From a time less caring

From a Time Less Caring 

The floor, sweat.
Pound, pound, pound, lights flashing, sweat.
Prague.

I feel the squeeze of my jaw muscles and run my tongue along the inside of my teeth. It's an effort to unclench them, the constant pressure feels so good.  I nod my head to the heart beat of this club. Experience dictates, I will ache when I next wake, after coming down, again. A crescendo in the music and a shiver up my spine remind me how far away all of that feels. Taunni, in her silver v-neck half shirt, is suddenly connected to the hand giving me a bottle of water. It's cold against my clammy palms and a grin splits my face as I drink while bouncing to the music, mostly missing my mouth, spilling its cool traceries down my breasts, soaking the skin even of my belly. I hand it back, caressing her arm up to the elbow and then I'm lost again. The beat is all I know.

I wake up in a hostel. Not mine. He's still sleeping. Or he's faking. His pants are only half undone. My boots are still on. Someone is rustling a plastic bag. He shifts and slides his hand up my skirt. I close my eyes. I feel like being dead again for a few more hours and when I wake up again I'm alone except for the cleaning staff. They don't speak English but I know I'm to leave. My student card and koruna were shoved in the sleeve of my top, I find it tucked under the pillow. It's too early for my makeup to be this smudged and my stocking this ripped. I head to the laundry room of the hostel and pick through a tumbling dryer until I find something, ball it up guiltily, and change into the pants in a pubic toilet.

Taunni is still asleep in our room. I bang on the door many times before she answers.
"I told you to bring your key." She says sulkily. Her makeup is much worse. I hand her a pita stuffed with pickled vegetables, tan colored sauces and crushed falafel and fall on to our bed.
"Where did you get those awful pants?"
"No idea."
"You left without telling me again. I was busy with a couple of Spanish girls and I turned around and you were gone."
I move to the table where I had abandoned my own sandwich. As usual I was both terrified and fascinated to hear stories that I could not remember.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, one minute you had some shirtless Brit danced up against the wall and the next moment both of you were gone."
"What did he look like" I asked, all together too urgently. I took a bite, chewed it slowly, trying to reign my composure, my headache pulses as I slide back into a noncommittal interest.
"Some blond dude, with chops."
"Oh, barf. At least he wasn't the one."
"One what?"
"The one I woke up next to. He had dark hair, brownish and down past his ears." I rub my temples as I remember him.
"Sky, I keep telling you not to drink when you roll."
She sounded all together too frustrated, and even with a mouth full of food I said, "Hey, listen--no one asked you to babysit me. And don't fuckin act like you haven't left me in some club."
"Fuck you."
"No, I mean it. Denmark, fuckin first night there. Yeah. Thought I forgot, didn't ya? So get over yourself." I took a self righteous bite but it was all show. I felt sick from the inside out. She was right. We'd been traveling for over a month and a half now, seen the interior of so many clubs and churches. They all looked the same to my colorless eyes, and all though I had held her hair a time or two while she was sick, I still had nothing on her. It was getting to the point where I was encouraging her to drink more, take more hits, pop more pills because it annoyed me that I couldn't remember what she could. She held it over me and it could all be lies. I wanted it so badly to be lies or for her to be just as guilty.
Exasperated, I tore off my pants and headed to the shower stall in the corner of the room. I was starting to be bad for her, as I always eventually am.
I ignored her and myself for twenty minuets, scrubbed under my nails, shampooed my bush and shaved my legs. You could always feel brand new after you shaved your legs.
Taunni's pack was done up on the bed as I stepped wet-footed  up to my things heaped between the bed and the wall. She was leaning against the window there, scribbling in her journal.
"Is there any hot water left?"
"Should be." I shake out a crumpled top,  but trade it in for something with slightly longer sleeves. I glance at her sideways.
"You look ready to leave. I thought we'd stay on one more night."
"I'm all paid up."
My guts clenched, but I betrayed not even an eye brow's shift in concern.
"Well,  have you looked up the cost of new tickets to Budapest,  ours aren't till tomorrow."
It was funny how she could think of herself as the practical one and yet over look so obvious a detail.
"I'm not going on to Budapest. I'm going back to Paris to meet my sister."
I spun in frustration and made a small sound.
"I told you this could be an option, Sky. I told you I might head back if she got the position."
"Well, you also told me she hadn't, so I guess I just sort of pushed it out of my head."
"Sort of a skill of yours, isn't it? Pushing things out of your head."
I turned to face her.
"Your sister isn't. in. Paris."
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"Why are you going back?!" I raised my arms up big to match the sound of my voice. She bit her lip and shook pitifully, eyes filling with tears and in that moment I hated her for being so weak.
"I need a break." she said almost levelly.
"Well, good. Fine. Just take a break, then." I stomped over to the dresser and played with some change there. Was I so worthless that she would actually leave me over a little partying? She was the one who had cheated on her girlfriend. I still had that on her. She was going to be sorry, in the end, not me. But I tried a different tack, "Look, take a break. It isn't easy living with the same person for this long. Living out of suitcase, train to train..." I kept my voice soothing and calm as I walked back towards her on the bed,  "Having to share all the hard times and all the missteps." I pushed her bangs up on her forehead and when she didn't flinch I knew I was winning."We're making the kind of memories that most people never get a chance to share."
She pulled her face away from me violently and stood up.
"Memories, heh. At least you took pictures. Goodbye Skyler."
She flung her bag up on to her shoulders and then she was gone. Maybe I threw something at the door. It might have been my shoe or my sandwich. I don't care.
I went on to Budapest without her and then on to Pecs and yes, I took lots of pictures. Next I went back to Poland and met up with some folks from facebook but she never emailed me once. I didn't even see her at the start of fall term.  When I asked, her old girlfriend told me she had transferred to a different university.

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