Ashes, Ashes

10 - The Night

The game continued, faltering with intermittent smoke breaks or else Richard staggering drunkenly to piss off the edge of the porch. Dawn had given up, half asleep and curled up on Parker's lap, and Liza had sensibly switched over to water, but we played all the same. There had been laughter, some good memories dredged up and replayed, and in the fire's glow it was almost enough to forget why we were there in the first place. 

Richard had reached that phase I was familiar with, that hard-edged place where he started spoiling for a fight. Despite the cold outside, he was sweating, a damp sheen on his brow, and he'd stripped down to his undershirt. There was a look in his eye I didn't like, and I knew I should do something to stop him, but I couldn't find the energy. My head was swimmy, and my body had this disconnected feeling, like I was drifting out of it on a short leash. 

I should have stopped him. I don't know if it would have made any difference, in the end, if I had stopped the game. But I should have seen it coming, and I should have tried. 

Richard had the nearly empty Tennessee Honey bottle in his hand, and he was looking across the room at Parker with something like loathing. When he spoke, there was a challenge in his voice. 

"Never have I ever had sex with Laurel." 

"Richard -- " I knew where this was headed and I tried weakly to head it off. My chair felt suddenly very far away from everyone, like the room was lengthening, stretching out like taffy to keep the others out of reach. 

Parker laughed, uneasily. Dawn shifted in his lap, sitting up and rubbing her eyes sleepily. 

"Richard come on, we don't need..."

"Drink, Parker." Richard thrust the bottle in Parker's direction. His voice grew rough. "Why don't you tell us the story."

Liza looked up sharply, sudden interest gleaming in her eyes. If she'd been sleepy before, she wasn't now. 

I didn't like where this was headed. Parker and Laurel had slept together not long after she'd broken up with Richard, and it had been like the beginning of the end for the group, some wedge driven deep into the heart of things. Parker had started dating Dawn right after, and they'd both come around, but things had been weird and strained. 

And now here was Richard, spoiling for a fight, and I knew I should get up and stop him but the room had started to tilt on its axis like a rocking ship. I would have to crawl across the floor to get to him, I thought, because the room was moving too fast to walk. 

"You already know what happened," Parker said. He sounded a lot more put-together than I felt at that moment. "We hooked up at a party. It wasn't what either of us wanted. It got weird. We never did it again. What's the big deal?" 

"Weird," Liza said, and her voice was high and shrill. "It got weird, huh?" 

Richard laughed, an ill-natured giggle, and staggered to his feet. For a minute it looked like he might reach out to take a swing at Parker, like maybe he'd grab him by the collar of his dress shirt and drag him up to his feet, but he didn't. Instead, he swayed in place like maybe he'd forgotten what he was doing. 

"Yeah," Parker said, sulky, defensive. "S'what I said." 

"That's not how Laurel told that story," Liza said, and her voice verged on a scream. Abby stirred from her sleep and muttered something incomprehensible. 

"Yeah, well. Laurel talked a lot of shit." Parker stood up then, too, despite Dawn's protests, and she grabbed weakly for his hand, tugging on it to pull him back. He ignored her. "You're not s'posed to say bad things about dead people but come on, man, you know it and I know it. Laurel could be a fucking bitch." 

Richard did take a swing, then, his fist going wide and missing Parker entirely, colliding with the side of Dawn's face. She stumbled back, letting out a cry, and Parker lunged forward, shoving Richard hard in the chest. Richard tripped backward, stumbling over his chair, almost landing on his ass -- but he caught himself and gripped the chair back, picking it up, and -- 

-- the security deposit, I thought, randomly, panicked. 

I got up to my feet and the room tilted up under me and I started to yell, "Outside! Outside! Out! Side!" Like a broken record because I couldn't make my mouth form any other words. 

And that's the last thing I remember about that night.