Town Limits

We leave The Pulse together without our respective groups of friends noticing. It’s after midnight. Despite our already drunken states, the old man behind the counter at the liquor store lets us in and we split the cost of a two-six.

He asks me what my story is and I don’t know what to say. “I used to live here, then I left. Now, I’m back.” It’s short and sweet and true. I tell him this before telling him my name. He takes a swig of the vodka and then passes it to me. “Why’d you move here?” I ask.

Underneath the streetlight, I notice the shadow of a beard on his face. “Mom has a boner for small towns and displacing her oldest son,” he shrugs. “Why’d you come back?”

I take a swig of the liquid and pass it back. It doesn’t burn on the way down, and I’m not sure if I should consider that a good or bad sign.

“Parents left while I was gone.” The words slip easily, like oil dripping from my mouth. Bitterly, I bark a laugh and plop myself onto a park bench. My finger traces idly over the placard that’s been fixed to it. An image of my mother’s smile flashes in my mind’s eye.

Liam sits, too, rotating his torso slightly toward me. His eyes glisten in the night. It’s been too dark to distinguish their colour but I bet that even if I were blind, I’d be able to feel their intensity. His gaze burns my skin.

Maybe he thinks I’m crazy, but that’s only because he hasn’t asked me why I left in the first place.

This conversation is getting too personal and part of me hopes that I never see this boy again. I swallow. My butt slides down on the bench slightly, and instead of looking at the foreign boy next to me, I begin to analyze the stars. “What colour are you eyes?”

“Green,” he answers.

We stay silent but it isn’t awkward. My head is beginning to spin and if I focus hard enough, I can hear the fluid sloshing around in my stomach. I’m not tired or sad or embarrassed or cold. It’s more of a numbness that is engulfing my being.

“What’s your name?”

“Nora,” I say.

***

Goodnight is said underneath the browning weeping willow rooted in my neighbour’s front lawn. I’m not sure what time it is, but the dew on the tree’s leaves streak trails onto my skin and the seam where land and sky meet has become distinguishable.

The gap in reality that night had brought is slowly closing. We’re too sober to continue convincing ourselves that we know each other well enough to tell each other our life stories, a fact that before we’d begun to believe wholeheartedly. So, instead, we’ve exchanged our words for giggles, pretending that the branches are moustaches and eyebrows.

He’s tall. Both of his hands clutch the offshoot jutting out above us. Playfully, he sways back and forth, like a child on the monkey bars. The plain tee he wears rides up on his torso. Not enough to display his stomach, but enough to reveal the pack of cancer sticks protruding from his pocket and the shoelace belt tied around his waist. “Nora.”

Every remark begins with my name, as if he’s making sure that I’m still beside him.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for the light.”

He grins at me and I grin back. “Anytime,” I answer, before ducking underneath our natural fort and padding across the road, toward the house that isn’t mine anymore.

That’s it. We do not know when we will see each other again, or if we will ever see each other again. Internally, I curse myself for earlier hoping that he’d exit my life. It’s only been a couple of hours, I know, but I’ve changed my mind.