Miles Away from You

by A. B. Rutledge

  “You have a practically nude portrait of me and my now-comatose girlfriend hanging over your bed, and you . . .” I trailed off because Óskar himself had trailed off, out of the room and down the hall. I took one last, long look at the painting. I had forgotten about the prints. Since I destroyed the original, it makes me feel a little better knowing at least a few copies exist somewhere out in the world.

  Anyway, I’m back at the hotel now. I took the bus because I could kind of tell Óskar was done dealing with me for the day. But before I left, he gave me a six-pack of Viking beer and told me to start drinking it around midnight and not to even think about leaving my room until I’d finished the whole thing.

  I told him I wasn’t much of a drinker. I wasn’t even sure if I could drink that much by myself.

  “Then you don’t deserve to be in Iceland,” he said.

  “So, when and where should I meet you and Björk?”

  “We’ll run into each other eventually, I’m sure. If not, you’ll find someone else to take home tonight. It’s the rúntur; everyone gets laid. Have fun.”

  So, yeah. Sitting here waiting for the clock to turn. I’m about to crack open that first beer.

  Whatever happens tonight, I’m sorry and I love you.

  Miles Away to Vivian Girl

  June 12 11:03 PM

  One beer down. That wasn’t so bad. Blehhh. Good God, that website Brian sent me to is just the worst. Super misogynistic. I’m trying not to let these “scoring tactics” infiltrate my brain too much. If Björk wants to sleep with me, okay. I’ll give it a shot. But I’m not going to play her.

  Right now I’m thinking about that conversation you and I had on our first official date. We were in a mostly empty theater watching some action movie, something that was all machines and explosions, interspersed with flashes of female nudity. Neither of us was really into it. I mean, I like breasts and bombs if I’m in the right mood for them. But that first-date awkwardness was really sinking into me.

  You too, I guess. You turned to me and whispered, “I’m not going to have sex with you.”

  And then I inhaled a kernel of popcorn and almost hacked up a lung trying to clear my airways. You gave me your soda when I slurped on mine and found it was only ice. Anyway, once I could speak again, I said, all suave, “Good, ’cause I was really hoping we’d go get some fro-yo after this instead.”

  “I meant ever. Not just tonight. Ever,” you said, every word a quick little jab, like you were throwing knives.

  “Okay,” I said. Maybe not the right response. I said it quickly and thoughtlessly because something needed to be said. A few minutes passed, you and me watching shrapnel fly across the screen.

  “Sorry. It’s just that your mom told me that the best time to talk about sex is when you’re not already in bed, you know? I felt like I needed to get that out there as soon as possible, because I don’t want to mislead you. Do you want to talk about it some more?” That two-year age gap between us really made a difference back then. I hadn’t quite wrapped my brain around the possibility of us actually having sex sometime (to be fair, I thought about it constantly, in that abstract way a lot of teenage boys do), and there you were being honest and open, prepared. For all your goofiness, you always knew how and when to be mature. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Nope.”

  More silence. Well, except for that awful movie.

  “Okay. Well, I think you should say more. It feels like you’re not processing what I’m saying. Like, you’re not acknowledging me.”

  I glanced over at you. You had a red bandanna around your hair, like one of those old-timey biker girls. You looked damn cute. “I think you’re just trying to scare me away. ’Cause that would be easier, right? Better to be rejected right from the start than to get your hopes up, huh?”

  Then you laughed this tense laugh and said, “You sound just like your mother.”

  I shrugged, reaching for your hand. Your fingers slipped through mine, and everything felt a thousand times more electric and intense. “Mom told me to read up, so I’d sort of know what to expect. It’s, um, dysphoria, right? Or is it that you don’t feel that kind of attraction at all?”

  “Dysphoria. Yeah. The feels are there, but I don’t like to see myself naked or let other people see me naked. I thought it would get easier, but lately it’s just been worse.”

  “Listen, let’s not worry about it right now. I’m not trying to dismiss what you’re saying, but I also think we should go into this with, like, a clean slate, right? We’ll just see how we feel as things progress.”

