Birthday Girl(124)

Pulling the door open, I step inside, music and the smell of fried food instantly swarming me. Shel stands behind the bar with only three customers in front of her, and I look around the place, seeing a few tables filled but mostly empty. It’s a pretty quiet Monday night.

I crack my neck, bracing myself as I step up to the bar.

She sees me instantly and stops drying the glass as her back stiffens. “Cam, can you serve this guy?” she calls.

I glance at the other end and notice Jordan’s sister leaning over it. She must be covering Jordan’s shifts while she’s gone.

Her head rests in her hand as she talks to some patron, but as soon as her eyes lock with mine, she stands up straight, her smile falling.

Shel starts to walk away.

“Wait,” I say, stopping her. “I’m not staying.”

“Good.”

“I just—”

“I’m not going to tell you where she is,” she cuts me off.

I see Cam watching us, and I take another breath, squaring my shoulders. “I just need to know she’s okay.”

“She’s fine,” she replies curtly. “And she’ll be even better if she stays away from you and this town.”

I move in, dropping my voice. “I need to see her. Please.”

“You had her.”

Her eyes are nearly covered by her long black bangs, but I can see the hatred in them well enough.

I don’t want to bother Jordan. She’s stayed away, and I haven’t heard from her, so that tells me I think I did the right thing. She’s doing fine, and she’ll be happier.

But I’m not. This isn’t over for me. You need your heart to get out of bed, walk, talk, work, and eat, and she took it when she left. I wasn’t much before she came along, but what I did have inside me she left with. I’m fucking miserable.

“Please tell her…” I pause, admitting out loud what I was afraid to face. “That I love her.”

Shel doesn’t say anything, and I can’t even look in her eyes and see everything she’s thinking that I know is true. I fucked up.

I’m about to leave when Cam moves in.

“It’s been two months,” she says to Shel. “And he still looks like shit.”

“That’s not Jordan’s problem.”

“And we’re not Jordan’s keepers,” Cam retorts. “She walked away once, she can walk away again if that’s what she chooses. We don’t need to protect her.”

Shel hesitates, shoots me a glare, and finally gives up, walking around Cam to the other end of the bar.

Cam turns to me. “Look, we don’t know exactly where she is,” she says. “She calls and checks in every few weeks. But she has a friend whose family runs some motel in eastern Virginia. She’s been trying to get Jordan to come visit and even offered her a job there one summer.” She hesitates and then shrugs. “Without a lot of money, I can’t imagine Jordan has anywhere else to go.”

Virginia. That’s a twelve-hour drive. Would she have done that with the VW?

I guess if Cam says she’s calling, then she’s safe. And this is as good a lead as I’m going to get. Her fall classes start in a week, and if she were returning, she’d be doing it by now, wouldn’t she? She’d want her things out of my house, and she’d need to figure out where she was going to live. Was she planning on coming home at all?

I need to find her. I can’t wait.

I turn to leave but then stop. “What’s the name of the motel?” I ask Cam.

But she just sighs. “Hmm, can’t remember,” she says, playing with me. “I guess if you want her bad enough you’ll find her.”

And then she walks away, pleased with herself that she’s making it more difficult for me. I could call around, I guess, but if I do happen to find her, she might just hang up on me. I need to go find her.

I need to at least see her one last time and tell her that I love her and that she’s everything.

And that I’m dead without her.





Jordan



I click the mouse, moving the red six-of-hearts and everything underneath it to the black seven-of-clubs. Then I turn over the new card, clicking it twice, and watching the Ace automatically slide up to a free cell.

After nine weeks I’ve gotten pretty good at this game. Danni keeps suggesting I learn poker or blackjack or maybe even get into some online gaming with people from around the world, but I’m not that cool. I like playing alone. Just something to keep my brain occupied. It’s been an eventful summer vacation, too. I’ve won about three-hundred-fifty games out of four hundred, and I only lost that many, because I kept playing too late and would fall asleep, letting my battery die.

I actually feel quite pathetic when I let myself think about how I’ve spent hours and hours over this gorgeous summer. But then I just start a new game, and I stop thinking about it.

The bell on the lobby door chimes, and I look up, seeing a young man in a black pullover and jeans walk in, heading for the front desk.

I slide off my stool and stand. I’m always nervous when we get customers this late. The motel sits on an old highway without a lot of businesses or lights. Most people stick to the Interstate, especially when it’s dark out like this, and those who don’t kind of make me wonder.