Page 34 of Love is Strange
“Do you want to know why I come here night after night?” I ask him after I’ve taken a deep breath to compose myself. Silas shrugs but looks at me with a renewed interest. “I come here to get away from the bullshit that is my life. This is the only place that’s loud enough for me to get lost in everyone else’s thoughts rather than having to combat my own. I’m not here looking foranythingother than a good, stiff drink and maybe someone to talk to until it’s closing time.”
Vanessa places a beer in front of each of us, but neither of us pay her much mind. Silas is trying to understand that maybe, just maybe, there’s a girl in this bar that doesn’t want to ride his dick.
I roll my eyes at him, grab my purse, and throw money at her. He comes to and retrieves my fifty-dollar bill, sliding it back to me, and replacing it with one of his own. He waves her off and she shakes her head as she walks away and leaves us staring at each other again.
“What happened to you, Hair Metal? Why the tough girl act?” he asks quietly as he twists the cap off of his bottle.
“It’s none of your business,” I snap at him, reaching for my beer. I begin picking at the cap, not wanting to open it just yet, and Silas lets out a sigh.
“Alright. Fine. But can you please just come with me to the bathroom? I want to explain.”
He holds out his hand low enough where his friends won’t see it, but just high enough that I can. I sigh and against my better judgement, take his hand and let him lead me toward the restrooms.
“Get out,” he says evenly as soon as we enter the men’s room. There’re about four guys in here pissing at the urinal, but they all scramble for the door the moment he tells them to.
“Okay,” he says, setting his beer bottle on the edge of the sink and running a hand back through his hair. “I have a feeling you’re not a gal that’s too big on rules, but we are—me and my guys, I mean.” I raise an eyebrow as I fidget with the cap on the bottle and he smiles, reaches for it and pops it off for me, then hands it back. “So with us, if you bring a girl around and she doesn’t belong to anyone, she’s free game. I know it sounds shitty,” he says once he sees the look of outrage cloud my face, “but it’s just how we do shit. That’s why I treated you the way I did, because if they got any inkling that I knew you, then they would start interrogating me and once I told them the truth, there would be a big ass target on you.”
I stare at Silas for a moment. What he just said to me is cruel and a little hard to swallow, but I’ve had a target on my back ever since I was a little girl, so the only thing this would do is trigger old memories if they attempted it.
“I’m gonna go,” I say softly. “And I’m really angry at you over that fucking pill.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I really am. I gave it to you because I was pissed that you blew me off and I hadn’t even tried it on anyone yet. It’s my fuck up and I’ll own up to it if you can forgive me,” he says, reaching for his beer and taking a swig. I watch him carefully as he sets it back down onto the edge of the sink, then takes a step toward me, grabs my bottle, and sets it next to his.
“Are we okay?” he asks, crossing his arms loosely over his chest.
“Considering you almost killed me, I wouldn’t exactly say all is forgiven,” I quip, reaching for my bottle, but Silas is faster. He takes my hands in his and gives me a firm tug toward him, almost knocking me off my feet and laughing when I have to do a clumsy little dance just to stay upright.
“Hey,” he says softly, leaning his head down toward me. When I look up, I’m suddenly so close to his face that I can see him for the first time again and it sends a shiver through my body. “That bad?” he teases with a grin.
My face feels hot—I’m blushing, and I hate it. I hatehim,and I hate everything about being in this place, but I can’t pull away. Not just yet.
Silas presses his forehead gently against mine and places a soft kiss on the tip of my nose.
“I imagine this is what sugar and cyanide tastes like,” he says, with a low chuckle. “But there’s only one way to really find out.”
He lifts my chin up toward him and doesn’t hesitate to press his lips against mine. It’s a gentle kiss at first—sweet and full of the melancholy sadness that fills me each and every day that I’m alive, but then it turns into something different. Something hungrier—something more deliberate and before I know it, he’s got my back pressed against one of the stalls, his body pushed against mine.
I don’t pull away from him. My body wants to feel his touch, my heart is racing for the taste of his lips, but my mind is telling me that this is the last thing I need right now.
“Wait,” I say, pushing him away gently as I try to steady my breathing. “Not so fast. After all, I’m still trying to recover from my near-death experience.”
“I’ll give you a near death experience,” he says in a thick voice, a grin playing across his lips.
“Silas. Please?” I ask.
He lets out a heavy sigh but moves away from me and goes back to the sink to grab his bottle. “When you get that stick out of your ass, you know where to find me.”
As I watch him walk out of the bathroom so nonchalantly, anger takes over me. I grab my bottle and throw it at the door as hard as I can, just missing him as it swings closed, leaving me alone again.
Chapter Six
I’m standingin the doorway to my apartment watching the rain fall onto the small stoop. It’s an unusually warm day for October in Brattleboro which allows me to enjoy the weather barefoot and carefree, especially since my neighbors are gone for the weekend. They don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them, which is probably best, because I’ve only run into them once or twice and those few times ended with an awkward size-up, a mutual fumbling for door keys, and a damn near simultaneous slamming of front doors when we managed to tumble into our respective spaces.
On the other side of the wall is a young married couple, their two-year old son, another one on the way, and a pet bulldog that’s as quiet as a dog can be.
She doesn’t know that the real reason he comes home late from work most nights is because he’s picked up some barely legal hooker for a quick bang in the back of his SUV. It’s okay though, because he doesn’t know that when she puts their son down for his mid-day nap every Tuesday and Thursday, the gardener with the sun-kissed tan skin, taught belly, and bedroom eyes goes into the house to fuck her against the washing machine.
The only reason I know those cheap little secrets is because one time, they got into such a heated argument over his late nights and her not answering his afternoon calls that they started to accuse each other of cheating, until the other broke down and confessed. But they worked through it I assume, because that was the one and only time I’ve ever heard them raise their voices in anger toward each other.
