It Brings Me to You

Watching Tanner Howe make out with that blonde bitch did things to Ophelia Kline. Crazy things.

She knew coming to this party was a bad idea. It was a house party in their Texas hometown to welcome home Tanner Howe- Ophelia’s former love of her life. But her best friend Joanie Pamat had insisted that Ophelia tag along, repeating that it was entirely possible to avoid running into Tanner at such a big party.

Yet the moment Ophelia stepped into the door, what was her heart forced to witness? Tanner Howe on a beat-up, green polyester sofa- lip-locked with some bottle blonde, fake tan hussy.

With Joanie already long gone in search of her boyfriend, AJ Novak, the whole reason we were at this blasted party in the first place, Ophelia was trapped in this fortress of desperate, inescapable doom.

Panic seized and froze her, sending rippling chills through her skin. Ophelia immediately turned a ninety degree angle and stepped into the crowded, dingy kitchen.

“Ophelia, long time no see,” said the voice of Brendan Barone. “Beer?”

Ophelia was about to raise her hand and politely say no, the natural reaction for her when offered alcohol, but the burning image of Tanner and that girl festering in her brain caused her to stop.

“Yeah, actually,” she heard herself say. “A beer sounds good.”

And another four, five, and six beers later, it still just kept sounding better. The more that awful image tossed around in her head, the more Ophelia tossed back some beer. It was like adding fuel to the fire.

She was stumbling around the house now, slurring “have you seen Joanie?” to every person she came across. In her drunken stupor she wanted to show her best friend how much fun she was having.

“Ophelia!” Exclaimed a dark-haired guy with snake-bites that Ophelia recognized as Mason Loveland, one of the roadies for Disco Curtis. Another roadie Ophelia knew from her time with Tanner, Tyke Hamm, was standing next to him. Both held a near-empty red cup in their hands. “Yo! How have you been, girl?”

“Hey boys,” Ophelia giggled bubbly, bounding over to the small love seat they were sitting on. She plopped down between them and totally forgot about her mission to find her best friend. She didn’t even notice a familiar, slender boy and raunchy blonde slip by.

“How about I get us some beers?” Purred the girl dragging an absent-minded Tanner throughout the house.

“No thanks, Masha. I don’t really drink.”

“Or something,” Tanner stuffed his hands in his pockets and mumbled.

She nearly breaks her neck with the intensity she throws her head back with the most fake sounding laugh Tanner has ever heard.

“Don’t really drink? Aren’t you in, like, some rock band or something, Turner?”

“Or something,” he replies with that same mumble. “And it’s Tanner. But sure, I’ll have a beer.” Anything to get you away from me, he adds privately in his mind.

Truth was, being around a girl this way made Tanner incredibly uncomfortable. He had never been the type to make-out with random girls who didn’t even know his name at parties with more people than space for air. That was more Brendon’s thing- or Mason and Tyke, if they could convince a girl for long enough that they were actually in the bad. The memory of Masha’s tongue sliming all over his lips made Tanner crumble with filthiness and embarrassment. Suddenly, he felt very, very suffocated.

The thought of her lips, however, helps cool down his nervous, restless lungs. A real kiss- something he hadn’t experienced for nine long, lonely months.

A familiar laugh screeches Tanner’s musings to a halt. It couldn’t be...

He quickly turns back around the corner to the living room. A pair of black-framed glasses that he had seen a million times before greeted Tanner with the same force and enthusiasm of a semi-truck.

“Ophelia?” He choked out the name that had haunted his thoughts for so long.

“Tanner!” Tyke exclaimed. He was leaning over Ophelia in a way that caused Tanner’s hair to stand on end. “We were just catching up with good ol’ Ophelia again!” Mason wasn’t paying any attention to Tanner. His eyes were locked hungrily on Ophelia.

“Has anyone ever told you how pretty your hair is?” He drunkenly slurred as an attempt to sound sexy. Tanner just about blew chunks. “It’s, like, the same color of a baby fawn...” Ophelia, with a silly smile plastered on her face, touched her hair gently. Tanner thought, Alright, enough of this...

“Excuse me guys,” he grumbled as he pushed between Dumb and Dumber and took Ophelia by the wrist.

“Psh. Cockblock.” He heard Mason scoff as they walked away. Ophelia turned towards them and waved flirtatiously, giggling a little in a way that Tanner had definitely never heard. This made his brunette eyebrows furrow and his jaw tighten with protectiveness.

“Ophelia!” He said once he got her to a somewhat less crowded area- the foyer by the front door. People bustled back and forth, but no one sticking around long enough to hear any of their conversation. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you...”

“Ha! Obviously!” Ophelia replied with a dramatic snort. Tanner leaned a little closer, looking at her familiar body skeptically.

