Brightside (2 page)

I strolled down the deserted street as the American flag flapped high above the Square. The flapping like a goddamn slap in the face.

I knew I had to clear my head. I needed to blow out all the bad thoughts before I turned the corner.

Rachel was waiting for me on the bench outside Oscar’s. She was wearing her fancy green dress. The one she’d worn under her robe at graduation. Back then it fit perfectly. Now, she had to suck in.
Her hair was up in a French twist, and her makeup was thick. Especially her lips. Dark red. Her glasses were gone. She wanted me to know she’d been paying attention.

I didn’t realize it was supposed to be that kind of dinner, but at least I had on my nice pair of jeans and my shirt had a
collar. Rachel didn’t care what I was wearing. She was just happy I showed.

I took her hand and said, “Let’s go eat.”

Oscar’s windows were tinted just enough so you had to press your face against the glass to see the idiots paying thirty bucks for the same steak they could buy for ten across the street. Brightside liked to remind us we could still be special.

The hostess was going to seat us in the back, tucked away in the corner. Rachel asked if we could sit at a table. She knew I wouldn’t break up with her in the open. We sat in between two couples silently engaged in conversation.

Rachel wanted to talk though, wanted me to feel this was a normal date. She knew I was thinking about The Cabin and that fucking flag. She told me to order anything I wanted. She asked about my day, even though she’d been sitting next to me the entire eight hours.

Our steaks arrived, and Rachel kept asking questions, like the first concert I went to and the last book I’d read. She was trying, and I felt like an asshole. I answered her questions and even asked a few of my own.

It made me think this is how our first date should have been. Not me sharing how much I hated my mom. Rachel sharing what her uncle did with her panties.

But by the time we’d finished dessert, we’d run out of things to say. We were like an old married couple after only three weeks. I took Rachel’s hand and started to have the talk we’d been
avoiding. She put her other hand on top of mine like it was a game.

“Let’s just grab a drink.”

She knew I wasn’t a drinker. It’s not that I have a problem with booze. The problem is when I’m buzzed I start thinking about shit I shouldn’t. Back home in Ohio, I could get away with it. In Brightside it was a problem.

I said, “It’s kind of late.”

Rachel snorted. That’s how she laughed. “We’ll only have one.” She looked so desperate sitting there, her hand squeezing mine. She just wanted us to have some fun.

“All right,” I said, “we’ll go for one.”

We crossed through the Square and headed for Riley’s, the bar where everyone knows your name and all the horrifying shit that fills your head.

It started out fine because that’s how bars usually start out. Then an hour turned to two and I was somehow on my sixth Jack. All my thoughts started creeping out like cockroaches. Rachel handed me another shot. I talked louder to keep other things to myself, but some guy asked what I had against the flag. Rachel laughed and pulled me towards the door. Everything was spinning and I thought I might fall over. Rachel kissed me and kissed me.

And then it was Day 39.

I woke up to the darkness. The curtains were closed. I had no idea what time it was or how we’d gotten back to my place. Besides the pounding headache it seemed like every other morning with Rachel, but something was definitely wrong.

Rachel was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs dangling over the side. She kept pulling at her curls, over and over, again and again. Her right hand was clenched, her fingers pressing down on her thumb like she was trying to break it.

I put my head back on the pillow, tired and
hungover
. I was still halfway in my dream, and it was a good one.

Michelle and I were walking in the forest, its grass so green, Ohio’s
brilliant blue sky above. Michelle stopped at a clearing and laid down her red blanket.

Then she was underneath me.

Her eyes were the lightest blue with the softest shine. I brushed Michelle’s sandy blonde hair from the side of her face, ran my thumb lightly across her cheek, around her ear, then cradled her head.

She
reached behind my back and pulled me down. My heart covered hers. Her heart, my heart, beat to beat. “Can you feel that, Joe?”

And then I was inside her and we were white on red, all that blue above us. Beautiful colors back then.

Michelle. Michelle. Michelle…

“Are you fucking serious?”

The voice definitely wasn’t Michelle’s.

The dream was gone. I was awake,
back in Brightside, darkness all around me.

I had no idea what I’d done, but I knew it wasn’t good. “Come back to sleep,” I said.

Rachel wouldn’t face me, all her focus on those curtains, the ones I refused to open, the mile of Brightside beyond them.

I reached out and put my hand on her back. Rachel recoiled and my hand fell. Her mouth was a black hole moving in the darkness.

“You still love her.”

I played dumb, what Mom wouldn’t call a hard stretch. “Who?”

Rachel swung her knee onto the bed so it was up against my ribs, the thin white sheet the only thing between us. “Please don’t lie to me, Joe. I’m not an idiot.”

My eyes were adjusting to the dark. I saw Rachel’s blue contacts, the black trails bleeding beneath them.

I took hold of her fist and eased it open. I rubbed her college ring, the emerald set in white gold. She’d gotten it a month before they brought her to Brightside. “You’re not an idiot,” I said. “You’ve got the ring to prove it.”

She said, “You think this is funny?”

It wasn’t funny. It was scary.

I said I was sorry. “I shouldn’t have joked like that.” I kept touching her ring, started picturing her in school, lying under all those guys.

Rachel’s hand clenched back into a fist.

I couldn’t control my thoughts. “Rachel, it’s late.” I looked over at the clock. “We’ve got work in three hours.”

“Do you wish I was her?”

She knew I couldn’t answer that. Not in one word. Not the one she was looking for.

