Question Game

She says she has never been on a mountain before this one. Outside of her hotel room she tells me about her two little brothers who will never be our age and how her parents miss them still. She stops talking to put her hand inside my coat pocket.
         What are you looking for?
         She says she doesn’t know.
         Would coffee make you happy?
         I believe anything warm will make me happy, she says but the way she looks is that she doesn’t mean it.

The first question I’m brave enough to ask her is about her family.
         What do you mean what happened to them?
         I don’t know. It sounds like something happened to them—your brothers.
         She stares through the window for a long time, watching the blue gray beginning of the night, the sun gone behind the white rocks and the melting piles of snow. For a while I believe she won’t say anything but she does.
         They died, she says. What else is there to say about it?
         I just thought maybe there was a story behind it. I guess that’s an awful thing to say.
         She smiles to herself. Isn’t it funny how the absence of something is what gives precedent of a story? Maybe it’s more sad than funny.
         I’m not sure what she means so I ask.
         Like if I had lost a finger, or a leg, you would assume there was a story behind it; how it was lost.
         There would have to be.
         But what if it was just never there?
         Well I guess that’s a kind of story.
         But it’s not as exciting as you’d hoped. She touches her coffee. It’s almost so quiet I can hear her dry fingers against the Styrofoam, in that moment.
         It’s all right if you don’t want to talk about it.
         She takes off her scarf and leaves it in her lap. She holds it like a wounded thing. I don’t know. Sometimes I get afraid of what I’ll say.
         You don’t need to do that.          
         What happened to your family? she says. I mean, how are they?
         They’re great.
         That’s not an answer.
         Why not? They’re good.
         That’s what people say when they don’t want to talk about things. Or at least when explaining them is too much trouble.
         Maybe that’s what I mean. I haven’t talked to them in a while.
         How long?
         I don’t know.
         I stare at her for a long time. Her eyes move to the table and before she’s about to ask again I say it’s been maybe a month, only because I’m not sure.
         We watch the steam from her coffee. Why aren’t you talking to your parents? she asks.
         I don’t feel like I have anything good to tell them.
         They probably just want to know if you’re alive. You don’t have to have anything good to say to them.
         I tell myself that but I still feel it. They probably just want to know if I have a girlfriend.
         She looks at me and asks, Do you have a girlfriend?
         I tell her that that’s another story.
         I have a lot of time, she says. She sips at her coffee.
         Another story that’s not worth hearing.
         It’s complicated?
         It was complicated.
         I’m sorry, she says.
         I try to smile but I know she sees what it really means. Don’t be sorry, I say. It’s a lot better this way.
         She starts to put her scarf back on. So she broke your heart?
         I think about it for a while and tell her that I don’t know.
         Honestly?
         Saying yes is another lie and I say it.
         You would know, she says. I mean if she did you would. She picks up her coffee when she stands up beside the table. And I think you’re lying.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone? Her face is red from the cold, her chin buried in the scarf wrapped around her.
         That’s a terrible question.
         I left my friends in Florida once during Spring break. I had the car and we all got in a fight and I just left them there and went home I was so mad.
         How did they get back?
         She looks down the street before we cross and then back at me. I don’t know, she says. I haven’t talked to any of them since. She doesn’t really sound sad about it and I want to ask her why. I worry that she’ll have an answer.
         I guess I can’t really think of anything as bad as that.
         You better or I’ll start sounding like a terrible person.
         You’re not a terrible person, I tell her.
         I don’t think you know me well enough to know that, she says.
         I feel like I can tell.
         She watches me. Or maybe you’re just saying you’re some kind of great person?          
         I shake my head. Not at all.
         What makes you say that?
         I don’t know. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?
         Well you’re definitely not supposed to say that, she says but she smiles. No, you can say whatever you like. I won’t give you any trouble for it.
         She steps around a metal grate in the sidewalk and moves across to my left side. I tell her that one time I stole a pair of tweezers from a grocery store.
         You’re so lame, she says.
         What am I supposed to say? Well there was that one time I knifed a man in Tijuana. I guess I never told anyone about that.
         Whatever. You could’ve said that, she says, but I wouldn’t believe you. Why didn’t you just buy them?
         I think I was too embarrassed to buy them. And I think they were like seven bucks.
         She laughs in white breaths. She holds the door open for me and says that she doesn’t think she’s stolen anything in her life.
         Only hearts, right?
         She laughs and shakes her head. You’re still lame, she says.

