Falling Away (6 page)

She reaches to the stool beside her, unzips her purse, and withdraws her phone. Taps at it, and then sets it on the bar between us. A familiar melody emerges from the phone, a banjo picking out a simple count. The bartender glances at us, and then mutes the TV. We listen to the song, and I pay attention to the lyrics. When it’s over, I glance at Echo, who has a faraway expression on her face.

“So. Now you get it?”
 

“I guess.”
 

She puts a forefinger on the screen of her phone and spins it in circles. “I guess it’s like a vow, for me. A promise to myself. With what Mom went through and how that affected me, I just…it’s like the song says, ‘this is the first and last time I’ll wear white.’ You know?”

“I hear a story there,” I say.

She shoots a grin and a sideways glance at me. “A story I don’t feel like telling right now. Besides, not much new about it, but it’s my story.”

“Heard that,” I say, sliding off my stool and grabbing my cane. “My turn for the bathroom.”

She tosses back the shot she’d asked for and forgotten about, and then carefully lowers herself to her feet. “Me, too.” And this time she grabs my elbow, her hand slipping around my arm easily. She leans into me for balance, and still manages to trip a few times. We both go into the men’s room, and I make sure she’s in a stall before heading for a urinal.
 

I’m washing my hands when I hear the stall door bang open. I turn to see Echo stumbling out, fumbling with the hem of her dress, which is caught in the waistband of her underwear. I laugh and try to keep my eyes in appropriate places, but it’s a lost cause. She’s got killer legs, long and strong and curvy. I tug the hem of her dress free and let it float down around her ankles once more, and look up to see that she’s staring at me.
 

The tensions and the questions and the sorrow and the doubt and the desire and the heat and the intoxication all mix, hers and mine and both and neither, and I can’t look away from her, those eyes, so many shades and colors all mixed together.
 

“Think I’m…think I’m done,” Echo says, ripping her gaze from mine and lurching past me.
 

I follow her, and when she stumbles again, I grab her arm with my free hand and keep her upright. She snags her shoes and purse, withdraws a wallet and peers into it, sorting through what seems to be mostly fives and tens and a couple twenties.
 

“What’s the damage, boss?” she asks the bartender. Without a word, the bartender prints out a ticket and sets it on the bar in front of Echo. I reach for it, but she slaps my hand. “No. I got it. You just get us a cab.” She hands him a debit card, gets it back and signs the slip.
 

“To where?” I ask, glancing at the bartender, who is already on the phone, mumbling into it and hanging up.
 

“I dunno. Anywhere.”

“What’s your grandparents’ address?” I ask.

Echo ignores me, weaving an unsteady line toward the door, and then she walks outside, blinking in the sunlight.
 
It’s late evening, the sunlight a golden-orange, the heat fading to something less oppressive. She leans against the wall beside the door, heels dangling from two fingers, purse tucked under her arm. She’s staring at the street, watching cars pass but not seeing them, I don’t think. I glance down. Her feet are bare, and the ground outside the bar is dirty, bits of glass and old cigarette butts and oil stains.
 

“Not going back there,” she mumbles. “Can’t. I can’t—I can’t handle Grandma and Grandpa right now. I just can’t.”

“Then where?”

“I don’t care!” she yells. “I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.”

Are these drunk emotions, or she-just-buried-her-mother emotions? Both, probably, and I don’t know what to do, what to say. I don’t know her. I barely knew her mother. So I don’t say anything. We wait in silence until a white older model Dodge Caravan with the name of a taxi service printed across the side pulls up. I hobble past Echo and slide open the door, then extend my hand to her. She fits her palm in mine but doesn’t look at me as she climbs in, slides to the seat on the far side. I hop in after her and close the door. The driver pulls out of the parking lot.
 

When he’s waiting at a red light, he glances at me in the rear-view mirror. “Where to?”

I glance at Echo, but she’s staring out the window, head against the glass. Her breath comes slowly, deeply, as if she’s fighting for each breath. Holding back vomit, maybe, or holding back sobs. Can’t tell which.
 

“Just drive for now,” I tell him.
 

He nods, and turns up the radio. “Give Me Back My Hometown” by Eric Church comes on.
 