  God, I do sound like my mother.

  You smiled and thanked me for being so considerate and sweet. But now I cringe at what a snake I was. I’m like one of those creeps from that site Brian sent me to. You told me how you felt, and I tried to convince us both you’d change your mind. I still worry. And I’ll never truly know if pressing you to work through your issues actually made things better or worse.

  Hell of a thing to get worked up about right before I’m supposed to go out and party tonight.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Miles Away to Vivian Girl

  June 13 2:18 PM

  So, something happened. It happened in that way everything’s been happening lately: unexpectedly, awkwardly. Sort of horribly.

  Let’s see. I choked down about three and a half beers before calling it quits. I think I’d like beer if it didn’t, you know, taste like shit. At least I was feeling a little buzzed by the time I got downtown. It was around one a.m., and at first the streets were kind of empty, but then it seemed like the whole world decided to show up at once. People poured out of buses and parked their cars just sort of randomly wherever they could fit. Then everything was loud and colorful. I did what everybody else seemed to be doing, wandering from bar to bar. Hands in my pockets. I was wearing my nice gray button-down shirt, and it didn’t make me look too out of place. I still felt it though, this notion that I was a small person inside a big machine. That any moment, the world might swallow me whole. I wished I’d listened to Óskar and finished off that six-pack, because I was too self-conscious to talk to anybody.

  Eventually I ended up in the coolest place—a Big Lebowski bar/bowling alley. Everyone was drinking White Russians and quoting lines from the movie, laughing too loudly. I did talk to some guys there. Just straight guys, dudes from Arizona. General chitchat about what a weird little place Iceland is. But, hey, at least I didn’t have to worry about those frat boy types giving me shit about you. I didn’t stay very long, though. It was too hot and crowded in there for me to do my wallflowering.

  A little later, I was just standing on the sidewalk when this Icelandic girl started talking to me. She was drunk and friendly, but not really my type, so I was glad when the rest of her group came and collected her. I was a little flattered that someone had noticed me.

  I was terrifically bored after only an hour and a half. Sleepy, too. I started fantasizing about my bed, but then I thought—no, fuck no, Miles, you are not going back to that bed alone tonight! So, I went farther down the street.

  One of the things that kind of helped me, oddly enough, was thinking about you. You’d like this, this late-night sunlit Reykjavik. It’s the sort of thing you’d gush about in your blog, every moment captured in sexy, sparkling photographs. You’re the kind of girl who’d fit in just fine on a rúntur. I could almost see you, gliding along those brick streets, your silver glittery dress turning all the Icelandic boys’ heads. They’d never notice me, the guy with the camera, always three steps behind. They’d laugh at your jokes, but never hear me feeding you all my best punch lines.

  So, take you out of the equation. And the camera. Just Miles, the rúntur, and some alcohol.

  Experiences. Genuine human interaction. Memories over megapixels. That’s what I was shooting for, anyway.

  Easier said than done.

  I saw a couple gay bars, but I didn’t go in. I went in some shitty all-ages dan
ce club full of spray-tanned blond girls . . . and ended up letting myself get shuffled to the fringes again.

  “Haaaalló, American boy.” Then, suddenly, Óskar was there in his Ramones getup, flanked by Björk, who’d borrowed his leather jacket. She was much taller than him in her high-heeled fuck-me shoes. Both of them were gorgeous in the blue bar light, fashionably sparkling with that hazy sheen of sweat they’d earned on the dance floor.

  “Hello, Icelandic dude.” I was really happy to see him. Just to finally have someone familiar to talk to.

  He squinted and leaned close, raising his voice so I could hear him over all that bass. “We’ve seen you three times already, but we weren’t drunk enough to speak with you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. Am I so lame that no sober Icelander would dare speak to me in public? I decided to ignore it. I just grinned and said hi to Björk, and she grinned back.

