Kisscut

Nan pressed her lips together. 'We're worried about you.'

'That so?' Lena laughed. 'Great, my speed freak uncle and my dead sister's dyke girlfriend are worried about me.'

'Yes,' Nan said, standing her ground. 'We are.'

'This is so fucking stupid,' Lena said, trying to laugh it off. She slipped the key into the lock, opening the trunk.

'You wanna know what's stupid?' Nan said. 'What's stupid is me giving a crap about what you do. What's stupid is my caring about the fact that you're throwing your life away.'

'Nobody asked you to look after me, Nan.'

'No,' Nan agreed. 'But it's what Sibyl would have wanted.' Her tone was more moderate now. 'If Sibyl were here right now, she would be saying the same thing.'

Lena swallowed hard, trying not to let Nan 's words get to her, mostly because they rang true. Sibyl was the only person who had ever really been able to get to Lena.

Nan said, 'She would be saying that you need to deal with this. She would be worried about you.'

Lena stared at the jack in the trunk of the car because it was the only thing she could focus on.

Nan said, 'You're so angry.'

Lena laughed again, but the sound was hollow even to her. 'I think I have pretty damn good reason to be.'

'Why? Because your sister was killed? Because you were raped?'

Lena reached out, holding on to the trunk of her car. If only it were that easy, Lena thought. She was not simply mourning the death of Sibyl, she was also mourning the death of herself. Lena did not know who she was anymore, or why she even got up in the morning. Everything Lena had been before the rape had been taken away from her. She no longer knew herself.

Nan spoke again, and when she did, she said his name. Lena watched Nan 's lips forming the word, saw his name travel through the space between them like an airborne poison.

'Lee,' Nan said. 'Don't let him ruin your life.'

Lena kept her grip on the car, certain her knees would buckle if she let go.

Nan used his name again, then said, 'You've got to deal with it, Lena. You've got to deal with it now, or you'll never be able to move on.'

Lena hissed, 'Fuck off, Nan.'

Nan stepped forward, like she might put her hand on Lena 's shoulder.

'Get the fuck away from me,' Lena warned.

Nan gave a long sigh, giving up. She turned and walked back to the bar without giving Lena a second glance.

Lena sat in the empty parking lot of the Grant Piggly Wiggly, sipping cheap whiskey straight from the bottle. She was past the harsh taste, and her throat was so numb from the alcohol that she could barely feel it going down. There was another bottle in the seat beside her, and she would probably go through that one, too, before the night was over. All Lena wanted to do was stay in her car in this empty parking lot and try to figure out what was happening in her life. Nan was right to some degree. Lena had to get over this, but that did not mean talking to some idiot like Dave Fine. What Lena needed to do was get her shit together and stop obsessing about stupid things. She just needed to get on with her life. She needed, Lena supposed, a night of self-pity, where she finally went through the motions of grieving and letting things go.

She listened to snippets of Sibyl's tapes, popping them one by one into the cassette player to see what was on them. She should label them, but she could not find a pen. Besides, it seemed wrong to write on Sibyl's things, even though Sibyl would not have minded. There were a few tapes that were already labeled, most of them Atlanta singers: Melanie Hammet, Indigo Girls, a couple more names Lena did not recognize. She ejected the last tape, which had been some kind of compilation of classical mu-sic on one side and old Pretenders tunes on the other, and tossed it in with the others.

Lena reached around to the back seat and pulled at the last box. It was heavier than the others, and when she finally managed to get it to the front, pictures spilled onto the seat beside her. Most of the photos were of Greg Mitchell and Lena at various stages in their relationship. There were some beach pictures, of course, as well as snapshots from the time they went to Chattanooga to see the aquarium. Lena blinked away tears, trying to remember what it had been like that day, standing in line to see the exhibit, the breeze coming off the Tennessee River so strong that Greg had stood behind her to keep her warm. She had loved the way her body felt when he put his arms around her waist, rested his chin on her shoulder. It was the only time in her life she could remember ever being truly content. Then, the line had moved, and Greg had stepped back, and said something about the weather, or a story on the news, and Lena had purposefully picked a fight with him for no reason whatsoever.

Lena thumbed through another stack of pictures, sipping the alcohol with deliberate care. She was beyond drunk now, but not beyond caring. Looking at the photos, she wondered how there had ever been a time when she wanted a man's company, or felt like being alone with one, let alone intimate. For all Lena had said when Greg left her, she had still wanted him back.

Lena found the picture Nan had told her about. Sibyl did look miserable, but she was still smiling for the camera. They were both about seven in the photograph. At that age, they had looked almost identical, though one of Sibyl's front teeth was missing because she had tripped and knocked it out on the front porch. The tooth that grew in to replace it was snaggled, but it gave Sibyl's mouth some character. At least, that's what Hank had told her.

Lena smiled as she spotted a stack of pictures bound together with a rubber band. Hank had given her an instant camera for her fifteenth birthday, and Lena had used two boxes of film in one day, taking pictures of everything she could think of. Later, she had done her own editing, splicing some of the images together. There was one picture in particular she remembered, and Lena thumbed through the stack until she found it. Using a razor blade, she had made a kisscut over the image, scoring just the surface of the photograph but not cutting all the way through to the back, and excised Hank from the scene. Bonnie, their golden lab, had been glued in his place.

'Bonnie,' Lena breathed, aware that she was crying openly now. This was one of the reasons Lena did not drink alcohol. The dog had been dead for ten years and here she was, crying over him like it was just yesterday.

Lena got out of the car, taking the bottles of liquor with her. She wanted to get them out of the car because she knew she would end up passed out if they stayed there. As she walked, she realized that she was closer to this than she had thought in the car. Her feet felt like they did not belong to her, and she tripped several times over nothing in particular. The store had been closed for hours, but she still checked the windows to make sure no one saw her stumbling across the parking lot. Lena pressed her palm against the side of the building as she walked around it, holding both bottles with her free hand. When she got to the back of the store and let go of the wall, she tumbled, her knees giving out from under her. Somehow, she caught herself with one hand and kept from falling, face first, onto the asphalt.

'Shit,' she cursed, seeing rather than feeling the cut on her palm. Lena stood, more determined now than ever to throw away the alcohol. She would sleep some of it off in her car and drive home when she could see straight.

Reeling back, she tossed the near empty bottle into the Dumpster. It made a rewarding crash as it broke against the metal wall inside the steel chamber. Lena picked up the other bottle and tossed it in. A couple of thunks later, and the bottle had not broken. She contemplated for just a moment going into the Dumpster and retrieving the bottle, but stopped herself before she did.

There was a stand of trees behind the building, and Lena walked over, her feet still feeling as if they were asleep. She bent over and made herself vomit. The alcohol was bitter coming