Page 55 of Alone With You in the Ether

“Not bees?”

“Not bees,” he said, and handed her the blunt. “Bees are for you.”

She smiled at him, accepting it.

“Thanks,” she said, as if he’d told her she was pretty.

“You’re welcome,” he said as if he had.

She inhaled deeply, choking a little when it filled her mouth. “This stuff is stronger than I remember,” she coughed up, and he chuckled, holding his hand out to take it back from her.

“Won’t you get in trouble for this?”

She shrugged, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m an adult, Rinaldo. Or something like one.”

“Mm.” He took another drag, already more at ease. Above him were stars. Beneath him was grass. There was wonder here, even if Regan no longer saw it. Even if she no longer felt it, he would feel it for both of them. He would translate it for her later. He would learn to draw it for her, he thought, or to write it, or graph it. She seemed to appreciate things she could see. He thought of her gaze traveling over the scars on his shoulders, taking him in. Yes, he would draw it for her, and then she would see it. She would watch it take shape and he would know he’d said it in a way she could understand, and then she would know that even this, with its ordinary features, was wonder and glory, too.

He didn’t blame her for not seeing it. He blamed everyone else for letting her forget.

She leaned over, guiding his hand to her mouth for another drag. Her fingers curved around his, brushing over his knuckles and sliding up to where he held the blunt, secured between the pads of his index finger and his thumb.

“What do you think about dancing?” she said, moistening her lips and inhaling. She let it out smoothly this time, standing close enough to him that he could feel her breath as if he’d taken it himself.

“Yes,” he said—he would have said it to anything, she could have suggested a mutiny and he’d have searched tirelessly for an axe, a pitchfork, Excalibur itself—and she smiled up at him, lifting her chin to permit him full view of her approval. The prospect of it, of anything, buzzed in his veins.

Then she was quiet as only she could be quiet, with every motion impossibly loud.

“Your hair looks good,” she murmured, lifting her fingers to the roots near his temple. She brushed back the strands, nails raking lightly over his scalp.

He took another drag from the blunt as her fingers skated down, running lightly over his cheek and down to his mouth. The dark tips of her nails traveled the shape of his upper lip, curving with it, and in another version of this precise moment, he said, Regan, come closer, let’s see what happens, let’s see how the stars shine on your skin.

Instead he said, “Let’s go,” and licked the pads of his fingers, extinguishing the smoldering edge of the blunt between them. She watched, dark eyes solemnly following his motions, as he slid what remained into the breast pocket of his jacket, tucking it securely against his chest.

“Let’s,” she agreed, and slid her arm through his, leading him back to the house.

You’re an adult, Charlotte, act like one.

Is it for attention? Haven’t we given you enough of that by now?

Look at your sister, Charlotte, look at Madeline. She has a life, a family, a good job. You can’t be irresponsible like this forever. What are you trying to prove? This man, whoever he is, did you bring him here to upset me? To upset us, is that it? He’s rude, he’s here in our home and hardly giving us the time of day, and where’s Marc? Did you break up already? I keep telling you, Charlotte, you have to act like an adult if you want to be in an adult relationship. Not everything is about you, what you want, what you feel. That’s what it means to grow up and realize there are other people in the world besides yourself.

Of course we don’t like him. Why would we? He’s weird, Charlotte, look how strange he is. Is he hanging around you for money? I hope you haven’t promised him anything. No, don’t get upset, don’t get hysterical again, we’re just trying to protect you. Which we’ve always done, haven’t we? But you’ve kept this up long enough, Charlotte. Are you taking your medications, seeing your doctor like we asked?

I know you’re not stupid. That’s the worst part, Charlotte, I know how smart you are. I know what you could be, but you waste it, don’t you? You waste your potential with tantrums like this, rebelling for no reason. Him? He’s nothing, Charlotte! You want to settle down with someone with no goals, no nothing? I know you don’t. I know you, and I know this game, and I’m tired of it.