And, of course, it’s followed by “What Hurts the Most” by Rascal Flatts.
 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Echo says when Rascal Flatts comes on. “Mom loved this song.” The driver moves to change it, but she shakes her head. “Leave it on. Just…leave it.” Her voice sounds faint, distant.

I look over, and I see her eyes flutter, close once or twice, and then she’s asleep. “Shit,” I mumble. I glance at the reflection of the driver’s eyes in the mirror. “Now what do I do?” I rub my forehead with the back of a knuckle, and then give him my address.

Her head wobbles and bobs with the turns and the bumps in the road. Even passed out, she looks troubled, eyebrows pinched and drawn.

Twenty minutes later, the cab squeals to a stop outside my apartment. I pay the driver, and then nudge Echo’s shoulder with my hand. “Echo. Echo. Wake up.”
 

She moans, and her eyes flutter, flicker open. “What? Where am I?”
 

“Come on. We’re going in, okay?” I tell her.

She nods sloppily and sits up straighter. I get out of the cab and move around to the driver’s side, open the sliding door, and she topples out, into me. I catch her; help her find her feet. She wraps an arm over my neck, clinging to me. I lean heavily on my cane and hobble carefully toward the door. I’ve been on my feet too much today, and my knee burns, throbs, and I know I can’t make it much farther on my own, much less support Echo as well. But I don’t have much choice, it seems. She’s not even really awake or aware, more just holding onto me instinctively.

I refuse to acknowledge the press of her body against mine, or the feel of her breath on my neck. I’m an asshole for even thinking about it, for having to stop myself from dwelling on it.

I’m not sure how I make it to the door, or how I get it unlocked and open, but I do. Barely, though. I get her to the doorway to my room, and then my knee gives out, leaving me clinging to the doorway, an arm slung around Echo’s waist holding her upright as I hop on one foot and fight for balance, gritting my teeth. She’s groaning, head lolling, and I’m about to drop her.
 

“Echo. Can you stand up for me for a second?”
 

She murmurs something unintelligible, and then peers at me. “I know you. We just met. Hi.”

“Hi there, yeah, you know me. I’m Ben, remember? I need you to stand up for me. Can you do that?”

She blinks, closes one eye and then the other, and then widens them both. “Maybe. Possibly.” She grabs my arm and hauls herself upright. “There.”

I let her go and get my foot under me, gingerly stepping on it and leaning on my cane. And then she sways and starts to fall backward, and I have to catch her, hobbling forward as she stumbles away from me as she tries to find her own balance. I grab her, catch her around the waist again, and then we’re both falling, hitting the bed, thankfully.
 

“You caught me.” She peers at me, grinning. “Good job, Benny. Benny. Is that short for Benjamin? Bennnnn…jamin…” She draws the middle sound of my name out, and then grins again. “Bennnnjaminnnn. Benj…amin. Benji? Benji. Maybe I’ll call you Benji.”

My heart lurches. Only one person ever called me Benji. “How about you just call me Ben?” I say.

She tries to wriggle onto the bed, turns onto her stomach and crawls army-style. And then she waves at me. “Come on. Up here. Come up here with me, Benji.”

“Ben,” I say through clenched teeth, my heart cracking as I force down the hurt and the thoughts and the memories I’ve tried to bury. “My name is Ben.”

She blinks at me. “But I like Benji. It’s cute, and you’re cute.” Her gaze narrows. “You’ve got a lot of stories, don’t you…Benji? Ha. I hear the story there too, you know? I may be wasted, but I remember. I remember.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” I move to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and watch her as she kicks the blankets down and tucks her feet under them, making herself comfortable in my bed.

“I need a drink, Benji.” She leans against the wall, head lolling and eyes narrowed and watching me.
 

“I’ve got some water bottles and some Gatorade,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “No, Benji. A
drink
. A fucking drink. I still remember, and I want…I want to forget. I need to forget.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea—” I start.

“You’re not my fucking mother!” she snarls, darting forward and jabbing the air with her finger. “You’re not my fucking mother, and I need a drink, goddammit.” She flops back against the wall, head smacking the drywall. “Ow. Please. Please, Benji.”

Every time she says that nickname, something inside me clenches, stings.
 