The palms of her hands are white underneath the fluorescent grocery store lights, the freckles standing out darker on the back. She touches the old Halloween candy on the shelves. She turns to me and tells me that they end up throwing a lot of it away. It’s just like everything else, you know. It goes bad.
         I guess I’ve never thought much about that.
         She starts sorting through them. What do you want? Kisses?
         Super funny, I say.
         What do you want?
         I shake my head. I don’t know.
         She holds the bag up to me like a gift. What is your favorite thing? she asks. I take it from her and feel all the pieces inside separate and moving, shaping over my hands. Her brown eyes watch me closely and then she says, Can you even answer that question?
         I look down at the bag. Candy, I say. Maybe.
         You’re lying, she says, pretending that she’s mad. She takes the bag and puts it back with the rest and then she’s standing in front of me again. I want to know, she says. What is most important to you?
         I feel like I can’t answer that.
         Why not?
         I guess I don’t have an answer. She almost says something. She starts walking toward the back of the store and I follow behind her. What kind of answer are you looking for? Family? Happiness?
         Whatever you can think of. And I know it’s not family, she says. So don’t tell me that.
         It’s not really an easy question.
         I know it’s not. But think about it.
         I don’t think that would help. I don’t have an answer.
         She disappears around the corner ahead of me and when I find her again she’s stopped in front of a shelf of liquor. She reaches to touch a bottle near the bottom. I ask her what it is for her. Whiskey? I say.
         She holds the bottle against her stomach, in her arms like someone else’s baby. She pretends to think about it, her eyes searching the ceiling. I don’t think so, she says after a while.
         Then what?
         She takes the bottle with her to the front. I stop by the shelves of candy, every bag lying on top of another one, all of them different colors. I try to figure out which is the one she put back. I hear a loud thud that is the sound of her putting the bottle on the front counter.
         She tries to push the change down her jean pockets that she can’t fit her hands into. She asks if I changed my mind about the candy.
         I don’t know if I really want any of it.
         You should figure out what you really want, she says.
         I guess I don’t then, I say.
         Are you sure?
         I pretend to think about it and tell her that I am.
         If you’re sure, she says in a half thought and turns to the end of the aisle.
         On the way through the front of the store she says, You’re not smuggling any tweezers are you? Behind her the man at the counter just stares at me.
         Not today, I say.

Outside there’s snow again. The streets have become narrower and white, emptier than they were before. She says that she wishes she had a hat or gloves.
         I ask her what time it is.
         I don’t know. I left my phone in my room. The snow stuck in her hair looks fake like movie snow. She combs the hair out of her eyes with her fingers and they come away wet. It’s late, she says.
          Somewhere on the way back to the hotel she puts her hand in my pocket again. I ask her if she’s still looking for something but she shakes her head.
         At the crosswalk she watches me without saying anything. More snow is sticking to her hair, her shoulders. It is silent too.
         You know if you had asked me that question a while ago I might’ve had an answer for you, I say.
         What would you have said?
         I look at my shoes in the snow. I might’ve said that being with someone was that thing. A while ago I might’ve said that but I don’t think I could anymore.
         I think a lot of people are too afraid to admit something like that, she says, but I like it. She smiles but her eyes are still sad. What changed?
         I feel like it’s not a smart thing to make so important.
         Her shopping bag with the whiskey in it moves from one of her hands to the other. Why not? she says.
         Because it just isn’t.
         She watches me like she wants me to go on but I don’t. I’m watching the light change behind her, the little white walking man go on and off. You can’t answer that question either, can you? I say.
         She takes her hand out of my pocket and puts her arm through the hole in the grocery bag. The streetlights make the falling snow glow orange behind her. Her eyes shining, full of water from the freezing wind. She doesn’t say anything.
         Does it scare you that you can’t?
         Yes, she says.
         Me too.

