Absinthe

by Winter Renshaw

  It’s dark now, the end of another shit-tastic day in my shit-tastic life. I’d sleep here if I knew I could get away with it. The thought of going back to Uncle Vic’s and being under the same roof as that fucking bitch makes me want to gouge my eyes out with rusty pliers. But if I don’t come home, Tab will freak out and say to Vic, “I told you this was a bad idea!” and then I’ll be on the streets.

  A group of teenage boys in baggy t-shirts pass me on skateboards. They’re way too young to be out this late, and they smirk when they see me, circling, swarming.

  “Hey,” one of them says to me, slowing down. “You lost?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Suck my dick.” He spits at me, missing.

  “I would if you had one.” I glare.

  His friends laugh. They skate away.

  That’s what I thought.

  Continuing, I make my way to the park, tucking myself in a plastic tunnel like I used to when I was little and my parents were screaming at each other over missing drugs.

  I feel safe in the tunnel. Cut off from the outside world. As a young girl, it was my armor.

  I stay as long as I can, but Vic and Tab will freak if I’m not home before ten, and it’s already half past nine.

  Sucking up my pride and refusing to let this be the end, I tell myself tomorrow’s another day. I’ll work harder, flirt more, pick up extra shifts. I’ll make that money back and then some. I’ll get my fucking car. And then I’ll get the hell out of here.

  “Todd wants to see you before you start your shift.” Courtney doesn’t smile when she sees me the next morning. Her mouth is pulled into a frown and her eyes carry pity.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She shrugs, pretending not to know.

  She knows.

  My heart races, and I can’t help but feel I’m marching to my death as I head back to the door with the crooked “manager” plaque.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I stand in his doorway wearing a hopeful smile.

  “Hey there. Why don’t you have a seat?” His lips press into a straight line. He won’t make eye contact. “Shut the door too, will you?”

  “Am I being fired?” I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.

  “It’s been brought to my attention that you’ll be attending Rosefield High this fall.” His voice is flat, and today he’s wearing a plain blue polo and khakis, a departure from his usual jeans-and-quirky-t-shirt uniform.

  “Yeah? So? I’ll be nineteen in early December.”

  “We have a strict no high school students policy,” he says. “It’s straight from corporate. It’s nothing personal. Frankly, I wish we could make an exception for you.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me that when you hired me?” My words are terse, my skin hot.

  Todd places his hands in the air. “I know, Halston. It’s my fault. I just … you look so much older than you are. I figured you were at least twenty, twenty-one. You checked the box saying you were over eighteen. To be honest, I don’t look at the paperwork or any of that. That all goes to HR at corporate.”

  “So, there’s nothing you can do? I’m one of your best servers, and I’ve only been here a few weeks.”

  “I know you are. You’re a great addition to the team and the customers really like you. You were our most-requested last weekend,” he says. “But a policy is a policy. I’m sorry.”

  I turn to leave, eyes stinging. The smell of the greasy kitchen wafts down the hall, making me nauseous.

  “Oh, HR wanted me to have you sign this waiver really quick before you go,” he adds.

  “I’m not signing a damn thing.”

  Maybe I should accept half the blame. Maybe I should sign the damn form and walk out of here with my head held high, but I’m not in a good place.

  And right now, I’m in the mood to burn my life to the ground.

  It’s the only way I’m ever going to be able to rise from the ashes.

  Chapter 17

  Ford

  “I want to meet you.” Absinthe’s smooth cadence purrs into the earpiece of my phone.

  I’m in the office early today, trying to get things in order before Bree shows up. She told her father about our mentorship agreement and he insisted that we get started right away so she has time to decide on a major before filling out her application to Northwestern.

  “I know you do.”

  “So?”

  “It’s not going to happen.” I exhale, rifling through some leftover paperwork the previous principal had tucked away in the bottom of a seldom-used drawer. “Not that I don’t think about it every fucking minute of every fucking hour of every fucking day.”

  She sighs. “You have no idea what it does to me when you say shit like that.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. Enlighten me.”

  “I don’t even know what you look like, Kerouac, and I know with one-hundred percent certainty that I would fuck the shit out of you if you asked me to. If you named the time and the place, I’d be there with fucking bells on. Tied to my nipples.”

  I laugh at the image.

  “Seriously though,” she continues. “You’re such a mind fuck, and it drives me wild.”

  “Mission accomplished.”

  “I got fired from my job yesterday.” She changes the subject.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Heh.” She releases a breath into the phone. “If only I shared your sentiments.”

  “You hated your job.”

  “I needed my job,” she says.

  “Find another. There are hundreds of restaurants in this town.”

  “Yeah, but this one was a cash cow. I’ll have to work twice as hard for half as much anywhere else.”

  “Then maybe you’re in the wrong profession. Did you go to college, Absinthe?” I assume the answer is yes. She speaks with intelligence and grace, and she’s the most well-read woman I’ve ever had the privilege of chatting with.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s surprising.” I come across another stack of papers. “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “It’s never too late,” I say. “What’s your dream job?”

