We certainly were wasted. It was one of those rare times when the beginning of the night sparkled with fun and potential, and our thirst for drinks seemed bottomless.
The dead soldiers started multiplying. The empty glasses stacked up. More mysteriously arrived.
The wine went down like water. The music was bumping, my body moving. Everyone was deaf. What? What did you say? But it didn't matter. I wasn't there to blather. I was there to have a good time.
I was out with my lover, his hand on my knee, sending shivers of desire through my body. And then the booze took hold, filling the night with magic and laughter. Even the ex-girlfriend was so nice and fun.
There’s the odyssey to the club. I remember that guy we called the Pied Piper, leading the whole gaggle straight to some VIP section, filled with strangers, laughing and drinking even more. I have no idea how we got in. But we were in all right. Where did the Pied Piper go? Did he do it? Did he beat up Erin?
There was boozing and laughing and dancing. Then the room started spinning, making me feel queasy. My voice came out all slurred and funny. I had to concentrate to say something other than utter gobbledygook.
Disorientation set in. The room wobbled to the booming beat of the music. I remember wanting to go home and lie in Dan's safe arms until the world stopped spinning and my stomach stopped churning.
But he left, following Erin out of the club on unsteady legs. I got up to follow, I remember, but some horny wraith pulled me onto the dance floor. The wraith started bumping and grinding, pecking at my lips like a giant bird of prey. I pushed him away because—because I'm taken! I love someone. Someone who left to go somewhere with his ex . . .
I escaped the wraith and slumped down in the booth occupied by the friendly strangers. Did one of them beat up Erin? What about the wraith? Did he do it?
Who were the friendly strangers anyway? We all mind-melded at some point during the night’s festivities, riding the same wave of drink and euphoria. Probably something else too, I would have realized if I wasn't so trashed.
But I was trashed.
Dan was missing, and I realized that all those fun people weren’t fun anymore. They were on drugs, offering me some if I want to skip on over to the nearest toilet stall . . .
So I bailed, trudging down the sidewalk, shivering and hugging myself. My feet hurt. I needed help. I needed my boyfriend. Where in the hell did he go?
My night turned into a terrible nightmare at that point, not at all like the fun-filled night I had imagined. I tried to text Dan, but I couldn’t see straight. Then I found him somehow, I guess, because the next thing I can recall is ending up at a house party with Dan, sans Erin.
There are black holes in my memory. Too many to count. How did we get to that house? How did I get home? Where did Erin go? I have no idea, but I made it home all right, feeling grateful that the nightmare had finally ended.
Except now I realize that it didn’t end.
It only just began . . .
"Who did this to you?" I whisper, afraid to ask, afraid of the answer.
Her eyes turn hard and brittle with hate. And she speaks the name that, deep down, I feared all along.
"Dan."
6
DAN
Saying goodbye to Brynn was like a knife to the heart. The look in her eyes. The feel of her body against mine. I’m not exactly sure that I lied to her. I think about a polygraph test, strapped around my chest, monitoring my heart beat, and I think there’s a good possibility that I would fail.
But lying when I have her best interests at heart doesn’t exactly count, does it? I don’t know. All I know is that I feel wretched inside for what happened that night. What was I thinking?
What I wouldn’t give to rewind that one single night and make it go away. What would I do if I had it to do all over again? I’d tell Erin to leave, of course. And if she sat there with that God-awful smirk on her face, making my blood boil, I’d take Brynn by the hand and walk straight out of there.
But I didn’t do that. To my eternal regret, I didn’t listen to my knee-jerk instinct that told me to run. I came back from the bar and found them sitting together, glass of wine in hand, talking. Intently. Then they started to laugh. Brynn, at first, followed by Erin, who brought her hand (I used to call it her claw) down on Brynn’s forearm and squeezed. My hackles rose when I saw that. Then Brynn laughed again and sang that stupid party pooper song and smiled that beautiful smile of hers, and I thought to myself: Relax, man. What could possibly happen?
What did I drink that night? My legs turned to rubber at one point, I remember. I take pride in my ability to handle booze. But that night . . . what did they put in their gin bottles—jet fuel?
I haven’t been able to eat much since then. Knowing what happened. I carry around that truth with me like a molten piece of lava in my belly. It smolders, day in and day out, burrowing into the folds of my gut, burning small holes into my flesh.
Why did Erin call me? She’s such a nutcase. I wouldn’t be surprised if she called to chat, imagining that we’re best friends now despite everything that had happened between us.
I stood in the kitchen, looking down at my phone, knowing full well that Brynn was watching me. I could feel her gaze bore into me, even if she was staring at my reflection in the windowpane. When I saw Erin’s name on my phone display, I felt my blood pressure drop as if someone had pulled a plug out of my heel. Brynn knew that Erin had called me. Of course she knew.
I find that I’m reminding myself to eat now, to get some gut luggage down there, or else I’ll waste away and lose my strength. Then what will I do? How will I get though my missions? Don’t think about it, man. It was a white lie. You told Brynn the part of the truth that she needed to know, the part she asked about. Did you guys get together? That absolutely never happened.
Good thing she didn’t ask if something else happened, casting her net far and wide. Is that it then? I wonder. Is the truth on a need to know basis? I think so, yes. Yes, if I can swear it will never happen again. On that, I swear on my life.
But Brynn, she can’t know what happened that night. She can never, ever know . . .
Briggs, our squadron leader, sticks his blonde sunburnt head into my bunk compartment. "Your beauty sleep ain’t workin.’ You’re still ugly."
"I haven’t heard your mom complaining."
He smirks. "Be ready to move out in twenty, pecker checker."
And it’s my turn to smirk. "Yes, sir."
7
GIA
It’s noon on Saturday. Standing in the Newport Marina parking lot, I feel cold prickles sweep across my skin as the wind picks up. Early March isn’t known for warm perfect weather, but for the first time in recent memory, the skies are leaden, threatening bad weather. I walk down the entrance ramp to the docks where all the boats are tied up, where my day sail with my best friend Nikki and the guy she’s seeing, James, is set to occur.
They met at Nikki’s twenty-fifth birthday party, while we were standing at the bar, ordering drinks. He bumped into her, wearing a wide grin and carefully mussed hair.
She fought her attraction to him because he’s a Peter Pan Man, recently divorced, chasing his endless summer, not cut out for commitment or not any time soon anyway, at least that what his ex-wife would probably say.