“If I’m as happy as I say I am, then I must be the loneliest person in the world.” Travis laughs. “Course, that doesn’t make me very happy.”

“Is that what’s been bothering you, then?” Melissa asks.

Travis shrugs. It seems too easy. “I guess.”

She has relief in telling him this: “You’re not alone.” She wants to lean on him, but, leaning toward him, holds off.

He waits a long time to respond, sure she’s finished. “I think that a lot of things have been bothering me—a lot of them over and over again. I’m not sure I’m gonna’ put it together for a long while. But, a good start would be what happened to you when I met you at the Engine Room that night.”

“Oh that? That was nothing—my Dad and I got into a fight.”

Travis nods.

She waits a while before she says, “He’s actually still not speaking to me.” Then, she rolls her eyes.

“He’s not speaking to you?”

Melissa nods.

“Well, that’s a quick way to resolve a dispute.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it,” and it’s her turn to look a long time into the mirror.

She looks like she’s going to spill. She jostles, trying to keep her balance, keep it from all coming out. Taking a drag off her cigarette, slowly, she says, swallowing hard, getting over shame, hoping she can trust him, “I got pregnant.”

There’s another long moment between them of sipping, smoking, looking around. Travis is thankful for the bluesy jazz, even though it’s probably not helping things. She starts up again, “I had been dating this guy for a year and a half, and I got pregnant.”

The jazz plays on as Travis smokes his cigarette and scenes of Melissa and her father screaming at one another over the phone abracadabra in his head. He sees vague images of her boyfriend, frightened, scared, probably too young to take responsibility—probably too stupid. He sees Melissa in a white, dirty room in a white gown, by herself, waiting. He thinks about how there was no relationship, no support, after reality set in—and it dawns on him how she feels more alone than he can biologically understand. He listens to a muted trumpet transcribe all of this into something sensible for himself—he wishes he had some way to show her, but music solves only so much—humans do the rest. He gathers himself and takes a breath and focuses on her, her waiting porcelain face, staring at the table. Leaning in and taking her hand he says simply, “I’m sorry.”

“I just… what you said about enjoying the sadness…”

“I only meant—“

“No, no, no—that’s the thing, though—tonight. I had it for a moment—I didn’t care, Travis—listening to you. It was gone. I knew it before—before all of this—before we met. That pledge song. I knew it, Travis—” she tears up “—before everyone I loved went away—” She looks at him haplessly, “Everyone! What did I do?” She tries to hold it in, but can’t. The tears come out. She’s sniffing and taking a drink napkin off the table. The arc of her small, tight lips break and the corners collapse toward her chin as tears poor down her face. “I didn’t do anything!”

Travis holds on to her hand tightly. If he can absorb every ounce of pain, her sorrow, her shame, he will. He can’t. He holds her hand.

Melissa tries hard to straighten up for this or that, public or private, friend or stranger, but as she stoically, bravely, tries to hold back tears, she is falling apart at the seams. “I… uh…” She wipes her eyes and blinks. She’s too tired of crying to cry anymore. Months—months have gone by. She has cried and cried and cried. She wants it to end. She looks at Travis in complete indecision. She squeezes his hand until his knuckles turn white, and the corners of her mouth are forced down again. Another tide of sadness—of relief this time—comes over her. She rolls her eyes up and tears make paths down her cheeks like the last trickles on the dam of a dried up river, reflecting the candlelight on the table. “I… just…” “It’s okay.”

She wipes her face, holds his arm a little closer, looks out to the bar, and then back to him in the mirror, pleading for him to let her out. “I just don’t want to be alone right now. I-I thought you would understand somehow.”

He leans over, pulls her in. “I do—I understand—sort of—but…” Without urgency, he pulls her black locks, her head, to his shoulder, his hand pressed against the back of her head. Pride resists, but after a moment, Travis can feel her shudders and warm saline dripping down his neck. Mostly he thinks, God damn her father, God damn her man. And then, Melissa brings her head up, almost head butting him, her tears still shimmering gems on her face. Travis wipes away a few from her magnolia colored cheeks with his thumb, and says, “Listen, we can go somewhere safe. We’ve been drinking and we shouldn’t drive, but you’ll be okay with me. I’ll get you to a bed and get you to sleep and I promise it’ll look better in the morning. You don’t have to be alone.”

A little after that, for one mile and a half, three thousand, four hundred and forty-seven hand-held steps, mostly through quiet, dark tree groves and sidewalks of the University, neither of them say a word.

Read the whole thread: Carousel Cowboy

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