Crash

by Drew Jordan

  “No, keep doing what you were doing. But don’t let them fall out.”

  “I don’t think they’ll stay in.”

  His hand cracked my ass, hard. “Then squeeze. Don’t question me, babydoll. I’m in a really good mood.”

  When he asked things that were illogical, I wondered. In the back of my mind, I questioned if staying with Trent was the right thing to do, and if somehow I was losing track of what was right and wrong. What was my choice and what was still imprisonment. But then I squashed those traitorous little thoughts. They didn’t make me feel as good as he did.

  So I stood up and poured his coffee while I held the ice inside me, the urge to reach down and tease my fingers over myself a huge temptation. By the time two mugs were filled with coffee the ice was gone and I was disappointed. When he returned with the tongue I told him.

  “More?” he asked.

  Maybe if I went numb from the inside out I wouldn’t be so aching. In all sense of the word. I nodded. “Yes.” Leaning on the counter, I arched my ass out, shifting my legs apart.

  He pushed one, two, three cubes this time, and it felt different. Not as shockingly cold on my hot insides, but more clinical. I was disappointed. When I stood, he could see it on my face. “Too cold?”

  “I can’t feel it as much.”

  With one finger, he hooked one back out, raised it to his lips, and sucked it. Then he dropped it into his coffee with a wink at me.

  Such a strange thing, me and him.

  Maybe neither of us was entirely sane.

  But I wasn’t sure I wanted to return to sanity.

  Though for some reason, I did reach into the nightstand when he went outside to use the outhouse, and palmed my cell phone. I hid it in the interior of my jacket. Not because I wanted to call anyone, but because I wanted to look at my pictures in the camera roll and the battery had been dead for a while. Maybe I could recharge it.

  Guilt made my cheeks heat. That I was lying to him.

  And guilt because of Victoria. Innocent, sweet, Victoria, left behind in Seattle in the mess her parents had created.

  All alone with only Grandma Jean, who spent her days deadheading her perennials, her hair tightly permed, expression perpetually pleasant. The human labradoodle, all naiveté and misplaced trust.

  I missed Grandma Jean.

  And Victoria.

  Not my mother.

  And for once, not Dean.

  I rode in to town on the back of his snow machine, hugging his waist with my arms. It was windy and hard to see anything, even wearing the face mask he gave me. My eyelashes felt frozen, but I took in the majesty of the area as we drove. Trees, trees, and more trees, jutting towards the sky with confidence, their branches coated thick with early snow. At places he didn’t feel the river was safe enough for the weight of us on the snow machine, but it was hard to believe just a few weeks earlier the river had been running and we’d been fishing.

  That I’d fallen through when I was stupid enough to run.

  There was no point in running when you don’t know where you’re going.

  Eventually I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his back, feeling jostled and unused to the motion. I had only been on his dog sled since the crash. No cars, no buses, no bicycle. It was odd to be zipping along at such a high speed.

  I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what town meant or even what it was called. But in my mind, I was picturing something picturesque. Cute and colorful. The Norway of the bush, with chateau-like houses and quaint little shops. The reality was it was a mishmash of buildings, garages, sheds, and trailers. There was no order to the layout, no design, just something here, something there, a woodpile in a yard, a broken down truck on blocks, dingy, weather-beaten wooden houses sagging against the backdrop of the mountains in the distance. A sign in front of one gray building, no bigger than a garden shed, read, “United States Postal Service, Rush, Alaska.”

  There weren’t more than two dozen buildings all together, including outbuildings. It wasn’t impressive. It wasn’t a place to find a good night out with drinks and a band playing a set. I doubted there even was a restaurant, and my hopes for pizza evaporated.

  He pulled into the post office and parked. “I have a package I need to pick up.”

  “Can I come in with you?”

  The look he gave me indicated he thought that was a stupid question. “Of course.”

