Crossroads

by Lori L. Otto

“She just didn’t know how to end it with you. She wanted to tell you when you were here.”

  “How kind of her,” I say sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry, man.”

  “You know what, Landry? We’re over. Yeah. You can have her.” I take a step back toward the house. “Because I only had a little of her.” I narrow my eyes at him and hold my thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Just a little.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, getting upset.

  “Ask her.”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “Ask your girlfriend, Landry! Ask where she was all night last night!”

  “You didn’t…” He moves closer to me.

  “She was still my girlfriend,” I remind him, taking a step closer to him.

  “You liar!” he yells.

  “Just a little,” I say again, goading him, holding my fingers up again. “Actually, it was about that much,” I correct the size using my hands to measure about eight inches.

  Landry slaps my left hand away, and I rear back and punch him in the mouth with my right, busting his lip. He’s stunned for a second, then tries to take a swipe at me, but I see it coming and block his fist with my arm. I hit him once more, this time in the nose. He puts his hands up in surrender.

  I wipe his blood on the sleeve of his button-down shirt, pushing him away in the process. “Get off the lawn, Landry. Get out of my fucking face.”

  When I’m back inside the house, I can’t even move. Leaning against the front door, I slide down it until I’m seated on the floor with my elbows on my knees. I’m such a fool. All the signs were there yesterday. I ignored them all.

  And now, I think about how eager she was last night, how she seemed so rehearsed at all of it, how nothing about her actions said first time, or virgin, with the exception of when we had actual intercourse. She was so comfortable with herself, lying there on that blanket. Through all the foreplay, it was like she was leading the way.

  She was. Because she’d done it all before. She’d done it all with him.

  I rush to the bathroom to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I start sweating, and the perspiration burns my eyes, causing them to tear up; at least that’s what I tell myself.

  I trusted her. I allowed myself to trust her, and I knew better. What woman have I ever known to be trustworthy and good?

  “Will?” my aunt calls from outside the bathroom door. She may be the only one. “Will, are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “No,” I tell her, short. “I’m fine.”

  “You didn’t put the pot roast in the oven.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I explain. I couldn’t keep anything down if I tried. “I’m sorry, Aunt Patty. I should have put it in for you, but I… I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll make myself a sandwich. Are you sure you don’t want something before we go?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Are you packed? It doesn’t look like it.”

  “I’ll do it in a second.” I can tell she’s still waiting by the door. “I’ll be out in a minute. It won’t take me long.”

  When I hear her walk away, I get up and wipe my face with a wet cloth. She knocks on the door, and this time I open it for her, uncaring what I look like.

  “Here’s your phone. Laila’s calling.”

  I take it from her quickly and shut the door, pressing the button to answer it. I clear the lump from my throat, which is apparently all it takes to set Laila off into a stream of apologies, none of which I want to hear. I don’t even put my ear next to the receiver, but I can hear her animated gushing.

  “You. Ruined. Us.” I speak over her evenly, but loudly. “Never. Call. Me. Again.” I hang up on her and turn the phone off, not wanting to know if she attempts to call back.

  I throw my phone in my backpack and walk into the living room to collect the two books I’d left there. When I get back to the bedroom, I throw everything I’d brought into one of the two bags, not caring what goes where, or in what state it’s in. I can’t wait to leave Utah, and I’m never coming back here.

  “You look awful, Will,” my aunt tells me from the doorway.

  “I feel pretty bad, too,” I comment. “Are we ready?”

  “Will you be okay to fly?”

  “Yeah.” She carries my duffel to the car and takes a place behind the driver’s seat, which is fine with me. I have no desire to drive.

  I sit quietly and stare out the passenger window as we make our way to the airport. “I spoke to your mother this morning,” she says. “She can’t pick you up from the airport this evening.”

  I huff to myself. “There’s a shocker,” I mumble.

  “If you need money for a cab–”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  After we exit from the interstate we weave through another small neighborhood on the way to the airport. At a four-way stop, I look inside a garage where a sale is going on and see an acoustic guitar on a stand.

  I glance up at the guy sitting near it, and he nods a friendly hello. My aunt starts to pull out into the intersection.

  “Can you pull over for a second?”

  “Are you sick?” she asks, turning the corner abruptly and stopping the car at the curb.

  “I’ll be right back.” I get out and feel my back pocket, making sure I have my wallet. The man stands up, greeting me halfway across his lawn.

  “You saw the guitar, huh?” he says.

  “Yeah… is it any good?” I ask him.

  “I learned to play on it a few years back. The intonation’s perfect. Come have a look.” He picks up the instrument carefully and hands it to me. I inspect it closely, remembering the things I’m supposed to look for in a used guitar. The first thing I notice is the brand. Martin. Yeah, that’s a good one.

  “It has decent action,” I say.

  “You’ll see ones with slightly better… but I earned a lot of callouses on these strings. The good thing about learning on something like this is that anything you play after it will be a breeze. This will really teach your muscles how to commit to the chords.”

  “I’ve read that before,” I say, holding the guitar at arms-length. “The neck looks good. Perfectly straight.”

