jury is still out on him but telling him I’m okay is undeniable. “James!”
“Here, Mina.”
For the first time, relief is the first thing I feel when I hear that voice. He’s leaning up against a brick wall, tucked between two buildings, shrouded in nothing but shadow. His head is tipped back, and I can’t tell if his eyes are open or closed as he stares at the sky.
“I’m okay. I mean I’m all sorts of screwed up, but like that I’m okay.” I don’t know why I say the extra stuff but there the truth is, sitting between us.
“You mean it?” His throat bobs a little too wildly.
“I do.” I sag against the wall too, just a little closer to the street. “I’m sorry I even hesitated. I remember how hard that was on you.”
“Every time I think about him killing himself, I think about talking to him just a few hours before. If I had just asked…” His voice chokes off and I do exactly what I did then—throw my arms around him. He winds around me then sags into me.
Eddy’s suicide note had been written on his forearm.
When James’ best friend killed himself, James blamed himself. Over and over and over again. He always said if only I’d asked. Three years later and I haven’t come any closer to finding a response. I just know that this, him like this, always breaks my walls down and leaves my heart amongst the rubble.
“James…” My voice cracks as I bury my head into the column of his neck.
“When I saw that writing on your arm… That was terror, Mina. Sheer terror.” He squeezes me tighter just to make sure I’m really there.
“They’re just words. You know I write to get things out.” I step back and shove my sleeve up so he can see. “See?”
His big hands gently grab my arm and roll it into the light. His thumb brushes over my words again. This time his hand isn’t in the way. This time, I don’t yank it back. Too late I remember the words are about him and I swore long ago, I’d never let him read a single one of them.
“James.” I pull my arm back again but this time lacking the force of before. “I have to get back.”
“You wish you didn’t know me?” he asks, his voice even more decimated than before as he lets my arm drop.
“Sometimes.” I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Is that all you wrote?” He won’t look me in the eyes.
“No.”
Every bit of him is deflating beside me. “How much more?” And I guess it’s the small part of me that saw him so utterly smashed over his best friend that gets me to speak.
“This particular letter is about another page.”
“There’s multiple letters?”
“Sort of.” I bite my lip.
“What does sort of mean?’
“I burnt all the ones I wrote you before.” I look down at my hand, remembering the way the ash slid through it just yesterday.
“When?” He slides down the wall, folding in on himself as he finds a seat on the concrete.
“The day you came to town.” I close my eyes because I know how that sounds.
“Why?” His voice is sharper, meaner than a moment ago.
“I thought I was over you.” I slid down the wall to match him.
“And now?” He spits the words out.
I let my face fall into my hands, and I rub up and down. “Obviously I’m not.”
July 27th, 2020
To my doomed eternity,
I know you know Greek mythology, there is an endless wealth of knowledge locked carefully behind your crisp eyes, but do you ever think of Sisyphus?
Do you ever think of me?
Do you ever wonder what it feels like to endlessly roll the boulder uphill? Or more importantly to watch it fall?
I can tell you because you are my boulder. The one that I am forced to roll up hill, the one that I know will fall but that I roll anyway. Doomed for eternity to think of my hands on you as I push enough for both of us. And when things are good, hope courses through my veins and I am certain—CERTAIN—I’m getting somewhere. It’s the feel of your skin against mine. It’s my head resting on your shoulder in the moonlight. The taste of you.
God I can’t shake the taste of you.
But we’ll fall, won’t we? That’s what we do. It’s kind of our thing. You’ll roll right over me and every single bone of mine will break. Again. The words will come like they do now, I’ll want to carve them into our stone with the blood seeping out of me. Will you notice that I’m decimated? Will you read the drippings of my soul set out for you?
Or will you just wait for me to pick myself up, put my torn-up hands against that rough hewn stone I know so well and start pushing all over again?
I hesitate just beside the wide-open garage door and try and pull myself together. Things are different today. They have to be. When I walk into the brewery, all the old days are going to smash into me. All of the last few weeks too. I only hope I don’t drown.
With a deep breath, I round the corner and walk into Gold Mine, same as it’s always been yet infinitely different.