I push to my feet and limp into the kitchen, hating that I’m doing this. But I don’t know this girl, and her pain is bright in her eyes. So I grab a nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam from the cupboard over the fridge. I snag two juice glasses from a different cupboard, and a bottle of water from the fridge. When I make it back into my room, Echo is standing up, unsteadily at best, reaching awkwardly behind her back for the zipper of her dress.

“Fuck this dress,” she mumbles. “Done with this stupid dress.”
 

She’s facing away from me so I know she doesn’t see me, which makes it almost funny. It would be funny if this were any other circumstance. She finds the zipper and pulls it down, shrugs her shoulders, and the black material falls to pool around her feet. I swallow hard. She’s wearing a black dress, black underwear, and I can’t breathe, can’t look away, can’t avoid the desire and the guilt raging inside me.
 

“Um. Hi.” I clear my throat, duck my head.

“Oh. Benji-boy.” Echo turns, wobbles, and topples into the bed, then pushes herself upright. “Couldn’t handle that fucking dress anymore.” Her eyes go to mine, and I see an odd note of something I can’t decipher in her expression. “Hope you don’t mind, Benji. I just can’t wear that dress anymore. You don’t mind, right?”
 

“No…I mean…” I don’t know what to say. This feels wrong. She shouldn’t be practically naked, and I shouldn’t be struggling with my instincts. Not like this. Not her. “You want a T-shirt or something?”

“Yes! A T-shirt. What a great idea. There’s nothing as comfy as a boy’s T-shirt.” She points at me. “Shirt me, Benji.” And then she giggles, like she’s said something funny.

I move to my dresser and set the bottle and glasses on top of it, and then rummage in my drawer for a shirt. When I turn to hand it to her, she’s somehow moved to stand right behind me, and she’s lost her bra in the process. Breathing, swallowing, looking away, guilt…the list of impossible things grows by the second.
 

“Like what you see, Benji-boy?” She’s just standing there, two feet away, topless, in nothing but her panties.
 

My zipper tightens, and I’ve got to clench my fists to keep them at my sides.
 

I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing hard, and duck my head. I’ve got the T-shirt wadded in my fist, and I crush it with every ounce of strength I possess as she sidles toward me.
 

“Echo…” I move backward, but there’s nowhere to go except into the dresser. I’d be willing to climb in a drawer and close it over me, if only to get away from the burning knot of desire and guilt lodged in my chest. “Stop.”
 

She doesn’t, and I put a hand up, only…she walks right into it, and I feel the soft squish of her breast. I hurriedly drop my hand and slide sideways.

She’s just trying a different tactic, I know. Trying to forget.
 

It’s not about me.

Not about me.

I shake the T-shirt loose and find the neck hole, reach out and fit it over Echo’s head, which works to cover her from my gaze and pinion her hands at the same time.
 

“What’s the matter, Benji?” she says, a sultry pout on her face.

“You’re drunk, and I’m not doing that.”

“But I want to. Don’t you?” She’s still shifting closer to me even as she slides her arms through the sleeves.

“No you don’t, Echo. That’s not going to help you forget.”
 

“Yeah, it will.”
 

I shake my head and grab her wrist as she reaches for me. “No, Echo. It really won’t.”

Except…how would I know?
 

She jerks her wrist out of my grip, eyes blazing. “Fine. Fuck you, then.” She grabs the bottle of Jim off the dresser, unscrews the cap and puts it to her mouth, takes three long swallows, hissing as it burns down her throat. “Or don’t, whatever. You could’ve, but no. Too damned…
chivalrous
, aren’t you? Benji, my honorable knight in shining armor, is that it?”

She turns away and misses a step, catches herself with a hand on the bed, the bottle clutched in her other hand. I just watch from across the room, not daring to speak or move. Echo makes it to the side of the bed, sits down and scoots back, tucks her legs under the blankets and settles with her back to the wall. The bottle goes to her mouth and she tips it back and gulps a big mouthful, and then sets it down with a loud
thud
on the bedside table.
 

“Put on music, Benji. Something Mom would like. Country music.”

I fish my phone from my pocket and bring up Pandora, then dock the phone in the Bose alarm clock on my bedside table.