  How would I know that? I would have thought that he didn’t want anyone to see me close up. There was no real explanation for who and what I was. But he held his hand out and lifted me off the snow machine and I wasn’t going to turn down the offer. I was eager to see other people. There was only one clerk and one customer inside. The clerk was a middle aged woman with black hair, the customer a grizzled old man. They glanced at us but neither smiled or looked particularly curious.

  When we approached the counter the old man turned to leave and he simply nodded at us, nothing more. Trent said, “How’s it going?” on his way to the counter. The clerk didn’t acknowledge him but went into the back and returned with a package that she pushed across the wooden surface.

  “Sign here.”

  I could have shifted so that I could see the name written on the package, but I didn’t bother. I was still wearing my mask but I gave a smile anyway to the clerk.

  “You new around here?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s my mail order bride,” he said. “Came up from Fairbanks last spring.”

  The clerk’s weathered face registered zero surprise. “Well. Congrats then.”

  “Thank you.”

  My skin prickled beneath my layers and I wanted to ask her why she didn’t think that statement was odd. Why none of it seemed odd to her. Shouldn’t a total stranger in a small town be noteworthy?

  Apparently not.

  The same thing happened in the general store. We filled a basket with feminine toiletries and batteries and matches and kerosene and a toothbrush and condoms and no one even glanced at us. There were at least six people in the store and not a single soul gave us more than a cursory nod. We approached the counter and Trent started unloading our basket.

  “Hi,” I said to the clerk in a voice that sounded ludicrously loud in the hushed store. Everyone moved so silently doing their business. It was unnerving. I wanted to hear people, see smiles and listen to laughter.

  This clerk was a guy in his twenties and he looked at me like he thought I was a freak. “Hi.”

  “Damn it, I forgot you wanted sugar,” Trent said. “Wait here, I’ll go get it.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. I watched him walk away, curious to see his movements here, in a store, versus at home, the way he normally was. He didn’t look uncomfortable in town. Just efficient. I had a thought.

  Turning back to the clerk, I asked, “Do cell phones work here?”

  Now he really stared at me in doubt. “Uh, yeah. Of course. We’re not like off the grid here. Fuck that.”

  “Do you know where I can charge my phone? I don’t have the charger.”

  “Like without a charger you can’t do a whole lot.” He was scanning our items one by one and dropping them into a bag. “I don’t know what to tell you.” He looked up and his eyes narrowed. Curiosity crept into his voice, the first person to exhibit any. “Where are you from?”

  Trent moved in beside me right then. “Why do you ask?” he said smoothly.

  My palms went damp and I hoped he wouldn’t ask the clerk what we had been talking about. He wouldn’t approve.

  The clerk just shrugged. “Just figured she’s not from around here since I’ve never seen her before.”

  “No one is from here,” Trent said. “She’s from Fairbanks.”

  As he scanned at the register, the clerk paused briefly, his hand on the box of condoms. He glanced at me, with lascivious interest. He couldn’t even really see much of my face or my body but it didn’t seem to matter. It must suck to be single in a place like that
. Not many options.

  “Hurry it up, kid,” Trent told him. “We need to get home and fuck.”

  The clerk dropped the box guiltily and I watched his cheeks burn. Mine were too, under the fabric of my hat. Sometimes the stranger was too crude for me. He made me feel… kept. Like a prisoner.

  The thought made me wince. I didn’t like reality forcing its way in. And for the first time witnessing his world and the real world colliding, I paused to wonder. To ponder my choice.

  My hand slid into my pocket and fingered my cell phone before I even realized what I was doing. I stood very still, eyes trained on the clerk. When he glanced at me again, his eyes widened slightly at whatever he saw in my expression. Maybe he saw me pleading. Maybe he saw my fear. Maybe he saw that something inside me had gone feral from my captivity and I needed a heavy dose of normal.

  Whatever it was, after Trent paid and we gathered up our bags and started to leave, the clerk called me back. “Miss, you forgot a bag.” It was still in his hand, behind the counter. I doubled back and when I took it, his eyes darted to the bag, then back to me. I followed his gaze and saw he had put a cell phone charger inside. My mouth dropped open and he nodded ever so slightly.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, using my fingers to discreetly shift a bag of dried fruit over it.

