My Cardboard Balcony

Beer Run by Belinda Roddie Four of us pile into Johnny's buck-toothed truck, heading to the liquor store to buy a six-pack each. Chelsea smashes the aluminum against her teeth, and we just laugh and laugh. We're all too hammered to drive now, so Johnny tucks away his car keys, and we stagger to the beach just down the street. The sand bristles between our toes like gold curling in shiny tendrils around all the divots and curves in our feet. Everything smells like last Saturday, when I took Lorraine to the cliffs, where she stripped me of all reason and rhyme. We all swap cans, take sips of each other's sins, pine for newfound sanity. We're not idealistic clichés of lost souls. We're just here, getting drunker by the minute, letting our brains slosh around like the waves in front of us, trying to sync with the drumbeat of the moon.

The door was locked. The gate was bolted. The windows were all latched. I sat in the center of my study, alone, my hands shaking under the blanket that Lester had thrown over me. He had told me not to move. He had told me that he would return when everything was safe. When the coast was clear. It had been four hours since he had shut me in that room. I could hear my own breathing. It was like hearing the death rattle from my own quivering lungs.