The Breakdown*R&R PLEASE*

                Sin was slithering up our ankles, over the clanking of the empty beer bottles on the bottom of Conner's car. I could feel my temples pulsing as Conner's battered car shook and rattled over every pothole in the deserted road. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and angst, but at that point the two were more useful to my lungs than oxygen.
         The only sound in the car was Conner's heavy breathing. I had been trying my hardest to make no sounds at all. He reached over my legs, pulling open the glove compartment to reveal masses of elitist mix tapes. The sound of the plastic bouncing and rolling inside the glove compartment echoed through the empty car. The silence had been nearly painful. I looked at his lips, shut tight with displeasure, frustration sitting on their pursed tops. He wasn't going to say a word to me. He was going to ignore me for all the eternity God would allow. And I was okay with that. My love for him had surpassed love at all.          
         Sweat had gathered on my legs and the nape of my neck. With one hand I pulled my thick Hispanic hair into a tight braid, and with the other I played with the frayed ends of the seat cushion. The desperation of our anger clung to our skin. I could feel it pressing down on my chest and suffocating me.
         I could hardly remember what we were angry about. Conner had given up on his tapes and was trying to light a cigarette with one hand. My hands were cold and still shaking only slightly from the night's events. I tried to warm them by wrapping them quickly in and out of the tattered seat cushion. It wasn't working.
         Conner had been my everything for just over a year; the only reason I was alive. I owed him my life to him and he knew it.
         That was probably our biggest problem.
         "Why did you do it?" he asked finally. The words had been churning inside of him. He would have died if he didn't let them out.
         "I don't know."
         Again, silence filled the car. The heat had stopped being uncomfortable long before summer had even begun. I leaned my head against the window, feeling the rattling shake my thoughts. I couldn't remember the last time we'd had a real conversation, anyway.
         "You're stupid sometimes, you know?" Conner turned to me, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. The smoke left his lips and I felt it filling my lungs. I couldn't do anything but stare at him. The air was foggy around his head. His dirty blonde hair clung with sweat to his temples. I couldn't even think.
         His frustration got the better of him. He turned back to the road.
         "He told me I should break up with you." I didn't realize how haughty I sounded until the words had already left my lips. He laughed, but there was no amusement in it.
         "So that's why you kissed him?" he asked.
         "No, it was after."
         "So why?"
         "I don't know."
         I jumped as he pounded his palm against the steering wheel. He rolled down the window and the rough air whistled through the car.
         He flicked the cigarette out through the open window. The yellow embers of nicotine rested on the car door, like stars in some kind of blue-gray dream world. Inside that car, we were free. We didn't belong to any time or place or thing except each other. It was as if the world beyond the black asphalt world didn't exist. There was only us, the road, and Conner's rusted metal scraps.
         My bare feet rested on empty beer bottles that rolled along the bottom of the car. Conner wouldn't be old enough to drink for another two years, and I still had four, but that never really meant anything anyway.
         So we bumped along. We bumped along in silence and awkward unspoken words. It was this silence that proved our love, a decadence of fear of perhaps a word or words we might speak to anger each other.
         This was how most nights were spent anyway. This night was only different because he had a real reason to be angry at me. Tears had clamored their way up my throat. I pushed them back down. Conner hated when I cried. I refused to cry.
         But something was different. Something had broken inside of me, inside of us. I had broken it the moment I'd touched my lips to Conner's best friend's.
         "I just don't know what to do any more. That's the worst thing you could have done, do you know that?"
         "I'm sorry," I finally said. It was all I could find to say. Because I didn't know it. From what I knew, I could do much worse. I could ignore him for hours; I could spit on every emotion he'd ever had in his life; I could take his heart and trample it, then pick it back up and dust it off.  I could do every little thing he'd ever done to me and it would all be worse than a two second kiss with someone I had no feelings for at all.
         "I don't think you're sorry." He shook his head furiously. Cars flew past us as the battered car chugged along. The only thing that kept it going was our desperation. I stared at the yellow lines that divided the road and glowed in the darkness. It was all I could think to do.
         "I don't think you're sorry," he repeated. "I think you did this to hurt me. You did, okay? Are you happy?" His voice was more calm than I'd ever heard it. It was like something had snapped inside him. He'd lost his passion.
         "I'll never be happy. A year and I've never been happy." I was saying the words but never thinking them. They were crawling straight from my heart to the tip of my tongue. My brain had no dealings in the matter.
         "What does that mean?"
         "I don't know."
         "Yes you do. You know exactly what it means."
         My fingertip was going numb from the seat cushion string I had wrapped around it. With any luck at all my finger would just fall off and we could move on.
         But I knew God wouldn't allow me that.
         "Why?" I asked him. Conner turned and looked at me for a long time. It hardly made me nervous at all when he did that.
         "Why what?"
         "Why did you choose me? I mean, of all the girls that walked into your store why a strung-out sixteen year old?" 
         Conner bit his lip. "Why not?" he replied. And I knew he was being every bit as genuine as he knew how. And it killed me because there was nothing different about that moment than every one before it. Conner was the same. But I was different. I couldn't mistake convenience for love anymore.
         The car gave a revolting jolt as the engine sputtered to a stop. I looked at Conner and, for the first time all night, our eyes met. He looked away before I did, battling his fist against the dashboard. The car was dead.
         I got out without a word. Thoughtlessly, I tried to shake the desperation and sin from my ankles. I looked at Conner through the window. My stomach turned, but it was a feeling I didn't recognize.
         The road was empty and dark, but in the visible distance was a gas station. I could see the lights pouring out into the night. I began to walk. Conner got out of the car and slammed his door shut.
         "Where are you going?"
         I said nothing.
         "You're gonna get killed out here."
         For some reason, the darkness didn't bother me.
         "Stop!" he shouted. The anger had returned to his voice. I stopped and turned to him. He was looking at me like I was a puzzle he couldn't figure out.
         "I love you," he finally said, realization settling on his tired face. My stomach turned again.
         "I love you too," I was just loud enough for him to hear me. Then I turned to continue my pilgrimage.
         I don't know how long he watched me walk.