Marie reached out and grabbed my arm just as I thought I’d made it safely out of the mansion without a witness. I couldn’t stand the look of pity I knew I’d find in her eyes if I turned to look at her. Instead I jerked my arm from her grip. I could feel her hurt stare burning into my back.

“Listen, it’s easier this way. You know it and I know it.” My voice was gruff and a little more emotional than I’d have liked.

“What should I tell people? They’re gonna ask questions.”

I didn’t look at anything but the seat of my motorcycle. Even the worry and sorrow in her voice couldn’t make me look at her. Hearing her voice hurt enough.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something Marie. I can’t stay here and watch you with him.”

“Logan, I-” The hitch in her voice had me glancing back over my shoulder, but not at her. I focused at a point on her shoulder.

“Look, it doesn’t have to be difficult. Just do me a favor. Tell them anything you want to; just don’t tell them that I’m running from you.” By this time I’d trudged over to my bike. I strapped my bag on and gave one long mournful sigh. Still the seat of my bike was a safer place to focus my attention. “Just don’t tell them all the truth, that I still need you.”

The roar of my bike sounded behind me as I tore off into the night.

*****

It was easy to imagine what Marie was telling everyone. I sank lower into the cheap hotel easy chair, and took another pull from the bottle of tequila in my hand. Maybe she’d tell everyone I was on vacation? Visiting friends in some far off unreachable region in Canada, drinking and having a good time and I hadn’t called in a while.

I let myself pretend.

I imagined I was sitting surrounded by friends, having a beer with my closest of the bunch. I was an often indulged in fantasy, a friend I’d known since I was a toddler. The band played in the background and some guy told a raunchy joke. The snow fell outside and one of the guys mentioned how lucky I was. Not everyone had a girl like mine, who brought me beer and tolerated a bunch of guys taking off to the bar for drinks and carousing. Just then a familiar satin covered hand set a fresh beer down in front of me and a pair of lips pressed a kiss to my beard.

I jerked myself from the make believe realm I’d created when she appeared in the daydream. Everything came back to her. The dingy hotel room came back into focus and I drew long and hard on the cigar in my hand. Quickly it was followed by another pull on the bottle.

It wasn’t easy to drink myself to sleep, but I did it.

*****

The next night was marginally easier. I resumed my drink of choice, Jack Daniels tonight, and nursed a taking-it’s-sweet-time-to-heal broken arm from the fight I’d won earlier in the evening. Apparently when you spend every night drinking yourself into a stupor healing is a bit sluggish on the catch up. I didn’t mind it much; it meant the pain was a constant so I didn’t have much time for thinking of any other type of pain.

I wondered again at how healthy it was to pretend nightly that I was living out another well thought up excuse for my reason for not being around. Maybe she told them I was in Cali. Soaking up the sun and dry as a bone, a place I’d never have to worry about snow again.

I let myself slip down the rabbit hole.

The sun was hot on my skin and the sand was smooth beneath my feet. The rushing sound of the waves met my ears and there wasn’t anything for miles around. It had taken an hour to get to the remote corner of the beach, but I’d arrived and found it worthwhile. In the spirit of the day I’d brought along a mixture of frozen beach drinks. Fruity shit filled with alcohol that I wouldn’t normally think of imbibing. Like Peach Schnapps and Spiced Rum, and something blue.

But I was relaxed and in the spirit of things. I was completely content to sip my girly froo froo drink in peace; until a smoky southern drawl from my right teased me in low tones about having ‘something else that was sugary sweet’ for me to indulge in.

It was harder this time, to pull myself back from the fantasy and I cursed Marie with a string of words I’d never have let loose in her presence. She invaded everything, even my feeble attempt at pretending I was on the beach drinking myself into a stupor.

Suddenly she was everywhere around me. I could feel her breath on my skin, her satin covered fingertips barely grazing me, slipping though my hair and down my back. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. That was a mistake and the vision of her sleep tousled and smiling filled my field of vision.

I was scrambling for the bottle of whiskey before I knew it, the sweet burn coursing its way down my throat and into my stomach as I reacted on instinct to fight the pain. Would she tell them? Would she tell them what she knew? That I was really hiding out in shithole after shithole motel room, crazy and strung out over what we didn’t have anymore? Would she tell them I still loved her and couldn’t handle not being with her?

