by June Gray
And even though it hurt like hell, even though the tears rushed out of my eyes as if chasing after him, I let West walk past the door and out of my life. Loving him had been the first time in my life I’d felt truly alive, but all of that was over now. It was time for me to get my head out of the clouds and go back to the way things were, back before I even knew what it felt like to fall in love.
West was returning to his old identity. It was time I went back to mine.
22
WEST
“So what now?”
I turned to Decker and shrugged as we made our way back into the Hotel Captain Cook. I had no plans, no direction, nothing.
“Back to civilization,” he said. “Back to reality.”
But the thing was, this was my reality now. That old life I left behind, that was a place I’d rather not revisit but ultimately had to. There was no choice; I had to be Luke again.
Decker stopped in the middle of the grand foyer. “What the hell happened to you, man?” he asked with a deep frown.
I wanted to say that she happened to me, but that wasn’t the Luke he was expecting. “Nothing. Just forget it.”
Decker shook his head. “Never thought I’d see the day you got played by a girl.”
“I didn’t get played, okay?” I asked with more anger than was necessary. “I just don’t like the way things ended.”
“Forget her. There are many other pussies in the sea.”
I walked away in disgust. Once upon a time I’d talked and acted like Decker—hell, I might have even influenced him—and the thought made me sick.
“Where you going?”
“I need some air,” I said, pushing against the glass door and getting a face full of cold.
Decker followed me out. He grabbed my elbow and steered me towards the parking garage across the street. “Come with me, I know just the place to cheer you up.”
“And where might that be?” I asked though I had a hunch.
“To a magical place called the GABC,” he said, tracing an invisible marquee with his hand.
“The hell is that?”
“Come on,” he said, leading the way. “You’ll love it.”
The “GABC” as the locals liked to call it, was actually The Great Alaskan Bush Company, a Western-style log building that housed Anchorage’s fanciest strip club.
I understood why Decker brought me here—we’d spent many hours and many dollars ogling naked female bodies in the past—but that didn’t stop me from feeling like a complete heel.
The doubt must have showed on my face because Decker thumped me hard on the back and asked, “Don’t tell me you’re not in the mood for some T-and-A?”
“I’m just trying to remember if I have ones in my wallet,” I lied and followed him inside. I probably shouldn’t have gone in—I don’t know why I didn’t just walk away—but a part of me wanted to keep up the façade of the old Luke if only to keep Decker off my back.
The room was large but dark and seedy like any other strip club. Decker was about to take a seat at the circular stage but I motioned for us to sit in a booth a little further away.
“You don’t want a first row seat?” he asked.
“We can’t get a lap dance up there,” was my reply. I disliked myself in that moment; I was still pretending to be someone I no longer was. But I didn’t want to argue or discuss what had changed with me. All I wanted was some time to drink everything away.
We ordered beer from a leggy redhead who wore little more than a bikini and sat back, watching the action onstage. Decker’s attention was no longer on me, which came as a relief. With unseeing eyes fixed on the stage, I thought about Kat, my mind retracing our steps from the very beginning when I’d awoken on a cold floor with a blanket over me and a woman’s socked feet in my line of sight. She didn’t know it but even in that disoriented moment, when I saw her sleeping form on the couch, I’d felt immediately at ease. I might have even been slightly impressed with myself for finally picking a girl who was different from the rest. I thought that maybe I was finally evolving.
Yet here I was again, back to the kind of place I’d visited often back home, back at the site of my arrested development. I wondered if maybe my old habits would return with my memory. Maybe I was only different around—or more accurately, because of—Kat. Maybe I would always be a reprobate and maybe it was time I started to accept that.
When a dancer came up to us, Decker didn’t hesitate to buy me a lap dance. “To remind you of what you’ve missed out on the past two weeks,” he said with a smile, winking at me from between the woman’s outstretched legs.