  Just then, a dark-haired man in an expensive suit arrived with three drinks triangled between his hands. He was ridiculously handsome . . . sort of Christian Bale–ish, maybe? Even before he pressed one of the cups into Óskar’s hand and said (in an adorable British accent), “Sorry, love. There was quite a queue at the bar,” I could tell he was Óskar’s moneybags boyfriend. He handed the second cup to Björk, then took a sip of his own.

  “This is Yak,” Óskar said, nodding toward him.

  “Yak?” I asked. “As in the woodland creature?” I raised my hands up by my forehead, fanning my fingers into antlers.

  “As in Jack,” the British guy said.

  Ah, Jack of the Twenty-Seven Phone Calls. I already didn’t like him.

  “Even though ‘Oh-skargh’ insists on having his own name pronounced correctly,” Jack continued, “he can’t be bothered to return the favor.”

  “Oh?” I raised my eyebrow and turned to Óskar. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you say my name before. How do you say Miles?”

  Then Óskar looked me right in the eye and said, so completely deadpan that I almost missed the joke entirely, “Kilometers.”

  I paused for a beat, then the gears finally turned and I laughed out loud. For the first time ever, I think, Óskar genuinely smiled at me. I understand why he keeps that thing tucked away. Óskar’s smile is just awful. All gums. Horsey.

  But I’m glad he smiled at me.

  Right after that, Björk squealed over the song that started playing, and she dragged me away to dance. And you know I normally get bored or self-conscious after about thirty seconds of dancing, but Björk had on these tight, shiny pants, and the way she moved in them, close and tipsy and warm, made me forget about everything else for a while. Maybe my problem with dancing is that I overthink it. With the right partner, and the right amount of alcohol, it can actually be a pretty simple thing.

  While I was trying to have fun dancing with Björk, though, I caught myself sort of visually checking on Óskar and Jack. Maybe it’s just because Óskar told me he wanted to break up with Jack, but those two seemed pretty unhappy. Sometimes I’d look over and see them arguing, and then a few minutes later, they’d be making out in some dark corner booth. Honestly, I just kind of felt sorry for them—that sort of relationship seems exhausting.

  The more I saw of the Jack and Óskar show, the less appealing the thought of having a relationship seemed to me. And I don’t mean with Óskar. I mean with anybody. It’s too much trouble, too much risk, to give yourself to someone completely.

  Even if I can be a pretty good boyfriend. I mean, I was, wasn’t I?

  But, anyway. Last night, I thought, Fuck all that ooey-gooey relationship shit. I just need to be an animal for a while.

  I danced with Björk some more, and quickly moved along to making out. I put my hands in her hair, my tongue in her mouth. I held her against me and occasionally kissed her against the wall. These were different kisses than I’ve had before. Stranger kisses. Shallow, I guess.

  It scared me a little, the way I let myself get lost.

  And then Óskar was there, leaning on the wall beside us, doing that thing where you exaggeratedly clear your throat. “Sorry to interrupt. Yak’s in a mood, and he wants us to leave.”

  “Let him,” Björk said, staring into my eyes as she mussed up my hair. “You can stay out with us.”

  “Or,” Óskar said, directing a rare moment of eye contact my way, “perhaps we could all go home? Plenty of alcohol for all of us there.”

  I thought I could probably use some more liquid courage. And it’d be a good idea to be close to a bed or a bathroom because I was starting to figure my night would end with me laid out in one or the other, so I said, “Yeah, BOOZE. Let’s do that.”

  Outside it was still daylight, all four of us squinting and groaning as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. Jack lit a cigarette and led the way back to the apartment. It was a really short walk. I hadn’t realized how close they lived to downtown.

  So, a lot of the night was Óskar and Björk coercing me to “dreeenk mohr.” Ugh. But, drink I did, tossing back everything they handed me until I was stoopid, incoherent drunk.

  “You’re keeping up better than I expected,” Óskar said. “You can almost dreeenk like an Icelander.”

  “He’s Russian,” Björk said. “I think they invented wodka.”

  “That was the Polish,” Jack corrected.

  Óskar poured another round of shots, and we all said, “Skál,” which is basically Icelandic for “cheers.”

