Sophie Littlefield - Aftertime

And she had not been there.

Cass was alone, like she had always been alone, since the day her father walked out the door and her mother hardened and changed into someone else. The bad decisions she made in high school only grew more desperate as she pushed everyone away. She piled failure onto disappointment until there was no path back. Eventually her friendships atrophied and disintegrated and the only people in her life were the people she drank with or fucked.

For a brief, shining time there was Ruthie. Ruthie brought Cass back to life, Ruthie helped her start to be a person again. Until that dark moment when she stumbled, when her darkness reached up for her and pulled her down again, and maybe Mim and Byrn were right-maybe they had to take Ruthie away from her, maybe they had no choice because Cass didn’t deserve her.

Cass ground her knuckles hard against the porcelain of the sink until her bones ached. She’d finally gotten Ruthie back, only to fail her again. She’d had her daughter less than one day before she carelessly let the danger in. She’d almost let her daughter die a horrible death.

A sound came from her throat, a strangled whimper.

There was a knocking on the door, and then it swung open and Smoke was there. “Are you all right? Cass?”

His hand hovered in the air, as though he was afraid to touch her, and he said her name again.

“Cass?”

Slowly, she raised her face to the mirror and this time when she looked at herself there was a sparkle of tears in the moonlight, and Cass realized that she was crying for the first time since the day the social workers had come for Ruthie.

She stared at her ghostly reflection in disbelief, and it was only when Smoke took her by the shoulders and turned her toward him, when he reached a gentle hand toward her face to brush away her tears, that she shoved him.

“ No .”

Immediately he put his hands in the air and backed up into the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“You don’t understand. It’s-it’s what Lyle said. I could be a…” She swallowed, hard. “A carrier . You know, I could have it in me, the disease. It could be in my tears.”

Smoke shook his head. “No, Cass. No. I don’t believe that. And even if it were possible, it wouldn’t be your tears. Just your saliva.”

“You don’t know that. That’s just a rumor.”

“Not for sure, maybe, but there’s a guy at the school, came out from UCSF in the early days of the Siege. One of the last ones to make it before the roads got all fucked up. He was a researcher, in infectious disease. He knew his shit, Cass. And he said it’s like with rabies. You get it from being bitten, from an infected animal’s saliva, and even if there’s traces of the virus in other body systems it’s not enough to cause infection. He said they tested one of them. One of the Beaters. Before they lost power in the lab. They didn’t get very far, but the abnormalities or whatever were in the saliva, and they found traces in the spinal fluid and internal organs but at such a low level that it wasn’t enough to pass on the disease.”

“He could have been making it up, he could have been crazy, he-”

“Yes,” Smoke interrupted. “Yes, he could have been lying. But I choose to believe him. That’s all we can do anymore…is to choose what we’re going to believe and what not to believe.”

This time when he traced his thumb gently along her cheek, Cass stayed still. When he grazed the tender skin below her eyes, her tears spilled over and splashed hot on his skin, but he did not flinch.

“What happened to him?” Cass whispered. “The scientist.”

“He moved on. He felt it was only a matter of time before the Beaters spread east, he figured within a year they’d have reached the Midwest and South. But he went north… He thought the Beaters might not be able to handle colder climates.”

“You believe that?”

Smoke said nothing, but his fingertips traced her hairline, over her ears, settled under her chin. “Yeah, maybe,” he finally said. “I mean they’re still human. Kind of. They’d die of exposure when the temperatures go below freezing, so I think there’s a good chance they’ll naturally keep moving south with the weather. Look, let’s not talk about all this anymore now. Come with me, Cass. Let’s lie down. I’ll stay awake with you until you fall asleep. Let me help-you don’t need to feel so alone.”

Cass ducked her chin. The moment was broken; she was done crying for now. She followed Smoke out of the bathroom and into the guest room, and as he closed the door silently behind them she turned the bedcovers down and slid between the sheets. They were marvelously cool and silky against her skin. They smelled like fabric softener, and Cass realized that they hadn’t been slept in since the last time they were washed.

Smoke unbuttoned his shirt, taking his time and watching her watching him in the moonlight. He slid it off and folded it and laid it on a chair. Then he took off his belt and boots and socks and dropped them to the floor. He got in the bed next to her, slowly, carefully, leaving an expanse of white sheet between them. He propped himself up on an elbow and gazed at her and she couldn’t help it, she sucked in her breath and felt her skin grow hot.

Being watched like this…Cass felt the old stirring, the need that had always made itself known to her without subtlety. Whenever she felt her solitude too acutely, the weight of all her terrible decisions, there was only one way to block it out, and that was to smother it with something stronger.

She had started using sex to obliterate the pain when she was a senior in high school. A few years later she’d evolved it into a high art, learning to attract and control and barter, and for a while that was enough. But over time it took greater and greater risks, sheer heights and breathless drops, to satisfy her need for release.

Drinking helped. But drinking only masked the need. It never took it away. And there had been plenty of nights when she didn’t manage to pass out before she had to satisfy the hunger that wouldn’t be quieted. Plenty of nights when she’d done things that skated a very thin line between pleasure and pain, when she didn’t recognize her own cries, couldn’t tell if they were anguish or satisfaction.

Ruthie had been conceived on such a night. Only, Cass had no idea which one. There had been too many.

Now, the old swirl was hot within her, the rushing, dizzying bloom of need and fury that felt like molten iron and burning acid all at once, a killing thirst that demanded to be slaked. But something was wrong. Instead of anger, it had been stoked by fear. Fear…and loneliness. And these emotions could never be powerful enough. They could never force her to do what anger could do-because she was a creature of rage, she burned white-hot when she drank and fucked and ran miles through the foothills, when she pushed her muscles her lungs her legs so hard they screamed out for release. Without her rage she was nothing but emptiness, a shell of a person.

And yet the swirling need was there, threatening to overtake her if she didn’t satisfy it. How long had it been since- Cass’s mind raced as she realized she hadn’t touched herself, hadn’t had even that pale substitute, since she woke in her matted bed of dead weeds. How was that possible? All these long days on the road, and Cass had never once missed the touch of a man…or even the satisfaction of her own hands…until now, with Smoke next to her, Smoke whose eyes glinted even in the dark.

“I can’t-I need-” she started to say, but she didn’t know what came next.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Smoke said, his voice little more than a low vibration that traveled from his body through the soft clean sheets and blankets and mattress and pillows and into her body, spreading out from the middle, sounds and sensations that broke apart and reformed as more than just words.