C H A P T E R 2: Concrete Jungle (Where Dreams Come to Die)
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Skylar used to have fourteen years of Michigan in his veins, and two years of California in his arteries, but, now, he's just full of an all-consuming nowhere; a black hole of vacancy beneath his scar-mapped skin. He hoped to change that sometime soon, and he thought New York City could be it.
He spent the week following that snowy Michigan night driving around aimlessly over the lines that distinguished Michigan from Ohio from Pennsylvania. He would only stop for gas, restaurants, or bathroom breaks. He rarely slept these days. He guessed that was why he could not remember the drive to New York City or the events that resulted in him wrapped up in the threads of white, cotton sheets in a room he vaguely remembered from a provocative night some time last year — that night, of which, he decided he liked New York City; it was the only place he had ever been to that actually felt absolutely aware of its existence, and it was the only place he had been to that bloomed wildly and radiantly with life, from the thespians gliding across the vast stages to the thugs that crept out at night to all the hardworking blue-collars that seethed with pride at whatever professions it was that colored their neckbands; and, oh, how Skylar loved the lights.
When he woke up that morning in those cotton sheets with the warm bursts of the sun flooding in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the cozy apartment, he was in agony. His sockets felt too tight for his eyes. Anything louder then the motion of oxygen molecules in the air rubbing passed one another was too loud to bare. His back ached, and he thought that the pounding in his head was liable to knock him unconscious. He felt like he spent the last few days on a binge, and he was finally coming down from the high. Really, he had not been high on anything in three years. So, he chalked it up to exhaustion.
Skylar opened his eyes and was blinded by the corpulent morning sun. He closed them, and sunk further into the mattress. He was perfectly content spending as much time as possible nestled in the sheets that still radiated in the scents of the previous night's sex and sweat and bad intentions. That was, until the mattress shifted beneath him.
He popped an eye open to drink in the blurry vision of last night's conquest. He silently admired the peaks and valleys of her bronze, ethnic skin as she shimmied her naked body into his T-shirt. She pulled the dark hair that trailed down to the middle of her back away from her face. Her lips were smudged and cracked with last night's lipstick, and her eyeliner had bled beneath her bottom lashes, but she was beautiful. Tall, dark-eyed and beautiful.
She spared a glance in the mirror beside the bed and sighed. Skylar had left a trail of violet bruises up her neck. She could almost feel his lips there still, and could not stifle the fond smile that swept across her face. He had never been one to hide his affection.
She knew he was watching her. She could feel his gaze as intently as the warmth from the sun.
"Good morning," she chuckled, turning around to find his eye closing quickly. "I know you're awake."
He groaned, rolling off of his muscled back and on to his side. His eyes remained shut. "Of course you do, Delta."
She — Delta — laid down beside him. She tenderly traced the outline of his jaw with the soft pads of her thin fingers. "I never thought I'd see you again," she whispered.
Quite honestly, he never thought she would see him again either. It wasn't that their whirlwind, summer affair — or "travel companionship," as Skylar liked to call it — ended on a sour note. It was just that she expected too much out of him. When he picked up the beautiful hitch-hiker with the vibrant smile on the wayside of a South Dakota interstate, he thought she would be nothing more than an experience. An experience that went from one night of intense, frenzied sex to three-months of courtship. He thought she understood his intentions — her being a well-versed traveler across the United States, all the while racking up her own lengthy list of experiences, — but she was looking for more than he could give her. So, when he finally dropped her off at her apartment in New York City, and spent one last provocative night with her, he was sure that was the last time she would see him. But, apparently, his exhausted, half-functioning conscience had another idea when he found himself knocking on her door at two o'clock in the morning.
Skylar opened his eyes. Their noses were almost touching.
"Me too," he said, his voice gravelly.
He looked passed her face, which was a feat in itself — she was too beautiful to turn away from, — and found himself staring at a black and white photo on the nightstand. The photo was of Delta, that wide smile fashioned to her face, nestled in the arms of a tall, hulky blonde man.
He looked back at her. He felt despondent.
"I never took you for a cheater," he said, flatly.
Her hand reached up to comb Skylar's hair back and she smiled sweetly at him. "And I never took you for the sentimental type. But here you are, in my bed."