Michelle was the woman I was going to marry. She found out the hard way about my secret. She was there when they took me away.

Rachel sat waiting for an answer, staring at me, peering inside. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head, but she knew everything.

Everyone always did in Brightside.

I asked if she was hungry, mentioned the diner, some eggs.

Rachel just sat there. She needed me to say it.

But I couldn’t.

Rachel reached over and grabbed my dick poking up under the sheet. My hard-on was news to me, but the proof she needed was in her hand. It looked like she’d captured the world’s smallest ghost.

I said, “Let go. I have to piss.”

Rachel spoke like I was a Special Ed student. “How about you just wait?”

“I’m not pissing the bed because you want to talk.”

There wasn’t much left of my dick to grip because getting treated like a child isn’t my thing. But that didn’t stop Rachel. “You’re not walking away,” she said.

I took hold of her wrist and pried off her fingers. “You need to stop this.” And then real serious and slow so she heard me, I said, “Fucking relax.”

Fucking relax?

Rachel’s football player. His words coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say it. Not like that, at least. Or had I? Cornered, what was I capable of?

Rachel wasn’t the only one who could use thoughts against people.

I’d learned about the jocks, the Dartmouth boys, and all the other guys on our second date. She was drunk and underneath me. I thought she was moaning because of me, but then her thoughts started pouring, flooding her head, and then mine. She realized what was happening, and she started crying. She was
ashamed. No one had ever seen these things with Rachel. I told her it was okay, that I didn’t care.

All things considered, I’m not a bad guy. I don’t try to hurt people on purpose, but just like Rachel, sometimes I can’t let shit go.

Rachel got off the bed, moved to the other side of the room to get out of my range. She couldn’t stomach the disgusting thoughts in my head.

Out of range, I could finally lie. “I’m over Michelle. It was just a dream.”

But Rachel was bawling. I sat up all the way
and asked her to please come back to bed.

Rachel wiped at her tears like she was mad at them. “Yeah, you’re over her. You proved it to me, right? And it was so sweet. Carving my name on a tree. Just like we were in junior high.”

It was stupid, something I did on Day 7. I’d used my key to carve out a big heart, put “Joe loves Michelle” inside it. I didn’t think anyone would see it.

But
Brightsiders
see everything.

Rachel and I were coming back to my place one night, and my lock was sticking. I’d damaged the key by carving Michelle’s name.

Rachel didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. I felt awful though, so I went out the next day and crossed it out, replaced
Michelle’s name with Rachel’s. It was childish, something an eighth grader would do, but it was better than what Rachel was doing back then, getting
fingerbanged
behind the gymnasium.

Rachel kicked the bed. She was back in range. “You got something to say?”

Fuck!

Thirty-nine days weren’t enough to get used to this. From Day 1, we all knew we weren’t alone. They told us being together in a group would make it easier, but it was so much worse. Everything on display, nowhere to hide. It’s what brought Rachel and me together. We thought we could elevate past all the dysfunctional relationships, especially our parents’, but we were even more dysfunctional, all honest and exposed, the little secrets and awful truths firing off like buckshot at anyone within range.

I’m not proud of it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the list. It was long. All the guys Rachel had been with, the depths she’d sunk.

“You’re fucking sick,” she said.

“What the hell happened last night? I remember going to Riley’s and you ordering those shots—”

“Oh, so you’re just drunk?”

“What’s your problem?”

“I shouldn’t care if you dream about her? That you gotta pretend I’m her to fuck me?”

As calm as I could, I said, “I don’t do that.”

Rachel’s jaw clenched so tight I thought she’d break teeth.

I usually have a great memory, one of the things I hate about myself. Not on Day 39. I was having trouble thinking, let alone remembering. The walk home was one big blur.

Rachel’s jaw relaxed. She was listening to my thoughts. I was trying to piece things together, grasping at vapors.

The smell of sex was stronger than my breath, and I guessed it was possible I imagined Rachel as Michelle. But I couldn’t admit that and saying I blacked out wouldn’t change anything. I put my hands over my head, as if that would block her out.

“I didn’t do that,” I said.

I heard her thought:

You’re a liar!

“Rachel, I don’t remember anything. If that happened, I’m sorry. I never should’ve had those shots.”

“So it’s all my fault?” She started pacing, moving in and out of range.

“Holy shit. Can you just stop? You’re acting crazy.”

Rachel smiled, breathed through her nose. “You want to see crazy?” Her voice scared the shit out of me. She was all the way on the other side of the room.

“Rachel, I know you’re angry. But you need to calm down—”

“You want me to calm down? Should I get some air? Maybe we should take a break. That’s what you want, right?”

Right then was my best chance of denying things, her by the door, both of us out of range, lights off so she couldn’t look me in the eyes. But I knew we weren’t going to work no matter how much I wanted it.

All I had to do was say it.

But I couldn’t.

“Rachel, come on…”

“Where should I go, Joe? Should I go back home? Huh? Oh right, I can’t. This is it.” Her smile was creeping me out. “This is home.”

I suddenly realized this was about so much more than Michelle. Rachel was cracking, like a dam ready to burst.

“Rachel, please, I’m begging—”

Rachel screamed like she was being burned. Her legs gave out. She thudded off the hardwood. She put her forehead to the floor. Her tiny fists strangled her matted hair and she just kept screaming.

The lights flashed on, the 120s blinding me even with the fixture over them.

“Rachel, come on, be quiet.”

I looked at the clock. We still had an hour before morning lights. They never came on early.