Chapter one
Dreaming of the crash
The first drink he ever had in his life was a whiskey. It tasted bitter and acidic, like the rubbing alcohol in the back of the closet at home. The second drink was a beer. His third was another whiskey. His legs shook where he stood at the bar. It was a quarter past eleven, the bar was filled with students, laughing and talking. It was the end of a semester. They, as a collective, had made it through. From point A to point B without stopping once. There was a sense of glee in the air, a restless urge to throw your hands in the air, puke in a bathroom stall, and tip the bartender with all the crumpled up bills you had left.
"I'm sorry about the bathroom," Rick said, swaying. He put a twenty on the counter.
The bartender frowned. "What about it?" A look of dread on his face. "What did you do?"
Rick left then, making his way to the door. At the table closest to the entrance, a girl was sitting in a leather chair, her arms and legs crossed. Her right foot was tapping abruptly in the air. She was looking at the couple in the sofa next to her, a boy and a girl making out.
Rick stopped, cleared his throat. "You-... you want me to walk you home?"
The girl in the chair looked up, her frown getting more pronounced. "Who are you?" She had lots of freckles, as if her genes couldn't settle on just one color for her face. Her red hair was meticulously formed, into a bob or short cut. It was wavy.
"I just thought, if you wanted someone to walk you home..." He trailed off. The world was inherently unsteady. The hardwood floor felt like it belonged on a quaking ship. "Never mind, I'm sorry if I bothered you."
He pulled up the door, stumbling out onto the street. Fishing up the tiny notepad in his chest pocket, along with the bit-on sharpened-down pen, he wrote stop trying to be n nice.
"I think you're the one who needs someone to walk you home," it came from behind him. The girl walked up beside him. "Jane wasn't coming." She added, snorting.
They walked in silence for a bit, went across the road, heading towards the apartment complex.
"What's your major?" he asked. He'd shoved his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, trying to warm them up.
"Math." She looked for the houses, then up at the sky. "You?"
"Physics." He looked up then, saw the same lights as always, blinking down. "Is it fun?"
"Is what fun?" She frowned then, regarding him with wariness.
"Maths."
She smiled. "'Maths'?"
"Maths, math, numbers or whatever."
She scoffed. "Spoken like a true physicist. But yes, it's fun." Another smile. "Is physics fun?"
Nodding. "Yeah. I mean-... yeah."
They ran out of things to say, but then they were at her place. She stopped beside her door. "Thanks for walking me home."
"No problem." He looked around. "Which way is Mirkwood Drive?"
Snorting, she pointed it out. "Follow the road, then take the next left."
"Thanks. I'll see you later."
They spent a month together. Two.
She got pregnant. They married, a little shameful wedding in the mayor's office, the priest and the two of them along with Agnes' parents, concerned, bitter, not talking unless spoken to.
She quit school, said there was no point in pursuing an education if she had to take care of a child. He stayed in school.
A family was a bad idea. It tied you down, it ate up your choices until there was only one left - to stay indoors and rot. He tried. Viciously. To only care about feeding and dressing and changing diapers. To do what you do in a family. When he looked at his now wife, there was a grueling ache in his chest, a terse reminder that some things can't be measured in numbers. He sat in the kitchen, a baby flopped over his chest, trying to coax a burp out of her.
His wife rummaged around in the cupboards searching for a pot. She found a laser probe instead. Turning around, she waved the gun around. "This? Keep it in the garage." Plunking it down on the counter, she reached for the pots behind it. "We have children in this house. I don't get why it's so hard to-"
Rick left. He took his daughter to the same cursed garage. The baby seat was where he'd left it. "There you go." He put his fingers on her forehead. The fever was gone, finally. As soon as the mobile was turned on, Beth could sit in the chair for ages, regarding the little planets that revolved before her eyes like cotton candy being made. Saturn captured her attention. As soon as the paper thin rings made their way closer she would gurgle excitedly, almost bouncing in the chair. "Saturn, huh?" He regarded her for another minute as she kicked her cotton-covered legs.
He tried. For weeks, months. Having a child was demanding. Or rather, having a child with someone, that was the real issue. His daughter, for all intents and purposes a smiling potato, was humbling. As he held her, he made sure to do it right, taking every precaution. Her lithe body against his own, that was the definition of the universe. The infinite, inside a body. Closed in. The world was in a heart, the world was in the beating of her incessantly small and fragile heart. But he never did it right. Agnes would watch over him with the eyes of a stern school teacher, contemplating his every move. Would this be the day when he finally screwed up and dropped her? Was he careless enough to let the child slip through his fingers and fall down onto the floor?
He tried.
It was a Wednesday. Their daughter slipped in the tub just as he was reaching out to lift her up. It was no one's fault. Beth was fine. But Agnes made it sound like he'd done it on purpose. Through his carelessness, almost paying with her life.
He left. He came home drunk.
He was thrown out, left on the doorstep with a change of clothes and a "I'm tired of this, Richard."
And he was tired too.