Free Behind His Lens by R. S. Grey

don’t take care of drunk women. Yet, here I sit, cradling Charley against me and praying she won’t be sick before we get to her apartment.
    “How many shots did you and Tom take?”
    “Two.” She puckers her lips and drags out the “ew” sound.
    “But I took a few shots before leaving home,” she clarifies, rolling her head toward the window. I’ve got a good hold on her, but I’m pretty sure if I let her go she’d slide right on down to the floor of the taxi.
    “Do you normally drink that much?” I ask gently. I won’t judge her for it, but it concerns me that she didn’t think to eat more before she started.
    “Never,” she whispers, and it’s impossible to ignore the sadness suddenly clouding her blue eyes. She looks hopelessly lost in that moment.
    I squeeze her shoulder reassuringly, uncertain of where her mind is starting to wander. She’s watching the New York landsc ape flash by through the window. It’s a few minutes later when she finally murmurs, “My mom drank a lot.”
    Her confession catches me off guard. She looks too polished to come from a rotten past. The taxi pulls up to a stop sign and Charley watches a family taking their dog on a late night walk. What was her family like?
    “I’d come home from school and usually she’d already have started on her second bottle of wine for the night. I know because she used to let me play with the corks,” she laughs sadly.
    Her words are hazy as though they’re spilling from her mind like a daydream. Does she know she’s speaking out loud? She doesn’t look at me as she talks, and I don’t interrupt her. I want to know why there’s so much sadness in those eyes.
    “She wasn’t like an alcoholic-alcoholic,” she laughs, but it doesn’t sound carefree. It sounds pained and hollow , so I pull her closer to me, trying to shield the sad memories.
    “She functioned perfectly fine and had everybody in her social group fooled. She was poised and polished around them, but around me she turned into a nasty drunk. She’d say the meanest things to me while I was growing up. Drunk minds speak sober thoughts, right?” She pauses for a beat. “God, I hate her.”
    The city lights illuminate the sudden paleness of her features as a tear slides down her delicate cheek. I reach out to swipe it away, for once not caring about the consequences of my actions. Tomorrow I’ll go back to being the old Jude, but right now I just want to be there for her.
    “I’m sorry, Charley,” I whisper in her ear, watching the goose bumps bloom down her neck.
    My words break through her daydream though, and she suddenly tries to scoot away. “Why am I telling you this?” She shakes away her thoughts and then leans her head back against the seat. The moment is gone and I can already feel her reserve building against the world once again.
    She isn’t opening up to me; she is letting drunken memories slip out to blend with the hazy night air.
    “Jude, I feel sick,” she groans, squinting her eyes closed in pain.
    “I know,” I soothe. “We’ll be home soon.” I keep running my fingers through the silky strands of her hair as silence fills the confined space of the taxi.
    But when we’re almost to the address she gave the cabdriver, I watch a sloppy smile unpeel across her lips. I can’t keep up with her drunken moods. She’s crying one minute and smiling the next. Will she remember any of this in the morning?
    “Jude, will this be like it is in the movies— where you start to undress me because I’m too drunk to do it myself , but then we have sex because I suddenly sober up?”
    Her words are sloppy, but I can’t help the fact that hearing her say the word ‘sex’ still makes my dick stir. She’s that enticing.
    “Is that how it happens in movies?” I ask, trying to appease her.
    “Mhmm,” she mumbles, keeping her eyes closed and her head tilted back. “But just so you know, I’m definitely going to throw up when we get home. And you’ll