Starting at the End
So we can go back and play pretend
I’m on deck, yeah, I’m up next
Tonight I’m high as a private jet
‘Cause I don’t know where you’re going
But do you got room for one more troubled soul?
I don’t know where I’m going
But I don’t think I’m coming home and I said
I’ll check in tomorrow if I don’t wake up dead
This is the road to ruin
And we’re starting at the end
Carolina sat cautiously on the edge of Taylor’s couch, trying to surreptitiously take in as much of her surroundings as possible without seeming like a creepy fan. Taylor dug around in a drawer in search of his pipe, oblivious to her struggle. The living room, which was all she had seen so far, looked like any bachelor’s living room—an old plaid couch, a fireplace, a built-in bookshelf packed with old books and records, the desk that she recognized as where Taylor did his Skype calls.
It was all so surreal, being there, seeing inside of his world. In a way, it felt wrong. He shouldn’t trust her so much. He shouldn’t let her see this side of him, the real him, off stage. She wished she had the words to tell him how much she appreciated the trust he was showing her, but she knew as soon as she voiced it, the spell would be broken and he would realize how insane it was to let her in.
“Okay, here we go,” Taylor said, holding out a pipe and lighter in front of her.
“Oh…” Carolina breathed out; she hadn’t seen a pipe like that since college, and she’d never had the skills to work a lighter and fiddle with the intricacies of a bowl at the same time. She was the worst stoner, and she hated to admit it to Taylor.
“Here, I’ve got you,” he replied quickly. He sat down next to her, legs touching, and put the pipe to her lips. “I’ll tell you when to inhale. That’s all you have to do.”
“Okay,” Carolina nodded, not meeting his eyes.
Taylor held the lighter to the pungent weed in the bowl, and it crackled and popped as the flame caught. “Okay, now.”
Dutifully, she inhaled, Taylor’s hands nimbly working the lighter and the pipe’s choke. She didn’t stop until her throat burned and tickled with an oncoming cough, a feeling she recognized well.
“Alright,” he said, seeming truly proud of her, although there was a hint of a laugh at the end of the word.
He pressed the pipe to his own lips and took a hit, then repeated the procedure a few times for her before declaring the bowl cashed. Carolina had just begun to inch backward on the couch when the distinct sound of shuffling paws caught her ears. The sound was soon accompanied by the sight of a large dog with graying fur ambling into the room.
“Well, hello there,” Carolina said, knowing from Taylor’s posts and photos that this was Princess.
“You’re cool with dogs, right?” Taylor asked.
“I’m more of a cat person, but I’m not afraid of them or anything.” Carolina shrugged. She held out her hand for Princess to sniff; a few seconds later, the dog plopped down on her feet, and stared up at her expectantly. Carolina took the hint, and ruffled the fur on her head, then scratched behind her ears.
“You’ve got a couple of cats, don’t you? It’s just you and them?”
Carolina nodded. “Yup, just the three of us.”
“My mom has actually started to call Princess her granddog,” Taylor replied.
“Mine said the same thing about the cats, but I don’t think it was supposed to be a compliment or anything.”
“Do you ever think about settling down and having kids and everything?”
Carolina shrugged. Of course she did, but somehow, it didn’t seem right to say that. “I guess I do, but it hasn’t happened yet, so I’m not really expecting it to. I’m not getting any younger. And anyway, I don’t think—I mean, my family is pretty fucked up. I don’t think I should do that to a kid, pass that kind of shit down to them, you know?”
Taylor nodded, but his eyes had widened ever so slightly, as though Carolina’s words had shocked him somehow. Maybe she had said too much. She didn’t know.
“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” She asked. “Other than a little weed.”
“Well, Zac isn’t home. It’s not public knowledge yet, but he just proposed to Mia and they’re celebrating tonight. We could watch some movies or something.”
“Movies or something sounds good,” Carolina replied.
Taylor retrieved his laptop from the desk and balanced it on a cajon. “How do you feel about Clerks?”
Carolina shrugged. She had seen Mallrats years ago but didn’t have any specific feelings about it. If Taylor liked it, she was willing to give it a try. This was all so precarious that she didn’t dare express any concern or displeasure for fear it would all end.
“Clerks it is,” Taylor replied, pressing a few buttons. “I just pirated the whole Kevin Smith filmography the other day, and I’ve been dying to watch it all again.”
Carolina just nodded and smiled, not knowing what to say. She felt her body temperature rise as Taylor settled back onto the couch, ever so slightly closer to her than before. She let herself inch back toward the back of the couch, finding it easier to relax now that the weed seemed to be finally spreading its warm, numbing tentacles over her body.
“You know,” Taylor said, leaning in closer to her, “you really should do that naughty librarian thing. I think that would be a best seller.”
“I think you overestimate how naughty I am,” Carolina replied, hoping her tone was innocent enough.
“After what you told me earlier? Oh no, you’re worse than I thought, I’d say,” Taylor replied. “I mean, doing something that public?’
Carolina shrugged. “I was drunk. And fully clothed. It’s not like I had sex in public or something.”
“No? You haven’t?” Taylor replied. “Like, not even with another person in the room or something?”
“I mean, I went to college. I’ve definitely had sex while someone else was asleep or passed out, but that’s not really the same.”
“Well, sure, but that’s college,” Taylor replied. “We all do crazy shit in college.”
It occurred to Carolina that she didn’t even know he had been to college, but that certainly sounded like the voice of experience. Inspired by that, she asked, “Why am I the only one sharing crazy sex stories? It’s only fair if you tell me your craziest sex story, too.”
