Lit by Burning Bridges - Kat Lewis
“We should bang,” Jolene said.
She stood in the hallway outside Will’s bathroom, staring him down with a gaze so serious that she might have just told him his mother had died. In her hand, she had a blue solo cup full of – she actually didn’t know what was in it. When Dylan asked if she wanted another drink, she handed him her cup and said, “Yeah, top it off with whatever.” The booze stewed in the cup, smelling like Fireball Whisky submersed in AriZona Ice Tea.
Will choked on his drink. “What?”
“Did I stutter?”
“N– no but–“
“But what? It’s a simple yes or no question. Should we or should we not bang?”
The two of them stepped aside to let their friend, Garrett, and his girlfriend pass. Will leaned in and whispered, “Are you drunk?”
“No,” she replied with a crooked grin. “I had two shots of tequila and you know me, I’ve got the tolerance of a coal miner. Unlike you. You have the tolerance of a milk-lappin’ kitten. That’s why I’m asking before you finish sipping your . . .” she trailed off, grabbed the bottle from his hand. Jo squinted at the label. “Cranberry Mike’s Hard.” She scoffed and Will defensively snatched his drink back.
“These are fucking delicious, okay?”
Jo smirked, but didn’t comment. “So what’ll it be? We bangin’ or not?”
“Now?” Will glanced down the hall into his living. He watched his roommate, Dylan, sit on the arm of the sofa and schmooze with other party guests.
Jo rolled her eyes. “No, not now. There’s like 136 people here and besides,” Jo’s eyes shifted to the couple down the hall as they slipped into Will’s bedroom. “Pretty sure your room is occupado.”
“God dammit, Garrett,” Will muttered, stepping forward, but the door shut and locked with a definitive click. He glanced back to Jo. “But why?”
“You’re attractive. I’m attractive. So.” She made a hole with her left hand and poked her pointer finger in and out of it. Will frowned and the jest on Jo’s face faded. “All jokes aside, what do we have to lose? I won’t see you over the summer and I graduate in December. After graduation, I reckon we won’t see each other until, I dunno, alumni weekend five years from now?” Jo shrugged. “I trust you, and it’s just sex.”
“Just sex?”
She nodded. “No expectations. Just sex. And Garrett and the rest don’t gotta know.”
“I–“
“Who’s down for Flip Cup?” Dylan called from the living room. Jo glanced over to Will’s shoulder to see Dylan and her roommate, Candice, unfolding a table.
“Take a few days to think about it,” Jo said, looking back to Will. “But don’t take too long. Finals are in two weeks.” She patted him on the back as she passed to get to the living room.
Three days later, Jo stared at the clock on her apartment’s living room wall with unfocused eyes. It was a strange clock. Cooking utensils, ladles and forks, jutted out from the face like bicycle spokes. The hour hand was also a fork pointed at the seven and the minute hand a knife aimed at the three. Every second the clock clicked with a grating tick.
“Jo?” Candice sat across the table from her roommate, shuffling through a Rubik’s cube. Jo didn’t hear her over the shrill ticks of the clock. “Jo.” Candice completed the third side and glanced up at the Rubik’s cube in Jo’s hands that barely had one side finished. Candice groaned. “Racing’s no fun if you keep letting me win.”
Jo’s eyes came into focus and she glanced down at the peeling Rubik’s cube in her hands. “There’s no second hand on that clock,” she said, rotating the top layer of the cube.
“What?” Candice asked, shifting her gaze to the clock across the room.
“It ticks,” Jo said as she completed the third side. “But there’s no second hand. Ain’t that weird?”
“I guess but–“ Jo slammed the solved cube on the table with finesse. Candice frowned. “Goddamn you do that fast.”
Jo smirked. “Let’s be real. You can’t beat me if I’m at my A-game.” Candice let out a humorless laugh and flipped Jo off. “But seriously,” Jo said, looking back to the clock. “Why’s it gotta tick if there ain’t no second hand?”
Candice turned the cube around in her hands to figure out her next move. “Don’t know. It’s just a ugly clock your mom gave us.”
Jo chuckled. “Mama don’t got much taste in anything, huh?”
Candice laughed too. “You said it, not me.”
The two of them sat in silence, listening to the ticking, the tocking, and the shuffling of colored squares. Jo spoke again after solving the cube a second time. “What’re you doing with this last year?”
“Well,” Candice said, unlocking her phone and scrolling. Jo could see the reflection of Facebook in her glasses. “I’m three-credits short of the graduation requirement, so I’ll be here this summer taking western civilizations with Voinovich.” Candice looked up from her phone with an exaggerated sigh. “Christ, is that gonna suck. I might as well commit hari-kari now.”
