Zack didn’t respond for several seconds. “Yeah, I mean, I guess I knew.”
“Do you tell Mona stuff?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“No, don’t even go there, bro. I would never.”
“I gotta go,” I said, before drinking the last of the whiskey.
I popped into Evey’s kitchen, where she was mixing up margaritas for her and Brooklyn. Evey was dressed to go out, revealing more skin than usual in her black silk shorts-jumper. Her smooth legs were still tan from the summer. She was wearing three-inch platform heels that I knew belonged to Brooklyn. I made a frustrated sound. She startled and turned around as if she’d heard me. She looked through me… thankfully.
“Brooke?” she called.
My heart was racing. Had she heard me?
“Yeah?” Brooklyn said, walking into the kitchen. “Wow, girl, you look amazing. You’re totally gonna get some action.”
“I don’t need action.” Evey handed over the margarita and said thoughtfully, “I’m extremely sated at the moment.”
“Ew, what were you doing to yourself in there?”
I felt like I should leave, like I was invading her privacy.
“Oh, shut up, you do it all the time. You don’t think I hear the buzzing?” Evey asked.
“Who were you thinking about? Huh? Please don’t say Beckett.”
I was standing right next to Evey, my mouth near her cheek. I was willing her to say my name but at the same time praying she wouldn’t.
“No one in particular.” She squinted. “Hot guy fantasy.”
Say my name. It looked like she was about to form the letter L. I was as close as I could be to her without actually touching her. I tried to smell her, but I couldn’t; I tried to breathe her in, but I couldn’t.
She shook her head. “I don’t know who I was thinking about.”
I’m on the other side of life, Evey, existing where death belongs and yearning to be with you. Yearning in brief moments to bring you here, into the darkness. When my thoughts are so painfully selfish, I cannot breathe you in at all. I cannot love you when I hate myself. Don’t say my name. Don’t think about me. Don’t imagine how we can be together.
She walked through me, toward the living room. I buckled over in pain. It’s always painful when you’re standing in the way of the person you love, but I didn’t care; I wanted to feel her so badly.
A moment later, I was flying to the liquor store. Disguised as an old, bearded homeless man, I put a bottle on the counter.
“Expensive Scotch, wouldn’t you say? Where’d you get the money?” the clerk said.
I pulled my billfold from my back pocket. “None of your fucking business.” I handed him a hundred dollar bill. “Keep the change, dickface.”
I went back to Evey’s and continued drinking on the steps until Joel and Keith, the two stupid apes, walked up and rang the buzzer.
Brooklyn answered, “We’ll be down in thirty seconds.”
Five minutes later, Evey and Brooklyn weren’t down yet. The apes were exchanging stories about “banging chicks”—their words, not mine—and I was drinking. No… I was guzzling. Joel and Keith’s angels were nearby. I could see them in the shadows. I wondered if I should make friends.
I stumbled over. Keith’s angel was a female wearing a kilt-like skirt. I could tell she belonged to Keith because of her proximity to him. I’ll get to that later—it’s complicated.
“Nice skirt,” I said.
“Fuck you,” she said in her thick Scottish accent.
“All right then,” I said, “Right here, out in the open? You’ve got easy access. I’m game.”
“Take a hike, buddy. You’re drunk,” said Joel’s angel.
“What’s everyone’s problem? Geez.” I gave them both a dirty look.
“You don’t remember me at all, ye bastart?” the Scotty bitch said.
I looked her up and down, shaking my head. “Why would I remember you?”
“Maybe cause we had a Tinder date last week and you showed up pissed, you fuckin’ dunderweed. Pissed like ya are now.”
“All right, all right, it’s coming back to me.”
All of us redirected our attention to the steps where Evey and Brooklyn came prancing out. The proximity thing is when you’re with a group of angels, we are always naturally positioned nearest our souls. We can transport our own bodies (think teleportation) when we are within a one hundred yard radius of our souls, but once that barrier is broken, we have to fly the distance. Meaning, once your soul is out of range, you have to get back in range in order to move your energy from one space to another within an instant. When you get too far away, you have to go looking for them like any other person. The fact that we can hear their voices from several miles away helps, but if they’re not talking, well then you’re screwed. This is how a lot of people get kidnapped or killed. Their angels were out of range.
Evey got out of range once when she was fifteen. I had been bored to death, sitting outside her childhood home in Oakland when she snuck out the back door and climbed her neighbor’s fence to meet her boyfriend a couple of blocks away. He was sixteen and had just gotten his driver’s license. T.J., that little shit. I was frantic, searching for her. I found them about three miles away in a Burger King parking lot, making out in his dad’s Buick.
There was nothing I could do to stop that relationship. It was innocent and pure, and T.J. was actually a good kid until Evey told him she wanted to wait until she was eighteen to have sex. Good girl. He broke up with her.
Then there was Byron, her real first everything. He was nice—good parents, good grades. They had sex in his parents’ garage when Evey was seventeen. I took off the moment they started kissing, but I got to hear every word of their conversation about protection. I almost stepped in front of a bus that night.
Mona had sat me down afterward and asked what was wrong with me. I told her I was worried about Evey’s heart getting broken. Mona had said, “It’s not your job to protect her heart, just her body and soul.”
What’s the difference when you love someone?
I was walking down the street, mindlessly following Brooklyn, Evey, and the two dumbshits along with the bitchy Scottish angel and the other one.
Evey said to Brooklyn, “Where are we going? I have to get up early for work.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday, you don’t have to work, and we’re going to Oakland. Joel got tickets to the Chainsmokers. Like you’d miss that.”
Evey beamed. “I was going to work on some sketches, but who cares? You’re right! This will be awesome. Tracey can sketch her own stupid jeans.”
I got a sinking feeling whenever I heard Evey talk about being irresponsible. I wanted to jump inside of Keith’s body, make him do something really stupid, and end the whole double date right there.
The Scot was skipping down the middle of the street, humming some stupid old folk tune. I ran up next to her. “Listen, I need to ask you for a favor.” She ignored me and took flight. I tried to catch up to her in the air, but I couldn’t. I was drunk and dizzy. I hit the ground a little too hard and fell over. I could hear her laughing.