Page 14

Well into my pack of smokes, I sit in a lounge chair outside, bodies of those who passed out last night all around me. While they sleep off their hangovers, I smoke, wondering what the point of all this is, high on cocaine, drunk on vodka.
And I have questions. Many.
Why do I do this to myself? That’s the obvious one, isn’t it?
Beleaguered with fear I don’t understand, sleep gnaws at me, and I want it, but I don’t get it. The wind picks up, just a breeze over the Pasadena hills, rustling through the palm trees and gradually ebbing away through the crags to silence.
Instinctively, like I can’t bear not to look, I check my phone. No calls from Amberly since she hung up on me. I want to call her back, ask why she called, but I don’t. I have no reason for not doing so either. Maybe because if I don’t, if I distance myself from her, I’ll be stronger?
Have you ever seen that movie with Will Smith where he’s a superhero? An alcoholic one at best and is constantly fucking up? I think it’s calledHancock. Anyway, he meets another superhero like him, but she’s good and pure. Until they’re near one another. Together they’re weak.
Maybe that’s why I distance myself? Maybe I’ll be stronger and less likely to destroy her life completely. But then again, I’m not a superhero and I haven’t slept in three or four days, so who even knows if I make sense at this point. I probably don’t.
Sighing, I blow smoke out my nose, shaking my head and drop my phone between my legs and stare up at the sky. Warm Santa Ana winds pick up, swirling plastic cups off nearby tables and into the pool. They float and collect near the filter and some dude sleeping on a flamingo. I wonder, briefly, if he falls off, if he’ll drown.
Scarlet comes outside. She hands me a black cup of coffee. “Sober up.”
I take it, though I don’t know if I want to be sober. For anything.
Cupping her hands around a red and white Honda coffee mug, Scarlet snickers. “Did you really burn your ass?” she finally asks, curiosity getting the better of her.
I nod, but don’t answer with words.
By my lack of words, she knows this is me not wanting to talk, so she sits in silence beside me, drinking her own coffee.
Just before dawn, the sky fills with blended tones of rosy pinks and purples. The sun breaches the horizon, and the sky explodes with colors, and everything around me bleeds purple like a saturated sunrise.
Scarlet’s staring at me and sighs. “You have freckles on your nose.”
“So?”
“I never noticed them. My grandma used to tell me that freckles are like seasoning for your face. They make you spicy.”
I don’t say anything.
She settles into her chair, drawing her legs up to her chest and then staring at the sky. “My granny used to tell me the most beautiful thing about a sunrise is that it doesn’t define the sunset.”
Drawing in a heavy breath, I look over at her, finally. “Nyctophobia.”
Curls tangle around her face as she frowns. “What is that?”
“Finding comfort in darkness.”
Settling her mug between her legs, she lies back and looks at the sky. “Do you ever look at the stars and think there’s more to life than this?”
“Like life after death?”
She nods. “Yeah, like that.”
“No.”
“You don’t?”
I want her to stop talking. “Nope. Go away.”
She doesn’t. “What do you think happens then?”
“Go away, Northwest.”