My eyes find Ja
mes within two heartbeats. Sure, I knew where to look for him, but I think I’d find him anywhere. He’s crouched by a fermenter, moving red hoses and C clamps. Sweat dampens a few spots on his back, and his signature hat is pulled low on his brow. I smile, picturing how he’s been running around, the look of intense concentration on his face. There were days that I thought that was the only thing I ever needed to watch for the rest of my life.
When he stands up, I get a full shot of the thing about him that made me smile the most—brown and tan rubber brewing boots.
I chuckle in spite of myself. Who falls for a quiet, disc-golfing Gemini in rubber boots? He’s not the lead in a romantic movie, he’s not the archetype. He’s not any archetype. He’s just James and the summation of that is what called to me.
Calls to me.
I relax the fists I’m unconsciously making and start walking toward the brewhouse. I’m not sure if my steps are shaky or if that’s just my imagination. They should be shaky right? I square my shoulders and try to steady myself.
“Knock, knock,” I say as I look around for somewhere convenient to stand. And decide what to do with my hands. And worry about whether my makeup looks okay or is overdone.
“Mina, hey.” He pivots on his rubber toes for a singular second before he turns right back to his work. “Now is not a good time.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” I swallow down the chunk of ego I now want to vomit up. I didn’t really have expectations of him, but I also assumed he’d stop everything he was doing to hear what I had to say. “I’ll just… Never mind,” I mutter as I turn back the way I came.
“Mina, that’s not what I mean and you know it,” he calls after me. “Shit,” he adds but I know that tone, and if I’m being honest, I know that’s not about me, but God does it feel like it. “Give me ten minutes. Have a beer with Aspen.”
Part of me wants to keep walking.
The rest of me remembers admitting my darkest secret to him last night and that the secret is him. Don’t I owe it to that part of me to try?
I turn toward the taproom without fully deciding to. My mind, my heart, thump with James. With his voice, his nearness, his rejection. Our past. It all feels like it’s building inside me at an unstoppable pace, a wave about to hit upon my breakers. I can already feel the way it will choke me, how I’ll suck it in and suffocate on it. The thought has panic squeezing on my throat and my hand reaching up to meet it.
“Mina? You okay?” Aspen’s already moving around the bar, worry plain on her face. “Come here. Sit down.”
“It’s okay, I’m okay.” But sitting does sound good. It sounds easy when nothing with James is easy.
“Girl, what is going on?”
“It’s a long story.” I sigh.
“One with a happy ending?”
“I’m smack dab in the middle of it.”
She hands me a beer before I even order.
“James?”
“I didn’t come here to disturb him, or your business. I swear.” I take a deep drink of the beer.
“Pfffffttttt.” She waves me off. “Honey, in this small of a town, I’ve seen it all.” She smiles a free and genuine smile. “Besides, without you, we wouldn’t have him, and oh my God am I grateful for him. Jonas and I went camping last week for the first time in a year and half. A little drama is a small price to pay.” She smiles then looks me over again. “You ever want to talk about it, I’m here. And I always have beer.”
“You’re too good to me.” Particularly because she’s set me a little at ease when I was decidedly not mere minutes ago.
“She’s too good to me too,” James says as he slides onto the stool beside me. “Sorry about a minute ago.”
“It’s okay,” I say even though it’s not is written all over my face.
“You know there are a few critical times while brewing. I taught you that.” He reaffirms my unspoken words.
I nod, knowing he’s right.
“Wanna sit outside?”
“Sure.” Doesn’t he know I’d follow him anywhere?
“So about last night—” he starts when we’re outside.
“I’m sorry,” I interrupt.
“For what?” He shakes his head and gestures to one of the picnic tables.
“For saying too much, for being too much. For all of it. For writing on my arm.”
His brow folds beneath the bill of his hat but otherwise he just studies my words in that way he has. The way that has always made me think he writes them out to read and reread before he answers. The way that makes me think that every word he shares is deliberate, that he wouldn’t waste his breath if he didn’t want me to hear it.
“Do you remember when I told you to stop apologizing?” he finally asks.
