The Last of Lee

— Short Fiction —

Illustration by Casey Hannan

Lee wipes his face with the belly end of his t-shirt. I watch, as if on radar, the hurricane of hair around his navel. He sees me see him. I still don’t know if he likes me as a person. But tonight, he loves me as a mirror.

He lights a cigarette, kisses it orange just once, then hands it to me. I let it slow burn between my fingers. I don’t need to taste the smoke. I just need to hold something. There was beer during the party, but the beer’s gone. The people are gone. We sit on the porch and put off touching each other until we can’t stand it. Lee stares past me into the living room window and narrows his eyes to read the titles on the bookshelves.

We can stand it a little longer.

I snap my fingers.

“I’m listening,” he says, even though I didn’t say anything.

I collect our empty bottles between the knuckles on one hand and line them up on the windowsill. Lee makes finger guns and mimes to shoot the bottles. I duck behind a fern like the guns are real, like the bang-bang of his voice knocks my hat sideways, like I’m back in class and this time it’s not a drill.

A spider crosses from the fern to the back of my hand. Too dark to identify what kind. My grandmother was bitten by a brown recluse hiding in a garden glove. I stayed on her…