A part of me wanted this, wanted to reach out and touch the mocha skin that was shimmering from glitter—hell, a part of me reacted like a normal hot-blooded male—but my brain wouldn’t stop comparing this woman’s body to Kat’s, wouldn’t stop reminding me how she had felt under the palm of my hand, all hard and soft at the same time. And being inside her… there were no words that could do that feeling justice.
The stripper reached around to undo her lacy black bra, but I couldn’t bear to watch. I could no longer keep pretending that I wanted to see what she had to show. “Stop, please.”
She shot me a confused look but shrugged. After she left, Decker shook his head at me, staring as if looking at me long enough would yield all my secrets.
I drank my beer, trying to ignore him and every sparkling, gyrating, artificial thing in this club.
“You really love her, man?” he asked.
“Just drop it, okay?”
But Decker wouldn’t let it go. Despite his asshole tendencies, he had always been a good friend. “If you love her then why the fuck are you leaving?”
I glared into the nearly empty beer bottle in my hand. “She told me to go,” I said, dropping the farce for a moment. “I didn’t exactly come here with the noblest intentions.”
“You want me to talk to her?”
I snorted. “You’re probably the last person she wants to hear from. She hated everyone from high school.”
“Why? She shut us out.”
“She said people made up rumors about her and made her life a living hell,” I said.
“Not all of us were like that,” Decker grumbled. “I left her alone.”
I picked at the label on the bottle and peeled it off in one piece. “After that picture of her surfaced, the one with the ripped dress, she tried to kill herself. Did you know that?”
Decker swiped a palm over his eyes. “So that’s why she disappeared. I heard rumors that she’d tried to off herself; I didn’t know it actually happened,” he said and looked up at me. “I didn’t take part in any of that.”
“Yeah but you didn’t exactly step in and defend her, did you?”
“What could I have done? She would have just told me to mind my own business. She always acted like she didn’t need anybody’s help.”
I didn’t want to preach to him about the damage that standing aside and doing nothing could do because it was all in the past now. The damage had been done. That angry, depressed girl had grown into an even angrier woman. And whether I liked it or not, I was now included in that crowd of tormentors.
I stood up, unable to stand this place—hell, this entire state—one second longer. “Let’s go. I still have to pack.”
Decker and I flew out of Anchorage that afternoon without issues or delay. Even the line through security was short, as if Alaska itself couldn’t wait to give me the boot. I looked for Kat at the airport but, deep down, I knew she wouldn’t show. She was too proud and much too hurt.
I only wished we could have ended it on a better note, if it had to end at all.
23
KAT
For the next few days I was a shut in, eating myself down to the last egg and last crusty slice of bread. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Josie ran out of dog food, I would have happily subsisted on the strange canned goods in my pantry, those exotic foods that I’d been intrigued enough
to buy but never had the recipe to use.
So that Saturday I bundled myself into my coat and boots, fixed my face and hair a little, and braved the town with my head held high.
Laurie was back at the general store and greeted me with a sympathetic smile on her middle-aged face. “I heard about what happened,” she said as I grabbed a hand basket and headed straight for my usual products. She hobbled along with her cast and followed me down the narrow aisle. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
I grabbed a loaf of bread and threw it in the basket. “Hey, where are the eggs?”
The ploy didn’t work in distracting her. She simply just led me over and said, “It’s a pity I never met him.”
“It’s a pity I did,” I mumbled under my breath. “Yeah, he was an asshole,” I said a little louder.
Laurie frowned. “Uncle Jim told me he was a good worker. He said West was very friendly with all the customers.”
“He was friendly with a lot of people, if you know what I mean,” I said under my breath and grabbed some milk out of the refrigerator.
“What was that?”
I just shook my head and brought my groceries up to the cash register. “What do I owe you?” I asked, reaching into my coat for my wallet. “I’d also like to pay what I owe on my tab,” I said, trying very hard not to think about the person who’d used it to begin with.
Laurie pulled out a blue binder from under the counter and flipped through until she found my page. “Hmm.”
“What is it?”