  “I just want to marry some rich guy, have a couple of his babies, and spend my days catching up on Real Housewives between spin class and Botox touch ups.”

  I cock my head, my mouth pulled up at one side as I formulate a response.

  “I’m fucking with you, Kerouac,” she says.

  “Good. I was about to lose all respect for you.”

  “I don’t know what I want to do with my life.”

  I begin to offer her words of comfort when Abbott’s daughter stands at my door, dressed in a skirt much shorter than what’s appropriate and a white blouse that’s damn near transparent.

  “I have to go.” I hang up on Absinthe, shoving my phone in my pocket. “Bree. Come in.”

  Bree tucks a strand of hair behind one ear before placing her purse on the edge of my desk. Taking a seat, she crosses her legs, letting her panties flash—not that I’m looking, but they’re hard to miss out of my periphery when they’re neon fucking pink.

  “So excited.” She claps her hands together, and I imagine she’s the girl who tries too hard to fit in. She’s the girl who doesn’t get invited to parties, doesn’t get asked to prom, but latches onto the “cool” crowd because she refuses to believe for a second that those people don’t want to be friends with her. Girls like Bree don’t take social cues like everyone else does. They see what they want to see, believe what they want to believe.

  She’s completely unfit to be an administrator in this field.

  Leaning forward, she tilts her non-existent cleavage in my direction. “What are we working on today?”

  “Just going through some old paperwork Principal Waters left behind,” I say, avoiding eye contact with any part of her body.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “These are confidential.” I shove them
aside, working on another pile. “Thought you just wanted to shadow me?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you’ll need to sit back and watch. That’s what shadowing is.”

  “Oh?” She sits up, frowning. “I thought I’d be helping you with stuff?”

  “That would be an internship.”

  “Where does the mentoring come in then?” she asks.

  “After you’ve completed your masters’ degree.” And hopefully I’m long gone by then.

  “Oh.” Her shoulders slump, but I feel her watching me. “I like your watch.”

  “Thank you. It was my grandfather’s.”

  “My necklace belonged to my grandmother.” She tugs on the little pearl pendant around her neck, only the clasp snaps and the dainty chain falls between her breasts. “Ha. Whoops.”

  She giggles, digging around, nearly exposing her tits in the process.

  “Excuse me for a moment, Bree.” I show myself out, needing physical distance from her so she gets the hint.

  I’m disinterested.

  Wandering the halls for a few minutes, I pass a maintenance worker and a teacher using the computer lab. When I get back to the main office, I stop outside the door and get a drink of water. Whatever kills time.

  Bernie, the custodian I met at the staff meeting a while back, passes by, pushing an empty trash can, and I ask him to step inside the office with me and wait outside my door while I deal with a student. One of the things that’s been instilled in me since the beginning of my career is that it never hurts to enlist a witness when you’re approaching a formidable situation.

  Bree Abbott is, without question, a formidable situation.

  Returning to my office, I stop in my tracks when I find her perched on the edge of my desk, legs crossed and her little skirt pulled to her upper thigh.

  I called it.

  “Principal Hawthorne.” She hops down. “I was wondering if you were coming back.”

  “Does your father know you left the house like this today?” I force a breath through my nostrils, arms crossed.

  Bree rolls her eyes. “Negative. He had a seven AM tee time.”

  “One of the things we need to go over if you wish to continue shadowing me, Ms. Abbott, is professional dress,” I say. “As well as a professional code of conduct. Sexuality has no place in the school.”

  “So, I take it you like my outfit?” She pretends to be shocked, placing her hand over her breasts before giggling. “About time you noticed.”

  “Absolutely not,” I say. “And it’s not like you gave me a choice.”

  “All those things I wore when I babysat your nephew,” she says, “those were for you. And you didn’t even act like you cared.”

  She pouts like a sullen child.

  “This is highly inappropriate,” I say, jaw flexing. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Bree exhales, sauntering toward the door. “Fine. I guess I’ll just tell my father you don’t want to work with me because you’re having difficulty maintaining professional boundaries in my presence.”

  Stepping outside my office, I motion for Bernie to come closer. Bree’s jaw falls when she sees him.

  “Just making sure you’re hearing this entire conversation,” I say.

  “Haven’t missed a single word,” he says, arms folded as he gives her a hard stare.

  Her eyes turn glassy, and she glares at me, as if I’ve committed the ultimate act of betrayal, and without saying another word, she pushes past me and disappears out the door.

  “Thanks.” I place my hand on his shoulder. His thick gray hair and hunched posture suggest he’s pushing closer to retirement with each school year.

  “Wasn’t the first time. Won’t be the last,” he says, showing himself out. Before he leaves, he stops and turns to me. “That one’s trouble. I’d keep your distance.”

  “Thanks for the head’s up, Bernie.” I close my door. Returning to my desk, I hold my head in my hands and breathe out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Chapter 18

  Halston

  “What are you reading?” Kerouac asks. It’s a rainy Tuesday night in August, three weeks until school starts.

