Other people...One"
"Emma was standing next to me. She pushed the bottle of rot gut in my hand and I instinctively took a drink before setting the bottle next to the water basin. She pressed something else into my hand and I had to look down to recognize it. She didn’t say a word, she only turned around and started fussing with her clothes. I dropped the belt and covered her hands in mine. Her breath eased but she turned around to face me. “If you’d rather do for me like you did Sam…”
"I kissed her. That wasn’t the right thing to do either but it was far less ugly than the other options on offer. She waited until I was finished exploring her mouth. “I lied to you. You told me the consequences and I still lied. I lied back in that bathroom and I’ve been lying to you every day since then. I deserve it.”
“The problem is, I’m other people, and other people are never interested in what you deserve, only what they want. At this point, I’m drunk, morose and all I want to do is commiserate. All I can offer you is a hangover bad enough to make you wish you caught a beating instead. You game?”
"Emma walked over to the truck and came back with an arm load of blankets and two bottles, one was clear and the other was shining hues of dark amber cast from the lantern light."
"We could hear Sam and Paul whispering on the far side of the truck. They were doing their best to work it all out, considering the angles and making propositions for a way out. It was time wasted but so was sitting in a corner and drinking until I got sick so I wasn’t about to go casting aspersions."