I pushed the question out of my mind and chugged the rest of the bottle, hoping the slide into dreamless sleep would be an easy one.

*****

I drove through Las Vegas, wondering idly why I couldn’t lose myself in gambling. Maybe she’d tell them I was here? It would be as good a lie as any, only Marie’d know that I wouldn’t risk things that way. I pointed the tires toward the desert.

I had to drive a little longer that I wanted to find a hotel, but it was perfectly deserted and flawlessly undermanned. Perfect for the possibly destructive mood I was in. I hauled my bag over my shoulder and stomped into my rented shithole.

My bag fell to the floor and I reached down and into it to retrieve another bottle of liquid poison and a semi-clean pair of jeans. The stink of alcohol, body odor and road rolling off of me wasn’t improving my mood any. I carried the things into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The open bottle of vodka joined me. My mind drifted back to the serene place I’d been the night before.

The hot water cascaded over my while I played make-believe.

I imagined myself forgetting her in a cloud of dust, chasing a band across the country. They’d be gritty and real and rock with a tinge of country. They’d play sad songs and angry songs and songs about sex. It wouldn’t be long before Marie’d bring me a beer and make some offhand comment about my taste in music and I’d smile indulgently at her.

I brought the vodka from my side and took a long drought, washing away the imagining and focused on my real live gypsy trail and scrubbed the dirt and sweat from my body.

Afterward, with a good buzz making me a little introspective I pondered myself in front of the mirror. The man who stared back at me was a stranger. He was too thin, as if he’d been existing solely on liquor for way too long. The dark circles under his eyes and hollow look on his face bespoke of heartache deeper than any I thought I’d known. He was a pitiful, sack of shit, so much a waste of space that he couldn’t even stand up like a man and face the real world with fire in his eyes and a snarl for any who spoke to him. I told him so.

The words I hurled at myself had little impact and eventually, as the vodka took its course, I retreated to the bed. The damn hotel didn’t even have a chair to sit in. I stretched out onto the grisly bed cover and propped myself up with the two flattened pillows and my old leather coat. Eventually the vodka was mostly gone and I was slipping into a catatonic slumber.

When I awoke the next morning, a pair of big brown eyes were burning into me from across the room where their owner had settled Indian Style on the top of the dresser. She’d pushed the TV all the way toward the end of the dresser and the thing was teetering on the edge, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t bolted down.

I blinked rapidly at her, waiting for my nightly dreams to vanish. When she didn’t disappear into a haze of sunshine and dust motes I sat bolt upright in bed. The glare I shot her should have singed paint, but apparently it either fell wildly short or she didn’t know she was supposed to be burnt.

“What are you doing, Logan?”

“Get out.”

“I won’t.” The girl was going to make me lose my mind more than she already had.

“Just go.”

“Logan, what are you doing to yourself?”

“How did you find me?”

“Easy. I followed the trail of broken bottles and pieces of dignity I found along the road from New York to here.” This time she was adequately aware that she was supposed to be burnt and reacted properly.

“Why are you here?” It was a pointless question, we both knew her reasons.

“I want to help. Logan, this is no way to live.” I grew angry, and hurt. She’d made me this way.

“Listen, Marie, forget the pieces of me you found along the way. You’re the reason I’m broken to begin with. What did you expect to happen to after you shattered me? I was lucky I didn’t fall apart where everyone could see it. Get out.”

She was hurt, I knew it and didn’t care. It made me break again, into another little piece and I instinctively looked around for another bottle of something to drink. I grabbed a warm beer from the box at the foot of the bed and twisted off the top. Half the thing was gone before she hopped down from the dresser and headed toward the door.

I caught myself reaching out and grasping her arm before she made it the whole way. It was a gruesome role reversal that had me avoiding her eyes again.

“Don’t tell ‘em what I’m doing out here. It’s better if they don’t know. If you ever loved me, please have some mercy on me. Tell them anything you want to; just don’t tell them all the truth.”

