Three Weeks on the Road Ch. 16 Pt. 01

"Nobody wanted to hire me in California. Once I was cleared, I was free."

"Free." Even I could hear the sarcasm in my voice. "You ever... Talk... To anyone about it?"

Tori looked at her food. Shoveled it into her mouth like she was embarrassed by the answer. I ate too, finished the plate of fries they'd given me. "I never needed to. I came to terms with it. Did you?"

"Never talked to anyone professional about it, no. The dreams are less frequent now. I woke up screaming in Hardin two weeks ago, nearly shot out the door. That was a bad one. I'm ok with what we did, I just...I keep ahead of it with exercise and work. Idea is to tire myself out every single day."

"Alcohol too?"

I hoisted my sweating tumbler of golden smoke. "Drinking for a different reason tonight."

"Which is?"

I laughed harshly. "Jessie... She wants me to sleep with you."

Her laugh matched mine. "The hell? Why?"

"Cuz if I do and I come back to her, she knows I love her. She thinks I still love you."

We were quiet a long time. "That's messed up. She loves you, so she tries to drive you into my arms because she thinks you love me more." There was a pause. "She's not a very good sub, is she?"

Another laugh. "Usually she is. Looks DAMN GOOD on a leash..."

Another pregnant pause. "Speaking of bad subs," I said quietly, "Did you ever hear from Sienna?"

Tori shook her head. "Never, no. You?"

"She never came back for her stuff in my townhouse. It's still in boxes in my basement. Never came back to her apartment, never came back to school. She never answered her cellphone any of the times I called her, and the number went out of service like two months later. I keep checking social media for her every couple of months, but it's like she dropped off the face of the earth. Disappeared totally. Last year I paid one of our finance guys to run a profile on her. No loans, no credit cards, no new insurance, no cars, no apartment, no phone. She's gone."

"Damn. You think that's intentional?"

I didn't want to say it, but I did. "I don't think she'd have the means or knowhow to go off-grid that totally just to piss me off."

"So she's dead?" Tori sounded resigned.

"No missing persons campaign, and I keep checking her hometown newspaper for obits. I think it was aliens. Or abducted in a parking lot and buried by a highway in Nevada or wherever. I can't conjure a different reason why she's so... GONE." It hurt to say, to give voice to my fears for my former...partner...but I couldn't figure out a happy set of circumstances for her current whereabouts.

We finished our food, drank more. Tori switched to rootbeer, I stuck with the fruity burned dirt.

"So," the Latina said finally. "Do you?"

I took a big swallow of bitter, burning liquid. "Do I what?"

"Still love me."

The words hung in the air for a moment, and the last syllable crashed to the table between us with the finality of a falling brick. My breathing accelerated, and I couldn't look at her. I drained my drink so I wouldn't have to speak. My throat and taste buds instantly regretted that decision.

"So that's a yes." Tori answered her own question softly, wonderingly. "Do you want to? Sleep with me, I mean?"

It took superhuman effort to turn my head to face her. "Do you want to?"

It was Tori's turn to stay silent. Fuck, she was beautiful. "So that's a yes."

"No. It's not. I don't want to do this, Gary. I don't want to get drawn into this mess again. I don't want to scratch open these old scars."

"Old? Mine never healed." Regret dripped from my words.

"And that's for you to deal with. Gary, I didn't love you. I wanted you, I needed you, we were good for each other, we helped each other fix our messed up lives, but I didn't love you. Not like you wanted. I'm sorry if I ever... If I ever made you think anything different."

Another pause. "But I would sleep with you. It's like Springsteen said, missing someone is about missing their presence, not their intellect. I have missed you Gary. No one else I've ever gotten close to has ever gotten as close to me as you did. Or gotten," she smirked, "As deep inside me as you did."

I smiled, and my vision blurred with tears. "But you don't love me."

"No."

I stood, towered over her. She looked up at me, and I remembered all the time she had done that in submission. "I wake up every morning, Tori, and I want you to be next to me. It's half a thought, and I squash it down because I'm lying next to Jessie and I feel guilty and messy for even thinking it. I look up at the moon and it comforts me, because I know it's shining down on you too. I see a sunny blue sky and I wonder where you are, if you're having a good day, what you're doing. If you're happy."

Tori's eyes welled with tears, and part of me wanted her to feel the hurt I felt. Another part of me never wanted anyone to feel that way. "Gary, I - "

I leaned down and kissed her forehead. Inhaled the scent of her hair and skin. Felt that glossy softness against me.

Dammit.

"Sometimes I pretended you were dead, just so I wouldn't feel... Haunted. I hate to say I liked that better. Tori, I love Jessie. I would never leave her, not even for you. But...I can't do this."

She took my hand between hers. "Do what?"

"Sit here and talk about the past, and the future we have where we're not together." I pulled my hand from hers, tried to memorize every angstrom of the slide of her skin against mine. I reached into my back pocket for cash, tossed two fifties on the table. "I still love you, Tori. I never STOPPED loving you. I will love you until the day I die. My very last thought will be you."

I turned my back and strode out the door. There was pain in my chest and the streetlights were brightly blurry in my eyes.