I stumbled to the door, the wounds on my hands healing and the scent of her still reeling in my head. I wasn’t sure what she was doing here, but she damn well needed to leave. The sight that met me when I swung the door open had me reeling backward and falling on my ass on the cheap still rumpled bed.

“What did you do?” Marie all but shouted at me. She was backlit by the sunset with her hair falling in waves over her shoulder; her eyes were stern but concerned underneath the rim of that cowboy hat as she darted her gaze down to my hands. She stood there for a second, one hand on her hip, the other hovering in the air in front of her. The layers she wore served the dual purpose of covering up her semi lethal (at least to me) skin and protecting her from the cold. She was beautiful.

I hadn’t realized the sun was about to set.

She marched in and I was still speechless. I watched her stomp purposefully around the room and noticed her take in the disheveled blankets on the floor and the not so far away shattered glass bottle. I’d smelt her, the fresh scent in stark contrast to the stale old smell from earlier in the day, and I’d been caught off guard. I’d tripped, fallen, and smashed a bottle and hadn’t even noticed what had happened until she’d begun banging on my door. I’d been so absorbed in her.

I needed more alcohol.

“Why are you still here?” I managed to finally get out. She moved back in front of me, the still open door washing her in the fading light from outside. Behind her the desert road sported the reds, purples, and tans from the beginnings of nightfall.

Where Marie had previously watched me for hours on end, now she wouldn’t meet my gaze. I stood and stared at her. When she finally met my eyes, it was only after she’d blazed a trail over every inch of my exposed skin. I looked down at my half dressed state, if she wanted to barge in and spend the next however long trying to fuck me up all over again, she could at least get worked up over my bare chest, undone jeans, and naked feet.

“You ok?” She asked.

“Why are you still here?” I repeated as I narrowed my eyes at her. I stared at her and noted the confused expression on her face.

“Logan, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. It’s just… it’s not right. Look at you, you’re too thin, and it’s obvious you’re not eating right… and I just don’t want you to hurt yourself anymore.” She acted like she could just fix it all. Pick up the aforementioned pieces and put them back together again.

I snorted at her. It didn’t take me long to reach her and I caught her off guard when I grabbed her by the wrist, spun her around, and shoved her toward the doorway.

“Noted. Now, get the fuck out.” She stuttered to a stop just before she went careening out the open doorway.

“Listen, bub,” She shouted as she turned back around, slamming the door in the process. The impulsive and volatile behavior that I knew from the Marie before she left me came out. “I’m not going anywhere until I can fix this. So, you can get used to my company, because I’m sticking around until you can pull your head out of your ass and act like a man.”

I looked at her then, and could almost see past the woman she’d become to the person she used to be. She shivered. I knew that person, that woman-child hybrid. She knew and longed for every touch I’d ever given her, remembered each and every caress and kiss. My outlook darkened and I felt burned when I realized that that girl was buried good and deep and for all I wanted her, she was long gone. It hurt me more and I responded in kind.

“Well darlin’,” I added an emphasis to the endearment, “pull up a slice of rug and grab a bottle of liquor, ‘cause I’m settling in for a long night.”

I stretched out on the bed and back into the makeshift pillow that had somehow survived from the night before. I tried to ignore her presence, the smell of her, and the relief that her existence brought to the room. I fished a half opened warm bottle of whiskey from the floor. A few shots later and I was sinking back into myself, basking, when I heard her move.

Stubbornly she climbed back onto her previously vacated place on the dresser, Indian Style, and toyed with the top of her boots where they ended at the top of her calves. I lifted my lids a little from where they’d closed and studied her sitting there. She was at a loss, confused and determined, but I didn’t pay any attention to her mood.

She’d pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and nibbled on it while she thought. I remembered what those teeth felt like nibbling on various parts of my body and resolutely turned my attention elsewhere. Her style hadn’t changed much, a form fitting black vest pulled closed over a long sleeved white turtle neck. A sheer black scarf was tied around her neck and her hands were bare. At some point she’d removed her leather driving gloves. The cowboy hat still sat atop her head and I remembered vividly the day she’d taken to wearing it constantly.

The breakup had been unexpected. She hadn’t been putting off any signs and she’d seemed content. In the three years we’d been together I hadn’t regretted finally giving in to her demands until that day. Every rational explanation and adult thought process had come back to bite me in the ass the day I realized she really had outgrown me. Just as I knew she would. In the beginning.

“Why?” The ragged word escaped my mouth before I thought it and I chased it with another long drink of the warm whiskey, hoping she’d assume I had been talking to myself or thinking aloud, or something that would deter her from clarification. It didn’t work.

“Why what?”

I growled, this would be so much easier on me in Marie would just leave me be.

“Why didn’t you listen?” She near growled then, and I was reminded of her repeated absorptions of me. Why wasn’t the mini-Logan in her head telling her the best course of action?

“I keep telling you Logan, I’m not going anywhere until you realize what the fuck you are doing.” The fire in her only urged me on. I growled, closed my eyes tightly and loosened the leash on my emotions.

“Not now,” my voice was thick and it actually broke at the end of the word. “Three years ago.” She blanched and I didn’t even enjoy her heart ache. “When I told you this would happen.”

She was speechless, and, for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t abide it.

“I told you, ‘You’re not ready, not old enough yet.’ ‘Come into your own, Marie. Be the woman you were meant to be, then you can be mine.’ That’s all I wanted, a year or two, someone else to burn your first love on, so that when we were finally us, you wouldn’t be filled with these happy endings and prince charming fairytales. You were supposed to realize that life was filled with hardships and takes work, and then we’d be good for each other.” I was rambling and it hurling the words at her.

“Aren’t you going to say anything? This is your doing. I begged you, pleaded, but you knew how to push my buttons. You were young, and you knew I wanted you and flaunted yourself and chased and wore me down. Until I caved.”

She was crying silently now, and I knew she finally understood. The reasons, the long talks, my resistance to her. She moved to speak.

“Logan I- ”

I cut her off.

“No, there’s nothing you can say. None of your words can make it better Marie. You were it. My one shot. That’s all I’m ever gonna get. You can move on and be happy and make a life for yourself, but I can’t, not anymore.” I realized that there were matching tear tracks on my cheeks, and I was vaguely aware that I’d come up off the bed and was standing in front of her. I couldn’t find it in myself to care.

“I don’t get any second chances. I’ve had too many. There’s nothing left for me.” Agony, this is what it felt like. My heart was squeezing and I wasn’t sure I could heal from any of this. I grabbed the edge of the dresser on either side of her to hold myself up. I wouldn’t fall to my knees in front of the one person who destroyed me.

She reached up, tears openly streaming down her perfect cheeks, and ran a hand through my hair.

“I’m done. I’m going to spend the rest of my days watching you and him and your children grow old. And when you all die, I’m going to spend every day after that hoping and praying I can still remember the way you used to look at me; recall the sound of your voice calling my name; recollect the way your skin felt beneath my fingers. And every night pretending someone else is you.” I pushed away from the dresser and out of her grasp. Immediately I regretted the loss of contact.

I tried to stop myself from falling onto the bed with her still in the room. I could hear her crying, and the hiccup in her breathing. Her scent was overwhelmingly sad and regretful. I dug down deep into myself, summoning the strength to do what was best for me.

“You think I drink to forget, but what you don’t realize is, I drink to remember. For as long as I can. Now go.” I heard her move.

I fought not to turn around and race after her.

I waited until she had her things and the sound of her truck was long gone before I fell forward onto the dirty, sweat-stained sheets. The taste of the warm whiskey was comforting on my tongue.