Read The One That I Want for Free Online Page B

can’t free my mind from Ashley Simmons’ face and her knowing smirk and the sensation of her fingers interlocked with mine. And then, I am falling, falling, falling, unable to fight against the paralyzing pull of gravity. I hear a disconcerting crash, and then, it all goes black.
    My dad has sidled up to the bar at Mickey Mantle’s, the sports bar off of Route 17, nestled in a strip mall between Applebee’s and a nail salon. I watch him from a corner, the air bursting with wafts of smoke from the patrons, who suck in their cigarettes, their lips pursed in concise cylinders. Rick Springfield’s
“Jessie’s Girl”
plays on the jukebox from the game room, and if I listen closely, I can hear the smack of two pool balls colliding
.
    The black-leather-topped stools on either side of my father are empty, though a huddle of men are perched at the end of the countertop, their eyes glazed over as they nurse their longneck beers and stare at the extra-innings Angels-Cubs game that’s coming in via satellite from L.A
.
    No one notices me, even though I’m the only woman in the vicinity barring Cindy Heller, who was three years ahead of me in high school and looks about two decades older. She got pregnant straight out of her senior year and now has three kids with two different dads, neither of whom have stuck around long enough for her to pin them down for child support. Her frown lines twitch as she makes her rounds with overflowing drinks, the occasional order of nachos
.
    My dad raises his hand to signal for the bartender, and I see two shot glasses delivered in front of him. I scream for him when he reaches for one glass, then the other, and pours them down his throat as if they were water, as if they were air, as if he hasn’t been sober for nearly a decade, and as if the very poison he just knocked back hasn’t nearly killed him many times over. I scream again, but no one turns to
look at me, no one even seems to hear. I try to move toward him, to rip those shot glasses straight from his hands, toss them on the floor where they’ll shatter into tiny, penetrating shards, and haul him the hell out of here. But as I implore my brain to lift my legs, to thrust forward, I discover that I’m weighted down, paralyzed, and I can scream and scream and scream, and try to run and run and run, but I am both silent and frozen, invisible and helpless all at once
.
    My father throws one final shot down his throat and then stands, grabbing hold of the mahogany bar to steady himself, and as the crowd in the corner salutes a run scored, my dad bobs and weaves himself to the exit. Before he wanders out into the warm starry night, he plunges his hand into his side pocket and pulls out his keys, triumphant, like a fisherman with his catch. I try to shout above the din, above the ruckus
, For the love of God, stop, Dad, stop,
but still, I am voiceless, so all I can do is watch my father stumble out of the bar and into the parking lot, where for a sliver of time until the door slams shut, I hope that he’ll be alright, even though I know, as well as I’ve ever known anything in my life, that nothing will be alright about this at all
.

four
    “T ill, Tilly, are you okay?” Someone is gently slapping my cheek, and I squint my eyes open to find Tyler hovering above. “Till, Jesus, are you okay?”
    “Urf,” I say. My body aches, muscles sore and bent in ways they didn’t ask to be, and I slowly cast about for my bearings. I’m on the floor by the bureau, a lamp broken to my left. I run my fingers over my face and feel the pockmarks from a night spent pressed into the carpet.
    Tyler slides his hands under my armpits and lifts me, effortlessly, to the bed. I want to stay like this forever, but he releases me against the pillows.
    “Jesus, what happened? I just came in with your coffee.” He pauses and hands me a mug by the nightstand. “And found you like this.”
    “I … I don’t know,” I say. “I had the weirdest dream.