"Because it's beautiful, Blake!" Audrey's volume had raised a bit since we'd arrived. It was also her third drink, and something told me she couldn't handle her liquor well.
I snickered. "No, it wasn’t. My shit isn't beautiful."
Her face fell with a crushing amount of sorrow as her hand pressed against her chest. "Oh, Blake. You ... You are so beautiful. You're so talented and gifted and your words are ..." She shook her head, planting her hand against her chest again and again. "Your words are your heart, and it's broken, but it's not ugly. You're not ugly."
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," I scoffed, leaning back in my chair. "Talk to my shrink. She'll tell you how ugly I am."
It was a challenge, almost spiteful and bitter, and I knocked the rest of my drink back in one gulp. Audrey didn't so much as flinch when I brought the glass back down to the table with a hollow clunk. I wanted her to react, I wanted to see her jolt and quake with every shred of who I am. It was then that I suddenly felt the urge to narrow my eyes, twist my lips, and lean further against the table. I stared directly into her eyes, hoping to finally shake her up, to let her see just how hideous I was beneath the surface—a bitter, hateful thief.
With my nose just an inch from hers, I asked, "What the hell do I have to do to make you leave me alone?"
"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Her tone remained even and calm, instantly sober as her eyes held mine with a patience I hated her for.
"I—"
"Next up, we have Audrey!"
In synchronized fashion, we turned toward the stage and the owner of the club, applauding and welcoming her to the mic. Audrey didn't let me finish what I was about to say as she stood up and told me she'd be back, before climbing the steps into the spotlight. I held my breath, holding in the belligerence, as she cleared her throat and pulled out a sheet of paper from her pocket.
"This one is called He," she spoke in her pleasant voice, not at all tipsy-sounding, and began to read.
He is heated,
He is cold.
He is subtle,
He is bold.
He is honest,
He is lying.
He's barely living,
He is dying.
He is gifted,
He is blessed.
He is angry,
He's a mess.
He is broken,
He is fine.
He is wanted,
But he's not mine.
I could have thought of a thousand ways to interpret that poem of simple words. Who was he? Was it someone I didn't know? Was it me? I thought it was about me. I wanted it to be about me, even if there was no reason for me to believe it was. She hardly knew me, how could she write something about a man she knew nothing about?
And yet, there was that feeling that this was all meant to be. That maybe she did know me, maybe somehow, in some way, she really did ... Fate. Signs. Written in the stars. God. Plans. I shook my head at the insanity and climbed from my chair to get a drink before Audrey could sit back down.
This would be my fourth drink. What the hell was I thinking? Is this what she drove me to do? To drink myself into a drunken stupor? With another gin and tonic in hand, I went back to the table and dropped myself down in the chair.
"Did you like it?" she asked, slowly sipping at what was left of her drink. She wouldn't meet my eyes and that only meant one thing.
"You wrote a poem about me." She nodded and I asked, "Why would you do that?"
Her gaze diverted to mine for one, two fractions of a heartbeat before dashing away again. "It's not obvious?"
"What are you talking about?"
She shrugged. Her finger ran a circuit around the glass's rim. Round and round and round ... I was in high school again, talking to a girl I liked, who maybe liked me, and dammit if it wasn't making my innards turn into a mess of warm putty. Dammit if I was too lost in gin and tonics to focus on anything but how awful this was and how she needed to stop this now before I couldn't.
"I like you, Blake," I found her saying, and I found myself laughing. It was a sinister, mocking sound and I shook my head toward the bar, just to look at anything but her.
"No, you don't."
"Yes. I do."
"No," my volume raised and my back hunched over the table, bringing my eyes only centimeters from hers. "You like the idea of me. You like the idea of having something to save, a fucking project to talk about at Church or whatever the hell it is you do.”
“I don’t go to Church,” she quietly interjected.
“Whatever! You like the idea of spending a little time with someone nobody in your perfect little life would ever approve of. You like the idea of getting fucked by someone who might know what they're doing. Hell, I don't know what your reason is, but trust me, sweetheart; you don't like me."
And damn her, she didn't react. She continued to watch me, displaying an inhuman amount of tolerance and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't sit across from a woman who might as well have been a machine, if it weren't for the timely expanse of her chest with every breath she took, or the blink of her eyelids showing off the faintest glimmer of champagne eyeshadow. I couldn't fucking stand it and I knew that, not only was this a mistake, but I needed to get the hell out before I did something I'd regret. Something else. Something more.
I drank the rest of my drink in one choked gulp. I never drank this much and it was hard to swallow. I pulled myself up, snatched my jacket from the back of the chair, and hurried toward the stairs. I didn't look back, didn't pay attention to if she was following, didn't care if she was angry or hurt or crying or calling her cousins to bitch about the guy who’d just rejected her. All I cared about was getting home and getting away, far away, and I ran up to the street and out into the parking lot.
"Blake! Wait!"
Fucking hell. Fuck her. Fuck this. Fuck this town. Fuck everything. I clenched my fists, ignoring her voice and her feet against the pavement behind me. Something had to make this woman leave me the hell alone.
"Blake! Stop! Come on, please don't leave!"
Then, I did stop. I stopped and spun around on my heel. She stood there beneath a lamppost, her pristine white coat dragging along the dirty ground, and if that wasn't a fucking metaphor, I don’t know what was. Signs. Premonitions. They were all displayed right there in her white coat, getting covered in dirt and mud.
"I need to leave," I stated, feeling like I’d used that line on her too many times and I was sick of it.
"But why?"
I shrugged, slapping my hands against my thighs. "Because if I don't get the fuck away from you, I'm not prepared to handle what's going to happen."
"What's going to happen?"
I scoffed with a shake of my head. "You sound like my shrink, answering questions with more fucking questions." I looked back to her and stated bluntly, "If I stay, I'm going to try to fuck you, Audrey. That’s what’s going to happen."
Audrey was hard to move but she reacted then. Her throat bobbed and the apples of her cheeks deepened in their rosy hue. "Oh."
"I'm drunk," I reasoned weakly. "And I like you way too much. Neither one of those things ever should've happened, but whatever, here we are. And dammit, you make me so fucking mad, but that's only making it harder for me. So ... I need to get the hell out of here, and so should you."