  “You’re welcome. Take care.”

  “Come on,” Trent called from the doorway, sounding impatient.

  I hurried to follow him, heart racing. The restroom. I would find a restroom.

  “I think I just started my period,” I blurted, the second we were outside. “Is there somewhere I can use the restroom?”

  “Just now you started it?” he asked, sounding skeptical. He stared at me, long and hard.

  “I think so. I feel something wet.”

  He looked like he was about to say something but then stopped himself. “Fine. Let’s go eat lunch and you can go there.”

  “We can eat lunch? I didn’t think there would be a restaurant here.” There was something off in my voice- a sort of high-pitched manic quality- and I fought to rein it back in. I was acting guilty when in reality I had nothing to feel guilty for. I was allowed to use my phone if I wanted to.

  Being around other people, especially several people who had seemed so disinterested, had me on edge. I had thought that somehow we would stroll into town and I would have to make up a fake name and manufacture a story as to who I was and what I was doing there, and that all of it would put Trent into a foul mood. But he seemed perfectly at ease. It was me who felt caught off-guard, by initial ambivalence, and then the caring subterfuge of the general store clerk, who clearly thought I was being abused or something. Nothing felt like it was going in a way I had assumed and I realized I wanted something more. Drama. I wanted drama, and something to have impact. This trip to town was my big excitement for months to come and this couldn’t be it. Not just picking up supplies and being ignored by the locals.

  It just seemed like it should be bigger.

  But I would happily settle for some French fries. The restaurant was in combination with a laundromat and a bar. It seemed like an odd combination but at the same time, there were only three patrons in the whole place, so it made sense to offer multiple services. We sat down at a cafeteria style table and after ordering a soft drink I excused myself to go to the restroom, grabbing the bag with the tampons and the phone charger. It was a single stall and I locked it behind me, immediately searching for an outlet. There was one under the sink and I plugged my phone in, relieved the cord fit, and pulled my ski mask off my face.

  Then I opened the box of tampons, pulled one out, then shoved it back in, like it had been a false alarm. I did use the restroom, marveling in the flush of the toilet, before going to the sink to wash my hands. It was then I looked myself in the eye for the first time in three weeks.

  The change was dramatic. My hair was wild and unkempt, dull from lack of shampooing. My cheekbones were more pronounced, my lips pale and chapped from the wind. There were shadows under my eyes and a scratch on my neck I hadn’t even realized I had. But it was my eyes themselves that stared back at me, so familiar, yet so strange. They looked feverish, edgy, excited. This Laney hadn’t come out to play in a long, long time, and even then, when she had been so nervous and bold and determined as she had stepped into Dean’s room that night, she hadn’t been this crazed looking.

  It was my true inner self, staring back at me, let free from the chains of the mundane, free from having to fly under the radar, to be ordinary. Normal. No one could know. No one could ever know. That’s all I ever heard and I believed it.

  But here, in Alaska, under the very firm hand of the stranger, I had come back to me, and taken me to the next level.

  “Hello, Gorgeous,” I murmured, with a cocky grin. Because I was gorgeous. Maybe my hair could stand a good brushing and my lips some balm, but whereas before I had been cute, attractive, now I was intriguing, mysterious. Sexy. I was fucking sexy.

  Leaning against the countertop, I slipped my hand down my pants and played, just a little. Just to remember what it felt like to pleasure myself, to see that change it wrought to my face, to give myself a little pat on the back for being so hot. But I didn’t want to waste time so after just a few seconds I gave my clit a little squeeze and abandoned my pants, tasting my finger briefly before washing my hands again.

  I turned on my phone, and saw it was only at eight percent, but good enough. I indulged in a couple of seconds of scrolling through images, pausing on Sammy and me doing a duck lip, studying the way I looked. I agreed with my earlier assessment. Cute then, sexy now. Muted before, fluorescent now.

