Ask Me by Kimberly Pauley Page B

then the beam wavered off to the side as his hand shook. “Never touched it before. Never had a drop. Can you believe it?”
    “I am a believer,” I said.
    “Tastes like shit. Burns.” He dropped the flashlight and leaned forward, groaning.
    I poured the rest of the bottle out into the waiting ground like an offering and set it down off to the side. Ipatted him gingerly on the back. He felt even more solid in person than I had imagined. Not that I had ever imagined touching him, exactly. Never in my wildest dreams, actually, would I have predicted this situation.
    “So why are you drinking it?”
    He sat up and turned to face me, misjudging the distance so that his face was only inches from mine. “It’s all my fault,” he said. “Me. My fault.” He leaned forward even more until his forehead was touching mine. He brought his hands up to my face, one on either side. His hands were so big they covered the sides of my face.
    “What’s your fault?”
    “Jade,” he whispered. One word, sad and lonely, swallowed by another roar from the bull gator.
    I jumped, knocking the empty bottle over. It rattled a warning against the roots of the tree.
    “You should run away from me, too.” He let go and drooped back against the tree, deflated. “Run,” he repeated again, softly this time, but that only made it sound more menacing.
    My heart was pounding. I wasn’t sure if it was his words or his closeness or even the bass call of the alligator still rumbling inside of me. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the flashlight, and took a few steps and then stopped. How could I leave him like this? How could I not? Had he just admitted to killing Jade? It was impossible to tell. If he really did kill her, there would be nothing to stop him from killing me. Nothing. And no one would mourn, other than Gran and Granddad. No one else would even notice. He was right. I was alone and unwanted.
    “Alex,” I said, too quietly and then louder, “Alex!” I pointed the flashlight right at this face.
    His head lolled around, and he blinked at me, his eyes glassy. Why was I doing this? “Thought you were going to leave me, too,” he said, his words even more slurred now.
    “Ask me what I should do,” I said.
    “What should I do?” he asked, sounding forlorn and lost. And very drunk.
    “Trust me,” I answered. I sighed. I needed to know whether I could trust
him
, not the other way around. “No, Alex, ask
me
what
I
should do.”
    “What should you do?” he managed to get out before his head dropped back down to his chest.
    “Always do what is right,” I said. I closed my eyes in frustration for a moment, but it had been a stupid idea anyway. It never worked, like when I’d lost my keys and asked Gran to ask me where they were. It was like my “gift” knew and wanted to mess with me. “Where I left them,” though, was slightly more helpful in that situation than what I was getting in the one tonight.
    “Okay,” I finally said, more to myself than to him. “Let’s get you home.” I bent down and managed to get one of his arms around my shoulders. He came to his senses enough to help me get him standing. We stumbled down the trail. Maybe I was wrong, but it felt right.

I dreamt of oak leaves blowing in the wind, making patterns as they drifted in the air. Just as they were about to form a picture, a new gust of wind would blow through and rearrange everything. I woke up feeling unsettled, as if right on the edge of discovering some ancient truth.
    It was a reoccurring dream of mine, though it meant nothing to me and had never left me with any earth-shattering revelations. At least it was a peaceful dream. Sometimes my sleep was broken by nightmares of smoke and ashes, and I would awaken with the taste of soot in my mouth. Gran said the dreams would go away, too, someday. She’d had them herself.
    I lay in my bed staring at the watermark on the ceiling while I tried to will myself to get up. It reminded me of a serpent