Sitting in her living room with Amber late that night, scratching her furry ears and staring absently into space while low voices rumbled on TV, Sophia recalled how many nights she'd been in this exact situation – minus the dog – while living in her apartment in the city. When she'd eventually wander to the window that overlooked the pavement and parking garage, wishing she could run away to some beautiful place to gaze at the stars with a bottle of wine.
What was stopping her now? There were many such places in Stardew Valley; there were even wines aging in the cellar. With Amber passed out cold on the sofa, she got up turned off the TV.
She didn't have a plan leaving the house but her feet soon carried her in the direction of Cindersap forest and the lake. As a kid, she'd spent full days there with Grandpa and her sister, Amy: summer mornings learning how to fish, afternoons swimming near shore, evenings watching the first stars dot the cornflower blue sky. Even if he hadn't build it, she would've always thought of it as "Grandpa's dock."
Except perhaps it wasn't; perhaps not anymore.
Closing in on the lake, unlabeled mystery wine in one hand and a blanket under the arm of the other, she halted at seeing the shadow there. Heart racing, she tried to make out if it belonged to him, and didn't have to wait long for confirmation – the figure only moved to lift a bottle from time to time.
This is his dock, she marveled.
She was torn. On one hand this looked like another private moment, and she already felt guilty about all the previous ones. On the other hand, perhaps this was the time to do it – if he was always so closed off, joining him for a drink might be her only path in.
His shout pierced the air like a bullet while she was still attempting to make up her mind.
Heart pattering, blood running cold from the scare, she watched as he now cradled his head and rocked.
"Shane?" She walked closer, too worried to care if she was wanted there or not.
His head snapped up, startled, and he looked at her with damp, red eyes, his hair disheveled in every direction from the way he'd been holding his head. "You got a fucking GPS on me or something?" he muttered thickly, running his hand over his face.
"Starting to wonder that myself."
"Why're you here?"
Sophia, standing over him, held up her blanket and wine. "Same reason as you. Sort of." She hesitated. "May I?"
He turned to face the water again, making a small, careless gesture with one hand as if to say, who am I to stop you?
Easing down next to him, she dangled her legs over the water and spread the blanket over them, offering half to Shane. He shook his head no. Having already loosened the cork at her house, she popped the wine open and again made an offering, but again he dismissed it, this time by holding up a bottle of his own.
She raised an eyebrow. "Whiskey again?"
"What?"
"I don't know, just pegged you more as a schnapps guy."
"Oh, fuck off." He looked miserable, but not mad. Then he held out his bottle to her. "How about you? Still a whiskey drinker?"
She took it. "Guess I am tonight." Taking a sip, she managed to swallow without sputtering, then handed it back and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
"Girl after my own heart, huh?" He tilted it back himself, drinking three times as much as Sophia and downing it as though it were water. He looked an utter mess, but when he spoke it was the most lucid she'd ever heard him. "Just don't make a habit of it."
"Could say the same to you."
He squinted at her from the side. "Did you really work at Joja?"
"Corporate," she admitted, straightening the blanket. "Different kind of shithole from yours. Shithole in a cubicle, but shithole nonetheless."
"Figures. That makes more sense."
"Why? I'm not above stocking shelves. In fact, I may have preferred it."
"Okay, now I know you're full of horseshit."
"You have windows at your store?" she asked.
"Er, yeah."
"My office didn't. My whole floor didn't."
"You were underground?"
"Yep. Grey cinder blocks and fluorescent lighting as far as the eye could see. I sometimes took lunches in the smoking area just to see a different type of concrete. Come to think of it, that's how I started smoking in the first place."
He snorted.
"One day I saw this little dandelion, poking up through a crack like it was trying to escape, too. I know it sounds cliché, but I thought it was a sign, right?"
"Uh, right."
"Walked out that afternoon."
"Shit." Shane kicked his foot in the water, wetting the toe of his shoe. "Wish I could."
"You will."
"Maybe when I'm dead."
"You will. One day you'll see a sign, maybe – I dunno, a bird's nest in the rafters or something – and you'll think, today's the day."
He actually laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll happen." Then he offered the bottle a second time. Perhaps it was the girl after his own heart comment that she was after again; whatever it was, she took another drink.
"You're different than I thought you'd be," he said.
She swallowed, shuddering; it burned worse this time. "How'd you think I was going to be?"
"I dunno. Just…not like this. You're not like all the other whack jobs in this town."
"I guess us outsiders have to stick together then." She kicked his foot with her own. "But for real? Those whack jobs aren't so bad. Everyone I've met has been really nice."
"That's because you're really nice back."
