by London Casey
“Right now,” she said. “My parents did all of this behind my back and it’s time to leave. We have right now together and that’s it. River…”
“Lacey,” I whispered. “Ah, fuck.” I put my lips to hers.
There were no words. I could steal her from her future and family. I could be greedy and hog her beauty and innocence all to myself. Fuck, that’s what I wanted to do.
“River!” a voice bellowed. “We ain’t paying you to tongue fuck someone!”
I broke the kiss and rested my head against Lacey’s. I took a few breaths. “We’ll meet up after work, okay? They’re having a little party here for Big Jakey. His old lady is knocked up. Just come here, okay? We’ll talk this out. We’ll figure this out.”
I backed away and Lacey grabbed for my shirt. Her knuckles were white and her hands were shaking.
“Don’t you lie to me,” she said. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that,” I said. “I can’t lie to you, Lacey. I’ll go with you. I’ll follow you. I swear on my life I will. I don’t want you to lose your dreams because of me. Ever. If you stay…”
“River!” the voice bellowed again.
It was my goddamn boss, Hinky. He was a fat, bald, yet strong asshole. He would kill someone without thinking twice. And he’d do the time, get a way out, and rebuild his life. You did not want to fuck with Hinky.
“I gotta go,” I said.
I backed up, not wanting to turn around.
I watched as Lacey stood there for a few seconds, eyes wide, filling with tears. She finally got back into her car and drove away.
I kept backing up until I crashed into something.
I spun around and Hinky had me by the arms. He started making kissing sounds at me, his fake white teeth shining.
Something snapped in me. I threw my head forward and smashed his face.
He stumbled back and grabbed for his mouth, blood visible.
“Fuck,” I said. “Hinky…”
Hinky spit on the ground and wiped his mouth. “You love that little piece of ass, huh?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
“Get back to fucking work.”
“I’m sorry, Hinky.”
“Fuck off.”
He walked away. I let out a sigh and tilted my head back. Somewhere inside me I envisioned when Lacey and I would be torn apart for good. I thought there’d be a warning, though. Some sign. Shit, even some time to prepare.
But not this.
She was being ripped right out of my arms and my heart.
I went back to work, needing to keep shit with Hinky calm. Last thing I needed was to be buried alive for pissing off my boss. Then again, maybe that’s where I was better off.
I was about to lose Lacey.
It was after eight and she was nowhere to be found. The sun burned against the horizon, another day come and gone. Music blasted from speakers hung in the corners of the garage, the back doors open so the music flooded out. Hinky had the guys hang lights from one building to another, giving us plenty of light to keep the party going. There were some picnic tables, card tables, and plenty of people. Everyone congratulated Big Jakey and his old lady on the coming baby. I just hung by the side of the building, waiting to see those headlights pull into the lot.
I only planned on having a couple drinks.
But once nine rolled around, I was checked out.
She was gone.
She was fucking gone.
Her shit packed up and gone. Loaded up on a moving truck and shipped across the damn country. There she’d go to a good college, get her medical degree, meet some fancy fucking doctor as a husband, and the rest would be history. At least she’d get everything she wanted in life though.
I eventually gave up the shots and went right for the bottle. The guys were partying and singing but I wasn’t in the fucking mood for that shit. I wandered over to another garage and opened it. I flicked on a small light and climbed up on the hood of a beater car we were using for parts. I looked around and realized this was what my life was going to be. A fucking mess. Second hand shit. I’d forever be dirty, greasy, struggling to rub some nickels together, hoping to make a dime.
Lacey deserved more than that. I was the fantasy. I was the one who popped her cherry, not just in the bedroom, either. I showed her the wild side. The dark side. I showed her the bad boy side. She’d tuck those memories away and forever smile at them. But she didn’t need that life for forever.
I raised the bottle and nodded.
“To you, darlin’,” I whispered. “To all your dreams and hopes.”
I drank and fell back, hitting the windshield of the car. I dropped the bottle and it shattered with an echo that died off into silence. I shut my eyes and wanted to slip away until tomorrow.
I opened my eyes to the sound of my name.
“River?”
I sat up and saw Lacey standing in the doorway.
“Lacey?”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Am I dreaming?”
“Are you drunk?”
I slid down the hood. “Yeah. I’m drunk.”
“River…”
“What’s the verdict here?” I asked. “I can’t take this feeling in my chest.”
That’s when Lacey started to cry. Without hesitation. She had been obviously holding that in all damn day. I threw my arm around her and hugged her tight.
“I love you, Lacey,” I said.
“River… I don’t want to go.”
“But you have to go. I know it.”
“I’ll stay,” she said. She looked up at me. “I’ll stay. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.”
I shook my head. “You know what you’ll get if you stay. It’ll be regret and heartache.”
“Don’t say that!” Lacey yelled. She pushed away from me. “Don’t ever say I’ll regret you!”
“I didn't say that, Lacey,” I said. “But come the fuck on. Look at this town. Look at me! What do you want me to do? Get my head smashed in trying to earn enough to pay your bills?”
