Few Kinds of Wrong by Tina Chaulk Page B

start again and figure things out and everything will be okay. Flick the switch to on and step into the world of fine.
    But the light stays off and I continue to drink, trying to will myself to make a move, to do something other than feel angry and hurt. Finally I move my hand to the radio and turn on the classic rock station. Music I listened to in my late teens blares at me. How is that classic rock?
    The song changes to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” perfect for anything — drinking, dancing, driving, anything but crying and that sits well with me.
    I turn it up and start to move, start to sing along with Bruce and the band, begin wailing about Wendy and tramps like us. I’m singing and dancing, playing air drums with the hand that’s not clutching the bottle. Bruce is the man and we are getting to the good part, to the big, roaring, drumming, climax when someone turns on the light. I scream, turn around and raise my fist.
    â€œWhoa!” Jamie yells, his hands out to fend me off.
    â€œYou nearly gave me a heart attack,” I say, smacking his arm. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œI just dropped by to check on the garage.” He shrugs. “I do that all the time.”
    â€œOh, for Christ’s sake. They called you, didn’t they?”
    He closes his eyes. Even Jamie doesn’t know what to say or do with this revelation I’ve been punched with tonight. Unflappable Jamie. Lucky Jamie. Jamie with the horseshoe up his ass, as his friends call him. Jamie who always lands on his feet. Jamie who never has anything bad happen to him. Jamie who saunters through life without being touched by anything bad. The only thing he ever lost was me and even then he got a partnership in a thriving business. Jamie just doesn’t have wrongs. They’re all mine.
    â€œAre you okay?” Jamie asks. He crosses one arm over his chest in a pose he must have patented. I’ve never seen anyone else cross only one arm. It’s like he’s wearing an invisible sling.
    â€œI’m fine.” I take another drink. “No big deal. I can’t believe they called you. My real friends not available?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just know they’re worried about you. Both of them are. You know you should be happy for—”
    I cover his lips in a fierce kiss. I lay the bottle down on the desk as my tongue slips in his mouth. His hands explore familiar, foreign areas. I press my jeans against his, feeling how ready he is for what I want. He pulls me even closer to him so my back arches and I lean back, a moan escaping my lips. His hand goes around the back of my neck, pulling me back to him. He pushes his hungry mouth on mine. I reach down to his button-up jeans, stretched tight across his hardness, and frantically try to get the top button undone, claw at it, would rip the buttons off if I could just get my fingers to work right, and then he pulls away.
    â€œNo,” he says, hands on my shoulders, pushing me away.
    â€œNo?” There’s a no?
    â€œYou’ve been drinking and you’ve had a big shock. I don’t want to take advantage.” He touches the side of my face. His eyes are the colour of pity. “I know you’re hurting. I can’t make that go away.”
    It starts at my toes—a wave of something inescapable I can’t name, an intense urge for something, anything. It moves up my legs, through my torso, out my arms, up my neck and lingers at the edges of my eyes in the form of tears that hover, waiting for me to do something, wanting me to break. It will only take a word to make it happen and it comes out in a desperate whisper.
    â€œPlease.”
    The sobs come the same time I do, the same time Jamie does, and he holds me, lying naked on his jacket on the office floor as I weep onto his chest until I’m gasping for breath.
    Half an hour must pass before I realize I’m shivering and that