“It’s Hara-Kiri.”
“What?”
“It’s pronounced Hara-Kiri. Stop listening to Chris Brown, it’s rotting your mind.”
Candice rolled her eyes. “I know your country ass isn’t lecturing me on pronunciation.”
Jolene snickered, mixing up the cube again. “But that’s not what I mean. This time next year, college and life as we know it is gonna end. What are you gonna do before then?”
Candice’s brow wrinkled in thought. “I guess just hang out with you and the guys.” Jo nodded a bit, listening with an absent-minded expression. “Why?” Candice said cautiously, “What are you gonna do?”
Jo shrugged. “Whatever I want. I’m not gonna see none a ya’ll for a really long time. So I’mma do what I want, when I want and I ain’t gonna apologize for it.”
Candice’s thoughtful expression broke into one of concern. “It’s true we all have an expiration date, but you do realize that’s not license to do anything you want, right?”
Jo stopped rotating her cube mid-turn as a strange feeling crawled down her back. She thought of all the cliché Tennessee sayings her nana would use to describe the feeling. Jo’s ears burned. Her hands itched. She felt her throat shrink into her stomach, and her belly boil with something like hunger. Jo wanted to swallow but she thought she might vomit. Instead, she dropped the cube on the table and strode towards the front door.
“Jo?” Candice called after her as Jo snatched her carabiner keys from the credenza by the door. She clipped the set of keys to her belt loop and pulled back the deadbolt on the door. “Jo, what’s wrong?”
“Someone walked over my grave,” she said before stepping out into the hallway that reeked of piss and thirty-year-old cigarette smoke.
Ten minutes later, Jo found herself walking down the hallway of the apartment complex down the street. She marched up to apartment 408 and opened the unlocked door. In the foyer, she could hear a movie whispering from the television in the living room. Kill Bill. Jo rounded the corner and saw Uma Thurman’s character on screen. Clad in motorcycle helmet and her signature tracksuit, Thurman stared into the trunk of a car and whispered some of her final lines, “I want him to know what I know. I want him to know I want him to know. And I want them all to know, they’ll all soon be as dead as–“
“Hey, Jo,” Will said, almost frightened as he chewed a handful of popcorn. He slouched on the couch with Dylan and Garrett sitting on either side of him.
“How’d you get in here?” Dylan asked, taking the popcorn bowl from Will.
“I dunno why ya’ll always act so surprised when someone barges in,” Jo replied and pointed a thumb over her shoulder towards the front door. “Ya’ll know you never lock the door.” As she spoke, she fidgeted with her carabiner and looked to Will. “Can I talk to you?” she said before accidentally unclipping her keys and dropping them onto the hardwood. She quickly bent down to grab them.
Garrett smirked and said, “God, Jo, keep it in your pants.” Dylan snickered and the pleather couch farted under Will as he squirmed in his seat.
Jo hesitated with her hand hovering over the keys. She grabbed them after a second and her knee cracked as she stood up. “You told them,” Jo said, looking at Will with the same austere glance from the weekend. She watched his throat shrug with a hard swallow. Dylan’s laugh grew louder and Garret’s smirk uncomfortable. “No,” she said, shifting her weight to one foot. “Fuck all a ya’ll. If I were a guy and Will a girl, ya’ll would be admiring the balls it took to ask and you’d be pattin’ me on the back sayin’ shit like,” she lowered her voice to sound like a dumb man, “‘tough luck’ and ‘better luck next time, bro.’ But because I have a goddamn vagina you think it’s fucking funny.”
“Jo–“ Garrett tried to say, but she held up her hand.
“No, fuck you, Garrett.” Dylan had a hand over his mouth but Jo could still see the hidden smile in the crinkle of his eyes. “Fuck you too, Dylan.” The corners of his eyes smoothed out. Jo looked at Will, but didn’t say anything. She turned on her heels and stomped towards the front door.
“Jo, wait.” Will’s voice chased after her with no avail.
She passed the kitchen but quickly backpedaled with her eyes on the fridge. Jo threw open the fridge and grabbed the six pack of Cranberry Mike’s Hard from the door. Shuffling through her keys, she pushed her cat, self-defense keychain aside and popped the tops off with her bottle opener. With a bottle in each hand, she turned them over the sink. The bottlenecks glugged as she shook out the lemonade.
The floor creaked under Will’s in the archway. “What the fuck?”
Jo watched the pink alcohol gurgle down the sink and saw the coming year – her future – bright, bold, and lit by burning bridges.
