Bleeder by Shelby Smoak Page B

friendships, you know.”
     
    Ana places her hands underneath my shirt and kisses me along my neck. And soon, we are slipping out of our clothes as if nothing has changed. We cleave to one another, are caught up in the natural grip of desire. And I let it happen, for it is easier this way.
     
    Afterwards, neither of us has the courage to speak. There are no words to frame here, but only an awkward feeling. I cower beneath her sheets. I stare at her ceiling. I make a feeble attempt at placing my arms around her.
     
    “You don’t have to hold me,” she says.
     
    “I want to.”
     
    And she lets me. But now we have dressed up our relationship as a new friendship, a dreadful thing to do.
     
    “Were you planning on staying the night?” Ana asks as I settle my heavy heart beside her.
     
    “I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t thought things through.”
     
    “But you are now?”
     
    “Yes. I’m staying tonight.”
     
    Ana flips on the television. “I’ll order pizza,” she says.
     
    And the familiar comforts us, persuades our hearts away from notions of ruin and decay.
     
    When the weekend ends, Ana walks me to the parking lot. I cast my eyes to the ground, and we do not link hands as we drift through the courtyard of fallen leaves. They lie in piles of dying color: orange sassafras, scarlet maple, yellow poplar, and maroon sweetgum. Blown by the wind, they leave the trees exposed to the coming cold. We proceed down the campus walk, coming eventually to the gravel lot and my small truck. I unlock my cab door, settle my bag within, and turn to Ana.
     
    “So is this it?” she asks. “Is this where you say your good-bye? Or will I see you again?”
     
    I absently draw my foot through gravel.
     
    “I don’t know, Ana. I’m not so sure this friendship thing is going to work out.”
     
    “No,” she cries out. “Don’t do this. Not like this.” I try to reach for her, but she deflects me with her hand. “Stay away. Just stay away if that’s how you want it.” She wipes her eyes. “What was this, some kind of conjugal visit? Is that what this weekend was about? Is that what I was good for?”
     
    “Ana, please. This isn’t how I wanted it.”
     
    “No. No. You’re an asshole! Fuck you!” A flock of sparrows riffles from the elm trees and instinctively, I turn and watch—a flap of black in a clouded autumn sky. “Just fuck you!” she yells again.
     
    “But Ana, please!”
     
    She runs off, arms flailing at her side. “Fuck you, you asshole!”
     
    I fold my hands over my eyes and tears spill out. And this is how it ends: in hate.
     

SUMMER 21
     
     
    M AY 1993. M OM, D AD, AND I ARRIVE AT MY SUMMER RESIDENCE IN downtown Wilmington. It is an enormous house set on a small lot with the neighboring homes bearing in upon it from the sides. We walk in and up the stairs guarded on the stout banister by carved owls, and on the top landing, we follow the slender hallway to where it spills onto a petite balcony; the backyard unfolds in summer green and is bound on three sides by a uniform wooden fence painted in colonial white, a landscape that momentarily transports me to another time.
     
    We retrace our steps down the hall to a shut door that I slip open, revealing a dwarfish room.
     
    “This is it,” Mom says. “This can’t be much more than a glorified broom closet with a window.”
     
    “But you can’t beat a hundred dollars a month.”
     
    “If it’s the money, Son, we can help you out. What about your roommates? How much are they paying?”
     
    “I don’t know, Mom. Maybe two, three hundred. It doesn’t matter, though. This is what I can afford.” I look around, breathe in. “And besides, I like it all right.”
     
    “How is he going to stand living here without air conditioning?” Mom asks, addressing Dad. “How?”
     
    Dad looks around, doesn’t answer.
     
    “I’ll be fine, Mom. It’s only for a few months anyway.”
     
    “You’re just going to have to accept