elegantly wasted [a short story]

Elegantly Wasted

                     It was something everyone deemed too unimportant to share. When you were a coddled little kid and couldn't gauge for yourself: that life is crap. More so when you're told you're unique. Not in any kind of way an eight year old might get excited about, this wasn't your typical doctors visit. No I didn't grow quicker than average, I hadn't accelerated in my brain development.

Dissociative Identity Disorder: a condition I'd never heard of before, or at least didn't know the meaning of.

It was my curse if sentience that I desired to be understood. No one- none of my classmates, my 'friends', none- were like me. I was exiled for it. I, evidently wasn't a 'bad' case. Not like nowadays when you see videos on the internet of children on the floor screaming, throwing tantrums about the voices in their heads. No, I had somehow befriended my demons. Some ghoulish part of me, the only companion I had- a twin that wasn't there. That was always the problem: it wasn't there.

Now of course, ten years later, the very anniversary of such a discovery, I found myself away. Where? Away. Some truck stop meager miles away outside Dallas. Away from my father in Arizona. I hadn't planned this outcome.

I had been staring into some soda- over thinking, as usual- when he came in. Long hair hanging just below his shoulders. Curls cascading, rolling, bouncing as he walked towards where I sat. An American flag tattooed on his right bicep, and his eyes were oh so inexplicably blue. The smile was warm, and, after staring at him for so long- I realized: so was my face. He came to sit by me with all the nonchalance in the world his leather pants squeaking against the leather of the bar stool.

He asked to join me only after he already had, commented only on my outward appearance of loneliness, not why a "young lady" (what my mother had always called me) like me was out at the devil's hour with an overstuffed backpack on the edge of Dallas. He chiseled me down in ways no one ever had. It was obvious when he came in, that he didn't intend to stay as long as he did. Until he laid eyes on me. Simply broken, a project for the taking. He took me with him.

He took me.

Days later- I recollect- only then did he ask for my name. It hadn't occurred to either of us. He snapped his fingers in my face patting his lap with the other had. Trying to remember something he didn't know, it seemed. I surrendered it without a second thought. Andia, he tried on his tongue after he'd given his.

Toretto, he settled till I asked if he had a nickname. Then, he told me to call him Torri. I liked that infinitely better.

We stayed like we were, switching from cheap motel to cheap motel- harboring much alcohol along the way- slowly traveling to the heart of Dallas. Torri was a biker, I straddled his Harley by day, his hips by night. Some nights we never even made it to the motel. Spreading our bed rolls, basking in the afterglow underneath the stars.

"Torri? What am I to you?" I had asked on such a night. He had had his arm up, outlining the stars in the the sky, he knew them well. He dropped his hand to his stomach. I heard him exhale.

"That's difficult," He didn't look at me. "how much sand out here?"

"I don't know. A lot."

He chuckled 

"A lot.." He held my hand. Somehow, I understood.

That can be our always.