JACKSON

Pathetic. That’s what I feel like. A loser. I’m a man with the world at his feet, and billions in the bank. Still I’m reduced to chasing after a woman who’s probably already moved on to the next party, the next photo op, the next trophy.

I stare at the phone for a while. It sits in my hand, the black screen reflecting my own tired face back at me. My chest tightens. I squeeze it hard in the delusion that it might break, but it doesn’t.

I shove it into the drawer and close it a little too hard. The sound echoes through the room. I tell myself that it’ll all be okay eventually.

A part of me believes it, the other part, not so much. I keep inhaling and exhaling as I squeeze the edges of the drawer, so tight that I can feel my veins trying to escape my skin. Face down.

I can still hear Aurora’s laugh in this room, faint but clear. The high, lilting sound she makes whenever she wins something. An argument, a bet, or my attention. She loves to tease me for eating too slow. She says I eat like someone with too much time on their hands.

“J,” she teases, nudging my arm with the bottom of her fork.

“You do know you analyze food like you analyze people: with surgical precision and zero flavor. Learn to eat like normal people.”

She has her way of filling a space, of making everything revolve around her world effortlessly. But sometimes I could see in her eyes, the feeling of being hollow within.

I thought everyone had theirs, but now I see that I’m wrong. She’s going through something, but she hides it really well behind her pair of Gucci shades. The Aurora I know is a born performer after all.

Yet, I still miss it.

The truth is, I hate this kind of silence. It’s not the peaceful kind but the kind that screams of loneliness. The kind that makes you hear whispers from your soul, and so I need someone to be with.

(Flashback)

“Take another,” she chuckles, tilting her head, posing for the perfect picture of glamour.

When the flash dies, she turns to me.

“Can I see them?” she enquires.

“I’m gonna go…” she mutters, gesturing at the edge with her pack of cigarettes.

“Yeah sure,” I moan.

Then she slowly moves to the edge of the balcony of our suite, using one arm to hold together the scarf around her shoulders.

She’s wearing a red bikini, standing on the balcony of our hotel suite, her curly hair packed in a messy bun. She has her shades on top of her hair, and a cigarette between her fingers, which are on acrylic nails. I fix my gaze on her as I take little sips of my bourbon.

“You’re thinking too much again,” she mumbles, eyes half-lidded, walking towards me.

“I always am,” I holler. “You knew that when you met me.”

She exhales smoke, slow and deliberate.

“Yeah. But sometimes,” she adds, slowly patting her cigarette in the ashtray, “I just wish you’d be with me instead of trying to figure things out during our special moments.”

(End of Flashback)

I hiss, realizing that even with her being present, my mind can’t stop wandering. I quickly grab my jacket and head downstairs. Jerry’s already waiting outside by the car.

“Bar?” he asks.

“Yes, Jer, to the bar,” I answered. “The one downtown didn’t look like much. I got a glimpse of it when we passed through on our way here.” I explain, fastening my seatbelt as we drive off.

Its neon flickers; it has booths scuffed to the floor. The jukebox coughs out old country songs about heartbreaks, running away, and backroads. Songs I’ve never heard before.

It’s exactly the type of place where men run to after a long day’s job and forget their names at the bottom of a few cheap glasses.

It’s perfect. Just what I need, for now.

I ordered bourbon. Pour it down my throat in one go, and order another.

Jerry sits beside me, silent and watchful. He doesn’t drink, never does, but he nurses down a lime soda to keep the bartender from side-eyeing him.

By the third glass, the voices blur into one long hum, and a steel guitar whines out from the speakers with lyrics about a woman who leaves, and a truck that won’t start.

I find it hilarious, but it cuts straight through me. This is exactly why I come down here. To drown in clichés until I can’t feel anything at all.

I reach for my phone again, but remember that I left it in the drawer at home. My thumb hovers over the table, but I stop. I rub my sweaty palms on my trousers.

“Another!” I yell out as I empty my glass into my mouth and squint my eyes as the alcohol hits my chest.

That’s when I feel it.

A stare.

It cuts right through the haze like a sharp blade, sharp enough to pull my head up, and just across the room, in a booth near the back, there’s a girl who was fiercely watching me.

She looks younger than me, and her hair is pulled back. Her eyes are too direct for someone in a place like this. She isn’t dressed like the type of woman I usually meet. No glitter, no designer heels, not even a practiced pout.

Just tired eyes and a wary sort of full fire, like she’s daring the world to screw her over again.

And God help me, the few seconds our eyes meet, I can’t look away.

For a moment, the noise of the bar falls out of focus. It’s just her. The way her gaze locks with mine and doesn’t flinch. Something cracks and shifts in my chest. I’m only human after all. Then, she looks away, color slowly rising in her cheeks, forming little puffs on each side.

I swallow and suddenly become aware of how ridiculous I must look.

A soft, rich boy hiding from God knows what in a shitty dive bar, with a crisp shirt that screams luxury. My cufflinks shamelessly catch the light.

No wonder Jerry insists on taking me shopping tomorrow. The logical thing to do here, according to Jerry, is to “BLEND IN,” because if I’m going to drown my sorrows among the locals, the least I can do is look like I belong here.

Or do I?

But in that moment, with her eyes still ghosting in mine, I don’t care about belonging.

She steals a few minutes of my thoughts, and all I want is to know why a stranger’s gaze can cut deeper than anything Aurora has ever left behind.