And she sings it to me.
Which makes no sense whatsoever. But still, she watches me as she sings, and I can see the years of pain and guilt in her gaze.
She still blames herself. I always knew she did, and hoped time would cure her of that, but I can see, without having even spoken to her, that she still carries the weight. There’s darkness in this girl, now. I almost don’t want to get involved. She’ll hurt me. I know this. I can see it, feel it coming. She’s got so much pain, so many cracks and shards and jags in her soul, and I’m going to get cut by her if I’m not careful.
I can’t fix her. I know this too. I’m not going to try. I’ve had too many goody-goody girls hook up with me, thinking they can fix me.
I also know I’m not going to stay away. I’m going to grab onto her and let myself get cut. I’m good at pain. I’m good at bleeding, emotionally and physically.
I let her sing. I don’t join in, I just give her the moment, let her own it. The crowd whistles and claps and tosses dollars into her open guitar case.
Now she waits, watches. My turn. I know I have to choose my song carefully. We’re establishing a dialogue, here. We’re having a conversation in music, a discussion in guitar chords and sung notes and song titles. I strum nonsense and hum, thinking. Then it comes to me:
“Can’t Break Her Fall” by Matt Kearney. It speaks to me, and it’s unique, a song people will remember. And I know she’ll hear me, hear what I’m not saying when I sing it. The half-sung, half-rapped. The verses tell such a strong, vivid story, and suddenly I can see her and I in the lyrics.
She listens carefully. Her gray-green gaze hardens, and her teeth snag her lip and bite down hard. Oh yeah. She heard me. I catch the tremble in her hand when she sets her guitar in the case, zips it closed and tries not to stumble as she runs from me. Her braid trails behind her, bouncing between her shoulder blades, and her calves flash pale white in the New York sunlight. I let her go, finish the song, two more chords, then I click the guitar case closed and jog after her. Across the street, Yellow Cabs honking impatiently, city noise, and then down to a subway. She swipes a card and struggles with the turnstile, guitar held awkwardly by the handle. She swipes the card again, but the turnstile won’t budge and she’s cursing under her breath. People are lining up behind us, but she’s oblivious to them, to me mere inches away. She tosses her head, stops struggling, takes a deep breath. At that moment, I reach past her, swipe my own card and gently push her through the gate. She complies as if in a daze, lets me take her guitar from her and slip the straps over my shoulder, holding my own hard-case by the handle. The palm of my free hand cups her lower back, prompts her onto the waiting subway car. She doesn’t look me, doesn’t question that it’s me. She just knows. She’s breathing deeply still, gathering herself. I let her breathe, let the silence stretch. She won’t turn in place to look at me, but she leans back, just slightly, her back brushing my front. She doesn’t put her weight against me, merely allows a hint of contact.
She steps off after a few stops, and I follow. She catches another line, and we continue in silence. She hasn’t met my eyes since she ran from the Central Park bench. I’ve stayed behind her, just following. I follow her to an apartment building in Tribeca, follow her up the echoing stairwell, trying not to stare at her ass swaying as she ascends the stairs. It’s hard not to, though. It’s such a fine ass, round and taut and swinging teasingly under the thin cotton of her sundress.
She unlocks door number three-fourteen, shoves it open with her toe and goes straight to the kitchen, not watching to see if I follow her in uninvited, which I do. I close the door behind me, set her guitar case on the floor beneath a light switch, just inside the doorway, next to a small square table stacked with sheet music and guitar books and packets of nylon strings. My case goes on the floor next me in the entryway to the open kitchen. I watch her jerk open a cabinet next to the refrigerator, pull out a bottle of Jack, twist the cap off and toss it to the counter. Her fist shakes and she tilts the bottle up to her lips and sucks three times, long hard drags straight from the bottle. Damn. She sets the bottle down violently and stands with her head hanging between her arms braced on the counter, one foot stretched out behind her, the other bent close to the counter in a runner’s stretch. She shudders in a breath, straightens, wipes her lips with the back of her hand. I cross the space between us, and I don’t miss the way she tenses as I draw near. She stops breathing as my arm dives over her shoulder and my hand grabs the bottle, brings it to my lips and I match her three long pulls. It burns, a familiar pain.
She turns in place, finally, retreating to the counter edge, staring up at me, eyes wide and searching. She looks like an anime character, suddenly, so wide-eyed and full of depthless emotion. I want to kiss her so badly, but I don’t. I don’t even touch her, even though I’m mere inches from her. I hold the bottle, my other hand propped against the counter beside her elbow.
“Why are you here?” she asks. Her voice is a harsh whisper, whiskey-burned.
I let a lopsided smile tilt my lips. “Here in your apartment? Or here in New York?”
“In my apartment. In New York. In my life. Here. Why are you here?”
“I live in New York. I have since I was seventeen. I’m here in your apartment because I followed you from Central Park.”
“But why?”
“Because we weren’t done talking.”
She scrunches up her nose in confusion, a gesture so absurdly adorable my breath stutters in my chest. “Talking? Neither of us said a word.”
“Still a conversation.” I tilt the bottle to my lips and take another pull, feeling it hit my stomach.
“About what?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” She takes the bottle from me, drinks from it, caps it and puts it away. “About…that night on the dock.”
I shrug, tip my head side to side. “Sort of, but not really.”
“Then what do you think we were talking about?”
“Us.”
She pushes past me, tilts her head to the side and peels her hair free from the braid, kicking off her flip flops. “There is no us. There never was and never will be.”
I don’t answer that, because she’s right. But so wrong. There will be an us. She just hasn’t seen it yet. She’ll resist it, because it’s wrong on so many levels. I’m her dead boyfriend’s older brother. And she knows nothing about me. I’m bad for her. She’s underage, and I shouldn’t encourage her drinking. She’s obviously using old man Jack to cope, and I understand that all too well. But she’s still only twenty, which is just too young to be drinking like that, straight from the bottle like a jaded alcoholic.