He’s your friend, yes, you said that. Okay fine, choose better friends then. Marc may not be our favorite person in the world but at least he takes care of you, he can support you and yet here you are, jeopardizing that as if it’s nothing. Does he know you’ve brought some other man to this party? Does he even know this man? This… I don’t care what his name is, he barely looks at us, Charlotte! It’s as if we’re not even here, and now you’re making a scene—

You are, Charlotte. Youare. You’ve always done this. You insist that you’ve changed and yet here you are, making the same mistakes. What was the name of that artist? Him, yes, another of your terrible ideas. This is what happens when you throw your life away for men who are lost, no ambition, no drive. At least Marc has a job, arealjob. You can build a life with someone like him, Charlotte. I can see you’re going to do something stupid now, aren’t you, something reckless? Of course you are, see how well I know you? Fine. Ruin your life then, Charlotte, let your father throw money at your problems and see if it does anything for you. See how well I know you; how I know, even now, what you’re thinking?

I know you, Charlotte. I know you so well that I can ring in your head even when I’m gone, even when you’re smoking with your weird little mathematician in the backyard of this enormous fucking house, I know you can hear me. I know you can feel me, feel my disappointment in you, feel it all unfurling in your bones while you touch the blessed shape of his irreverent mouth and wonder if this voice in your head is crueler for being yours or mine. He doesn’t behave like he should, Charlotte, you’re doing yourself no favors, you’re doing him no favors, fuck, don’t even get me started on Marc. You’re making a mess, you’re flailing around like usual, did you take your pills? Did you hold them in your hands, cradle them between the lines of your palms and let them remind you how ill you are, how sick, how desperate?

Not even the weed can possibly dull it, me, everything from your senses. You still hear me like the blood rushing in your ears, feel me like the buzzing of your fingers. Feel the sparseness of everything his lips have brushed, the vastness of everywhere his touch has never been. Oh, maybe I’m wrong about him, maybe you can comfort yourself with that, but I’m never wrong about you. You want him to want you, don’t you? You want to feel him like an anchor, like a weight. You want all of him dragging you down, binding you to something. You want him to pull you close like this, like this dance which is not a dance but is more of a dance than anything you’ve ever done with anyone, but you don’t even know the steps, do you, Charlotte? His hands are on your waist, and how many other hands have been there, or there, or there? Try to hide it, you can’t, he’ll see through you. Everyone sees through you. Everyone sees through you and on the other side of you is the way life looks without you, and inevitably they will run straight for it with relief.

You’re going to make a mistake with him, Charlotte. I don’t know what that mistake will be and neither do you, but it doesn’t matter, you and I both know you will. Will it be worth it, just for his hands on your skin? Will it be worth him slipping through your fingers, bleeding through the cracks in your constitution, just to be reminded you’re the kind of person people leave? Maybe it will, because look at his mouth, look at the shape it makes when his eyes are on you. You wouldn’t make love with him, you’d make art. Maybe that would be worth it, but still, art is tragedy. Art is loss. It’s the fleeting breath of a foregone moment, the intimacy of things undone, the summer season that passes. It’s the peeled lemon and bony fish in the corner of a Dutch still life, rotten and dead and gone. It’s him lying next to you, legs tangled with yours, only to know he’ll be a specter in your thoughts by next month, next week, ten minutes from now. This is what makes it art, Charlotte, and you’ve always understood that. You’ve always understood, above everything, that what makes beauty is pain.

Grow up, Charlotte, and accept things as they are. You are not in love with Rinaldo Damiani whose hair smells like Sunday morning in the sun, you do not even know him, he doesn’t know you. You can rest your hands on the scars of his shoulders and long to rid him of every breath of pain and still, you will not be in love with him, because this isn’t love. Love is a home and a mortgage and the promise of permanence; love is measured and paced, and this, the too-hasty sprint of your pulse, that’s drugs. You know drugs, don’t you, Charlotte? Euphoria can be bottled, it can be smoked, it will dissolve on your tongue and burn through the vacant cavity of your empty fucking chest. His hands on you, that can be preserved, it can be painted, it can be committed to the canvas of your imagination, and it can stay in the vaults of your private longings, your little reveries, your twisted dreams.

Accept it, Charlotte. Accept it and grow up. You’re an adult, Charlotte, act like one.

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