I am driving my father’s shitty gray 2003 Toyota Camry with its gray scratchy car seats, the ones you always hated. The gas is low and the orange light flashing on the dashboard tells me that I need to change the oil soon. You used to get on my ass about that a lot, but that was then, and this is now.
You are sitting in the backseat. Your hand is curled up in a fist, gnawing at the middle joint of your index finger, worrying shredded skin between your front teeth. The carpet upholstery drinks whatever dribbles from your mouth and finger, blood, spit, and all.
Does it hurt? I ask you, staring at the rearview mirror.
Mind your own business, you snap, voice low and rough. The front of your teeth shines red in the light of the dying sun.
I break eye contact and focus on the road. There is nothing but asphalt and leveled plains. Something scrapes behind me, and I know you’ve hit bone.
#
We pull off on the side of the road, the desert heat still boring down on us. I check in, book a room with two beds. I’m turning in early, I tell you.
Don’t be so boring, you sneer back.
You never sleep these days, but I always try to fool myself into thinking that you might, for me. At five in the morning I jolt awake, the bed beside mine still cold to the touch. 300-thread count sheets, 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and no body.
I find you at a blackjack table in some decrepit building with strange men I don’t know. You are standing where the House usually stands, but I can’t figure out who you’re playing for: the men, the House, or yourself.
How much do you think I’m going to lose tonight? you ask, grin splitting your face in two, like someone’s driven an axe straight through your skull.
I glance at the meager chips on your side of the table, then at the chips besides your faceless company. The spinning lights of the slot machines nearby cast the wooden disks in different hues, changing by the second. Purple. Green. Yellow. Red.
I don’t know, I respond. Everything, probably.
Your eye twitches in irritation. Fuck you. Hey. You turn to the man sitting closest to you. What do you think?
The man says nothing, taking a drag of his cigarette. I tuck my head and stare at the rotting wooden floorboards. The round ends quickly, but it takes you a long time to pay your debts.
There’s a terrible squelching sound, the smacking of lips, and the screeching of a chair as the man rises. This is how it is: I feed you and you feed him and so on until we’re both just bleached skeletons wearing skin suits and nothing else. We aren’t there yet, but we will be soon.
I gather your broken remains and take you home as I always do. Put you together the best I can as I always do. By the time the sun rises, I have packed you into my car, slammed my foot on the gas, and am back on the path to anywhere but here.
The next night, I find you at a blackjack table again. The same faceless men sit in front of you.
How much do you think I’m going to lose tonight? you ask. Your smile is wider than it was before and a little hollower.
I glare balefully at the men. They nod. They understand.
#
I heard a rumor that you love me, you say. It’s the first time you’ve initiated conversation during this farce of a road trip. I glance back at you, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Is that true?
Your biting compulsion has moved from the joint of your index finger to the tip of your middle. Rarely do I blink twice at the dark splotches in my car interior anymore.
You lean forward, brace yourself in the gap between the two front seats. Your breath ghosts over my jaw and the stench of iron squirms up my nostrils.
You do. The certainty of your voice seeps into my pores. Pull off to the side of the road, please. It’s the please that gets me, though I suspect you knew that already. The car screeches to a halt, and with your long spindly legs, you vault over the hub and make yourself comfortable in the passenger seat.
I’m starving, you say. You always are these days; you’re devouring so much of yourself that it only makes sense. A snake can only eat itself for so long. Your hand is warm when you cradle my cheek, wet and tacky with blood, but when you push my head toward you, I go without protest. You know I don’t love you, you murmur. You know I fucking hate you.
Even as you say this, the smooth surface of your canine glides across my jawline. Testing the waters. I exhale, letting my head fall on your shoulder. Like this, I can pretend that it is ten years ago and that you are still you—whole, young, and yet-to-be-damned.
Does it matter? I mutter into the crook of your neck, too cold for a warm-blooded creature.
I guess not, you say, nails digging into the upper notches of my spine. You intend to make it hurt. This is the precursor before the main act, a little taste of what’s to come. Nothing really does, huh?
When you draw blood, I sigh and stare blankly out the car windscreen.
The road stretches on.
Angela Liu is a writer from San Diego, CA, and is currently pursuing her B.A. at the University of Southern California. A lover of eerie and disconcerting short stories, she enjoys both reading and crafting tales that twist aspects of everyday life. Her work has been published in Ample Remains.
Photo by Quintin Gellar