"Yeah, well, people tend to like that shit. Should try it yourself sometime, might surprise you."
"Didn't expect the sailor mouth, either."
"Ah, that." While not fully buzzed yet, the whiskey and wine were starting to go to her head and she was feeling loose lipped. "Want to know why?"
"You have a reason?"
"I have a reason. And his name rhymes with ick." Shane looked confused and she added, "My ex, he didn't let me."
"He didn't let you?"
"Don't you know? Girls shouldn't cuss out of their pretty little mouths." She smiled a saccharine smile, then her face fell flat. "He was a bit of a dick bag. A dick bag with massive control issues. And I'm not one of those people who trashes my exes for fun, by the way – his issues were basically textbook. So now when I swear it's a little fuck you to him as well. Fuck you, Rick."
"Fuck Rick," agreed Shane, passing her the bottle again in solidarity. She smiled at him.
"May I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"How old are you?"
A brief pause. "Twenty-nine. Why?"
Twenty-nine. Honestly, she would have thought younger, twenty-six or twenty-seven, except that for looking at his eyes – eyes that were tired, and not for the night, but tired of life's bullshit, tired of life itself – she couldn't help feeling they were both wrong. The gaze staring back was at least forty.
"Just wondering."
"Look," he said, and she was struck again by how lucid he sounded. "I appreciate what you're doing here, and I'm sorry I've been a dick to you. Really. But you can stop trying now."
"What do you mean, trying?"
He sighed, scratching his hand through his hair. "You know what I mean. Trying to be nice or be my friend or whatever the hell it is you're doing. You're better off not dealing with me."
"You don't know that."
"And you don't know me."
"Well, maybe I want to."
"No you don't. I'm a shit person with a shit future. You're young. You don't want to end up like me in five years."
Sophia spun the wine bottle in her hands, running her fingers across the smooth glass. "I'm not that young," she said quietly, then turned to him. "And you're not a shit person."
Shane stared at her, incredulous. "You think because we danced together than one time that you know me? You don't fucking know me."
"Fine. I don't fucking know you. But I'm allowed an opinion, so don't bite my head off. I don't think you're a shit person. I think you just act shitty. And yes, there's a difference," she said, when he opened his mouth to argue.
They sat in silence, neither knowing what to say in light of the new tension. Sophia drank more of her wine, while Shane took out his pocketknife, flipping it open and close as he brooded. After a few minutes he spread his hand on the dock and began to stab the knife in the spaces between his fingers, slowly at first and then picking up speed – some stupid parlor trick Sophia remembered boys in high school doing.
While it'd always made her nervous, even in the past, seeing it now made her panic. She cried out and grabbed his wrist mid-stab.
"What are you doing?" he hissed. "I could've hurt you."
"Stopping you!" She yanked the knife out of his hand. "What are you doing? Trying to kill yourself?"
He laughed; a cold, unhappy laugh. "Maybe I am, but sure as hell not with that thing. Relax."
Lifting the whiskey again, he chugged. When she first arrived he'd had the better part of a fifth left – she now watched in horror as he drained it, inch by inch, to the bottom.
Still holding the knife, she stood, snapping it close and throwing it at him.
"You're an ass," she spat, snatching up her blanket and wine and storming down the dock.
Fuck, she was furious. She was hurt. And yet – she couldn't leave him, not like that, not alone, when he'd just drank enough to put someone like Sophia in the hospital. While certain his tolerance was far higher than her own, she couldn't chance it. Still shaking in anger, she plopped down beneath a tree not far off shore and bundled the blanket around her legs, leaning her head back and looking up at the black canopy of leaves.
Maybe she'd overreacted. It's not like he knew.
Shane stayed on the dock until well after midnight, swaying more and more as the time went on, once or twice losing balance on the arm he leaned against. When he finally stood the empty bottle fell off his lap and rolled across the dock with a clatter, and Sophia nearly cried out as he bent to pick it up – he lost balance again and for a split second she thought he might topple into the water.
He saved himself by grabbing one of the dock's posts. When he finally stumbled to shore, there was a moment where he paused and looked almost steady. Then he bent in half and retched all over the ground.
Sophia had never seen such a mess of a human. She watched as he sank to his knees and threw up twice more, then struggled to stand upright again. When he finally did, he reminded her of someone riding a bike and unable to keep their balance for moving too slowly. The ranch was at least a ten or fifteen minute walk from the lake; he'd never make it at this rate, not without falling, and probably not without passing out.
Abandoning her belongings on the ground she walked over and, forcing his arm around her like a crutch, said, "Come on. Let's get you home."