The drunk words were slurring and coming out like daggers as they shot at Lacey. I wasn’t mad at her. I was mad at everything but her.
She swung at me, punching square in the jaw.
I deserved that.
I turned and slammed my fists onto the hood of the car.
I then did it over and over, feeling my knuckles hurting, cracking open, the thundering booms echoing.
Lacey dove at me and hugged me, trying to push me away.
“I fucking hate this,” I said, my voice crackling.
I had never cried in front of her. I didn’t plan on it then. If I did, it was the booze making it happen.
“I’m sorry,” Lacey said.
“For what?”
“For what I did here,” she said. “For being in your life. For my parents. For everything.”
I turned and was hugging her again.
We were alone in the garage, the only sound our raw emotion. I fucking wished her parents could see that, understand what we meant to each other.
“I’m so drunk,” I said. “I can’t face this pain sober.”
“I wish I was drunk, too,” she said. “We fly out in two hours.”
“What?” I asked.
It was like another punch to the gut.
“They don’t know I’m here,” Lacey said. “I stole the car. He shipped everything off already. Bags are packed, too. They think I’m in my room.”
“Do they hate me that much?”
“It doesn’t matter. This is it…”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “Like fuck it’s not.”
“You don’t want me to stay,” she said.
“Lacey, I want you to stay. But you can’t. You have a chance to become something. So, go become it. I’ll be here doing my thing. And we can meet up. We can fucking meet up. Yes. That’s how it will work. We meet up.”
�
�River… what are you talking about?”
“No, listen to me,” I said. I broke the hug and started to pace. “They’re going to fight us, no matter what we do, Lacey. So, go to college out there. Make them happy. Let me work here. I’ll earn, save, and live like shit. Then in… ten years…”
“Ten years?” Lacey asked.
“Fine, sooner, whatever. On this night. This date. Whatever. We meet up.”
“Why can’t we just be together in six months? A year?”
“It won’t work,” I said. “You have to go chase that dream down, Lacey. It’s what you want. Go become a doctor.”
“I can sneak out to visit you,” she said. “And you visit me. We can figure it out, River.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. I hurried back to her and took her hands. I squeezed them and pressed them to my chest. It was the booze making me think crazy and making me think that my plan was amazing.
“Time can’t tear us apart,” I said. “Neither can distance. You’ll always be my girl. My woman. My love. I swear to you.”
“So, you want to meet me right here?”
“No. The woods.”
“The woods?”
“Where I took you that one night. Remember? From the abandoned house. We walked to the path and went to that big ass rock.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“We put the sleeping bags down and watched the stars all night. We watched the sun rise. We laughed. We…”
Lacey grinned with tears in her eyes. “Yeah, we did everything that night into the morning.”
It was an insane idea, but it was all I had. It got Lacey to stop crying for the moment. Then, I held her and talked about every great memory I could possibly think of. I put her on the hood of the car and went and shut the garage door. I locked it. I took her right there, right on the hood of the car. I thrust inside her with a pain in my chest that I never thought would go away. (And it took years to even subside.)
When we finished, we were out of breath, sweating. Lacey touched my face as our lips kept kissing, counting down to what would become our last kiss.
“Ten years,” she whispered.
“Or sooner,” I said, my voice slurred. “But you have to be ready. No fucking up life for me, Lacey. I’m not worth it.”
Lacey playfully bit at my lip and her eyes filled with fresh tears.
We had to break apart. She had a flight to catch.
I walked her to her car and opened the door for her. The night was already starting to become a blur in my mind. My stomach was doing back flips like crazy. The swirl of a drunk tornado was starting to kick up, too.
I kissed Lacey one last time, a kiss I wouldn’t remember.
I stood there and watched her back away. That would become a faded memory.
The second she was out of sight, it all hit me.
What had I said to her? Meet her in a year? Five years? Ten years? Meet her at the big rock near the old house?
The entire lot started to spin faster and faster. I turned to my right and tried to run but fell over my own two feet. I hit the ground hard, just as my stomach let go. I threw up all over the lot, screaming as I did so. Nobody came to my aid, though, because their music was still blasting.
That was okay, though. I wanted to be alone.
I turned and leaned against a rail.
I was a fucking mess.
And that’s when I started to cry.
I was sure I’d never see Lacey again.
Lacey
ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO
The plane touched down and I was on my way to my new house. My new life. My new everything. I promised myself that nothing would change. My feelings for River would forever remain strong. In my head, I started the countdown. Maybe it would be ten years, maybe less. But no matter what, the second I was done with college and on my own I would go to our spot and find him. I would love him for the rest of my life, no matter what.
What I didn’t expect was the truth of time and how cruel of a bitch she could be.
Five years later, everything changed.
A guy was on his knee, proposing to me in front of my parents.
I said no.
And at that exact same time, across the country, River was on his way to jail.
Two hearts, ripped apart, forever lost.