"Delta," he groaned.
"What?" she laughed, gently slapping his toned stomach that was marred with countless tattoos and scars, the same ones she often found herself fondly caressing every night in dimly lit motel rooms during the three months they spent on the road together. "If you're worried about me falling in love with you again, you'll be sorely disappointed. I'm very much in love with Jeremy."
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Then what was last night? If my memory serves me correctly, which it does, you were the one who initiated the sex."
Delta turned over and snatched something off of the nightstand beside the photo. It was a ring. A modest, but brilliantly gleaming diamond engagement ring that clung adoringly to her left ring finger when she slipped it on.
She looked back at Skylar. "Last night was me making sure that getting married to Jeremy is what I really want."
"How's that working out for you?" he scoffed.
Her smile became brighter then. "I'm not begging you to stay, am I?"
Skylar stared at her for a long time, searching her face with those golden eyes. He didn't know what to say. Conversation was always so easy with Delta, but now, he almost didn't recognize her.
She took his silence as her cue to elaborate. "For the longest time, all I wanted was you, Sky. I spent weeks crying myself to sleep every night when you left me here. But then I realized that... I want a future with someone, too. And I knew, considering everything you've been through, you couldn't give that to me, and that's not your fault. Honestly, if it weren't for you, I would have never figured out what I wanted in life, and I probably would have never even given Jeremy the time of day, let alone my hand in marriage."
She placed her delicate hand on his cheek and stroked the stubble there. "Last night was me double-checking. Although the sex was amazing," she giggled, "I didn't feel anything here." She removed that hand from his cheek and placed it on her chest, over the heart that was beating divergent to Skylar's.
"You used me," he said, lacking any trace of audible emotion. "You used me in your experiment to make sure you're really in love with your absentee fiance."
He didn't know what emotion he should be experiencing after her confession, but that despondent feeling from earlier still tugged at his chest. He also realized, offhandedly, that he didn't know much about anything lately; from how to feel about that snowy night in the field, to how he ended up at Delta's apartment, and now to this.
"I did it for you too," she said. "Obviously, you needed a distraction from whatever was bothering you... and, my fiance is not absent, by the way. He's just on a business trip."
He didn't understand Delta, and then he thought that maybe he never did. At that point, all he wanted to do was leave.
He untangled himself from the mess of dirtied sheets. He found his boxers, tattered jeans and sneakers on the floor and wordlessly began to dress himself.
Delta stared sadly at him from the middle of the bed. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she couldn't get it out.
He looked expectantly at his black T-shirt hanging loosely from her torso. She took it off hastily and handed it to him before wrapping her naked body up in one of the thin sheets.
"Where are you gonna go?" she asked quietly.
He pulled his T-shirt on, and sighed. Then he shrugged.
She got up quickly from the bed, taking the sheet with her, and before he could protest, she wrapped her arms tightly around his stomach. Her head rested over his heart. "I love you, Skylar Glass. I'm no longer in love with you, but I love you," she asserted.
Skylar's hand ghosted over her back. She had hoped he would hug her. Once again, she expected too much from him.
She continued. "Those three months were probably some of the best times of my life. So, thank you. For everything."
He didn't think he did much for her, but he accepted her gratitude anyway. He was in no state of mind to formulate an argument. He was too tired. The type of tired that sleep couldn't cure.
When she pulled away, she quickly jotted her phone number down on a jagged slip of paper and tucked it in Skylar's front pocket.
Without another word, he grabbed his jacket off of her floor and left to find the Chevelle double-parked outside of the building.
He wasn't sure if he would ever make use of her phone number. If he didn't, that would be the third occurrence in the small slot of time they had known each other that he disappointed her. It killed him to know that, really. He cared about her, and the last thing he wanted to do was disappoint her, but he felt that, at that juncture in their relationship, or lack thereof, she should have known that he was in no position to give her any of what she needed. He genuinely hoped that Jeremy could fill the spaces that he could not. She deserved it, he thought.
Skylar felt even more despondent as he drove through the melting snow and crowded streets of New York. He wished there was an easy explanation to the feeling, like winter just wasn't his season, but the more he thought about it, the more he discovered that nothing in his life was ever easy.
When he crossed the border into New Jersey, he decided that he no longer liked New York.