“Says here it’s been paid and that you have a five hundred dollar credit.”
“What?”
She scratched her head. “Um, I’ve never seen this happen before. Hold on.” She picked up the phone and dialed Jim’s number, I assumed. I chewed on the situation a moment while she talked on the phone. A few minutes later, she hung up and confirmed my suspicions. “Jim said West came in the day before he left Alaska and worked his full shift. Then he paid off your tab and put down five hundred dollars in cash for store credit. He said the money was in—aha!” From the side of the binder, she found an envelope containing cash. “Looks like you’re good to go for a while.”
I fumed. I was sure steam was coming out of my ears as I stood there with my fists at my sides. I know that’s not the usual reaction of a person who’d just found out someone had done them a kindness, but I couldn’t help it. The wound was still too raw. “No thanks. I think I’ll pay cash.”
“Sure?” she asked, putting away the envelope.
Then I was struck with an idea. “Can you put half of it in Franny’s account and the other half in Drew’s?”
“Okay.” Laurie grabbed the pen and scribbled out my credit then flipped through pages and updated Franny’s and Drew’s pages. “You know, my Mom always told me that it’s not polite to refuse a gift,” she said as she bagged my groceries. I hefted the sack of dog food under one arm and carried the bags of groceries in the other.
“Good thing I’m not Miss Manners then,” I said and left.
That night I looked around the house and decided that it was time to clean up. I’d spent enough time wallowing and being a slob; it was time to straighten up my house and, in turn, my life. Maybe a good old-fashioned purging was exactly what I needed to start anew.
I started to vacuum but got distracted by the clutter on the dining table. I grabbed the stack of mail, trashing a bunch of credit card offers and bundles of coupons and setting aside the few pieces of paper that were actually of use. Then my eyes landed on a large envelope underneath all the mess. I’d ignored it since the day it was handed to me. I had not even spent one brain cell considering applying again to a fashion school, had stopped hoping for it since that day in the courtroom when a guilty sentence was handed to my dad and I’d decided to forgo college in order to be near him.
Until West came along.
I cursed his real name under my breath as I picked up the envelope and dumped its contents out onto the table. Out spilled pages and pages of information about the school as well as instructions on how to apply; a mountain of information on a subject I’d only dared dream about before.
I picked up a piece of paper with the curriculum, but even as I tried to remain impassive, I couldn’t contain the jolt of excitement that rippled over my skin. The truth was I wanted this, had wanted it since before high school. The idea had taken root over a decade ago, and now it was growing again, climbing, making me believe that it was possible for a small town girl, long past freshman age, to go back to school.
As I shuffled through the pages, I found a page with a quote by Alan Alda, written in Luke’s blocky, neat handwriting:
“You have to leave the city of your comfort
and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
What you’ll discover will be wonderful.
What you’ll discover will be yourself.”
My first instinct was to crumple that piece of paper and disregard those words but, if I was being truly honest with myself, I knew that I was no longer the same defiant woman as before. Finding West on that snowy road had reshaped me into someone a little softer, true, but also someone braver. I’d suffered humiliation and heartbreak and was somehow still standing. Surely I could handle leaving the safety of my little home and start anew.
I knew I wouldn’t always discover wonderful things, but I hoped at least, I would truly discover myself.
___________
LOOK OUT FOR THE SEQUEL HEADING EAST,
DUE OUT AT THE END OF THE YEAR.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my husband and daughters: thank you for putting up with my moods during the writing process.
Thank you to the rest of my family for their never-ending support and love.
To my beta readers: Beth, Lara, Kerry, Shannon, Gillian, and Liza. Thank you for your enthusiasm and patience.
Big ups to my editor, Mary, at Clean Leaf Editing: you are a rockstar. Thank you for inspiring me to improve with each new story.
And for the readers: Storytelling is my passion, reading is yours. Thank you for once again meeting with me in that magical place where fiction supersedes reality.
Visit June Gray’s Blog for more information on upcoming projects, news, and short stories.