I wrapped my hand around the doorknob. You don’t have to say anything, I told myself. You just have to open the door and she will feel your shadow cross over her body and she will sit up straight in bed, having been awake for hours waiting for something without even realizing it was you, and she will know, even in the dark, even if she can’t fully see the expression on your face, why you’re here, that she doesn’t have to say anything either, just has to get up and take your hand—I took another drink and pushed open the door.
The room was too quiet and I pulled the gun from my pocket. It didn’t feel heavy, but sticky. Whether it was from my sweat or the gun’s, the longer I held it, the more it seemed to melt into me. I saw an outline of the bed, but not much else. I took one step closer, two. No sounds or movement from the bed. My grip on the gun tightened and I worried that Jenny wasn’t there, that she’d had an idea similar to mine and had hopped in her car, taken off down the highway before this new house became familiar and she found herself becoming as much a part of it as the plaster on the walls. I heard a cough and my heartbeat quickened.
I walked closer to the bed, and as I did, my eyes adjusted to the dark and I was able to make out a large shape hidden under blankets. I walked even closer and realized the large shape was not just one body, but two.
Jenny and Jim wrapped closely together. His arms around her midsection, his chin digging into her shoulder. Her head turned away from him and toward the window, a sliver of moonlight cutting her face in half. She looked pained to have him touching her like that, her body as far on the edge as she could go without falling off. Sleeping on the edge of the bed was no way to live. She should’ve been in the center of it with her arms and legs splayed out, the end of each limb touching a different corner and marking them sacred like pennies in a fountain, lipstick on a bare napkin, flags on mountains and moons and other places worth claiming, the spit of little kids on random sections of the sidewalk and street, a physical marker of joy so great it brimmed out of them in all forms and fluids.
Jim made a gurgling sound in his throat. I stared at him, not just a still, no-teeth smiling image, but a real and solid and fleshy presence. I raised the gun and pointed it at him.
My grip on the gun changed from stickiness to slipperiness. My hand started to shake and I had to bring my other hand to steady it. I kept the gun aimed directly at his forehead and I wondered how loud the shot would be, how it would echo throughout the house, how scared Adam would be, and what Jenny’s face would look like when she woke up. His pillow was a light purple or blue and I tried to picture how blood and brains would look like against it. My finger was lightly squeezing the trigger when Jenny turned over and snuggled into the crook of Jim’s neck.
* * *
—
I WATCHED THEM LYING TOGETHER, their bodies pressed close, drawn together even in their sleep. Her leg hooked around his waist, her arm draped over his shoulder; he pulled her tighter, and when they both sighed, deeply, I could see they were in love. Her breath must have felt so warm against his neck.
Jim suddenly looked handsome to me and, more than that, I could imagine the comfort of his large body. She didn’t move to Bakersfield because of him—she moved for him. She moved because when he left for work she immediately felt like the whole house got smaller. She paced room to room, touching each section of the wall, each grain of the carpet, trying to remember what he said the last time he stood there and there and there. Her heart must have bloomed to life every time she heard the door click open. She must have glowed when he kissed her cheek even when she was dying for his lips. During our kiss, I had no doubt that, with each passing second, she was comparing mine to his, how wrong mine must’ve felt—Jenny, I swear I didn’t know, Jenny, why didn’t you tell me? The strip of moonlight widened, and I noticed then that the shirt Jim was wearing was the one I plucked from her laundry basket the night I watched Adam, the one with tiny tooth holes in the collar, the one I put in my mouth and sucked on—his, not hers—she loved him and he loved her and I was a lonely, drunk pregnant girl in a home I didn’t belong in.
I lowered the gun, drained the rest of the Coke can, and walked away. Before I closed the door behind me, I took one last look at them. They hadn’t moved.
* * *
—
JENNY AND JIM didn’t have whiskey, but downstairs they had bubble-wrapped bottles of wine in a box on the kitchen table.
I unwrapped one that had a label with French words and a black horse. The horse’s mane was beautiful and long and flowing in a wind I couldn’t see. The mane reminded me of Jenny’s old ponytail and I pulled open each drawer, searching for a corkscrew, couldn’t find one. I broke the neck of the bottle against the counter, poured some into the Coke can, didn’t bother cleaning up the glass this time.
On the couch, I drank their wine and let my head fall back. I looked up at the ceiling and I couldn’t project my future against it. I pictured so many things, but this was impossible. I stared hard, actually tried to see myself in a year, a month, a week, a day from where I was sitting. All I could see was pizza, booze, Los Angeles, and the inside of the Festiva.
I had a random memory of a day from a year or so back when I was alone at home. I had ditched school and was hoping that there was still some roast beef Mom had made the night before in the Tupperware in the fridge. I told the school nurse that I had a headache, a really bad headache, and I could barely see her face or the mustard stain on her cardigan. It was around 11:00 a.m. when I got back to the house, and I knew this because I had faked a headache to ditch third-period pre-calc to avoid a test—unit circles made no sense, and my graphing calculator was big and had buttons with squiggles on them that actually made my head hurt.
When I opened the door, I saw Mom sitting on the couch, Tupperware in her lap, roast beef in her hands, grease on her chin. Dad opened the door and walked in less than a minute after me, and then we all stood staring at each other. We all had places we should’ve been—Mom opened at Kmart on Tuesdays, Dad had just started a new job cleaning the bathrooms and mopping floors at a law firm downtown, Mrs. Keery was probably glaring at my empty desk. We knew this and we didn’t say anything, just started laughing. We laughed past the appropriate amount of time, only stopped when our sides and lungs threatened to burst. We sat on the couch, not saying anything to each other, passing the roast beef back and forth, and watching a TV show that I don’t remember a single part of. I sat in between them, their shoulders both touching mine.
I put my hands to my eyes and realized I was still holding the gun. The gun in my hand no longer felt sticky, or slippery, or much like anything at all. I pointed it at myself, looked down the barrel of it, and I couldn’t see my future there either. I pointed the gun to the ceiling and, just to see, just to hear what it would sound like, I pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.