[2014] Ten Below Zero

by Whitney Barbetti

  I caught up to her a few yards from the arch. “Wait a second, Parker,” I called, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Turn around.”

  She turned around and I moved so I was standing behind her, my hand still on her shoulder. I inhaled the scent of limes that followed her. “That’s the Purgatoire River,” I said, motioning out to the view in front of us.

  “Picketwire. Purgatoire,” she said. I could tell she was working it out in her head.

  “Yes. Spanish explorers called it their translation of “The River of Lost Souls in Purgatory” after having a tough go of it. French trappers later called it the Purgatoire River. The pronunciation was bastardized when American Explorers came through, and so this canyon was called Picketwire.” I leaned down, bearing a little more weight on her shoulder and put my lips to her ear. “Everyone comes here to see the arch, but I think the arch is the fortunate one, to have this view, a view that was named for purgatory.” It was the truth.

  I always told people I didn’t remember this, didn’t remember the Picketwire Canyonlands, from the trip I took pre-surgery. And while it was true, it wasn’t completely true. I remembered the parts I’d studied in advance, the arch and the dinosaur prints. I had the vaguest memory of watching my family climb up to the arch while I stood in this spot and stared at the valley below, thinking about the possibility of death. Thinking about Purgatory. Heavy stuff for a teenager.

  I wanted Parker to see it, to understand.

  “But isn’t purgatory a place of suffering, a place you have to atone for your sins before being admitted to Heaven?” she asked.

  I wanted to connect with her. Maybe by touching me, she’d feel it. She’d get it. I needed to speak more deeply to her. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her back, into me. “How very Parker of you to think of purgatory so negatively.” I leaned in so close I could kiss her temple. “I prefer to think of it as a place to cleanse, to purify your soul before heaven.” I pressed a quick kiss there, unable to resist being so close and not tasting her skin. I closed my eyes and breathed in her lime scent. “And is there a better place to see while you’re waiting for your forever in the afterlife?”

  She seemed to relax in my arms so I held her for a moment, letting the warmth of her body soothe me.

  “Come,” I said, reaching in front of her and grabbing her hand. I pulled her up the hill as the last tourists started to depart. I reached a hand out to one of them and asked him to take our photo.

  I jumped up on the ledge below the arch and pulled her right up next to me. My heart was beating loudly in my chest and I summoned the words that I hoped would speak to her soul, that would help her understand the significance of this moment. “Look, Parker,” I said, point out in front of us. My voice sounded gruffer than usual. I swallowed. “Look at this view as this man takes this photo of us.” I turned to look at her, put an arm around her and pulled her close, so nothing, not even air, separated us.

  I put my lips to her ear. “Everyone who sees this photo will see us under the arch. But when you see this photo, you’ll see the canyon and the water and all the beauty in front of us.” Everything else around us dropped off. All I saw was her. She was in my arms, her short breaths becoming the only sound I was aware of, and her scent wrapping us in everything that was perfect about her. “Remember that, Parker. When you look at this photo, remember looking at purgatory with me. While everyone else was looking at the arch, we were looking at that.” I felt the ache then. I’d been trying to speak to her soul. Instead, I’d succeeded in speaking to mine.

  She turned her head tentatively, so she was looking at me. Her eyes were wide, vulnerable. Her lips trembled. My lips touched hers and my hands moved to hold the sides of her face, my grip tight. This kiss involved only our lips, but there was no doubt that my heart was tangled in that mess of flesh.

  Fuck.

  I pulled back and stared at her, wanting to see her reaction. She still looked vulnerable. But she had a secure lid on her emotions, so I swallowed uncomfortably. “Let’s catch up to the group,” I said, jumping down from the arch in a fall that was more graceful than the one my heart had just done.

  I wouldn’t ask her if she loved me again. Not unless I knew, wholeheartedly, the answer. Another “No” would be like a knife to my soul.

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  Continue reading to read the first chapter.

  Six Feet Under Excerpt

  Chapter One

  October 31, 2000

  I stumbled out of the bathroom into a room that spun in circles. It was like being on an amusement park ride, where you're stuck to the walls while your entire world spins around and around.

  Someone bumped into me from behind, sending me into an awkward pirouette, twirling until I met the wall, hands on cold brick, my eyesight blurring the faces around me into a lazy watercolor painting.

  I'd snorted something off the dirty bathroom counter, something I paid ten bucks for. Ten bucks. In hindsight, I had likely sniffed expired narcotics, cut with maybe a little cocaine. Probably some other garbage, too, since the dealer was new to me and surely suspected I wouldn't be a repeat customer anyway.

  Still, my nose burned and my eyes watered just like they normally did, as my fingers clutched cinderblocks, the tips of my nails tearing a little as I dug in, holding on for balance. My head held a hundred voices, all telling me something different.

  I’d only snorted the shit to silence the fucking voices, but now they were even louder. It’d backfired, and I was pissed.

  Find something stronger.

  Where am I?

  The scab from the last cut is nearly gone.

  How soon will this knock me flat?

  My skin is crawling with bugs.