“I don’t know if I can narrow it down to just one,” Taylor replied.
“Well, one from college, then, since that’s when mine was from,” Carolina said.
Taylor leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, and Carolina took the opportunity to blatantly stare. His shirt was partially unbuttoned and from this angle she had a wonderful view of a patch of his chest, which was hairier than she had imagined.
“Okay, so, I was at a party in this big warehouse sort of thing. There was this girl; we’d been talking and dancing a bit all night. She suggested we go up to the roof, and I figured, why not?”
Carolina nodded. She had had a few one-night stands, but not quite like that. In that way, she supposed he had already topped her story.
“So, we go up there, and as soon as the door closes behind us, we realize it doesn’t unlock from the outside. But we’re already there, so we figured we might as well… do our thing. I was just putting my pants back on when another couple came through the door. They’d had the same idea, and I just managed to stop them before they closed the door and locked us all out. It would have been more embarrassing if they hadn’t been there for the same reason.”
“I guess that’s pretty crazy,” Carolina replied. Her mind was swimming at all the new knowledge—and mental pictures
—that had given her. There were so many sides to Taylor that she didn’t know, and she truly wasn’t sure if she wanted to know them all. She thought back to what Delanie had told her, then eyed Taylor—no, that was too far. That couldn’t be true. It was perhaps superficial of her to think it, but he was too beautiful. She was from West Virginia, after all; she knew what someone who did meth looked like, and they did not look like Taylor Hanson.
“I mean, that’s what college is for, right?” He asked, his tone dismissive.
“I guess so. That was when I really let loose, but I haven’t been like that since I graduated and moved here.”
“Were you in college when you lost your virginity?”
“I was,” Carolina replied, glancing down at her own feet, which Princess had finally stopped laying on. “I had basically done everything else, but I hadn’t gone all the way until college.”
“So, what, like it’s not losing your virginity if it’s anal?”
Carolina gaped at Taylor and gave his shoulder a hard nudge. “No, I did not say that! That’s so not what I meant.”
“I thought that was what all the religious girls in the country did,” Taylor shot back.
“Yeah, well, it’s not what the atheist hillbillies did,” Carolina replied.
“Hillbillies?” Taylor raised an eyebrow.
Carolina shrugged. “If the shoe fits. I’m from West Virginia; I can’t really deny it. It’s not a bad thing.”
Taylor didn’t seem to know what else to say to that, and the two resumed watching the movie. Carolina tried not to notice when Princess conveniently climbed onto the couch next to Taylor, forcing him to scoot closer to her. She amused herself with the thought that Taylor had probably trained the dog to do just that—she distinctly remembered a series of group emails in which Mia assured Delanie that Taylor had absolutely no game. She wasn’t sure if she was seeing a demonstration of that or if this was truly just a friendly thing. Then again, would new friends share so many details of their sex lives? She didn’t know, but she did know that she could just barely feel his arm on the back of the couch above her head.
When the movie ended, it was as though she snapped out of a trance. Taylor cleared his throat and said, “I’m going out for a cigarette if you want to join me.”
“I don’t smoke,” Carolina replied, vaguely annoyed that Taylor didn’t remember that about her, “but I’ll go with you. I’m a secondhand smoker.”
Taylor chuckled, and stood up. Carolina followed behind him as he walked onto the front steps of the house. There was a surprising chill in the air—that thing they called June Gloom, she supposed. She wrapped her arms around her chest as she watched Taylor light his cigarette and take a long drag from it.
“So,” he said, “what do you think of LA?”
She shrugged. “It’s not bad. I mean, I like your neighborhood, but if I never have to drive around here again, that’s fine by me.”
“You’re really not a city person, are you?”
“I’m really, really not.”
Taylor stared at her, a strange intensity in his eyes. “You think you’ll just stay out in the country where you are now? Like, forever?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. It wasn’t enough of an answer; his eyes told her that clearly. Yet she couldn’t read them well enough to know what answer he wanted. She found it unnerving; it would have been all too easy to just keep talking, spilling all her guts until he heard whatever it was he wanted to hear. “I like the area I’m in, and I definitely don’t want to be back in the city. I’ve only been out of the San Jose area for a year, and I have to go into Santa Cruz more often than I’d like. And I’m really, really dreading the drive back to my hotel tonight.”
“So don’t go back. If Laura’s flight is getting in that late, you’re going to be fucking dead by the time you make it back across town. You can just stay here.”
“Are you sure?” Carolina asked. “I feel like I’ve already massively overstayed my welcome tonight.”
“You haven’t. I know you’ve got that Southern thing going on, and you have to, like, apologize for everything, but seriously. You can stay here. Text Laura and let her know, and we’ll go back out and get my car.”
“Okay,” Carolina replied. She pulled her phone from her pocket, realizing that it was already just past time for Laura’s flight to land. The evening had flown by in Taylor’s company. She slid the phone open and read her newest notification. “Oh, she’s texted me already.”
Hey, I’m stuck in major traffic, so it’s going to be really late before I get to the hotel! I don’t know what to do. I’m gonna try to call them and see if they will let you check in already.
I’m with Taylor. He said I could spend the night. I’ll pay you my half of the room anyway.
She stuffed her phone back into her pocket, not wanting to see any protests Laura might make when she read about Carolina’s plan. Carolina didn’t care. She was spending the night with Taylor, and nothing else mattered.