I was swept away and had to hear it from him. An entire summer filled with nights of magic and questions that weren't answered, but beautifully suggested. I filled in the gaps. I didn't need the whole picture.
But I'm gonna need more than a text.
It's raining in the Oasis the night after, thunder clapping as the toxic raindrops pelt down on us. The neon red Borscht-In-A-Box sign glows under the cover of the moonlight. I asked him to meet me here and, by the time his truck finally pulls up, I've long polished off my umpteenth box of tangy, beetroot vegetable soup. I save the dollop of sour cream it's topped with for the end, eating around it and watching the puffy white globule sway as my spoon moves through the soup. When I finally get to the bottom of the box and there's nothing left except the sour cream and purple broth, I scrape the rest of the sour cream off the inside of the lid, right where the hooked tab fits inside the slot to close the takeout box, as well as the little sprigs of dill that are supposed to be the garnish. It always gets stuck up there and I call it "lid cream," which I'm probably the only person in either sector to call it that. The outside of the box always gets stained at the corner you tilt to eat it out of, like it's sprouting purple veins. If I was asked if Borscht-In-A-Box was soupy, or runny, or solid, or chewy, I would say yes.
I watch him walk inside and it's in slow motion. His silhouette is unmistakable, even showered in toxic rain and illuminated by the blood red neon of the sign overhead. I can almost hear his steps over the crackling thunder.
"This has to be the last time I see you, En," he says, eyes fixed to the sticky floor and slipping the hood off his head.
I'm tucked in the corner of my usual booth, at the window right next to the OPEN sign. "Well, hidey-hi to you too." I rest my elbows on the table, arms crossed, clutching my biceps. "Why you acting so shady? Coming in here like we're making a dirty deal."
He won't look at me. He just won't. "I honestly shouldn't have come at all."
The waitress comes and asks if he wants anything. He says no, that he's not staying long, and then she asks me if I want another one and I decline. "I'm super good," I say. I lie.
He looks down at the empty box of purple soup, the same ones I always made sure to throw away before he came over, with a disgust and bewilderment that cuts me down. "What is it with you and borscht anyway?"
"Oh, look who knows a thing about me now."
"It's just, really, fast food borscht?"
Not sure if I'm defending myself or the soup, I guess it's the same thing now, and suddenly I realize the soup is me. It's everything. "Hey, this happens to be very tasty shit. It's the little things, remember? All I got?" I shift my elbow and think about how I wish it was still last night, that my arm was still dangling off the side of his truck. "So, fill me in. Why are we here?"
Now he looks at me, but through me, and part of me wishes he kept looking down at the borscht. "Woah, woah, woah." He points at me like I wouldn't kiss his crown, like we weren't once heaven and the moon in the center of my eye. "I came 'cause you begged. What exactly do you want me to say?"
That's not what I meant when I asked him why we were here. I narrow my eyes. "Are you serious? Maybe why the hell you didn't tell me you knew how this was gonna end the first night you took me to the spot." I can still see the butterfly fluttering in the corner of my eye. I can still feel us jumping into the river together, hangin' next to him by a thread from so high. "Or fourth time. Or even the eighth." When we were melting into each other, it was like we were entering the fourth dimension. It's not that I was counting, keeping score, but I do know that from one to five, I'm half-alive. That from six to nine, I'm out of line. And that from ten to twelve I'm not myself.
And by the millionth time, I cry.
I need to know. I don't want to know, but I need to. That fire that was still crackling that night we went skydiving. The one he built. The one he left me by when he left before sunrise the next morning. That flame is under me now, so up we go. "Or maybe before you fucked me."
He looks out at the red rain, the thunder and the neon. "Then I'm here to tell you to forget about the summer...and me. Get rid of the tattoo. I know a place. I can cover the cost. We just need to move on."
I want to tell him that he was the priest and the prophet, my scripture and my conviction, even though he just asked me to endure an immeasurable pain to erase something that he did to me without even asking if I wanted to keep it or not.
I reach for him, because I can't break the habit, and I'm still believing that he can fix the damage. "Priest, we had a good thing going! Not sure that you've noticed but good things are hard to fucking come by these days. All these stupid little causes I cling to are only because I have nothing else."
"Trust me, En, I'm not the good."
"Then what is?"
"I don't know. But if anyone can find it, it's you. The only I know for sure is, I'm not fucking it."
He lets go. He gets up. He walks away from me.
"So that's it? Just say it like you mean it, Priest. Scream it out like it's religion!" I yell back at him, leaning over the booth. "You never wanted this to last. At least look at me!"
He turns around and points that finger at me again. "Leave me alone, En."
I bolt up from the booth. "Don't point at me like I'm some fucking junkie trying to steal your wallet. Is this really so easy for you? Come back here and finish this, you coward."
"Leave me alone, En." If we were once heaven and the moon, then this is him taking the sun from my sky. "It wasn't supposed to end like this."
I chase after him, past a girl with stark silver hair in a hoodie. "What are you so afraid of?" I ask as I open the door. "Don't just walk away! This isn't you."
The finger. Again. So savage. "You don't know me. And it needs to stay that way. You were just so desperate for anything to make you forget how goddamn lonely you are. Do yourself a favor and stick to 'the little things.' You managed just fine before me." He throws the door to his truck open, getting in and stopping with one knee perched. "Get the ink removed, En. It's not for you." One hand on the steering wheel. "Stay as far away from me as possible!"
Gone.
I stand there in the rain, bathed in blood red neon lights, and a part of me will always exist in the moments before this, when I was still anticipating, watching and waiting for him to make his move. But the moment is gone, he's through with me, and left me in this flash flood of cruelty. Turns out the answer to the question of Priest is one I never wanted.
They take everything from you, and you get angry, and they can't take it, and they can't see that you are hurt, so they run. They hurt you.
You're left brutally and mortally wounded.
Somehow, I make my way back to my place and end up in the bathroom, perched against the sink, switchblade in hand, trained at the tattoo he marked me with. He told me what his was, but not mine. It reminds me of a little machine.
It looks like a swirl of hair with a soul in the center.
I can't do it. Of course I can't. I drop the switchblade in the sink, where it careens around and around before settling over the drain. My mother always sad we see what we want to see in the world. To always look for the glimmer in the rubble. Well, I reach for the bottle of booze I was going to gift Priest, toasting ten holy Sundays, and don't even bother to remove the tag I used for a card. I perch myself by the open window and take a swig. I am tired of looking for the good in a world of bad. My world is a sizzling, smoking hunk of broken rubble. My world is on fire, toppling over, ready to explode. It is toxic and split up, divided and separated. I'm tired of looking. I just want to be found.
I take another swig. It's amazing how quickly love turns into hate.