Page 78 of So Thirsty

“No.”

“That’s mean,” Naomi says.

I can’t with either of them.

“Leave it at the door. Then turn around, get back in the van, and drive away. Go home.”

“I will leave it,” he says. “But you are our responsibility. We look after you, like we look after each other. You want to do your own thing, that is okay. But we watch.”

He knocks on the door twice.

Naomi peeks behind the curtain. “He’s going back to the van. He left a cup.”

I undo the chain, unlock the door, open it just enough for me to stick my arm out and grab the cup—an ordinary travel tumbler with an extraordinary substance sloshing inside. I pull it into the room, barely get the door closed before I start drinking, sucking through the hard plastic straw.

It’s like my body rises to meet it. It’s so good. I soak it up. Succumb to the indulgence.

Naomi’s hands clamp over mine as she pulls the tumbler away from my mouth and toward hers. I don’t want to let it go. I don’t want to share.

“Sloane!” Naomi says, trying to pry it out of my hands. “Sloane! Save some for me! Please.”

Do I let it go? Or does she successfully wrestle it from me?

She unscrews the lid and tips the cup back. There isn’t much left. A sip at most.

Naomi sticks her tongue out, licks the inner rim of the cup.

I’m buzzing with the taste. Otherwise I might feel guilty for being greedy. Though why should I? We’re this way because of her. Because of her poor judgment, not mine. Why should I be punished? I’ve been so thirsty for so long. Why should I go on depriving myself?

“What was that?” she asks me.

Her voice sobers me up. And there’s the guilt, waiting for me in my right mind. “I’m sorry. I got carried away.”

“All right…” she says, giving me some legendary side-eye.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she says, setting the tumbler on the nightstand. “But for the record, can you acknowledge that your thirst is just as intense as mine?”

“What?” I say, pulling back the curtain to see if the van is still there. It is.

“You make it seem like I’m the only one who’s out of control. It’s bad for you, too.”

She is out of control. She’s never been in control. She lets her emotions drive, acts on impulse, on whims. That’s why her thirst is more dangerous than mine. I’m right about this. I know I am. But it’s not worth the argument.

“Yeah,” I say, and run my tongue over my teeth, searching for lingering flavor. “What are we going to do about that?”

I tap on the window.

“Why would we do anything about it? He brought us blood. They’re looking out for us.”

“You don’t find it creepy that they’re following us? That they know about what happened at the Waterfront? At the rest stop.”

I have a vision of the man we left in the woods, his body blue and ruined. Frost in his hair, in his eyelashes. If it snows again, will it cover him? Will it preserve him in the frightful state he’s in? When spring comes, will he thaw like meat? Will it be the smell that leads to his discovery? Will the cops find him before the animals do? Before something else in the woods helps itself to our leftovers?

The remorse should be consuming me, but it isn’t. His murder is the worst thing I’ve ever done, by far, and it just melts into the rest of my shame, my regret. Sinks into the tar pit that I slog through every day, that’s constantly rising, that will overtake me eventually. I can barely function with the calamities of this lifetime, the last thirty-six years. How am I supposed to go on existing forever?

Aging isn’t just about our bodies decaying while we’re still inside them. It’s about living with the accumulation of experiences. The heavy burden of the ugly ones, the longing for the beautiful.