  Once I had everything tucked into the interior pocket of my jacket, I left the bathroom. There was a soft drink waiting for me and as he watched me intently I picked it up and drank half of it with one sip.

  “Oh, my God, that tastes so good,” I sighed.

  “It’s liquid cancer.”

  “I have to die of something.”

  “That’s true.”

  I paused, setting the glass carefully down again. Everything he said always seemed to have double, triple meaning. “What are you ordering for lunch?” I lifted the menu the waitress had slapped down in front of me and studied the plastic sheet.

  “You took your hat off,” he said.

  My eyes shifted off the sandwich selections and up to him. “Yes. It would look really strange if I wore a ski mask inside a restaurant.”

  “I know. But I feel like you’re naked. It makes me want to cover you.”

  Sometimes I needed to be exposed.

  “You know what they say? It’s better to hide in the open.” I reached across the table and put my hand over his, stroking his knuckles. I noticed how wretched my nails looked, all different lengths, some broken, some chewed, one pinky still mysteriously painted. The polish while not pristine, was mostly intact, just grown out. Ballet Slipper was the name of the color. Soft and delicate. Just a tiny bit of me was still Ballet Slipper. The rest of me was like a ballerina really was. Sinewy and resilient, callused and feminine. A hungry, spinning, wild-eyed creature with scars.

  “I suppose they say a lot of things.”

  He hadn’t trimmed his beard in a few weeks and he too looked especially wild in the vibrant light of the restaurant. It was weird to see him somewhere other than the cabin or the yard, to watch him interact with other people. The scar on his forehead looked glaringly white and his cheekbones were ruddy, probably from the wind. The love I felt for him was a living thing; it breathed, it grew hungry, it was strong yet vulnerable. So strange to love someone whose life was a blank, but maybe that was why I could love him. Maybe when relationships started with two people pouring out their histories, verbal dossiers, they were given a clear directive on who each other was. They were led, false or true, to a conclusion based on what each chose to reveal.

  When nothing was revealed, only the present is relevant. What they say, what they do. Nothing else.


  Yet I liked the illusion that I could get to know him, that some day, I would read a menu and be able to guess with ninety percent accuracy what he was going to order. As it was, I had no clue. I also didn’t know what I was going to order, because the idea of anything with cheese was making my mouth water. I also decided I didn’t want any meat because that was primarily our diet. So when the waitress returned, I asked for the spaghetti with parmesan cheese. And garlic toast.

  He ordered a burger, which seemed weird, given how much caribou we had been eating. But it came with fries, which I was hoping to steal. Though when my pasta arrived I was too busy shoveling it into my mouth to even reach for a fry.

  The waitress eyed me when she came to refill my soft drink. “Don’t you feed her?” she joked to him.

  “Of course I feed her,” he said, his tone angry. “She’s not starving,” he added defensively.

  My cheeks burned. But the waitress just rolled her eyes. “I was kidding, asshole,” she said. “Fucking relax.”

  I paused, fork midway to my mouth. Calling him an asshole was not going to make him happy.

  But to my surprise the tension in his shoulder eased. “Sorry. You know we get defensive when we’re subsistence living.”

  “You also all get weird,” she told him flatly. “Living alone is not what God intended. Glad you found yourself a wife.” She turned back to me, my empty glass in her hand. “I’m Rhonda, by the way.”

  “La-“ I started to say, automatically. But then I felt his foot come down on mine, grinding in. “Laura.” It was a lame finish. Laura was way too similar to Laney. But there was no other recovery so I had to own it. “It’s nice to meet you, Rhonda.”

  “Likewise. Where are you from?”

  Rhonda was in her fifties if I had to guess, tall, wearing full make-up. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, but her shoulder-length hair was curled. I wondered what brought her to Rush and why she had stayed.

  “I’m from Wisconsin.” It was the first state I thought of that wasn’t anywhere near Washington. But then I realized I didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about it, other than the whole cheese factor. Maybe that’s why I chose it. I had dairy on my mind.