Bleeder by Shelby Smoak

we’re taking a little break, but we didn’t ‘officially’ break up, I guess.”
     
    “Oh . . . Falling out of love, are you?”
     
    “Maybe. Hard to say. Just taking time to figure it all out.”
     
    “Well, man. I’m sorry it ain’t all roses, but I haven’t heard of a relationship yet that is. Anyway, forget about it. Maybe your two’s time has passed. Try and let yourself feel free and lose some of that lead baggage you’re alwaysdragging around with you. The sooner you make a decision about it, however, the better off both of you will be.”
     
    “I know, I know. It’s just tough. It’s hard to know what to do.”
     
    “Life’s tough, man. You just gotta decide and move forward.”
     
    “I hear you.”
     
    William rides a wave to shore, and, climbing out of the sea, he props up again on his towel next to Sean and opens another beer from our cooler. I float on my back, feel the warm sun on my stomach, and listen to the swish of water in my ears. The flat sea shimmers, a giant sheen of metal.
     
    When I lie on my towel, my body drips ocean. Sean opens the cooler, passes me a beer. “Come on, man. You gotta have more than one,” he says.
     
    And as I accept the beer and press the cold can to my forehead and roll it along my face, I understand that we are true pals again.
     
    “It’s for drinking, motherfucker.”
     
    “I know. It feels good, though.”
     
    I open it, swallow, and watch the day: the sun paused overhead; the waves spreading in an endless foam of white; the gulls wheeling round in an empty sky; and a couple tossing a Frisbee back and forth, their bodies statues with an occasional toss of the arm.
     
    A girl in a two-piece passes nearby. We sip our beer and watch.
     
    “I’d do her,” William says before taking a long draft from his can.
     
    “Maybe. But she’s got a skinny ass. Nice tits, though.”
     
    Their eyes follow her as she walks down the beach, where she is replaced by a group of three girls.
     
    “Oh, yeah. The one in the middle. I’d do her. No question.”
     
    “In your dreams,” Sean says. “I’d do her first. Then her red-haired friend. Then both of them at the same time.”
     
    “As if . . .”
     
    I sip my beer, watch another suntanned blonde pass. “I’d do her,” I say, pointing with my can.
     
    Sean and William look. “Oh yeah. There you go. Major hottie,” Sean says.
     
     
    Autumn.
     
    “Remember me?” Ana sobs over the phone line. I imagine her at theother end: sitting cross-legged atop her bed, twirling the cord around her unsure hand. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail and a box of Kleenex rests in her lap.
     
    She blows her nose, clears her sorrow.
     
    “Of course I remember you. Don’t be silly.”
     
    “Well, I haven’t seen you all semester, so I wasn’t sure. Am I still your girlfriend?”
     
    “I don’t know, Ana. I’m not anybody else’s boyfriend if that’s something.”
     
    “That’s nothing. It just feels like you don’t know.” She pauses, blows her nose again. “So, are you coming to see me over fall break?”
     
    “Yes, Ana. Tomorrow. I’ll be there.”
     
    “Okay.” A sniffle. “I miss you.”
     
    “I miss you too.”
     
    And when Ana hangs up, I drive to the ocean.
     
    The sea is tumultuous; the sky dark with rain. It bellows and foams and sprays and is stirred to life by an offshore storm. Soon, a hurricane is expected: Category 3 with landfall in a few days. Residents await to hear about evacuations. And now everything seems so delicate, so fragile. I witness how the sea—so calm and pacific days ago—is now pitching and yawing with uncertainty; how a quiver of rain is only the veil before the whirling drape of a hurricane.
     
    The pier lights disappear into a simpering sky. A lone surfer struggles against a crashing sea before he is swallowed and then spit out closer to shore. Before long, the rain begins and drives me to shelter in my truck, where I sit and