  I can't feel my tongue.

  Chase this with some shots.

  I looked toward the bar, and mentally crossed out the last suggestion. Two of the bartenders who had booted me out previously were on shift. I couldn't see their faces, but I saw the neon pink mohawk on one and shiny shaved head belonging to the other as colors and faces blended together like a mixing of paints.

  Two unfamiliar hands closed in on my shoulders, and I swore I felt every fine line of their fingerprints pressing into my skin. “Hey,” a male voice said, as hot breath hit my neck. I shook away from him, knocking into multiple people in the process as I squinted, trying to make sense of which direction to go.

  I needed air. I laid my head on the concrete wall nearest me and turned my head to the exit. The familiar green fluorescent letters were fuzzy, but I moved to them as quickly as possible, feeling my heart boom in my chest, over and over, asking me to finally relieve it of everything I put it through.

  My fingers found the door and pushed hard enough to knock someone who was on the other side out of the way. I could barely see outside in the dark, the light post having been broken months before and the parking lot devoid of any headlights.

  This bar was my haunt, the place where I usually got my thrice-weekly drug refill. But with my dealer on some version of her maternity leave, she’d passed me off to another dealer.

  As I stared around the parking lot, I thought about how I'd get home. I didn't have a car, and I knew even if I did, there was no way I could drive home, not with my eyes twisting and turning and my limbs going numb. My lips formed the word “fuck,” but the word couldn't come, bogged down by a thick tongue and immovable lips.

  I was going to vomit.

  I turned toward the building and opened my eyes just as the vomit purged from my throat, onto brick.

  I don't know how long I leaned there, against the wall, pushing sweaty hair from my face as I opened my lips in a sound
less groan repeatedly, until my stomach was a raisin. I laughed, but it was maniacal. I'd had some shitty experiences with coke in my life, but whatever I'd snorted had not been coke. But I'd be lying—not necessarily unlike me—if I said vomiting against a grimy bar wall was unusual behavior.

  Spitting the last dregs of vomit, I backed away clumsily, my knee-high boots scuffing on concrete and broken glass before my back hit something warm, solid. My first thought was, “Shit,” as I lost balance and nearly fell into the upended contents of my stomach.

  “Steady,” a distinctly male voice said, rumbling and warm. I smelled leather and spice, comforting scents.

  I wanted to let go, I wanted to sink into the arms that cupped my own. Exhaustion sat on my eyelids like lead weights.

  “Hmm,” was the only sound I made. My hands came up and pushed away the hair that hung in my face, scrubbing down my skin. Only when I opened my eyes did I finally take a step away from the stranger who held me still.

  I stumbled to the side when I tried to turn to face him.

  “Whoa,” the voice said. Hands gripped my upper arms again.

  Instantly, my body went cold. I'd felt hands on me many times, and most of the time they were hands filled with vulgar intentions. I didn't let men touch me without an invitation. I ripped my arms free and opened my eyes, my face warming with anger. “Don't touch me!” I yelled.

  His eyes were shockingly bright green, surrounded by deep shadows. Tired but alive, the eyes said. They were narrowed as they scrutinized me. But his lips said nothing.

  I took in his dark hair, like he'd shaved his head for so long and was starting to grow it back in. I traced over the facial hair that climbed down the sides of his face to his jaw.

  He was a man whose face you didn't forget, I knew that much.

  Talk to him, the voice in my head encouraged.

  Still glaring at him, I reached into my pocket for my cigarettes, strangely unsettled by his presence and his singular concentration on me. As I pulled the cigarettes from my pocket, my hands—slicked by sweat—dropped the box right into my vomit.

  “Look what you made me do,” I said angrily, shooting him a look.

  He again said nothing, just stared at me. I wished I had a car. I didn't like how he looked at me as though his eyes were digging into my skin. I tried to step away from him but fumbled again. When he steadied me this time, I wrenched my arm from his grasp.

  Whatever I'd snorted had given me only a thirty-second high—whatever chems that were used to dilute that line of coke had been all bark but no bite. I felt the numbness in my arms, but my head was clearing, a light fog lifting. He stared at me still, as if he was waiting for something.

  “What is your problem?” I asked, taking in my surroundings and realizing how very alone I was then. Before he could answer, someone exited the bar. I flipped my head to stare at them, seeing the man I'd bought the garbage snort from. “Whatever you gave me was crap,” I yelled, pissed at having spent my taxi fare on garbage blow.

  “It was ten bucks,” he said, shrugging, as if it was my fault for thinking I could get something of quality for such a low price. He wasn't wrong. He eyed the man in front of me before turning and walking away.

  “Do you want a cigarette?” the man in front of me asked, ignoring my question completely. He reached long fingers into the front pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a pack, offering it to me.

  Warily, I looked at him. In my experience, people didn't do things to be nice. They always had an ulterior motive. I didn't trust him, but my fingers itched for tobacco.

  He pulled out a cigarette, held it up in front of my face. Still, I eyed him cautiously. He stepped closer to me, putting himself less than a foot away and my skin prickled.

