I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing hard, and duck my head. I’ve got the T-shirt wadded in my fist, and I crush it with every ounce of strength I possess as she sidles toward me.
“Echo…” I move backward, but there’s nowhere to go except into the dresser. I’d be willing to climb in a drawer and close it over me, if only to get away from the burning knot of desire and guilt lodged in my chest. “Stop.”
She doesn’t, and I put a hand up, only…she walks right into it, and I feel the soft squish of her breast. I hurriedly drop my hand and slide sideways.
She’s just trying a different tactic, I know. Trying to forget.
It’s not about me.
Not about me.
I shake the T-shirt loose and find the neck hole, reach out and fit it over Echo’s head, which works to cover her from my gaze and pinion her hands at the same time.
“What’s the matter, Benji?” she says, a sultry pout on her face.
“You’re drunk, and I’m not doing that.”
“But I want to. Don’t you?” She’s still shifting closer to me even as she slides her arms through the sleeves.
“No you don’t, Echo. That’s not going to help you forget.”
“Yeah, it will.”
I shake my head and grab her wrist as she reaches for me. “No, Echo. It really won’t.”
Except…how would I know?
She jerks her wrist out of my grip, eyes blazing. “Fine. Fuck you, then.” She grabs the bottle of Jim off the dresser, unscrews the cap and puts it to her mouth, takes three long swallows, hissing as it burns down her throat. “Or don’t, whatever. You could’ve, but no. Too damned…chivalrous, aren’t you? Benji, my honorable knight in shining armor, is that it?”
She turns away and misses a step, catches herself with a hand on the bed, the bottle clutched in her other hand. I just watch from across the room, not daring to speak or move. Echo makes it to the side of the bed, sits down and scoots back, tucks her legs under the blankets and settles with her back to the wall. The bottle goes to her mouth and she tips it back and gulps a big mouthful, and then sets it down with a loud thud on the bedside table.
“Put on music, Benji. Something Mom would like. Country music.”
I fish my phone from my pocket and bring up Pandora, then dock the phone in the Bose alarm clock on my bedside table.
When the first song comes on, Echo lets out a sound that’s half-sob, half-laugh. “Are you for fucking real?”
It’s “Whiskey Lullaby” by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss.
“Should I change it?”
She shakes her head floppily. “Don’t you fucking dare. It’s perfect.” She pats the bed beside her. “Sit down, Benji. I won’t test your virtue again, I promise.”
If only she knew how deeply that cuts.
We listen to music for a long time. She doesn’t say a word, and neither do I.
“Henry Lee” by Crooked Still comes on, and Echo is horizontal now, scrunching a pillow under her head and a cheek under her hand, long eyelashes fluttering against her skin.
She’s snoring in moments.
I watch her sleep and can’t help wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
FIVE: Ease the Ache
Echo
Oh…oh Jesus. It feels like the sun is exploding inside my skull.
Throb…throb…throb…
I blink my eyes open, and thank god the blinds are closed.
Shit, I’m not at home. Where am I?
I sit up, look around. I don’t recognize the room. It’s a dude’s room, spartan and messy and male. A six-drawer bureau, piles of clothes on the floor, a white laundry basket with folded clothes. Boxer-briefs, jeans, gym shorts, T-shirts.
I look down, and…yep. I’m wearing a guy’s Mumford and Sons concert shirt. It smells of him, and that worries me a little, because it smells good, familiar and comforting somehow. There’s a bottle of Jim Beam on the nightstand to my left, empty but for maybe a shot’s-worth. Beside that is a Bose alarm clock/iPhone dock with a black iPhone connected to it.
I grab the bottle of Jim, uncap it, and finish it off, as in my experience hair of the dog is the best way to negate a hangover. That and lots of water and aspirin and greasy food. But first…my clothes.
And that’s when it all hits me: I see my dress on the floor. The black dress, the one I bought before leaving school.
The one I bought for the funeral. Mom’s funeral.
Mom.
Oh god, Mom.
It’s instantaneous. I go from zero to hyperventilating sobs in a split second. My chest is being torn open. My heart is in pieces.
It all comes back. The call from a police officer in San Antonio, informing me of my mother’s death. A car accident. She was dead before the paramedics even showed up.
The funeral. Father Mike…Grandma and Grandpa…
And him.
Ben.
Flashes of last night flicker in my head, but I push them away. I can’t deal with whatever I may have done to embarrass myself last night. Not now.
Mom.
She’s dead. She’s gone.
I feel the bed dip, and I smell him before I see him or feel him. He smells just like the T-shirt I’m wearing, deodorant, and something spicy and citrusy, like cologne maybe, and those other faint scent-elements that can’t be defined. And then his arms are around me, lifting me, cradling me.
He’s a perfect stranger. I remember only bits and pieces of what happened after the burial, and even less about him. But here he is, holding me as I sob for my mother. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t shush me, just feathers his fingers into my hair and presses my cheek to his chest and holds me.
I hear his heart beating, and it’s hammering as if he’s nervous.
“She’s gone.” My voice is hoarse, and the words are barely intelligible through the gasps and the sobs. “She’s—Mom…Mom is dead.”
“I’m so sorry, Echo. I’m so sorry.”
“I never—I never even got to say goodbye. The last time I talked to her we argued. We fucking argued. And now she’s gone and I can’t ever—I won’t ever be able to tell her—” I can’t even finish.
“She knew, Echo. I promise you, she knew.” His voice is low and smooth and soothing.
“You don’t know that.” My voice breaks, cracks.
God, what am I doing? Clinging to this guy, crying on him? What the fuck. I barely even remember what he looks like. I shift off him and he lets me sit up. I twist to look at him and I’m struck breathless.