“We should bang,” Jolene said.
She stood in the hallway outside Will’s bathroom, staring him down with a gaze so serious that she might have just told him his mother had died. In her hand, she had a blue solo cup full of – she actually didn’t know what was in it. When Dylan asked if she wanted another drink, she handed him her cup and said, “Yeah, top it off with whatever.” The booze stewed in the cup, smelling like Fireball Whisky submersed in AriZona Ice Tea.
Will choked on his drink. “What?”
“Did I stutter?”
“N– no but–“
“But what? It’s a simple yes or no question. Should we or should we not bang?”
The two of them stepped aside to let their friend, Garrett, and his girlfriend pass. Will leaned in and whispered, “Are you drunk?”
“No,” she replied with a crooked grin. “I had two shots of tequila and you know me, I’ve got the tolerance of a coal miner. Unlike you. You have the tolerance of a milk-lappin’ kitten. That’s why I’m asking before you finish sipping your . . .” she trailed off, grabbed the bottle from his hand. Jo squinted at the label. “Cranberry Mike’s Hard.” She scoffed and Will defensively snatched his drink back.
“These are fucking delicious, okay?”
Jo smirked, but didn’t comment. “So what’ll it be? We bangin’ or not?”
“Now?” Will glanced down the hall into his living. He watched his roommate, Dylan, sit on the arm of the sofa and schmooze with other party guests.
Jo rolled her eyes. “No, not now. There’s like 136 people here and besides,” Jo’s eyes shifted to the couple down the hall as they slipped into Will’s bedroom. “Pretty sure your room is occupado.”
“God dammit, Garrett,” Will muttered, stepping forward, but the door shut and locked with a definitive click. He glanced back to Jo. “But why?”
“You’re attractive. I’m attractive. So.” She made a hole with her left hand and poked her pointer finger in and out of it. Will frowned and the jest on Jo’s face faded. “All jokes aside, what do we have to lose? I won’t see you over the summer and I graduate in December. After graduation, I reckon we won’t see each other until, I dunno, alumni weekend five years from now?” Jo shrugged. “I trust you, and it’s just sex.”
“Just sex?”
She nodded. “No expectations. Just sex. And Garrett and the rest don’t gotta know.”
“I–“
“Who’s down for Flip Cup?” Dylan called from the living room. Jo glanced over to Will’s shoulder to see Dylan and her roommate, Candice, unfolding a table.
“Take a few days to think about it,” Jo said, looking back to Will. “But don’t take too long. Finals are in two weeks.” She patted him on the back as she passed to get to the living room.
Three days later, Jo stared at the clock on her apartment’s living room wall with unfocused eyes. It was a strange clock. Cooking utensils, ladles and forks, jutted out from the face like bicycle spokes. The hour hand was also a fork pointed at the seven and the minute hand a knife aimed at the three. Every second the clock clicked with a grating tick.
“Jo?” Candice sat across the table from her roommate, shuffling through a Rubik’s cube. Jo didn’t hear her over the shrill ticks of the clock. “Jo.” Candice completed the third side and glanced up at the Rubik’s cube in Jo’s hands that barely had one side finished. Candice groaned. “Racing’s no fun if you keep letting me win.”
Jo’s eyes came into focus and she glanced down at the peeling Rubik’s cube in her hands. “There’s no second hand on that clock,” she said, rotating the top layer of the cube.
“What?” Candice asked, shifting her gaze to the clock across the room.
“It ticks,” Jo said as she completed the third side. “But there’s no second hand. Ain’t that weird?”
“I guess but–“ Jo slammed the solved cube on the table with finesse. Candice frowned. “Goddamn you do that fast.”
Jo smirked. “Let’s be real. You can’t beat me if I’m at my A-game.” Candice let out a humorless laugh and flipped Jo off. “But seriously,” Jo said, looking back to the clock. “Why’s it gotta tick if there ain’t no second hand?”
Candice turned the cube around in her hands to figure out her next move. “Don’t know. It’s just a ugly clock your mom gave us.”
Jo chuckled. “Mama don’t got much taste in anything, huh?”
Candice laughed too. “You said it, not me.”
The two of them sat in silence, listening to the ticking, the tocking, and the shuffling of colored squares. Jo spoke again after solving the cube a second time. “What’re you doing with this last year?”
“Well,” Candice said, unlocking her phone and scrolling. Jo could see the reflection of Facebook in her glasses. “I’m three-credits short of the graduation requirement, so I’ll be here this summer taking western civilizations with Voinovich.” Candice looked up from her phone with an exaggerated sigh. “Christ, is that gonna suck. I might as well commit hari-kari now.”