“Are you... drunk?” He asked.

“Is that what’s going on? Why, it’s fantastic! I don’t know why I avoided it all this time!”

“Yeah, well, you will tomorrow morning,” Tanner mumbled, looking Ophelia up and down for the first time. She still had the same natural Texas tan, Texas freckles, and Texas wide smile that had him smitten from the day she walked into Senora Roberto’s Spanish 1 in the ninth grade. Her hair was a medium brown, cut to just below her shoulders, and hung straight with heavy bangs. Those black glasses that sat softly on Ophelia’s pretty nose were always her signature.

“Joaaaaaanieeeeeee,” Ophelia began to shout. “Look what I found? Told you I wouldn’t be able to avoid him!”

“Shhh, Ophelia! What is going on? This isn’t you!”

She slurs, “what are you talking about? We’ve been broken up for nine months, you don’t know me!”

“I know you better then anyone,” Tanner replies. His green eyes are so fierce with certainty that it almost snaps Ophelia sensical for a moment. “You never drink, at least not like this. You’re too smart for that. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Tanner,” she says his name with the same sort of disdain as she would say ‘roadkill’ or ‘maggots.’

“C’mon, Ophelia, don’t play that bit. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m fineeeee!” She whines again, slumping back against the wall, her knees wobbling beneath her. “I’m just... drunk, I guess? And fine. And alone. And fine.”

“What was that?”

“I’m fine.”

“No,” Tanner replied. “What else did you say?”

Ophelia stamped her foot like a two year old throwing a tantrum. Her lips quivered with worry and broken-heartedness. The tenseness between them lifted a bit, and Tanner’s eyes and muscles softened to his beautiful former love.

“I said I’m alone,” she shut her eyes tight, either trying to focus her attention on one thought or trying to fight the sadness that was so plain on her face, Tanner wasn’t sure.

“It certainly didn’t look like you were alone back there.”

“No, no, no, Tanner! I’m alone because I don’t have you.”

Tanner staggered back a bit and blinked, “wh-what?”

“Oh, you know exactly what I mean!” Ophelia went to point her finger at him and swayed so dangerously that Tanner had to grab both her wrists to steady her again. “I saw you making out with Ms. Debbie Harry Wannabe back there. You think I don’t know how it makes you feel?”

“How it makes me feel?” Tanner turned away from her, afraid for what she might say. Ophelia talked to his back.

“Yeah, you. You feel empty, right? With a name stuck in your head that you can’t shake? Alone?”

Tanner turned back and stared at her in disbelief, his baby-face smooth and silent. It seemed like all the chaos of the party was happening in a separate world from him and Ophelia.

“And I know you know how it made me feel! That same sick, disgusting feeling of your heart knocking out your gut that took hold of you when you saw me with... with...” She shook her head and threw up a hand like it didn’t matter, “whatever the fuck their names were.”

The astonishing truth in Ophelia’s words hit Tanner like a load of bricks. Just when he felt like he was going to buckle under the weight, Ophelia began talking again.

“I’m still in love with you, Tanner.” She leaned forward, leaning all her weight into him- no control, no secrets. “And fuck it, judging by that terrified look on your face, you’re still in love with me too.”

Of course I am, Tanner thought to himself. Why do you think I was hanging with that stupid Masha chick in the first place? Because I’ll do anything to try to fill this stupid empty heart of mine. But nothing gets rid of that God awful feeling I’ve had ever since we broke up. I still love you with everything I have. I never stopped.

Tanner wanted to say all of this out loud, to pour all these things he had been thinking for months onto the ground in front of him for Ophelia to use as she pleased. He’d let her stomp on his heart a million times over just to have her know how in love with her he has always been.

But he doesn’t say it, at least not now. Not here. Not with her like this. He wanted to say these things to the real Ophelia. Until then, he’d settle for putting his arm safely around her waist and leading her towards the door while whispering. “Come on, Ophelia. Let’s get you home.”

He whispered to the nearest person to find Joanie and tell her that he was taking care of Ophelia as she leaned into him sleepily, drinking in his smell instead of the dirty, sweaty, people-filled house that was starting to make her stomach turn.

“I don’t feel good anymore,” she says into his shirt once they get outside into the cricket-concert night.

“It’s Ok, Ophelia. I have you.”

She smiled against his chest. “The world is funny, you know?”

“What do you mean, Ophelia?” He humors her as she turn onto the dusty country road in search of Tanner’s car.

She took another deep breath of his cinnamon-and-hay scent before saying, “Because the world sees that I need something. I need to be safe, I need to be loved...”

“And?” His whisper washed over her.

“And the world knows that I need somebody. And it brings me to you.”