  “Do you know that man?” he asked, with an incline of his head in the direction the dealer went.

  I shook my head. “No. Why?”

  “Why won't you take one?” he asked, holding it up higher so it was at my eye level and once again ignoring my question.

  “Because I don't trust you.” Internally, I laughed at my hypocrisy.

  “Because you don't know me?”

  “What is this, twenty questions?” I asked. I licked my lips, practically tasting the tobacco he held like a bribe.

  “You don't know him either. But you're refusing my free cigarette when you spent ten bucks on cheap crack from him.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I didn't snort crack.”

  “You're a liar,” he said calmly. He put the cigarette between his lips and cupped his hand around it as he lit the end. He reached a hand toward my face. My eyes got big, round, but he flicked a finger over my nostril. He came away with white powder and held it up for me as if I didn't know what it was.

  “I don't know what that is,” I lied again.

  His lips moved almost imperceptibly. Just a hair of a lift, but it was enough to let me know that he knew I was lying, but he found it strangely amusing. He blew the bit of powder off his finger and glanced at me. “What's your name?”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really think I'm going to answer that honestly?” It didn't surprise me that he was talking to me. What surprised me was that I talked to him. I didn't hold court with strange men outside of bars. I merely snorted their drugs off of dirty countertops inside of those bars.

  It was his stupidly pleasant-to-look-at face that prevented me from bolting. That and the fact that my limbs were still too shaky to carry me too far away.

  “You hungry?” he asked, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. He released the smoke, washing my face with it.

  Fuck. The smoke made my fingers antsy. “No.” Why the hell was I still talking to him? Why was he being nice?

  He angled his head to the pile of vomit. “You will be, and soon.” He tucked his pack of cigarettes back in his pocket and then pulled out his keys. “You can come or not, but I'm going to get something to eat.”

  Go with him, the voice said.

  I had no money after impulsively spending it on the blow, and my apartment was a solid two-mile walk—or more like stumble—away. Alone in the dark. Because of my own stupidity, my options were slim. Despite my misgivings, I opted for the ride and followed him to his car, a black, sleek-looking hunk of metal. “Are you planning on murdering me and chopping my body up into tiny pieces?” I asked when he held open the passenger door.

  I slid into the seat and he leaned down, pulling the seatbelt to show me where it was. “No,” he answered, with a slight shake of his head. He stood back up and held the door's frame. “That's too much work.”

  I leaned against the leather; it was surprisingly warm. Had he just arrived at the bar before I'd exited and vomited spectacularly all over the place? When he climbed in, he jabbed the key into the ignition and turned it with a quick flick of his wrist. He yanked off the black leather jacket he was wearing and tossed it on to the backseat, giving me a view of tan skin and black ink covering muscles that weren't from any kind of casual exercise. He wore a slim tee underneath that hugged his front, illuminating miles of muscle underneath fabric.

  He wasn't unattractive, that was for damn sure. My eyes traced several days' growth of facial hair along the hard line of his jaw, up over wide mouth and thin lips.

  His hand reached between us on the stick, navigating us out of the parking lot and onto the main road with the confidence of a man who controlled an old-school car with extreme finesse. I shouldn't have been impressed, but he seemed comfortable in his skin. He didn't pollute the air between us with small talk; he didn't look at me for reassurance.

  I made rash decisions as if my life depended on them, and often found myself regretting those decisions. My regret for getting in the car with this guy was still up for debate. I had met many people in my walk on Earth so far, kept company with the evils who wore human skin and held my neck with hands intent on violence. I'd felt intent on my skin, like a burning brand of anger, pain. But when this man had held my arms, I'd felt a sense of
comfort that was foreign and vague, but still intriguing. No harmful intentions.

  Even the voices inside my head had stilled their onslaught.

  “What's your name?” I asked, realizing it might be good to know the name of a man that had the opportunity to dump my body off a pier.

  “Six,” he said, not glancing at me. He took a turn so smoothly that my body barely leaned in my seat.

  “Like the number?”

  “What do you think?” His voice was gruff, but his eyes stayed on the road, switching lanes and passing a handful of cars.

  “Why?” I blurted.

  From his profile, I saw his forehead furrow in confusion.

  “Why Six? That's a stupid name.”

  He turned to look at me, a flip of his head that gave me less than a second to see the look in his eyes, but I'd seen it. He was agitated, slightly, and for some reason, he didn't want me to know. He returned his focus back to the road, but I read body cues like other people read books. Someone else wouldn't have picked up on the slight tightening of his jaw, the way his arms seemed to stretch fractionally tighter in the sleeves of his cotton tee. “It's a nickname.”

  “I figured as much. Unless your mom couldn't keep track of her kids and had to start numbering them.”

  “I'm an only child,” he said, staring into the windshield, his voice smooth and deep.

  “Well, I know it’s not how old you are.” I was fishing for his age.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “If I said I was underage?”

  “I’d call you a liar. I met you outside of a bar.” He gave me a pointed look.

  “Twenty-three. Your turn.”

  “Thirty-one.”

  “You’re old.”

  “I think the correct word you’re looking for is older.”