Beachside Inn

We’re in a motel, because Vinny’s roommates have kicked us out for displaying our love all over the house. Vinny puts his hands on his face and starts sobbing.

“I don’t want you to leave, I don’t want you to leave,” he keeps saying like a toddler stuck on a phrase. I wish I had a cigarette. All I’ve eaten in days is Dippin’ Dots and green olives from my Bloody Mary’s because Vinny likes skinny girls. I can try that on for size until I get home to New York City and return to my steady diet of rainbow Mr. Softees. Thinking in color feels like a betrayal but I don’t stop the thought.

I laugh lightly in response, because I don’t know what else to do. What do you do when someone cries? I hand him a shirt, my shirt, it’s yellow and oversized and he puts it on. He starts yelling at me for falling asleep the night before after I sent him out to get more alcohol that neither of us needed.

“Move here,” he says. He means California, San Diego, and I say I will, but will I? I don’t get close to people because I feel like I’m holding piles of sand that will soon fall through the cracks of my fingers. Surely we can’t keep this up forever.

He and I are just a fever that will break. Although I do love being sick. Shaking cold in sweat, with red plaid blankets that never get washed, drinking blue Gatorade out of an orange nipple top.

I have vague memories from the night before. He sprayed the shower water in my eye and it hurt so bad that I had to admit that I was hurt. “Remember when I hit you like a schoolgirl?” He asks. I don’t. I don’t have any marks except for the deep red hickeys that spread across my neck like choke marks. I slash red lipstick over them before I cover them with concealer. It’s a trick my friend Kaila taught me but really I just want my reflection to look bloody when I look at myself in the mirror.