The Swailing

ECCO: Evolution

Bright sunlight streams through the curtainless window. I squint and shield my eyes. My head hurts and my mouth feels like it's coated with a layer of wool. And I'm so incredibly thirsty. Why do I feel so awful? Am I sick again? I'm never sick like this.

And then I remember: the alcohol.

I rub my temples and look over at Finn, who is still asleep. His head is turned away from me, giving me a clear shot of his jaw, and I imagine the smell of soap and fall. I don't know where it comes from, exactly. A dream? No ... I have a foggy memory of pink drinks in fancy glasses and a walk in the cool night air. And ... yes! A tattoo! I look at my wrist and there is a tidy white square of gauze that confirms at least part of the evening. I smile and peel back the tape to peek at it, hoping it looks as good as I thought it did last night.

There it is. No fear, in Finn's steady writing. It's like opening a present I had forgotten all about.

I remove the gauze and rest the back of my wrist against my forehead. The pressure lessens the throbbing in my temples.

I definitely remember leaving the tattoo place and ...

Wait.

Was there kissing?

No, that part must have been a dream. It had to be a dream. I think...

I lift my wrist and look at my tattoo again, as if it will tell me something more, but unfortunately it offers no tangible proof of any kissing. My memory is vague and unclear, like much of the evening happened in a fog, and I wonder what parts of it happened at all.

I get up to get a drink of water and try to recreate the night in my mind. I remember being at the bar, Finn telling me his age. I remember ... talking, walking, blurry stars, needles in my wrist, rough brick, warm breath, soft mouths...

Yep, there it is again! But how much of that is a combination of my alcohol-fueled dreams and my wishful thinking?

I gulp my water, refill my glass, and take it back to where Finn is sleeping. I study him: his eyelashes and his straight nose and his soft brown hair and his mouth. His mouth. I watch the way his pulse flutters beneath the skin at his neck, listen to the soft swish of his breathing.

I lie back down next to him almost wishing the cold spell would return and he'd be forced to pull me up against him again. But it's warmer in the apartment now, and he doesn't need my extra body heat, unfortunately.

I close my eyes and try to fall back asleep but between this hangover and trying to piece together the events of last night, my head pounds and spins. I see, now, why alcohol has its reputation. It makes you feel invincible, but then erases the memory of your mistakes so you can't learn from them. It blurs the lines between right and wrong. It makes you bold and daring when maybe you shouldn't be.

I sit up again – I feel better when I'm upright – and sit cross-legged. I realize I'm still in the clothes I wore yesterday. I look down at Finn again and see he is, too. He stirs and his t-shirt rides up a bit and there is his tattoo, that straight line with the wavy line around it. The one that represents the family home that he is about to lose. That's what he told me – I distinctly remember that part. Maybe it was the needles in my wrist keeping me sharp, making me pay attention. I'm tempted to touch it again, to slide my fingers along its lines, but I resist.

I look back at his face and am surprised to find that his eyes are open now, watching me.

My cheeks get hot immediately. Just his gaze makes me feel vulnerable and embarrassed. Not only has he caught me, again, studying his tattoo, but I have no idea if these "memories" of kissing him are remnants of a dream or of something real. But I'm sure he does. I'm sure he wasn't too drunk to remember if we kissed. He knows and I don't, and I'm mortified.

"It means something else, too," he says in his rough, sleepy voice and I am so flustered that I have no idea what he's talking about. He must sense my confusion. "My tattoo," he clarifies.

"It does?"

He nods and stretches, then sits up. His shirt falls back down to cover his tattoo and I nearly sigh with disappointment. What is wrong with me?

He asks for a sip of my water and I hand him my glass and watch him drink, swallow, lick his lips. His lips. And I wait. He lowers the glass and thinks for a second before speaking.

"It's, um ..." he starts, and then clears his throat and begins again. "It represents a situation where two stories contradict each other, but only one is the truth." He takes another sip of water and clears his throat again. "The straight line is the truth."

I let this sink in through the fog of my hangover. It feels important – not only what he says, but the way he says it. Serious and careful, like a teacher. I think about his parents, the history teachers who taught him the truth, and the sovereigns who each teach their own version of the truth. The straight line of history vs. the wavy line of government propaganda. I think, briefly, about bigger truths and lies that I'm only just learning about: about God, about life, about love. I even, briefly, think about this mystery of what really happened last night, and how he knows the truth and I don't. He's the straight line, and I'm the wavy one in more ways than that, even. The thoughts pile up and tickle at something deep within me, some sense of the way things are vs. the way they should be, but my head pounds and I can't seem to focus.

I'm about to say something inadequate and scattered when Finn hands me back the glass of water and asks, "How's your wrist?"

I look down at my new tattoo, confused. "Oh. It's fine."

"No regrets?" he asks, and I know he's talking about the tattoo but it feels like maybe he's also talking about something else.

I shake my head. No regrets about the tattoo. If there was kissing, no regrets about that, either, except that I can't remember it.

Finn nods. "Good." He gets up and heads to the bathroom. He's not acting strange or embarrassed. In fact, he's acting like nothing has changed at all. So maybe it was all a dream.

Jordan returns from his night shift at the hospital looking scruffy and exhausted. He waggles his fingers at us when he walks in and starts to head towards his bedroom. But then he stops and retraces his steps.

"Sorry," he says. "I almost forgot."

He places a folded piece of paper on the counter in front of me.

"Finneas, it was good to see you." He slaps Finn on the back. "Keep in touch."

And then he disappears into his room, presumably to sleep for the next 15 hours.

I touch the paper with my fingertips, pushing it slightly away from me, and then pulling it closer.

Finn watches me for a moment as I push it back and forth across the countertop.

"You gonna' look at it?" he asks.

"Eventually."

He places his hand gently on mine and pulls the paper from beneath my fingertips. He unfolds it and flattens it on the counter.

Willow Miller, 243 Main Street, Cumberland, ME

I stare at it for a moment, stunned. For some reason, I never really believed we'd get this far. I guess I let myself assume that my mom was dead because if she really were alive I'd have to deal with the fact that she never came back to Optima, that she basically abandoned me.

But apparently she's alive and living in ME.

How ironic.