  “I have definitely, definitely, definitely never been this sloshed before,” I said.

  “Sloshed,” Óskar repeated, trying out the word. “I like that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  And then he smiled again, and even though Björk was all nestled up with me and Óskar’s stupid sexypants rich boyfriend was stretched out on the couch, I couldn’t stop myself from telling him he should smile more often.

  That’s not even something I would normally say. I hate when people tell others to smile. Damn wodka.

  “I should get to bed,” Óskar said, rising to his feet. He dragged his boyfriend off the couch, and the two of them hobbled off down the hall draped in each other’s arms.

  That left me and Björk. She either didn’t notice my slip-up with Óskar or didn’t care. We made out some more and then she said, “Do you want to go to the bedroom?”

  I started to get a little nervous, despite my dangerously high blood alcohol content. And, as you know, when I get nervous, I have to piss. So, I excused myself and fumbled my way into the bathroom. I, um, may or may not have peed sitting down because I was too damn wobbly to do it otherwise without making a mess. After I zipped my pants, I ended up leaning there against the bathroom wall. I knew exactly what was waiting outside that bathroom door. And it paralyzed me.

  “Are you okay, Miles?” She pronounced my name like “My-else.” Not “Kilometers.”

  “Uh-huh.” I reached for the toilet and found out just how damn handy that giant flush button must be for this nation of perpetual binge drinkers.

  “Are you getting sick?”

  “No. No.” I leaned, pressing my forehead against the door. That animal part of me retreated into the white-tiled cage of her bathroom. I was myself again, not at all sure I was cut out for this. “I’m nervous. I haven’t been with anyone in an embarrassingly long time.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “No. Nope. No, it’s not.”

  “I’m coming in.”

  I leaned away from the door and ended up having to catch my balance by taking a seat on the edge of the tub.

  Björk entered the bathroom in just her bra and underwear.

  I just stared at her like a slack-jawed caveman. I’ve never been with someone that conventionally beautiful before.

  “You still want to fuck?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She pushed her hair back behind her ears, knelt between my legs, and proceeded to give me the shortest blowjob of my life. Her life, too, I’m sure.
<
br />   I cannot believe I’m saying this to you, V. I came in, like, two seconds. My dick betrayed me! It was just like, Warm? Wet? DONE!

  “Shit. I am so sorry. Shit.”

  She leaned past me and spat into the bathtub while I tried to calculate how soon I could get to the airport and leave this godforsaken hellpit of shame and never look back.

  To make matters worse, I could feel her shoulders shaking as she laughed silently.

  “Jesus. I’m going to go now. Time to curl up and die.” But I couldn’t quite find my balance.

  “No. Stay.” She got up on her knees and pushed my hair out of my face. “I’m sorry I laughed. But it is a little funny, right? A little bit?”

  I closed my eyes and bit my lip, but a small cough of a laugh still got out. “Yeah.”

  And then she said—in language that, frankly, I feel pretty uncomfortable repeating to you—that since we’d gotten that part out of the way, if I could get going for her again, I’d surely have the stamina to do all the stuff that she wanted me to do to her. And then she grabbed me by the hair and asked me if I was still interested in doing that stuff to her . . . and I was like, “Uh, yes, ma’am?”

  She led me into her bedroom and then we were making out and taking off my clothes and all that, but she stumbled a bit, and I started thinking about the c-word. Ha, not that c-word. The other one that my moms are always drilling into my head: consent. We’d both had way too much to drink for this to be cool, but it felt good, and I didn’t want to stop kissing her. And I felt guilty that I’d gotten off and she hadn’t.

  So, I kept fooling around with her, but I kept asking her if she was sure a lot.

  Until finally she was like, “Are YOU sure?”

  “No.” My underwear was still hooked around my left ankle, and I pulled it up and on before I could change my mind. I started babbling, trying to explain myself, but I was really, really drunk. And I could feel the anxiety starting to claw at me the way it has been lately. So I just apologized and shut my stupid mouth.