Dreams of 18

In fact, I’d drink and drink until I made sure they left me alone. I made sure that my brain was shut off and my heart was numb.

I’m doing the same thing right now. I’m sitting here, in my darkened truck, gulping down Jack Daniels like water.

Right now, I’d give anything, anything at all, for this to be a bad dream.

A nightmare, like I told her.

I’d give anything for her to not be here.

I’d give anything for me to be seeing things. To be imagining, hallucinating, daydreaming like I’ve been doing for the past ten months.

Hallucinating her pale face. Imagining her smell, her voice. Her red as fuck lips.

But it’s not a dream.

If it were, my truck wouldn’t be hiding in the woods by the road that I abandoned her on like the goddamn asshole that I am, waiting for her to walk by like some criminal.

Just to make sure that… no one is kidnapping her. Apparently, I have a conscience when it comes to her.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

What the fuck is she doing here? Why the hell won’t she leave me alone?

It was a stupid drunken mistake…

So it was a mistake.

She made a fucking mistake. Because she was drunk. Because she thought she could do whatever the hell she wanted.

Because she’s this terrible thing that I can’t seem to forget.

The most terrible thing that’s ever happened to me.

I strangle the bottle with my fingers and take a deep, deep pull and bark out a harsh laugh.

Fucking teenager.

I lied.

I told her that my life changed that night, the night she kissed me, the night of her stupid drunken mistake.

My life changed the moment I moved into that house over two years ago.

I never should’ve done that. I never should’ve moved to Connecticut in the first place. It was a mistake.

The only reason I did it was for Brian.

It was a good school for him. When they contacted me out of the blue and offered me a job, I was hesitant. We were happy in Denver. We were settled. I had a good job. We lived in a good neighborhood. Brian had life-long friends.

But then, they told me that kids from Cherryville High usually end up at Yale or Columbia or something similar, and I knew Brian wanted that.

Unlike me, he’s always been a straight-A student. He’s always been excellent at everything according to his teachers. Not only that but he’s one of those rare kids who are good at sports too.

Sometimes I can’t believe he’s my kid. My son.

I raised him. Me. An aimless, angry kid from a small town who never thought he’d get anywhere. Whose only goal at eighteen was to get out of this shitty place and maybe use that scholarship they accidentally gave him for playing some ball to go to college.

How the hell did my son get so talented?

So smart that my chest hurts with pride for him.

If only I hadn’t moved cross-country.

I should’ve known that Brian would end up at an Ivy League school anyway. All I wanted to do was make it easier for him. All I wanted was for him to have his best shot, to be able to give him all the help I could so he could go wherever he wanted.

Isn’t that what parents do?

They try to make it easy for their kids. They try to give them all the opportunities that they can so their kids can be whoever they want to be.

I’ve never been very confident in my parenting abilities. I never had a very good example from which to learn – my dad was a drunk and my mother left when I was five or so – but goddamn it, I thought I was doing the right thing.

I should’ve stayed put, however. I should’ve refused their offer.

We were happy in Denver.

In Denver, I could sleep.

In Denver, there were no brown-eyed girls with long, thick hair that doesn’t stop for miles and milky-white skin that shines under the moonlight.

The first time I saw her, she was climbing out of a window at night.

I was in my bedroom, trying to fall asleep in the new bed, in a new house that I didn’t like very much. I noticed a movement from the corner of my eye: someone jumping onto a tree branch, outside of a window next door.

By the time I’d sprung out of the bed, thinking there was an intruder, the climber had scaled that branch so fast that all I could do was stand there.

All I could do was stare.

At her long, thick hair, wondering how I missed seeing it in the first place.

Because that hair appeared alive. The strands were blowing and winding and fluttering in the breeze and I wasn’t even sure that the wind was so strong that night.

Then, the ‘intruder’ looked up at the sky and opened her arms wide.