Inside of my hotel room she sits with her back against the headboard, her legs crossed on the unmade bed in front of her. She drinks from her plastic cup and tells me that it was a college boyfriend who got her drinking whiskey.
         I ask her if he had a beard, if he liked chopping down trees.
         She laughs. I don’t think so. He did wear flannel shirts, though, so you never know. She looks sad when she says that she doesn’t know if she even drank before she went to college.
         I was pretty straight edge in high school too, I say. All my friends were more into drugs but I guess I never really believed they would make me happy.
         She holds the cup between her hands. Her eyes are dark now in the dim light of the room. What would make you happy? she says.
         I don’t know. Kisses, I say.
         The bed is so wide that she has to stretch to put her cup on the nightstand, underneath the lamp’s narrow circle of light. She moves to where I’m sitting near the end of the mattress. She stares at me for a long time without saying anything.
         What?
         What happened to you? she says.
         I take a long drink from my cup. I drink until it’s gone. I ask her what she means.
         I mean what made you like this.
         I guess I don’t know what I’m like.
         You’re not happy, she says.
         I’m fine.
         That’s not an answer. Fine is just another brick wall.
         I set my empty cup on the floor beside the bed. I close my eyes when she touches the back of my hand but she only does it for a moment, gone again like it was never there.
         I tell her that I figured out something worse. Something that I did to someone.
         What?
         I once left someone who loved me.
         Is that what happened to you? She closes her lips tightly and I feel her hand close to mine again.
         No. I mean it did happen, I say. But it was a long time ago. She watches me like she’s waiting for me to say something or anything and then she kisses my face.
         I meant the candy, I say.
         She smiles. No you didn’t. I think there’s more than that, she says.
         I once read someone’s email.
         Her face moves back and I can see her eyes. A girlfriend’s email?
         Yes.
         That’s terrible, she says.
         It is. Yeah.
         Why did you do that?
         I didn’t trust them, I guess.
         Did you find what you were looking for?
         I did.
         And what was that?
         I shake my head. I didn’t really know, I say. It was terrible though – what I found out. I wouldn’t ever do it again.
         You wished you hadn’t.
         I do.
         She takes my hand between hers. The tips of her fingers are cold. Ignorance is bliss, she says like she has to.
         Ignorance is fine, I say.
         The first thing I’m brave enough to do is put my hand underneath her shirt, flat against her lower back. She leans forward and kisses me again and her lips are only cold at first.
         Do you mind if I take off my pants? she says and starts to unbutton them.
         How could I mind?
         She slides them off still lying down. Her legs are white and powerful. Her underwear is black. She sits in front of me and touches my face. The way she looks is that she’s always about to cry and never does.
         You’re going to make me cheat on my boyfriend, she says quietly, accusing me like it is already a fact, like this has already happened.

The light in the bathroom goes on and then off again. I hear her somewhere in the room, her bare feet on the carpet but it’s too dark to see past the alarm clock. The bed moves and she’s a warm shadow in front of me. I touch her. She tells me that she’s leaving tomorrow.
         Are you going home?
         Yes, she says. I probably shouldn’t stay in your room tonight.
         I say that I want her to. Underneath her chest I can feel her heartbeat, her breath. I ask if he is waiting for her to come back.
         No, she says quietly but her hand is locked tight onto mine. I’m afraid of what she feels inside. And even though I don’t want to I wonder if he will cry when he finds out like I did, or if he will find out ever and be better for not knowing. Will her voice sound the same when she says she’s sorry to him, the same way I’ve heard it? I wonder if saying it will actually mean anything at all to her.
         I want to tell her that I know what it’s like to be him, the one that wasn’t here. I want to tell her not to let him know anything and to change her passwords or just disappear completely because he will see it on her face, even if she is good at pretending.
         What’s wrong? she says.
         I don’t know. I feel bad I guess.
         She doesn’t say anything for a long time.
         This doesn’t have anything to do with you, she says. I should feel bad.
         I turn to face her, almost touching. Do you?
         I don’t know, she says. I don’t really feel it yet. She moves to her side, her breasts touching together in front of her. She sighs and asks if we can talk about something else.
         Sorry.
         Don’t be sorry. You’re just a good guy. That’s your problem.
         I tell her that I’m not that guy.
         Her fingers are warm now on my face. Why not? she asks quietly.
         Everyone thinks they’re the good guy and I’m just not.
         Whatever she was going to say next she keeps it a secret and I don’t want to ask what it was.
         I feel the way that being on the other side of it is so easy and I know that this is why we do it. This is how we can live with it, even though it seemed impossible before, because once we’re here we don’t feel it anymore. Is this that point when we tell the story of our lives that we say we were truly empty inside? Or was this just when we began to realize?
         She presses her lips on my neck and moves to turn on the lamp. She stands naked against the wall by the bed, every dangerous part of her creating a deep shadow.
         I ask if she believes that everything good will end up like this.
         I don’t know, she says, maybe because she doesn’t understand, or because she does and this time she is too afraid to say yes.