The Blind. A.F. Brady

over the coffee table, picking at the label on the wine bottle. He’s not looking at me. I’m not responding. Instead, I stand up and walk to the kitchen to get him his own wineglass. The adrenaline kick sobered me, and I feel like I haven’t had anything to drink at all.

      He keeps picking at the label until I sit back down and pour him a glass of wine. I refill my own glass and lean back, silent. I know the coke isn’t going to let him stay quiet for long, so I wait and give him the rope to hang himself.

      “I’m not trying to lie to you,” he implores me. “It’s just that we’ve had this coke conversation so many times, and I told you that I was going to cut down, but honestly, it just comes with my business.”

      “This isn’t the ’80s, you know.”

      “Maybe not wherever you live, but in the finance world, the ’80s are the revered decade. Everyone is hoping to get back to that, and sometimes, we behave as if we are back to that. It’s not a big deal; it’s not about you.”

      “Lying to me is about me.” We are both smoking cigarettes now, and the smoke is hanging in the air like a gray aurora borealis.

      “I shouldn’t lie to you, you’re right.” He turns to look at me and squeezes my knee with his left hand, his cigarette tucked between his fingers. He holds his wineglass with the other hand and continually slurps tiny, noisy sips. He is looking at me with wild eyes between his little sips, and he begins rubbing my thigh.

      “Why were you so late tonight?” I ask.

      “Because Brian and I were doing drugs, Sam. How many times do I have to explain this to you? You don’t need to punish me; I’ve already admitted it. Can’t get anything by Detective Sam.” He pulls his hand back, and his cigarette leaves ashes on my pants.

      There were about thirty seconds when I had the upper hand as he was apologizing, and now I see it falling out of my grasp and rolling under the couch. Of all the things that Lucas does and then lies to me about, for some reason I have attached myself to the cocaine. The Serenity Prayer has taught me that there are some things I cannot change, but for some reason, I think his coke use is one of the things I can. Baby steps. I’m chipping away at the vices. One day I’ll have the strength to stop him from all the other damage he does, to me and to himself.

      Lucas is reeling now, angry that I caught him. I’m contemplating my exit strategy when he suddenly pops up to his feet and offers me a hand to help me off the couch.

      “Why don’t we eat something? There’s all this Chinese food in the kitchen; let’s just have a bite to eat and forget this shit ever happened, okay?” He is clenching my wrist and pulling me into the kitchen. He takes two plates out of the cabinet above the sink and slaps them both down on the counter. He reaches into the First Wok bag and pulls out two white cardboard containers. Lucas drops my wrist and it falls to my side with a thud, and he begins unloading lo mein and sesame chicken onto the plates. I can see him getting angrier and angrier with each shake of the to-go containers; I start slowly backing out of the kitchen.

      “Where the fuck are you going? You asked me to come over and bring dinner, and here I am, preparing dinner for us. Don’t sneak out of here and pretend you didn’t ruin our evening together with your accusations and your detective work. Here—” he shoves a plate of cold Chinese at me “—eat this. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” He leaves his plate on the kitchen counter and stalks toward me with his head bowed and his eyebrows clamped in rage. I’m holding my plate between us with both hands, backing up.

      “Thank you for bringing Chinese food, but I didn’t ruin our evening. You’re the one who came over hours late and coked up.” I keep backing up.

      “So, I ruined the evening?” he growls.

      “Look, the evening doesn’t have to be ruined at all—” I implore him, but as soon as he’s close enough, Lucas slaps the plate out of my hand, and sesame chicken and lo mein and broken shards of plate scatter on the floor around us. He pushes the mess out of his way with his foot and keeps lumbering closer to me. I hold my hands up against his chest and try to push him off me, but he is too big, and too angry, and already nearly on top of me.

      “Hit me,” he says calmly, with a twisted grin. “Hit me, since I fucked everything up. I ruined dinner, didn’t I? So hit me.” He starts yelling and chest bumps me, sending me stumbling back into the wall. “Hit me!” He points to his jaw and chest bumps me again, and now I’m pinned between him and the wall, and I can’t find the room to squirm out. I feel the handle to the closet door with my left hand, and I try to pull it open, but Lucas’s big arm is over my head, holding the closet door closed. “Hit me,” he says again as his other hand rises up and grips me by the throat. “Hit me!”

NOVEMBER 16TH, 9:14 P.M.

      I’m at Nick’s talking to a friend, and although I’ve been told that he’s very sexy and charming, I haven’t noticed it until right this minute. He’s standing in front of me, and we’re flirting. Everyone else we know here is behind me, jammed in near the DJ booth. He’s looking at me with a pair of eyes that I have never seen in his head, and I feel like the universe is shifting and my stomach is flipping. He is devouring me and I don’t want him to stop.

      He’s a player—we all know it; I have always known it. I watched him hook up with a prepubescent neophyte yesterday and he has been picking the low-hanging fruit for years. I see every woman fall for him; I laugh at them and silently hope they remember to wrap it up, and I giggle at the girls who are mad at him for the fuck-and-run. I’ve always considered him a decent soul, and at the same time I don’t see any of this right now. All I see is man. Man who can take my whole world and turn it upside down, just by paying me the slightest bit of attention.

      Someone has taken out their camera phone, and of course this is a problem because everyone here knows Lucas, and I’m dating Lucas, and I should be thinking about Lucas, but I can’t even remember his name right now. I’m absentmindedly pulling my scarf up around my neck to keep the bruises from the other night obscured. We are all crammed together, taking pictures that someone will inevitably post on Instagram, and then all infidelity will be exposed and I’ll be the bad guy and Lucas will run from me and I will be alone and I can’t have that.

      So I pose and I smile and I pretend that all the feelings I have rushing through me—the fire, the heat that’s pulsing in my veins, in my stomach, in my pants—all of this is not happening. And of course, he comes to stand next to me for the pictures, and he is almost in front of me, and he is kissing my cheek for the photo.

      The group is closely huddled together, and without anyone else seeing, while we’re no more than a quarter inch from all our friends, he reaches his hand behind him, between us, and holds my breast. He’s killing me and he knows it and I love it and all I want to do is stay and take more pictures and have him keep his hands on me and all over me and take me away from here and make me something better and never, ever, ever leave me.

      Somehow it’s all over and in a whirlwind, I’m on the street walking home. When we said goodbye he kissed me on the lips, but we all kiss each other on the lips, so this didn’t mean anything to anyone witnessing it. But we had never kissed on the lips before and mine are burning with man all over them, and I am walking home toward Lucas and I want to turn back and run into the arms of man, but Lucas will leave me and I can’t have that. But I need to see this guy again. When will we be able to do this? This is a mission and I must accomplish it, and I will have him no matter what it takes. His name is AJ. I don’t even know what it stands for.

NOVEMBER 18TH, 12:03 P.M.

      David and I are sitting in his office, avoiding the world, eating our lunches. He usually brings something in, and I end up stealing half of it, or we go to one of the sandwich shops down the street. There’s a halal truck on the corner,