Free Destroy by Jason Myers Page A

at that moment in time. Everyone was having a fucking blast and partying with no worries and no shame. That’s how the city was two years ago. When it was still so fun and not so steeped in cynicism and paranoia and absolutely stuck in the final throes of all these plastic trends the way it is now.
    It was right after Gillian Welch was finished playing that sunny afternoon when I bumped into Savannah. She was wearing this red dress with tiny white lassos embroidered all over it, these fingerless black gloves that ran all the way to her elbows, and these white cowboy boots. She actually stayed with me the rest of the day, and when the festival wrapped up early that evening, her and some of her friends came to Zeitgeist with me and some of my friends for a birthday party and then to this BRMC show at the Independent. We were all having the best damn time. And after the show was over, Savannah invited a few of us back to her pad on Thirteenth and South Van Ness. We sat around her dimly lit kitchen table, drinking whiskey and beer, listening to records and playing cards. We even tried to play Trivial Pursuit but squashed the game after, like, the third question was asked. And eventually, I even gave up my pursuit ofher and at some point, simply stumbled into the living room and laid myself out on the couch. I have no idea how long I was out for, but when my eyes opened, Savannah was standing over me. She told me everyone else was gone and then she put her soft hands over mine and pulled me to my feet and led me into her bedroom.
    Her lights were turned down low and her windows were covered and she told me to lie on the bed. I was so tired, I remember. So damn tired.
    Savannah closed her bedroom door, and she lit these scented candles that smelled like violets and country bouquets, before flipping through her iPod and playing the same My Morning Jacket album I’m listening to right now.
    Crawling into bed, this pretty girl curled up next to me, and we just lay there listening to the sound of our breath and the Z album. Neither of us spoke for those first few moments, because sometimes it’s just better not to say anything. Sometimes the silence is all you need. Sometimes it can really be golden. And it wasn’t until that opening drumroll of song two that Savannah craned her head around and said, “This song destroys me, James. It makes me fall in love with the past all over again.”
    She said, “Just listen to the lyrics of this verse, James. Listen to how goddamn pretty they are.”
    She was talking about the lyrics of the second verse:
    â€œWords will come and words will go, make believe and overthrow, just believe and you can do, You know my heart it beats for you . . .”
    â€œThey’re good,” I remember telling her, and five minutes later, we were fucking.
    It was pretty rad. To finally be fucking this grade-A babe I’d been pursuing for so long. But the thing is, I got kinda irritated. She wouldn’t suck my dick for some reason. I can’t actually remember what she said. But she wouldn’t. It was kinda this big turnoff.
    And when I woke up later that afternoon, she was still asleep, so I carefully pulled my body away from hers and slid out of her warm bed and bailed. I never saw her again.
    It was perfect.
    Recently, someone told me she was living in New York now. That she’d moved, like, six weeks after our night together and was working as a bartender. Or maybe it was Portland now. And she was doing some sorta Chuck Palahniuk stalking.
    The album spins into song three, and I squeeze my forehead and take a huge breath and rub my eyes.
    Goddamn.
    Nostalgia can take so much out of me sometimes. It really can.
    My phone starts ringing.
    It’s Nina.
    â€œI’m in,” she says.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œMe and you. I’m in. Come over right now.”
    â€œYou’re serious?”
    â€œCome over right now,”