  “I took very good care of it. No scratches. No cracks. No breaks. No repairs.”

  “No rust,” I say, looking at the tuning keys, strings and the bridge. By the looks of it, it is a nice instrument.

  “Play something.”

  If only I knew how to play.

  I hold the guitar up and pluck a few of the strings, pressing down on a few frets until I hear the makings of a chord, and then I strum. The sound is full and rich. “It’s beautiful.” I move my fingers again until I hear another chord and strum again. “Wow.” I can’t stop smiling. I keep finding notes and chords I recognize, and eventually start piecing together “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. It’s one of those songs that I can block everything out but the guitar, and it’s surprisingly easy to recreate. I remember how the verses crescendo, how Dave Grohl creates perfectly staccato rhythms with the sounds, and I do my best to emulate him. I never knew creating music could be so completely satisfying.

  “Wow,” I say again.

  “You’re really good,” the guy says. “How long have you been playing?”

  I keep going until I realize he’s just complimented me on my guitar playing skills. The ones I never really knew I had.

  “About a minute and a half?” I say.

  “Get outta here.”

  “I’ve been drowning myself in music all summer; listening to it and reading all about the science behind it. And I’ve been wanting to learn to play the guitar. I watched some videos online.”

  “You’re telling me you’ve never picked up a guitar before?”

  “Yeah,” I tell him.

  “Shit, kid, you’re, uh… you’re lucky is what you are.”

&
nbsp; “Sounds are very visual to me. It’s just easy to see how to play the notes.”

  He looks at me strangely.

  “How much is the guitar?” Just then, I notice the price tag hanging from one of the tuning keys. Instantly, my enthusiasm is crushed. “Six-hundred, huh?”

  “When I bought it, it was a couple grand.”

  “I know it’s a good one,” I concede. “But I can’t afford it.” I start to hand it back to him.

  “How much do you have?”

  “One-sixty-three and change,” I tell him.

  The guy shakes his head and takes the guitar from me, walking across the garage and setting it in a case. “I’ll take one-fifty, and you mention me on your first album.”

  “Seriously?” I ask him. He brings the black case over to me.

  “There’s a strap and some picks inside, too. My name’s Mark Nyland. I actually wrote it in the case, too. Say something nice about me.”

  “Oh, my god, I don’t know if I’ll ever have an album, but I will say nothing but nice things about you until the day I die,” I promise him, handing him the cash.

  “I expect an album. At least play some studio tracks for a band or something. Don’t waste that talent.”

  “Thank you, sir. You’ve just made me forget that I was having the worst fucking day of my life an hour ago.”

  “Music will do that,” he says, nodding at something beyond me. “I think your mom’s about to lose it.”

  “That’s my aunt. We’re on the way to the airport. I live in New York.”

  “In the perfect city for music, too. Well, what’s your name, kid?”

  “Will Rosser.”

  “Will Rosser,” he repeats. “I’ll be looking for your tracks.”

  “Thanks,” I say, still smiling. “Thank you so much.”

  “It’s In the Way That You Use It”

  My aunt was kind enough to pay to have my duffel checked so I could carry my guitar on the flight, something I hadn’t even considered when I impulsively bought the instrument that is suddenly more precious to me than my own life. She was strangely aloof, though, when she dropped me off. I don’t know if she didn't approve of the purchase, or if she really was pissed about the pot roast, but something didn’t feel right when she said goodbye.

  Regardless, it feels pretty good to walk around the airport holding my new guitar with my backpack strewn across my back. I can’t wait to get home and to play. An inexplicable sense of calm came over me as I strummed those chords, and I want to have that feeling again.

  Instead, I’m left to wait in a crowded terminal with the memories of what happened last night and this morning still fresh in my mind. Every time I start to remember how Laila’s touch electrified my senses when I felt her, I see visions of her touching Landry instead, and rage overcomes me. Should I still feel honored that I was her first? That she chose me over him? Should I find any comfort knowing that she’d probably still be with me had I not had to move back to New York? Maybe, but I can’t, because who’s to say she wouldn’t lie or cheat at some other point in life. If she could do it now, she’s fully capable of doing it later in life.

  But I never saw it coming.

  And it was the same thing with Ellen, the first girl I’d asked out in Utah. She was quick to find someone else behind my back, and had started seeing him before she had the decency to break things off with me. Are there no good women in the world at all? Are they all just cheaters, looking for the next best thing? Or the closest available thing?

  I decide to get out my iPod and listen to some music, keeping the guitar case tucked behind my feet where I can feel it at all times. I pull my hood over my headphones, closing myself off from the crowds around me, not wanting to be bothered.

  I fast-forward through songs where guitars don’t have a prominent role, trying to build a repertoire of music to try to learn when I get back home. As I listen, I glance up, my eyes unfocused on my surroundings as my brain dissects the songs. I tap out the rhythm of riffs on my leg, anxious to learn on which fret and with what string they’ll be played. A few times, I catch myself smiling as I pick apart the chords. This is clearly mentally stimulating for me, but instead of it being a challenge, it settles me. It normalizes me. It takes away all the negative feelings I had.