She nodded, pulled her arm from my grasp, and stepped out the door. It shut violently behind her. I moved to the window and pulled the curtain aside, watching as she climbed back into the beat up old Ford she was driving. I took a moment to memorize everything I could about her. The sassy sway of her hips, the way her soft boots molded to her calves. The layers of clothing she wore couldn’t hide the lush feminine form beneath it all. Her eyes, angry and dark chocolate stared out over the hood of the truck, her hair fell in waves about her face, the stark white strip screaming out at me.

I noticed then that she was wearing my old tan cowboy hat and wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. She gripped the steering wheel with leather covered fingers and met my gaze. Sorrow warred with the anger there. I let the curtain fall between us.

“I still love you.”

Desperation. Pure and simple desperation was what I had seen reflected in Logan’s eyes. I released the handle of the steering wheel and tucked a wayward strand of hair back under the cowboy hat on my head. Logan’s hat. I fought the urge to turn the truck around.

There was a time, I told myself, that Logan was all I’d ever needed. As much as it hurt me to see him this way, as much as I cared, as much as I still loved him: he wasn’t everything for me anymore. I ignored the part of my mind that told me it was in everyone’s best interest if I just left him to deal in his own way. The idea of letting him hurt for years over me was gut-wrenching.

But it wasn’t just the end that made him like this. My treacherous conscience seeped the truth through the chinks in my armor and the holes in my walls and I all but winced. No, Logan had been ok until I’d brought him home. The phone rang.

“Hello?” I asked when I pulled the car to the side of the road and flipped the phone open. My brain was distracted enough what with the internal argument taking place, I didn’t need to run off road and into an oasis.

“Hey. How’s it going?”

I sighed. The urge to snap at him and yell was a little overwhelming; oddly I remembered the weight of the hat on my head and measured my words. With Logan, my quick temper and emotional disregard had always made things worse before they got better. I wondered if we’d be in this place if someone other than Logan had been the one to teach me that particular lesson.

“Rough,” I caught myself. My promise to Logan was still ringing in my ears. “He’s having a great time, no gambling, Logan doesn’t go for that, but we’re taking in the sights. There aren’t many sights really, so that consists of trying to find little hole in the wall bars.” Which, coincidentally, was one of the first things on my list when I got back to the hotel so it wasn’t even a lie. Check to see if they’ve got a seedy little bar.

Once I finished my soul searching drive. I stifled a groan.

“Good. Give me a call in the morning. I’ll let you go; don’t want to intrude on your time. I know you guys are still close.” It was so true. He really didn’t want to intrude, he totally wasn’t threatened. The amount of unwavering trust in us and me and what we have is fundamental to the inner workings of our relationship. Again, I found myself wondering how things would have gone if Logan hadn’t been the one to help me make that discovery.

“I will. Love you.” I told him.

“Love you too.” I hung up the phone.

The truck didn’t move for at least another hour. The urge to take page from Logan’s book and drown my feelings in a bottle of alcohol eventually won out over my misgivings and I drove back to the hotel. The clerk who’d given me access to Logan’s room earlier set me up with a room of my own and I was distressed to learn he’d placed me right next door. And they didn’t have a seedy little bar to lock myself in.

I hoped he wouldn’t realize it was me next door. But I had to have been kidding myself. This was Logan. Who could, and did, track me during Mardi Gras when I’d gotten drunk and lost and saved me from a couple of hormonal college boys.

I fingered the sparkling and shining glass beads on a keychain I always carried. He’d bought me a string of multi colored glass beads that broke within half an hour of wearing them. I’d scooped them up and dropped them into my pocket and later strung them into a short loop and attached them to my car keys.

They reminded me that I needed a strong man, because I was reckless and impulsive and sometimes drank a little too much. They reminded me to either be safe, or cut back. I opted for safe and stuffed them into a pocket on the backpack I’d brought in from the truck.

I heard a stumble, crash and shatter in the room next to me and was flying out the door and over to Logan’s before I had the time to question whether it was the best idea or not. It was probably a bad idea to leave the impulse dampening keychain stowed carefully in my backpack, but the urge of my conscience to go and retrieve it was quickly drowned out by the sound of my fist hammering feverishly on the door.