Free Blinded by Travis Thrasher Page B

okay it’s fine I’m fine this is fine everything is going to be fine everything’s gonna be just fine
.
    “Look, I’m really okay.”
    “Come on. I swear, I won’t force you to do anything. It won’t hurt.”
    What is she talking about? What won’t hurt? Amanda won’t hurt you? Is this all some game?
    You walk toward the bedroom and enter it, another large room with high ceilings and simple, straightforward styling. The large bed sits in the middle of the room, all black. Amanda sits on the edge of it and takes off one of her high heels.
    “These things have been killing me all day.”
    “Look, I think I should go,” you say.
    Amanda laughs and curses at the same time. “God, I want a cigarette. Do you smoke? One thing we never do in here is smoke. You can’t smoke anywhere in this ungodly city.”
    There is a room off to the side of this uncluttered bedroom. You want to get away from Amanda and this place.
    “Can I—I’m going to use the bathroom.”
    “Right in there,” she says, taking her other shoe off.
    You wonder if she’s going to keep going. Maybe you should bolt out of here. This is crazy. This is crazy and what would anybody you know think of this right now.
    You search the wall for a light and turn it on. It’s a large bathroom with two sinks and a separate room with a walk-in closet. You walk by the closet heading to the toilet and
    what the
    lift up the toilet lid and then realize what you just saw.
    A face, in the darkness, staring out at you.
    Before you can turn around, before you can suck in a breath, before you can put your arms out or above you or in front of you, something hits you on the back of your head.
    And the only thing your mind sees as you go black is the face of Riley, the curly short hair, his lips laughing, grinning, cackling. But then the face turns into Jasmine. Then you’re out.

T HE DARKNESS LANDS ON THE LIGHT of a candle, a small lit flame burning in the middle of the table, illuminating her slender hands and the wedding band you gave her years earlier. You look up to see the flickering shadows against her shirt, her neck, her chin, her little button nose, her brown eyes, her brown hair.
    “I’m just tired of everything,” you say.
    You’ve had a few drinks tonight and maybe that’s allowing you to talk. You’re not saying anything you haven’t felt for a while. It’s just that you’ve been so busy and Lisa has been so busy and now that you both have come up for air and can actually sit across from one another without an obligation or a cell phone going off or something to do, you feel the waves of reality rushing over you.
    “Tired of what?”
    She’s not shocked and shouldn’t be shocked.
    But what are you saying. Really?
    “Tired of living next to you but not really being with you.”
    “What does that mean?”
    You have another sip of the wine. Wine does wonders on you. A few glasses and you feel the weight of the world slip away. This is vacation and you’re allowed to have that feeling. But you’re not feeling good and you haven’t felt good for some time.
    “It means—I don’t know what it means. Why do I have to be the one to bring this up?”
    “I asked you what was wrong,” Lisa says.
    “I don’t know exactly what’s wrong.”
    “I thought—getting away—spending some time on the beach and away from it all—I thought that would be good.”
    “Maybe …” But you can’t finish your thought.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    “What?”
    Lisa knows what you were about to say and you know that she knows. She just wants you to say it. To be a man and say it and get it on the table.
    Say it. Go ahead, Mike, and say it. Just say the truth. Say what you’re thinking
.
    “Maybe we need to get away from each other.”
    There. I said it
.
    She looks at you, the face of a woman you used to love, that you don’t know if you love now, a face that you trusted and that once trusted you. Hurt and confusion and anger pour down over that