Page 18 of Sublimate
“Did you need something?” I wondered.
“No, not really.”
Well then, what? We stared at each other and I took a better survey of him. Before, he had been on the thin size for his height, and that had gotten more pronounced. His nice shirt and pants bagged around him. He also looked like he needed a haircut, which was funny because his style had been so precise before. I remembered thinking that he must have gone for a trim at least every few weeks to keep it up so well. He still had circles under his eyes and if he had been traveling somewhere, it hadn’t been to sit in the sun. He was as pale as the night when I’d first picked him up, stumbling down the road in the dark.
“Have you been sick?” I asked. “Are you sick right now?” Maybe that was why he needed to sit. “Are you about to fall over?”
“No, I’m feeling ok. I did get worried when I found that your former number was no longer in service.”
But again, I had just gotten the new one. After I’d seen him in January, he hadn’t tried to get in touch at all and this type of behavior reminded me of my sister. She had always acted aggrieved and upset if I didn’t immediately respond to her, even after she had ignored me for months or years. “You can see that I’m fine,” I told him.
“Do you want to go back to that restaurant? The one near here?” he offered. “We could have something to eat.”
He looked like he needed it. “Well, all right,” I agreed, but I didn’t feel very enthusiastic and I hesitated even more when he said that he could drive us. “Have you been drinking?” I asked him. I wasn’t catching any signs of it, like shakes, stumbles, slurred words, or smells.
“No. I quit that entirely,” he said.
It was an interesting statement and one I wasn’t sure I believed, but at least the concept was on his mind. I told him that we could go together but it was more of a decision about gas savings over safety.
“Why did you quit?” I asked when I was in his car. It smelled brand-new and now that I was sitting close to him, I still didn’t catch the scent of alcohol. He wore a short-sleeve shirt with no coat so there was no inside pocket for his flask. I also didn’t see it anywhere in the car.
“There were several reasons. I decided that I’d had enough,” he said, and slowly backed out into the road. “I’d had enough of myself and I was tired of it, of everything.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I checked myself into a treatment facility. I detoxed and stayed to do their program, and then I re-upped and stayed longer. That’s where I’ve been for the past few months, if you were wondering.”
“I was wondering,” I admitted. “I thought that I would see you again after we went for coffee that day. You were the only person I had really talked to up here, besides Kolter, and I thought…” It didn’t matter what I had thought. “I’m glad you quit.”
“You sound doubtful. My parents don’t believe it either, but they also didn’t believe that I had a problem. Both of them drink a lot, too,” he explained. “It’s a family vice.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to break away from what your family does.” I looked out the window, thinking about what I was going to do tonight. It was my family’s tradition and I would probably need to be drunk, myself.
“Why did you sigh like that? I’m actually doing much better, even if I do look ill,” he said. “I haven’t touched any alcohol since January. I have four months of sobriety.”
“Are you eating?” I asked. “Are you sleeping?”
He was quiet for a moment before he answered, “Not so much.” Then neither of us had anything to say for the rest of the ride to the little restaurant. With football season over, it was empty again and we could have just taken a table, but Nolan ordered a lot of food, too.
We stayed quiet until it arrived and then he pushed a wrapped burger towards me. “Help yourself,” he offered.
“I’m not that hungry. You should have something.”
“You’re not very talkative either,” he pointed out, and he still didn’t eat. I wondered if he would start if I did, so I removed some of the paper around a burger. He mimicked me and also took one, which was good. He needed something inside him besides alcohol, because I wasn’t sure if he had told me the truth and that he really had quit. Maybe so, but maybe he had some other motivation to show up at Kolter’s house and then lie…but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what that motivation might have been.
“Vivi?”
“I don’t have a lot to say at the moment. I’ve been thinking a lot about my situation, and not just my fear of bears,” I said, and I sighed again and then briefly described the scenario in which I’d get eaten but I didn’t have dental records because I’d never had my teeth checked, and my mom and my sister were now in the wind like my father, so who would provide DNA to match with my skeletal remains? “But more immediately than the bear problem, I’m going to have to do something tonight and I don’t want to. But I can’t see any other choice.”
“What do you have to do? Something about your boyfriend? You’re still living together,” he stated, but I shook my head.
“Kolter doesn’t really live in his house anymore. I think he might come back now that it’s getting warmer but he hasn’t slept over since January. That was when the furnace broke.”
“Have you been staying there without heat?” His eyebrow shot up.
“It worked a little,” I explained. “It was enough to keep the pipes unfrozen but it was cold. So he went to his mom’s house to sleep, but she hates me and I wasn’t invited.”
“Why didn’t you find a new place, then?”
