3.

In the morning, I returned my room key to the office, hesitating as I left. ‘Would you happen to have any scissors?’ I asked the receptionist. Tentatively handed a pair, I walked to the Miata and snipped every wire attached to the controller box for the footwell lights.

I took the letters from my bag and scanned the first few lines of the next. My father went south from Savannah, so I decided to go north. ‘Fuck you and your letters,’ I growled, butting a cigarette out.

Knowing next to nothing of the East Coast, I looked through my maps and recognised Charleston, South Carolina. Perhaps Steph was still there. I would find her if I was meant to, or she me. Taking off towards the highway, the Miata bucked so violently the engine almost stalled. It had not coped well with the abuse of the night before. We were both being ground down by our travels. I wondered who would give out first.

A bridge lifted me over the Ashley River and I descended into downtown Charleston. The streets were clean and calm. I waited at an intersection as a horse-drawn carriage swept past – its passengers bringing champagne glasses to their lips. A hostess outside a fancy restaurant smiled and nodded as I ambled by. I felt an unusual sensation wash over me. Comfort. I decided if there was a city where I had to run out of money and take refuge on its park benches, then Charleston was it.

That evening, I laid all the cash I had left out on a motel bed. Never do that. If you’re going to lay it all out, do it on something small so it looks like you have more. I could pull the last few hundred remaining from the house deposit from an ATM, but otherwise, I was about dry. I called Linda. She wasn’t happy, acting as if I’d grabbed her hand, squeezed its fingers around a pen and forced the dexterous movement of my signature onto the page.

‘And did you up the commission as well?’

‘Yes, like you told me to.’

‘Then you can’t feel all that bad.’

I walked the streets and did not meet an unkind face. Buying a six-pack of beer, I went back to my second-floor room. It had a narrow window that could be unlocked and swung out over the sidewalk. If you tucked the room’s wobbly chair tight up against the wall, you could look east along Spring. I watched people walk below as the light turned peach and their shadows became long. The radio was on and when I finished a beer, I’d reach for another, crack it open, return my foot to the sill and lean back on the wheezing chair. In that moment, I owed nothing to anybody. I did not want and was not wanted. I did not pursue and was not pursued. My father had gone one direction and I the other. It felt good to know he had never sat where I sat.

It was dark when I woke underneath the turning fan. The sound of faraway revellers crept in through the open window. My buzz was gone – this wouldn’t do. I picked up and smelled the folded bath towel on the bed then put it back. I showered in my floor’s shared bathroom with sandals on and walked back down the corridor to my room, naked and dripping, with clothes bunched under my arm. I sat exposed on the bed in the darkness, smoked a cigarette and dried off in the lingering heat the fan pushed over me.

Following sound, I found a bar full of people – rambunctious and arrogant. I took a free booth and looked at the menu. Dinner could be skipped again. I got a lot more from a few drinks than I did from a meal.

I had often thought I had much less will to live than the average person. Growing up, everything felt like a chore to me. Eating, shitting, going to sleep, waking up. Sometimes it felt like I had to will the very process of taking in and exhaling my next breath. I looked around the bar at the loud men and the confident women. A chubby young guy stuffed his red face full of wings with glee. He snorted at his friend’s shouted story and a chunk fell from his mouth, which he picked off the plate and shovelled back in. He looked like he was about to come.

How did they all do it so easily? I didn’t want death; I just wasn’t so enthused by living. Somewhere between the two, I’d become stuck.

Blowing smoke up into the warm night, I went through yet another budget in my mind, thinking of dollars falling away like autumn leaves. Then she walked by. Heels didn’t seem to come naturally to her, and she concentrated with absolute intent as she stepped over a crack in the sidewalk. I tried to catch her eye as she passed and entered the bar.

A gap at the bar presented itself. I stepped into it and then she was beside me. Her lips curled downwards, disappearing into deep dimples. Very feline. She turned her head to confirm I was looking before turning back twice as fast.

‘Trying to get a drink?’ I asked.

‘I’m standing in line at a bar, so, yes,’ she said, looking forward.

I could barely hear her over the crowd.

‘Don’t worry; I’m not trying to take you home. I’m just warning you it might be a while.’

I pointed down the bar to its only tender as he continued high-fiving and laughing with a bunch of college kids, oblivious to the queue at its other end.

‘That’s quite rude of him,’ she said.

‘You’re telling me. I was but a boy when I lined up at this bar,’ I said, scratching my beard.

‘That’s funny.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not laughing.’

‘I don’t think I should have to,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t cry just because I find something a little sad.’

‘Oh, so now it was only a little funny?’

She smiled and nodded short, snappy nods.

‘Can’t argue with that, I suppose. Mark.’

‘Hannah.’

I reached out a hand and she put hers in mine. It was soft and untainted, as though it’d never seen fire or a blade or even been pulled into a fist. We ordered and I suggested we sit together. She agreed, to my surprise. I paid the price of the drinks and not a cent more.

‘Really? No tip for me, guy?’ the bartender asked.

‘Oh,’ I said, turning back, ‘yeah, yeah, I got one. Maybe stop circle jerking with your buddies when there’s a line of thirsty people waiting.’

I saluted with the bottle. Hannah and I walked to a booth.

‘How can you talk to someone like that?’ she asked as we sat.

‘Sometimes it comes easy. Does it upset you?’

‘No, I just think I could never speak to someone like that, even if I really wanted to. Thank you for the drink.’

‘Yeah, well, enjoy it. It’s the last I’m gonna be able to get in here, I think,’ I said, looking back across the room to the seething bartender.

I blew him a kiss and he shook his head like his neck was going to burst, then went back to wiping down the bar. Hannah got another round from him.

‘How’d you manage that?’

‘I told him you’re not well, mentally.’

‘And he believed it?’

‘With very little convincing.’

The drinks kept coming. We talked about everything but ourselves and whatever had steered us into the bar that night. It was nice. She ran fingers across the fringes of her dress, as if reminding herself where it ended, and then her hand was on my thigh. She gazed at me with coy guilt.

‘Hannah, I have a confession to make.’

‘Oh? You do?’ she asked, pulling her hand away. I placed it back on my thigh.

‘Mmm, I do. I’m a liar.’

‘Really? What do you lie about?’

‘Many things, but tonight, only one.’

‘Yes?’

‘When I met you just before, I lied. I said I wasn’t planning to take you home.’

She gripped tighter. I squeezed that soft hand in mine. Then I got us out of there.