  “Rebecca.” Lightning flashes outside my window. “For the fourth time. Started it again a couple weeks ago, then I got busy. It’s crazy how much time you have when you’re not working though. I might read it a fifth time just for the hell of it.”

  “A classic. Read to me.”

  “Why? So you can jerk off this time?” I chuckle.

  “No,” he says. “I did that a half hour before you called.”

  “Were you thinking about me?”

  “You and only you,” he says in such a way that I wholeheartedly believe him.

  I smile, cracking the spine of Rebecca. “I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.”

  “Have you ever loved anyone, Absinthe?” he asks.

  “Not in any remarkable kind of way.” The roll of thunder in the distance rattles the windows.

  “Has anyone ever loved you?”

  “Not in any remarkable kind of way,” I echo, chuckling once. “Plenty of guys have claimed to have loved me. I’ve yet to say it back to anyone. I don’t want to say it until I know for sure that I mean it. What about you? Have you loved anyone?”

  “Not so much that I couldn’t live without them,” he says. “So, in a way, no. Because if you truly love someone, you can’t stand to be without them. I’ve never felt that about anyone.”

  “Mr. Complicated.”

  “Always.” He sighs. “Love is overrated anyway. But sex? Sex is … everything.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” I play it cool, neglecting to inform him that on the nights when my body refuses to rest, I lie in bed thinking of the two of us. And when I think of us, I think of the prospect of love—something I’ve yet to think about with anyone else.

  And maybe it doesn’t make sense. But it means something. I just don’t know what.

  “As much as I’m at odds with the idea of love, I can’t help but find myself in love with the idea of you,” I blurt.

  It comes out of nowhere. I didn’t rehearse it, didn’t give it a second thought before allowing it to leave my lips. It felt like the right time to bare my soul, a decision I may come to regret in the immediate future because my words are met with dead silence.

  “Absinthe,” he says an endless moment later, speaking the way a teacher would scold a student for talking out of turn. “You’re idealizing me.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” I ask.

  “You shouldn’t idealize anyone. That’s how people get hurt. Hearts get broken.”

  Pretty sure my heart is titanium or elastic or whatever Sia sings about.

  “You’re giving yourself too much credit, Kerouac,” I say, trying to cover the quick bruising of my ego. Rain beads gentle on my window. Outside the storm is passing, but inside it’s only getting started. “You’re just a voice on the other end of a phone. A faceless man with a dirty mind and a love of books. I might be in love with the idea of you, but trust me, you could never break me.”

  Many have tried.

  None have succeeded.

  If he only knew what I’ve been through, he’d know it would take a lot more than an innocent crush on an Internet stranger to damage this heart. My entire life, nothing’s ever come easy. The kinds of simple luxuries afforded to everyone else seem to have skipped over me.

  Some people are born with silver spoons. I was born with a rusted paring knife.

  And still, it didn’t break me.

  “Maybe we’ve crossed a line.” He exhales.

  I sit up.

  His single sentence takes this entire conversation in a completely different direction.

  “No,” I say. The room begins to tilt.

  “This was supposed to be phone sex and meaningless conversations,” he said. “I think we took it
too far.”

  “Why are you saying this?” My chest burns, swells. A moment ago we were talking about Rebecca. I want to go back. I want to go back to that so I can take back what I said.

  “Because I feel the same way about you—I’m falling in love with the idea of you, of you I’ve dreamed you up to be.”

  I exhale, sinking into my pillows, relief washing over me. He feels the same way. We can work with this.

  “So what now?” I ask, drawing in a cleansing breath. My mouth curls into a gentle smile. “I’m in love with the idea of you. You’re in love with the idea of me. Sounds like the premise for an amazing F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, don’t you think? Now we just need a good twist and a couple of complications.”

  “This is the end, Absinthe.” He says the last words I expected to hear, going in a completely different direction than the one I anticipated.

  My eyes blur, fat tears dripping down my cheeks, leaving cold, itchy tracks. I’m at a complete loss for words for the first time with him. In fact, I can’t even breathe right now.

  “Absinthe,” he says after a bout of silence.

  “Seriously? Just like that … you don’t want to talk to me because you’re feeling something?” I manage to fire back at him. “This is bullshit.”

  “I told you I was complicated.”

  “You’re not complicated,” I say, teeth gritted. “You’re a coward.”

  “I’d only hurt you.” Kerouac exhales. “I hurt everyone. That’s just how it is.”

  “So, we can’t even talk on the phone? You just … you just want to cut ties? Walk away like this never happened?”

  “No.” His voice is louder. He’s never taken this tone with me. This man, this Kerouac, I don’t know him. “That’s not what I want. But if we keep talking, one of these days I know I’m going to give in. I’m going to meet you somewhere. I’m going to fuck the hell out of you. I might even convince myself that I’m in love with you after a while. And then I’m going to break you. And I don’t want to do that to you. You mean too much to me.”

  “You’re so full of shit.” I release an incredulous laugh. “And you don’t know that’s how it would go.”