The Last Time

               My knuckles are white still gripping the steering wheel, even though I’m safely in park. I stare straight ahead through the rain lashing my windshield, the wipers struggling to keep up. Thunder clashes in the distance. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a storm like this, even longer since I’ve driven in one. When I set off from home, the now-familiar trek across town to the county jail, I told myself it would be worth it, that I had no other choice. My heart threatens to burst through my chest, splatter blood and bone all over the dashboard. And I wonder.

               The cell phone tossed on my passenger seat illuminates the dark interior of car. Unknown number, but after six months with him I know it as well as my own. Not like the first time, questioning why he’s calling at this hour and not from the number he saved in my phone half a year ago.

               He swore last time was the last time, that he’d hit rock bottom in the dank cell he rotted in over the weekend. Just like he’d sworn, while lighting up a cigarette, that he was ready to quit smoking. And the nicotine was fine, really. We all had our vices. But these nights that ended with one free call were something else.

               The last 180 days race through my mind. The phone always face down and closely guarded, the texts left on read until he was drunk in the dead of night. My thoughts flash to that night a season ago, the moon bone-white glowing through my bedroom window and he told me he needed me. My heart fluttered, thinking this was his way of telling me he loved me. But now, I wonder, if he meant exactly what he said.

               The bail bondsmen aren’t judges, but I see the glances they share every time I walk in, suddenly a regular. They know me by name and I hate it. I think of my mother, who I’ve been avoiding since she shared she thinks he's bad news. I was so angry with her, screaming at her for writing off the first real love I had found in my life. The pity in her eyes had made me even angrier, knowing she wasn't really writing of my love because she thought I hadn't found it yet. The anger that burned like a hot coal is starting to dissipate. I can't even smell smoke. I'll call her tomorrow.

We met at a bar. I hate that part of our story, but it's true. I was lonely. My coworkers told me I needed to get out more, and I suppose they were right. I'm sure they didn't mean alone, but I held my loneliness close to my chest, and I couldn't bear to have anyone witness what would surely be a failure.

Carefully, strand by strand, I ironed my hair straight. My hands shook too much for eyeliner, but I managed a swipe of mascara and some lipstick. I slipped into a dress I ordered online (the thought of carrying this kind of garment to a cashier was unbearable), slipped on some heels and headed out.

I sat at the bar alone for a long time. Perhaps not an objectively long time, an hour maybe, but it was enough to bring heat to my cheeks and tears to sting my eyes. I would finish my drink, then I would leave. I would go home, drop this uncharacteristically trendy garment in a heap on the floor, and crawl into bed alone, the same way I had done for the past thirty years. I had scrolled through countless articles on how to stave off loneliness. What I really needed to find was one that would tell me how to accept it as my constant companion.

My thoughts were interrupted as suddenly the seat next to me was taken. The man seated beside me was raising his hand to the bartender, ordering me another drink. When he turned to face me, my heart stopped. Not to be cliche and say he was the most beautiful man I had ever laid eyes on, but perhaps he was the most beautiful man to have ever laid eyes on me. Dark hair, bright eyes, a stylishly rugged five-o'-clock shadow. My first thought was that maybe this was where the loneliness ends. But we're half a year in, and the loneliness still howls like a wolf at midnight.

               A flash of lightning lights up my reflection in the rear view mirror. I have never been a pretty girl. Not pretty enough for a handsome charmer with slicked-back hair and bedroom eyes to pay me a second though. I was not more beautiful the night we met, any more than I am beautiful now. I was, however, more desperate than I had ever been. I wonder if it lingered around my like a cloud of perfume. That he didn't see me across the bar, like he told me, making me blush. Maybe he caught a whiff of my scent.

               The phone lights up again. I snatch it up and answer it. A recorded voice asks me if I want to accept the charges. I press 2 to decline the call. I toss my phone onto the floorboard and rip up the bond paperwork. It scatters like New Year’s confetti. I slam my fist into the steering wheel and finally let myself scream. A deep, howling scream straight from the depths of my gut. It would send all the officers inside running out with guns drawn if they could hear it over the storm. I imagine my loneliness is a person, sitting in the passenger seat beside me, covered in paper snow, lingering like my shadow. It needs nothing, expects nothing, but is simply always there. He was supposed to replace you, I think, swiping a tear from my eye. I turn the key in the ignition and shift to reverse. Maybe the last time really was the last time after all.