“It’s Hara-Kiri.”
“What?”
“It’s pronounced Hara-Kiri. Stop listening to Chris Brown, it’s rotting your mind.”
Candice rolled her eyes. “I know your country ass isn’t lecturing me on pronunciation.”
Jolene snickered, mixing up the cube again. “But that’s not what I mean. This time next year, college and life as we know it is gonna end. What are you gonna do before then?”
Candice’s brow wrinkled in thought. “I guess just hang out with you and the guys.” Jo nodded a bit, listening with an absent-minded expression. “Why?” Candice said cautiously, “What are you gonna do?”
Jo shrugged. “Whatever I want. I’m not gonna see none a ya’ll for a really long time. So I’mma do what I want, when I want and I ain’t gonna apologize for it.”
Candice’s thoughtful expression broke into one of concern. “It’s true we all have an expiration date, but you do realize that’s not license to do anything you want, right?”
Jo stopped rotating her cube mid-turn as a strange feeling crawled down her back. She thought of all the cliché Tennessee sayings her nana would use to describe the feeling. Jo’s ears burned. Her hands itched. She felt her throat shrink into her stomach, and her belly boil with something like hunger. Jo wanted to swallow but she thought she might vomit. Instead, she dropped the cube on the table and strode towards the front door.
“Jo?” Candice called after her as Jo snatched her carabiner keys from the credenza by the door. She clipped the set of keys to her belt loop and pulled back the deadbolt on the door. “Jo, what’s wrong?”
“Someone walked over my grave,” she said before stepping out into the hallway that reeked of piss and thirty-year-old cigarette smoke.
Ten minutes later, Jo found herself walking down the hallway of the apartment complex down the street. She marched up to apartment 408 and opened the unlocked door. In the foyer, she could hear a movie whispering from the television in the living room. Kill Bill. Jo rounded the corner and saw Uma Thurman’s character on screen. Clad in motorcycle helmet and her signature tracksuit, Thurman stared into the trunk of a car and whispered some of her final lines, “I want him to know what I know. I want him to know I want him to know. And I want them all to know, they’ll all soon be as dead as–“
“Hey, Jo,” Will said, almost frightened as he chewed a handful of popcorn. He slouched on the couch with Dylan and Garrett sitting on either side of him.
“How’d you get in here?” Dylan asked, taking the popcorn bowl from Will.
“I dunno why ya’ll always act so surprised when someone barges in,” Jo replied and pointed a thumb over her shoulder towards the front door. “Ya’ll know you never lock the door.” As she spoke, she fidgeted with her carabiner and looked to Will. “Can I talk to you?” she said before accidentally unclipping her keys and dropping them onto the hardwood. She quickly bent down to grab them.
Garrett smirked and said, “God, Jo, keep it in your pants.” Dylan snickered and the pleather couch farted under Will as he squirmed in his seat.
Jo hesitated with her hand hovering over the keys. She grabbed them after a second and her knee cracked as she stood up. “You told them,” Jo said, looking at Will with the same austere glance from the weekend. She watched his throat shrug with a hard swallow. Dylan’s laugh grew louder and Garret’s smirk uncomfortable. “No,” she said, shifting her weight to one foot. “Fuck all a ya’ll. If I were a guy and Will a girl, ya’ll would be admiring the balls it took to ask and you’d be pattin’ me on the back sayin’ shit like,” she lowered her voice to sound like a dumb man, “‘tough luck’ and ‘better luck next time, bro.’ But because I have a goddamn vagina you think it’s fucking funny.”
“Jo–“ Garrett tried to say, but she held up her hand.
“No, fuck you, Garrett.” Dylan had a hand over his mouth but Jo could still see the hidden smile in the crinkle of his eyes. “Fuck you too, Dylan.” The corners of his eyes smoothed out. Jo looked at Will, but didn’t say anything. She turned on her heels and stomped towards the front door.
“Jo, wait.” Will’s voice chased after her with no avail.
She passed the kitchen but quickly backpedaled with her eyes on the fridge. Jo threw open the fridge and grabbed the six pack of Cranberry Mike’s Hard from the door. Shuffling through her keys, she pushed her cat, self-defense keychain aside and popped the tops off with her bottle opener. With a bottle in each hand, she turned them over the sink. The bottlenecks glugged as she shook out the lemonade.
The floor creaked under Will’s in the archway. “What the fuck?”
Jo watched the pink alcohol gurgle down the sink and saw the coming year – her future – bright, bold, and lit by burning bridges.