The Art of a Life
IV.
It’s four o’clock in the morning, the type of summer night that feels limitless with its possibilities, pure perfection to those who are young and have a taste for self-destruction. Blueberry vodka was my best friend that night, taking me within its arms, trying to keep me sane as it told me stories, erasing the fear.
Max grabs my hand to slow me down, reminding me that I’m not alone. We sprint down the streets, feeling as if we were the only two awake in the town, the only two alive to witness its beauty, the night deciding not to wreck us after all, to let us do it ourselves.
The moon, the stars, the streets are ours. We run through yards, laughing and tripping over roots, our limbs not racing as fast as us. We know that the night will remember us as we distract the sun from coming up.
I stop in the middle of the street, and he is paused on the sidewalk, watching me. He is scared of me, and I know this from the familiar resistance in his eyes, the way he can’t maintain eye contact for too long. It takes me awhile to realize I’ve been speaking the whole time, that I’m telling him how the night has transformed us into someone other than ourselves. My words are drunk, and I tell him that I’ve always wanted to fly, how everything is temporary, that as a kid my friend once told me the moon was his grandpa’s fingernail in the sky, and how I believed it for years. Every word I say seems to wound him, but I can’t stop myself.
“Do you want to dance? We should dance.”
He looks up at me, amused. “We can’t just dance in the middle of the street. It’s late, Britt.”
“Please? The night wants us to dance.”
“Oh really? The night talks to you now?”
I tell him yes as I pull him toward me, and he is laughing as I try to spin him around in a waltz. He has forgiven me from earlier, but it doesn’t last long before he is pulling back. I want to tell him how he is ruining it, how for tonight we are beautiful, flawless, how we breathed immorality, but it was alright, because we had nothing to lose, in the end. We had lost so much already.
He suggests we just go home, I can crash on his couch, but I continue to dance until I get so dizzy I have to sit down.
He refuses to dance with me again, but watches warily, waiting until I have burnt myself out. I lay down in the middle of the street until he comes over, grabs my hand to pull me up again, to lead me home; there is nothing like the night to realize what haunts us.
Max grabs my hand to slow me down, reminding me that I’m not alone. We sprint down the streets, feeling as if we were the only two awake in the town, the only two alive to witness its beauty, the night deciding not to wreck us after all, to let us do it ourselves.
The moon, the stars, the streets are ours. We run through yards, laughing and tripping over roots, our limbs not racing as fast as us. We know that the night will remember us as we distract the sun from coming up.
I stop in the middle of the street, and he is paused on the sidewalk, watching me. He is scared of me, and I know this from the familiar resistance in his eyes, the way he can’t maintain eye contact for too long. It takes me awhile to realize I’ve been speaking the whole time, that I’m telling him how the night has transformed us into someone other than ourselves. My words are drunk, and I tell him that I’ve always wanted to fly, how everything is temporary, that as a kid my friend once told me the moon was his grandpa’s fingernail in the sky, and how I believed it for years. Every word I say seems to wound him, but I can’t stop myself.
“Do you want to dance? We should dance.”
He looks up at me, amused. “We can’t just dance in the middle of the street. It’s late, Britt.”
“Please? The night wants us to dance.”
“Oh really? The night talks to you now?”
I tell him yes as I pull him toward me, and he is laughing as I try to spin him around in a waltz. He has forgiven me from earlier, but it doesn’t last long before he is pulling back. I want to tell him how he is ruining it, how for tonight we are beautiful, flawless, how we breathed immorality, but it was alright, because we had nothing to lose, in the end. We had lost so much already.
He suggests we just go home, I can crash on his couch, but I continue to dance until I get so dizzy I have to sit down.
He refuses to dance with me again, but watches warily, waiting until I have burnt myself out. I lay down in the middle of the street until he comes over, grabs my hand to pull me up again, to lead me home; there is nothing like the night to realize what haunts us.
♠ ♠ ♠
This seems to be the most focused part in the story, and whoever reads this always focuses on the this chunk. I don't know.