Of course I do. How could I forget one of the most pivotal moments in my life? His simple, straightforward words resonated with my very soul. The vibration that was left chattering inside me pushed me toward James and away from Tanner. Or better yet, toward myself. His words, his sincerity when he said them, made me feel worthy for the first time in a very long time. They made me demand a happiness for myself and gave me a strength to find it. Sure, I found that happiness in him for a time, and sure, it all ended up in rubble at my feet, but what he’d woken stayed with me in some small bit.
Even now.
“Yes,” I answer softly.
“I said it because seeing that timid side of you pulled on my heartstrings. You aren’t timid. And it hurt to see you hurt.”
I close my eyes as I try and digest those words. This isn’t what I expected. This isn’t what I told myself over and over and over again as I tried to put him behind me. And changing the narrative from a selfish smash to self-preservation isn’t something that happens at the flip of the switch.
“You don’t have to be a certain way with me, Mina, but don’t be sorry.” His cool eyes pin me to my seat.
“Are you sorry? About any of it?”
“Honestly?” His eyes drift away, studying the street behind me. “I wasn’t until you yelled at me the other night. Maybe because I didn’t think about it. Maybe because I wasn’t honest with myself when it all happened. Now…”
When he doesn’t finish his sentence, I know the words upon words that he’s grappling with. I’ve written so many of them down. I’ve burned them, cursed them, and held them ever so close to my heart.
“I know.”
“I take people at face value, Mina. They say they want to be friends, I believe them. They say they want to hang out, I believe them. They say you’re in love with me, I believe them.”
Hearing him say it out loud rips at the wound still healing on my heart.
“What did it matter though? Why was it worth throwing our friendship away? Did you really think I was going to… I dunno, proposition you on my birthday or leave Tanner for you? Did you really think that changed things?” I can’t bring myself to look at him when I ask.
“It made everything between us bigger. Heavier. And that meant I could screw it up.”
“You can’t screw up friendship, James. I wanted to be your friend both because of and in spite of everything I knew about you. You can’t screw up being you.”
“But I could slip up.” His face darkens. “I could cave to the feelings that I had and know that someone waited to give me shelter. Someone who liked to be outside and read books and talk beer. Someone who liked the same sort of trouble I did and had the same sense of adventure and curiosity. Someone who was whole and complete on her own and wanted me around just because I was me rather than to fill some void. That’s a heady and intoxicating thing, Mina. You were a heady and intoxicating thing.”
“And now?” My chest tightens as I wait for his answer.
“I think I’m drunk on you.”
I turn a block early and guilt washes over me. I’m turning so that I don’t walk past Courtney’s house on the way home. If she’s home, I’ll tell her about James. If I tell her about James, I’ll have to admit tha
t I’m falling again—out loud—and Courtney will skewer those words one by one.
She has every right to.
Even as I have every right to fall. To break. To self-destruct. Because that’s what I’m heading for when he shares calculated words that make me feel as if I’m the sum.
I can’t help but sprint down the small section of sidewalk visible from Courtney’s back porch. Even at a distance, she can probably see what I’ve said to James written on my face.
“Fuck,” I whisper as I slide in my back gate and clip up the stairs to my porch. I’ve barely dipped my toe in and the waters seems so deep. With James that’s how it’s always been.
I flop onto my couch and take a moment to breathe. Only my thoughts, my words, James’ admissions, Courtney’s likely responses whir in a blender that I can’t pull a single thread from. I flip on the TV to try and drown out one of them, all of them.
But I can’t.
Not when the ruckus is deafening. And damn do I realize how deafening James is in my head. My life. There are a few books on my shelf that I bought because he recommended them, one I stole from his truck, one we bought at the bookstore together. There’s a t-shirt from a brewery we went to, a stolen Oyster fork somewhere. How many seasons of The Office do I have because he told me I had to watch it.
Isn’t the second seat setting in my car still tuned to his long legs from the time I was drunk, and he drove me home?
I flop over and scream into the Pendleton pillow nearest me. I never got over him. Not really. I just told myself I had so many times I started to believe it. I started moving forward without realizing there was always something that would bring me back.
Back to the man I love.
And I do. Love him. It’s as undeniable as the fact that he’s not good for me. We aren’t good together.
I reach for the nearest notebook and start to write.
July 28th, 2020
To everything I felt before,
I wish I hadn’t burnt those letters. I wish I hadn’t burnt those letters and I don’t know why.