Headlights(92)

“And then hopefully it comes,” she says.

“Have we thought about what it’s going to do when it comes?”

“No,” she says. “I don’t know.”

“And if it doesn’t come?”

“We make it. We’ll find a way.”

I nod. And she nods back.

Whatever happens, I am certain that once I close that door, there’s no going back. I wait until she nods one more time.

I reach out my hand and do it.

The click of the door closing.

We are engulfed, again, in darkness. But the tiniest sliver of light peeks in from beneath the door, just the thinnest line. Just enough for our eyes to adjust and to be able to get a sense of space, a little. After a moment, I can see Hannah’s outline. If I turned and looked in the mirror, I’d be able to see myself. I don’t. Not yet.

I’m choked, fear flowing through my body like blood. It’s not a bathtub in front of me, but it might as well be. I try to regulate my breathing, try to hold myself steady and solid. I can do this. The point is to feel fear. It’s worth it, to bring this thing in. To figure out what it wants.

From outside the bathroom, the radio catches on static, Lee Hazlewood no longer playing. Just a droning in-between crackle. Searching for a signal.

I can hear Hannah breathing too, uneven, quick.

Nothing happens.

Hannah takes a small step toward me.

Her breaths. Her body.

Static.

She comes closer.

The radio searching, moving between stations.

When Hannah comes to a stop, she is inches from me. Again, I don’t move. I can see her outline, and I can feel her. Smell her, once again. It’s stronger now, in this tight space. She leans in toward me. Touches her nose once again to the side of my throat, just almost, just barely grazing my skin. Nowhere else.

She inhales, slow and long and deep.

A disjointed thought comes into my mind. A feeling that everything in my life up to this point was leading to this. As if somehow, on some level, I always knew I would end up here. In this bathroom with her. Her nose against my throat, her body so close. The room spins, and I reach out and hold on to the counter with my left hand, pain as my bandaged finger hits the countertop. I grip tight anyway.

The cold starts to creep in. I can feel the moment Hannah notices too. I don’t know if it’s the dark or the proximity—any closer, and every part of us would be touching—but … something else is happening.

An awareness creeps in at the same time. Like … maybe I’m not alone in my thoughts. Maybe a side effect of the fear. Too much adrenaline with not enough movement. Craving fight or flight, not getting it.

Outside the door, the static increases in volume on the radio, tunes into different songs, in and out. Willie’s voice. Static. John Prine for a moment. Static. Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Jim Croce. Static. A sick feeling enters my stomach, and I know what it’s searching for. I tense. Brace myself for the inevitable. Again, this sense that all of this was always coming, a truck barreling toward me in the night. The room spinning. Hannah Lawrence inches from me, breathing me in. Because of what she does to human bodies. What she is probably imagining doing to mine.

The smell of the steak grows stronger in the tight space. I know she wants to reach for it. Again, that awareness, that feeling that in my mind, there is something, someone else there besides me.

The cold isn’t coming fast enough. The radio still searching. I know what I have to do. It would be so easy. The top of Hannah’s head barely comes up to my chin. I can turn, even with her this close to me. Just turn my head. That’s it. Just turn my head and look.

My heart is pounding, again, more. Fuck, I could give myself a heart attack.

Dad.

Shit. My palms are sweating now. I might be shaking. Hannah might be shaking.

It’s getting colder.

A creak, on the floorboards in the bedroom.

BAM!

Another bird hitting the window. I think.

That creak again. The vibration, whirring.

VOOM.

It’s working.

The radio lands on a song. And I knew it was coming, I knew to expect it and that I would have to face it. But still …

When the opening notes of “Annie’s Song” play, Hannah whimpers. I try to breathe.

The music travels, grows in volume so that it feels as though it plays in the bathroom with us, comes from the floor and walls and ceiling. John Denver’s voice begins.

You fill up my senses—

MOM!

I can’t get air in. I can’t do this.

VOOM.

The vibration, the humming. Getting louder, bigger. Pressing against my ears and my body, and the music growing in volume, and a woman saying something to me, speaking. Hannah saying words. I don’t know what she’s saying. I just have to— The song switches. A voice I’ve heard, once or twice. A newer singer.

Hannah freezes.

Between the static, carried to us on this too-loud, too-heavy, too-strong vibration, he sings, Queen of the rodeo— “No,” Hannah says. It’s a whimper. A plea. “Not this.”

The music gets louder, and she’s crying. I don’t know what to do.

In my head, the world of my thoughts, that other presence. It’s screaming, crying out. I move toward it.

Here between worlds. Standing in this bathroom, and existing in this mind space. Everything, in both, so unbearably loud.