The piercing headlights of passing cars blur and blotch the road in front of me. I blink them away, but my head throbs with the beat of every white line. I’ve been driving for hours, arms pulled tight as bands, balled fists on the wheel. I unwrap each finger from its hold, extend each tired knuckle. I find a roadside truck stop and step outside my mother’s borrowed Buick to stretch.
A stern woman with thinning hair stands at the register inside. I nod to a rack of energy shots. “Which of these has the most caffeine?”
A man in trucker hat and boots is behind me. “This one’ll keep ya up til Gabriel blows his horn,” he says handing me a black plastic vial with neon lettering. “Only thing keeps me going on an all night run.”
I feel his eyes on me. My breath quickens and I feel blood rush from my heart into my fingertips. I straighten.
“Who you drivin’ for?” the woman asks and peers around into the parking lot beyond her. “Look like you been up a few days already.”
“I’m going to visit my boyfriend,” I say. “He’s a musician. And an artist.” I feel myself gushing. “And he’s very handsome.”
“Oh yeah?” The man looks me over again. I pull my jacket close to my breasts.
“You might wanna brush your hair before you get there, sweetheart,” he says. “Splash some water on your face.” I jerk my vial from the counter and leave.
I look at myself in the car mirror when I’m alone again. Like the dashboard, the mirror has one clean crack down its center. I do look tired. He should see that I’m tired, though. He should be reminded how long I’ve driven when he could easily have met me halfway. I’ll be sure to tell him about the truck driver’s eyes on me. It won’t hurt to remind him that I’m desirable. The idea of his jealousy pulsates through me. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him. I imagine his embrace when I arrive, the long kiss, his hands moving across my hips. I crank the car, eager to be united with him. It shudders like an exhausted horse too long on the trail. We’re almost there, I say. Just get me to his door.
A billboard advertising expensive jewelry flashes by the interstate, and the vision of his ringed hand comes back to me, the night we first met.
Salvatore was his name. We met at a concert, but not in line for overpriced beer or a too-crowded bathroom. No, my Salvatore was on the stage. The most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. Brooding and beautiful, the voice of a dark angel calling to me over the din. I followed that voice through the crowd, pushed my way through the throng, compelled and electrified until I reached the edge of the stage. A security guard moved between us. An opening appeared when the guard turned, and I threw my arms onto the stage and called to him. Salvatore saw me. He came to me like something in a dream. His body pulsed and swayed to the rhythm of his song with every step nearer. My own body moved in time with his. Like magnets, I leaned further into the barrier between us, and he, now on his knees, edged toward me. Then he was on all fours, crawling to me. Then his chest. He extended his arm to me. Our fingers touched. Directly into my eyes, he sang only to me: I’d give my life for you. The guard caught me then and pushed me away. Salvatore jumped to his feet, gone in an instant to the other side of the stage, but I knew then he was mine. I sought him out after the show, told him everything he made me feel.
“I love you,” I confessed.
“I love you, too, hon,” he said. Honey. A week later I had his name tattooed on my wrist, written in dripping honeyed letters. I smile now at my wrist as I drive. The exit to Martinville comes on me quickly, and I have to veer across three lanes to avoid missing it. A semi-truck blows its horn and flashes its lights as I pass the third lane just in front of it. Fucking asshole.
I saw Salvatore frequently after our first night together. I learned everything about him. Our connection was electric, magnetic, unparalleled. I dreamed of him every night–his mouth, his hands, his desire pouring over me like a storm over the ocean, his lightning rising waves in me until we crashed together on the shore of our pillows. I would lie there afterward looking into his soulful dark eyes, perfect eyes only for me. His honey.
I check my GPS again, impatient to be with him now. Only ten minutes away. My heart jumps in unconcealable excitement, and I hear myself chirp. I’m like a silly little bird fluttering about in a cage, waiting for its door to open. I look at myself in the mirror and chirp again. Chiiiirp chiiiirp! and I laugh. Chiiiirp! Chiiiirp! And in my silly joy, I remember another bird. I remember the last time Salvatore and I saw each other.
I’d gone to see him perform again. I never missed a show, even on tour, even when I had to drive very far to see him. I let him know I would be there. But when I came to him at the front of the stage, when I threw my shirt at him and danced-bare chested for his perfect eyes, he did not come near to me. When I tried to see him backstage as I nearly always did, his guard wouldn’t allow me to pass. What was happening? I’d told him I would be there!
“I’m Salvatore’s girlfriend,” I reminded the man. “Get your hands off me!” But I was turned away. I couldn’t understand what could have changed. I saw his band emerge from a closed door, and I shouted for them. No one would even look up at me. Salvatore wasn’t with them. My chest burned. I sucked in air to steady myself. I would see him. I rounded the concert pavilion in time to catch his bus. It sat with engine running. I would demand an explanation for avoiding me this way. I searched for the words I would say when a horror caught my eye. A beautiful woman approached the bus door, and my Salvatore emerged. He leaned his head out to talk to her. They laughed together. He descended the bus steps nearer to her. She touched his arm. They talked in a hushed way that I couldn’t make out. I wanted to move closer, to hear them, but my legs were stone sinking into decayed earth. I was held there by the weight of my own heart. And then he leaned into her, his mouth–my mouth–moving closer to hers. I felt myself lift free of the decay like a great bird, and I flew at them with eagled talons shredding its prey.
Screeak! I say now to the cracked mirror, and I slap myself hard for the memory and harder for the hate. How could he want me? How could he not? I’ve driven so far to see him. He couldn’t possibly turn me away. He couldn’t possibly see my face and forget the moment our eyes first locked on that stage, every time I’d played his songs over and over again, the connection we’d had. To say it was anything but the most real and most powerful love, that he was merely performing, that everything he was to me was a mere persona. I would not allow him to deny it, to deny me. I slap myself again for not having her beauty. And again for not having his love.
I pull into his driveway.
I cannot call him, so I try the front door. It’s locked. I tiptoe around back and find the patio door will open for me if I just slip the blade in that I carried for this purpose. I practiced this maneuver–slide the blade in, catch the latch, and lift. I step quietly inside and everything is exactly as I’d seen in his posted pictures. I know every painting on his wall, every piece of furniture. And then . . . I hear his voice, a low murmur from another room, and I move silently toward it. I plan my approach as I wait in the dark outside the sliver of light from his bedroom door. I’ll step into the room, whisper his name, and when his eyes meet mine–remembering, remembering–he will be mine. I whisper into the dark “I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby,” I hear him say. “Goodnight.” He sets down his phone, and when he sees me, the fantasy is just as I imagine. He is mine forever.
Shara Janae is a teacher, mother, and amateur actress in Northwest, Georgia whose work explores the effects of trauma in women of all ages. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has appeared in Wild Roof Journal, Poet’s Choice, Black Fork Review, and Catalpa Magazine. She holds an MFA in fiction from Ashland University.