  I catch a slight movement across from me and blink to focus my eyes. A girl about my age waves at me; apparently, I was staring at her without realizing it. I smile back at her shyly and look toward the ground quickly. Maybe I need to be a little more aware of my surroundings.

  I return to the music, but end up repeating the same thing with another girl who’s sitting against a wall on the other side of the terminal, only this time, I wasn’t looking directly at her. That I know. But she was waving to get my attention. I nod politely and glance away, this time turning around to see if there’s possibly someone behind me that’s worthy of their attention.

  There is no one else.

  I decide to stand, grab the guitar, and get a soda from a gift shop just before the flight is about to board. Now with eight dollars left in my wallet, I know I can’t get a cab to take me home. Subway it is. Maybe I can be one of those guys who plays on the train and gets tips. I laugh to myself as I hear them announce for my group to board.

  My seat being at the back of the plane, I’m one of the first on the flight, which is good. I didn’t want to be banging the guitar around a crowded cabin, and then have to fight for a slot in the overhead bin for my precious new possession. Once I get to my seat, though, I take my time finding a good place for it, and try to wedge it into place using my backpack and another passenger’s carry-on. I grab a book to entertain me on the flight.

  Before I sit down, I catch the eye of a beautiful girl. I hesitate to call her a girl. She looks to be a few years older than I am, and carries herself like someone much older than that. She tosses her light brown hair over her shoulder and smiles at me. This time, I’m certain there’s no one behind me, so I go ahead and smile back at her and push my headphones off my ears.

  “Hey,” I say quietly, feeling a strange surge of confidence. I’m not sure why three girls in one hour have taken notice of me, but I don’t mind.

  “Hi,” she says back, putting a medium-sized purse in the overhead compartment before taking her seat on the aisle.

  I sit down next to the window and set my iPod and drink on the tray table. Do I look different? Is it because I’m no longer a virgin? That’s stupid. Right? I try to see myself in the scratched-up plastic window, but I can’t see anything but the glare from the sun and the men prepping the plane below. I flip over the iPod and check my reflection there. I don’t think I look any different. Thankfully, I look better than I did when we left Aunt Patty’s this morning after throwing up everything I’d had to eat. Had I still looked like that–my face pale except for my red nose, my eyes swollen–I don’t think any of these girls would have looked twice at me.

  My stomach drops, remembering Laila. I think again about what Jon had told me last year about why people risk broken hearts, because it doesn’t seem worth it now. “If the love was pure and good, that will be the thing you remember most.” That’s what he’d said. With me and Laila, I’d believed it was. But what if it wasn’t? What then? I wish Jon was here so I could ask him.

  If the love wasn’t pure, and the girl was twisted and evil, would I ever remember that love existed at all?

  Fucking love. It’s not real. I think of Jon and Livvy and wonder what fantasy world they’re living in. She’s betrayed him once. I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time, but now that I’ve felt the true assault of a similar betrayal, I would never have told Jon to take her back. There’s no way they can last. She’ll do something wrong again. It may not be this year, or next, or within the next ten, but I’d bet my life she’ll betray him worse at some point. All girls are the same. They don’t know what they want. They’re selfish and heartless. Ellen was the same way.

  And then there’s my mom.


  Same fucking way. She loved Jon’s dad, but sought out mine to get even with him… then she got pregnant with me, then Max, and then forgot how to love any of us.

  Love is fleeting, not a constant. It’s not something anyone should ever latch onto and think will last. Why would anyone commit their heart to another person? An inconstant being whose wants and desires could change on a dime? Not could, but can, and will.

  It’s bullshit.

  When I look back on what Laila and I were, will I remember anything good about her? The sex. I liked having sex with her. But I think I can separate that moment out, because it was an inimitable moment in my life that–honestly–was more of an isolated experience than one I experienced with her. Of course it was different than actually being by myself, but it could have been with any girl and felt just as amazing. It was innate and physical and completely natural… and human. It felt fucking phenomenal.

  The warmth of a woman’s body around mine.

  The sound of her cries as I made her feel good.

  The explosive release of boundless and relentless sexual energy.

  The feeling of being wanted in such a primal way.

  It felt like I was made for that moment.

  I can’t wait to do it again.

  I’m happy the tray table’s here.

  “Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.”

  I glance at the professional older woman next to me and pull my book into my lap as I push the tray table up and latch it into place. I hold my breath and start to watch other planes in line to take off, waiting for the hard-on to go away.

  “Sir, can you please put that down?” Startled, I glance first in my lap and then at the flight attendant.

  “Sorry, what?” I ask her, confused.

  “The arm rest? Can you put it down?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” I stutter, feeling the blush of my cheeks as I follow her instruction.

  “Is your iPod off?”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to calm down.

  “Have a nice flight.”

  “Thanks.” I close my eyes and take some deep breaths, wishing I had my music to distract me right now.

  Half-way into the flight home, as I’m listening to classical music and reading more of one of my theory books, the woman next to me elbows me in the side. I ignore her at first, thinking it was just an accident in the tight quarters, but when she does it again, I look over, then up in the aisle to see the pretty brunette standing there that had smiled at me when I first boarded.