I wouldn’t find him and he wouldn’t try to find me… so we would remain forever lost.
River
A FEW YEARS AGO
I sat on the beach with a bottle of whiskey. The bottle was half gone as the sun was half set. Pounding the entire bottle was not going to be a wise decision on my end, though. Last time I did that I woke up to a lifeguard blowing his whistle in my ear.
I left the bottle of whiskey next to me and watched the rest of the sunset. My thoughts were running fast and hard. I probably just looked like I was relaxing after a long day of work but it was anything but that. Yeah, it had been a busy day at my tattoo shop, but there was no relaxing.
Tomorrow was the day.
Shit, for all I knew, I was just a blip on the radar of memories in Lacey’s mind by then. Getting shipped off to New York, going to a new school, meeting new people, all that newness could easily overtake all the old stuff. Would that have been the worst thing in the world? Not a chance in hell. Maybe Lacey was meant to be nothing more than a wild fling for me. And I was meant to be the one who showed her the ropes a little.
I couldn’t accept that, though.
I refused to accept that.
I forced myself to stand and I watched as the beach swirled around me for a few seconds. Being drunk was one thing, but the breeze only added to it. The wind flirting with my inner ear, making me sway even more than the booze.
I thought about Belle, too. I’d been dating her for six months. She was a firecracker but good at heart. She gave me a key to her place and we had started to play the whole house thing for a little while. I’d wake up to coffee made. She’d offer to do my laundry. Date nights were implied. And date nights started becoming movie nights at her place. Popcorn, wine, beer, and we were lucky if we made it halfway through the movie before things got hot.
Two nights ago, she curled up in my arms on the couch. She hugged me and let out a sighing groan. She was comfortable. She was falling for me. I wanted to fall for her. But there was a switch in my heart that wouldn’t allow it to happen.
So, I broke up with her this morning. Before work.
I half expected her to show up to my tattoo shop and grab a tattoo gun and give me something custom on my back, but she stayed away. I broke her heart. But that would mend with time. If I stuck it with her and broke her life, that would make me a piece of shit.
I walked away from the beach, dumping the whiskey bottle into a trashcan, and back to my shop. I fumbled for my key and went through the back door. I sat down at my clutter-fucked desk and spread papers to the left and right, clearing a spot for me. I grabbed a piece of paper and grabbed a marker.
CLOSED FOR FAMILY ISSUE. SORRY. WILL BE OPEN AGAIN TOMORROW.
I grabbed a piece of tape and walked through the dark shop. I pressed the handwritten sign to the door and let out a long sigh.
I touched my right front pocket of my jeans.
The ring was there already.
I’d sleep off the whiskey, grab some coffee and something greasy for breakfast, and then I’d drive. Back to where it all began for me and Lacey.
Then I’d wait for her. All day.
And if and when she showed up, I’d drop to one knee and give her the damn ring in my pocket.
I should have done it the night she left.
And if she didn’t show… I’d just have to keep waiting.
River
PRESENT DAY
Pecker refilled my shot glass without asking. I reached into my back pocket, found a crumbled-up twenty, and put it on the counter. I nodded at him and he nodded back. He was the best bartender in town, knowing when to keep pouring and when to stop pouring. And there was a fin
e balance between the two.
I was having a few drinks with Axel and Tate. Although Axel had been working on some blonde at the other end of the bar and Tate sat like a stone, lost in thought. He seemed like he was worried about something, glancing at the door to Little Mikey’s each time it opened.
“You expecting someone?” I finally asked Tate, breaking up our silence.
“No,” he said. “You ever think about your own shop again?”
Changing the subject. Nice.
“Never,” I said.
“Why?”
“I like where I’m at,” I said. “You got a good thing at St. Skin. Don’t worry about me skipping on you.”
“I always worry about that,” Tate said. “I try to be fair in everything I do.”
“And to be fair, Tate, I’m sipping whiskey and letting the day roll off my back,” I said. “Why the hell are you worried about me opening my own shop?”
Tate grinned. “Fuck it.”
“But since we’re on the subject…”
“Of what?” Tate asked.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I need the day off.”
“Okay.”
“The whole day. I’m going out of town.”
“Out of town?”
“I have something to do.”
“You just found out about this now?” Tate asked.
I reached under the bar and touched my leg. I felt the ring in my pocket.
How did the hell another year fly right by?
“Tate, trust me,” I said. “I just need tomorrow off. I have a thing I do each year.”
“What thing?” Axel asked, joining the conversation.
“Just a thing,” I said. “A promise I made to myself. Something I do every year.”
“Tell me this involves a woman,” Axel said. “Is this why you got right off that beauty of yours?”
“Shit,” I said. “Yeah, sort of, Axel.” I looked at Tate. “What do you say?”
Tate laughed. “You guys come and go when you want. I don’t give a shit. I’m not going to dictate orders at you. You know how I run things. Each room in the shop needs to make money. That’s what I care about. Missing a day isn’t going to make anything collapse.”
