Page 8 of Sublimate
“Have something else,” he urged, so I also took down the onion rings. I was halfway through the next burger when I noticed that he hadn’t chosen anything for himself.
“Didn’t you say that you were hungry?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you put something in your stomach?” I meant something besides the mixed drink that he’d just guzzled.
“I’m fine. I don’t want anything.”
Well, it was up to him. At least today, he had a wallet and probably a phone, so I wouldn’t have to worry about how he would get home. And after my second cheeseburger, I was feeling pleasantly stuffed, so I was also fine. “Did you want to ask me anything else about that night?” I suggested.
“What were you doing? Where were you going when you came across me?”
“I didn’t have a destination. I was just driving around,” I answered.
“Just driving,” Nolan echoed. “Ok. I wondered how I ended up at Roy’s Tavern. You were there, too.”
“Yeah, I was. You had wanted me to take you to your house but when I looked up the address, it was just too far. So you suggested that bar and then you took a minute getting out of my car, and you invited me to come in with you.”
“Why did you?”
That was a good question. Why had I done that, when it had led to so many problems afterwards? Problems for me, for the furniture, the windows, the floor…
“I was worried about you but also, I wanted to do something different,” I said. “You kind of get desperate, you know? Like you think, ‘Holy bells, this is terrible and I’m stuck in it for the rest of my life.’ And then you might feel a little panicked and decide, ‘I have to do something!’ Those thoughts could lead to acting crazy or stupid.”
“That’s why you were out that night? To do something crazy or stupid?”
“Well…” I took another fry and dabbed it in ketchup as I decided the best way to explain. “Do you know much about baking?”
“No.Why?”
“I’ve never done it but for the past few months, I’ve been watching videos of people making bread.” I did that whenever I had the minutes to spare on my phone. “I can’t do it myself because we don’t have a lot of space to cook and we don’t have things like measuring cups and bowls. Also, the oven doesn’t work right now but at least there is an oven. In my old place in Nevada, I only had a microwave. Have you ever watched people bake?”
His eyebrow arched up. “Me? No.”
“I feel like it’s the homiest thing you can do. I imagine the smell of fresh bread and your whole house warm…doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Yes.” He picked up his cup and looked into it, then he put it to his lips and tilted back his head. There couldn’t have been much in there, but he shook it to coax along any remaining liquid.
“One of the steps is to let the loaf rest after it comes out of the oven,” I continued. “Some people say you don’t have to do that—anyway, if you let it rest, the steam is supposed to escape and it kind of calms down, I guess.”
Nolan glanced at his cup. “I’ve lost what we’re talking about,” he said. He still didn’t sound angry, though.
“I’m explaining what happened that night, because Kolter is like the bread. He gets filled with steam and he has to release it and go back to normal.”
“That’s why you were driving around during a snowstorm,” he stated. “I understand now. You were escaping from your house because of your boyfriend’s temper.”
“Call it what you will.” I personally liked the baking comparison better. “It would be fun to live in a place with an oven that worked. I bet you have that in your house, and a washer and dryer. And a dishwasher and an icemaker in your freezer.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because I looked up where you live. It listed the square footage and there was a picture of the outside, and it’s huge so there must be room for everything you could ever want. You gave me the address so I could take you there,” I reminded him.
“What address?” he asked and when I recited it from memory, he shook his head. “I don’t live there.”
“I remember what you said. You wanted to go home, to that house.”
“You must have noticed that I wasn’t totally in my right mind that night. I was so cold that I couldn’t think and I’d had a few drinks.” When he said those words, his eyes went back to his cup. He tilted it up to his lips again and this time, he tapped the bottom with his other hand to get the last few drops.
“Was that just an address you pulled out of your ear?”
“I pulled it out of my memory,” he told me. “That was where my grandparents lived when I was a kid and I used to spend the summers with them. As soon as vacation started, I would show up here. The next day. I lived with them for a few years of high school, too.”
