In the empty street in front of the club she puts her bloody hands against the wall and vomits. I check for damage. Her knuckles are a mess, but the cuts look worse than they are. No one’s watching us. I take off my sweatshirt, yank my shirt over my head, put my sweatshirt back on. When she’s done throwing up I wrap the shirt around her hands to stop the bleeding. “I’ll get your shirt dirty,” she mumbles.
“Good thing I always wear black.” I steer her to the car. It’s better than it could have been. She can almost walk on her own. I roll down the window on her side. “Puke outside the car,” I tell her, getting into the driver’s seat.
“Outside the car,” she repeats. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’m such a fuckup.”
“I know.”
“No more speed.”
“No more speed.”
“I promise.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re mad.”
“Aurora. I’m not mad.”
“You think I’m going to take him.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You do. I would never do that.”
“It’s not always up to you.”
“You are the first thing to me. Always. You.”
“You, too.”
“You love him more than you love me,” she says.
“Aurora. Never.”
“You do.”
“I don’t love anyone more than I love you. I promise.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Promise again.”
“I promise.”
“One more time.”
“I promise.”
“I love you,” she says again. I reach over and put my hand over the wadded-up shirt.
“I’ll always come get you,” I say. “No matter what.”
Jack is teaching me how to play guitar, and it’s not going well. We’re sitting on his porch, his long legs folded around me, his hands over my hands, the guitar in my lap. The sun’s heavy and low in the sky. The smell of his skin is driving me to distraction. “Here,” he says, shaping my fingers over the strings. “That’s G major. No, no, you have to keep your middle two fingers—” I knock his hand away in a fit of temper. The
“I don’t like it,” I tell him.
“How can you not like it? I showed you two chords.”
“I don’t like either of them.”
He rests his chin on the top of my head. “I should’ve known the guitar would be too hard for you. You need to pick a beginner’s instrument.”
“You fucker! It is not too hard!” Immediately I put my hands back on the strings, bite my bottom lip, try to remember where my fingers go. Behind me Jack chuckles.
“Let no one ever tell you that you are anything other than predictable,” he says.
“I am not predictable!” But he only laughs harder and kisses the place behind my ear that sends me straight into a desperate swoon. “I am not,” I mumble.
“You are.”
“Maybe a little.”
“A lot.”
“You’re a dick.”
“Mmmm.” He takes the guitar away from me and I scoot over. He strums an aimless melody, a carefree traveler strolling by a river, water singing over stones. Leaves turning in the summer air. I can see the flash of a fish jumping, the mercury buzz of a dragonfly moving across the water. The river’s so real I can dip my feet in the cool clear water. The breeze he’s conjured plays across my skin. Jack’s arms are alight with butterflies, their wings moving softly. Caught, as I am, in his spell. He stops, and I can feel the loss of it like a sob rising in my throat. Wherever he took me, I want to go back. He smiles at me, gentle now, puts his arms around me. He takes the tip of my earlobe in his teeth, and I shiver.
“I can’t play like you,” I whisper. “No one can play like you.”
“Play like yourself, then. Want to learn another chord?”
“No. Maybe. Fine.”
“You can’t wear pants when you play this one,” he says, and undoes the top button of my jeans.
Later, he makes me beans and rice and we eat cross-legged on his floor. The sun’s set, but it’s still warm. Neither of us is wearing much. Jack peels a mango, and I lie back with my head in his lap as he feeds it to me piece by piece. I’m full in a way that’s unfathomable, alive in my animal skin. I want to tear off all my clothes and go running through the forest, catch something and rip it to pieces while it’s still warm, grow fur and climb trees and howl at the moon. My skin feels as translucent and bruisable as rose petals, my whole body brand new. “Tell me a story about your family,” he says.
“I never knew my dad. I don’t think my mom did, either. She’s a witch.” He raises an eyebrow. “Really.” I touch the amulet around my neck. I’d stopped Jack earlier when he tried to take it off. “She reads tarot cards for people and makes them amulets and spells. She can do star charts. Horoscopes.”
“Are you a witch, too?”
“Not a very good one.”
“Can you read tarot?”
“Sure.”
“Will you read mine?” I sit up, steal the last piece of mango, and see that he’s serious.
“Okay,” I say. “Do you have a candle?”
He gets up from the bed and looks through drawers while I flip through his records, pick out a Jeff Buckley album, and put it on. I get my cards out of my bag. I still use the same deck Cass bought me all those years ago. It’s so well-used the card edges are bent and peeling, but the images have lost none of their color or sharpness. I keep the deck wrapped in a piece of silk, which I spread out on the floor in front of him. He sits, cross-legged, solemn, and hands me a candle. I light it and set it between us. “Now, shuffle,” I say, handing him the deck. “Think about your question.”
“Any question?”
“Any question.”
He closes his eyes and I watch as he shuffles, the dark coils of his hair framing his still features. He stops shuffling, opens his eyes. “
