Page 46 of Alone With You in the Ether

Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.

“Okay,” she said. “See you in the morning, Aldo.”

“Bye, Regan,” he said, and she hung up, letting the phone fall from her hand to settle on her bare torso, flat and still and lifeless.

This was no good, she thought dully. This wasn’t even close to enough. She had a voracity she could never quite quench, a fear she couldn’t stifle, a sense of dread lingering constantly overhead. She had a need, several needs, that she could never manage to extinguish. But people didn’t like needy, so she’d learned to transform it. To bury it, cleverly disguised, in someone whose compulsions matched hers. Complementary shapes into fitting pieces.

Flaws, she thought, were just vacancies to be filled.

“Marc,” she called, and heard his footsteps approaching, padding towards the bathroom door. He’d require no explanation, no invitation. She wouldn’t ask forgiveness, and rightfully, he would offer none.

She closed her eyes as he stepped beside the bathtub, turning on the water just enough to let it drip down the soles of her feet. It caressed the shape of her heel where it met the cold porcelain below, and Marc smoothed a hand up her thigh.

“Better now?” he asked.

It was a relief, she reminded herself, not to be beholden to impossible expectations. Or even to meager ones.

“Will be,” she said, letting out a breath.

However she had to justify it.

Aldo took another dragfrom the joint, letting it out on the breeze. It wasn’t a particularly biting chill, which was good. He’d only have a few of these hospitable evenings left. One of them could have been the following evening, only he’d be busy then. At a party. With Regan.

He’d once asked his father what it had felt like to meet his mother. “Like jumping off a cliff,” Masso had said, and not in a way that invited further questioning.

Aldo glanced down over the edge of his building, considering the length of the drop. He had a habit, carved into his affinity for heights, of looking down to determine the approximate point at which he would no longer be able to survive the fall. It was at moments like this, high enough to inhale the promise of risk, that the whittled lines of city streets brought out his lingering melancholy; thatl’appel du vide, the call of the void.

In Aldo’s experience, the void spoke many languages. Busy intersections, crashing waves, the too-still sounds in his apartment, the little plastic bottles he knew he could technically still get if he wanted to. Usually when the void spoke to him, Aldo countered with further contemplation of time. Time, and sometimes floods. Every ancient culture had a flood story. There must have been one, something to sweep them all away. The earth had been vengeful then.

He took another long drag, letting it out. They don’t tell you how close smoking is to setting yourself on fire. Some days, he enjoyed the act of it more than the outcome. The sense that he could burn something, trap the smoldering of ash inside his chest, and then breathe it out like some sort of omnipotent god. Fires, floods. Plagues and locusts. He wondered whether Regan had given it any thought and considered calling again to ask her, then stopped himself.

He let out a puff of smoke, watching it drift away.

Sometimes Aldo thought a fall was precisely what he was waiting for.

Regan was five minutes late,which Aldo would not have known (but possibly could have guessed) was really quite early for her. He was waiting outside his building, a duffel bag slung around his shoulders, and he was staring into nothing. His fingers were clamped together like he was holding an invisible cigarette.

“Hi,” she said, rolling down the window, and he blinked, then refocused on her.

She’d done an excellent job with his haircut.

“Hi,” he replied, pulling the door open and settling himself in the passenger seat of her S-Class, taking a moment to orient himself. He gave the space a scrutinizing glance, then permitted his shoulders to settle back, molding himself to his new surroundings. She wanted to laugh at his process of adaptation, but merely gestured to where she’d set his tea in the cupholder of the center console.

“English breakfast okay?” she said.

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and then looked momentarily distressed. “Really,” he added slowly, as if he feared the initial acknowledgement of gratitude hadn’t been enough, and she reached over to reassure him, patting his knee.

“Not a problem,” she said.

His gaze fell to her hand.

She retracted it, placing it on the steering wheel, and shifted back into the lane, heading for the interstate as Aldo reached for his tea.

“So,” Aldo said, leaning his head against the seat. “About that last conversation,” he suggested, and Regan felt a small stirring of relief. “I think we should have it now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He turned his head, looking at her. “Now that we know silence is perfectly fine,” he pointed out, “there’s really nothing wrong with this being our final one. We wouldn’t technically have to speak again.”

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