Run

She tossed me from her sprinter van with a wicked grin and said

“Let’s see how human you really are.” Raised her revolver and pointed it at my chest.

“Wait, wait!”

“I’ve waited long enough, demon. Your days of preying on innocent woman are over!”

“Innocent? You’re pointing a fucking gun at me!”

She smiled again and tightened her finger on the trigger.

“Pray to your gods, heathen.”

A muted click sounded, and I opened my eyes to a twisted face. She threw the empty gun at me, but I scrambled to the side and tore off into the dark forest.

She screamed behind me.

“You can’t run from God!”

Just from you, you crazy bitch I laughed as I gulped down tears.

***

I had met Jana in a basement bar in the middle of downtown. We were both wearing boots and black jeans. I thought coincidence would once again work in my favor.

People want to be understood— they want to be seen.

So after my nervous caffeine-induced babbling, I finally calmed down enough to lob a hypothetical about Jana involving her worst picture involving a sunburn and a leftover ham sandwich. I wasn’t supposed to be right.

The shock on her face was quickly replaced by an impish delight. She gave me that wicked grin as she listed all the things she hated in the world— batting her sea-gray eyes at me like I mind object.

I gave the occasional wry smile and nodded.

We got up to leave the bar, and she asked if I wanted to have some wine with her. She hadn’t mentioned it was inside her traveling van. I climbed inside a silver Mercedes sprinter and sat with her on a special form raised mattress as she lit her fairy lights and opened a bottle of Chianti.

She kept going on about a beautiful Italian man that she still loved. I asked her how long it had been since they’d been together. She said three years.

I waded through murky waters but knew salvation wasn’t what you found inside that cabin.

We began to kiss, and I let one hand unhook her bra.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“Schoolyard trick. Failed magicians make great lovers.”

“Lovers?” She arched a pencil-thin eyebrow.

“I’ll show you later,” I rested my right hand on her sternum. Stretching my thumb and pinky towards her pink nipples. “I’m not going to have sex with you tonight.”

She grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me like she was trying to steal my soul. Her impatient moans were coupled with a gentle bounce of her legs against mine. She pulled up to look me in the eyes.

“You made me so fucking wet.”

I left her van and walked back through dark city streets to my apartment. She called me in the morning asking if I wanted to get breakfast. I said yes and walked with her to a grimy knock-off Irish pub.

The bartender scrutinized my ID, and Jana laughed. She pinched my cheek and gave me a wide smile.

“I bet you get that all the time. You look so young. I thought you were lying about your age. It’s your smile— it’s so bright. How long did you have braces?”

“Never. Just won the genetic lottery.”

“I bet you did. She said rubbing my thigh. You’re also Scandinavian and you know what they say about that.”

“That lutefisk is a foul dish and we don’t know how to express our emotions?”

“That Scandinavians are hung like horses.” She winked and took a big gulp of her Bloody Mary. “Fuck, I needed that.”

We let the scant conversation in the bar circle around us as we eased our hangovers.

“I used to be called ‘Mojoita’ when I lived in Seville. I don’t think I have a drinking problem, I’d just get bored in the mornings, so I’d have a couple drinks.”

Over the next, we bounced around the town drinking and fucking. She’d ask me what I thought about God.

“It doesn’t make sense. You have the same energy as my pastors, but you’re not a Christian.”

I told her we exist in a realm of infinite possibilities— that matter is neither created nor destroyed. That the unknown is a constant gift for the mundaneness of petty life.

“It only matters what my relationship is like to Christ.”

“So being a good person doesn’t matter?”

“Good doesn’t matter if I’m good with Christ.” I stared at her and saw the strands of madness congeal into a dark entity. “That’s how I also know that I can’t be with someone that isn’t a Christian.”

I continued to wade into deep water as I replied, “I don’t believe— but I’m open to being wrong.” She relaxed her stance and told me that she wanted to take me to her church. She wanted me to meet her pastor, that had the same magnetic energy that she felt in me.

She pressed her waif-thin body against mine in the front row of a local punk rock show and told me in half-forgotten Italian, “Ti voglio bene.” We walked back to her van and fucked as the cars beside us struggled to fit into the spots without scraping the sides. She kept her moon-bright eyes locked on me.

“I can only have sex face to face. It feels wrong otherwise.” She told me this before locking her legs around me. I tried to pull back, but she squeezed her legs and giggled. I slumped against her in dismay.

“Why would you do that?” She wasn’t on birth control, and I wasn’t in possession of intelligence.

“I thought it would feel better if you finished inside me.” She said in a Barbie girl voice. I shook my head, and we headed inside the dive bar we were parked outside of.

“What does ‘Ti voglio bene’ mean?” I asked, sipping on a vodka tonic as she drank another americano. Its sickly sweet amaro wafted up from the glass.

“Who knows?” She said, using the Barbie voice again. I’d later google it to learn it meant “I love you/ I care for you.”

Even for me, hearing love within a week was a speed run. If that wasn’t a sign that the end was near, I didn’t know what was.

I had given us another week in my mind, but I had also already said yes to a trip to Vegas with her family. Her parents had a timeshare on the strip, and Jana wanted me to join them. She told me about her plans to return to Seville and how I needed to raise twenty thousand dollars by the time she left if I wanted to join her. That’s how she brought up living together— asking what my peculiarities were at home and how I felt about sharing a space with someone.

Portions of this felt like masochism as I ventured further into a web of instability.

“I don’t think you can be happy and make real art,” she said, sitting on the counter and drinking another americano. We’d just returned from the liquor store to get her amaro. Cake was playing on the home speakers, and she picked at the stir fry I had just made.

“I disagree. I think the tortured artist trope is a horrible example for young artists, or anyone to fall into. I think happy people, or at least content ones, are more productive than the terribly depressed. Besides, it’s more likely a happy artist will live longer than a sad one.” Each word I said brought a darker shade to her face. She coiled like a snake as she waited for me to finish.

“You’re wrong. Those aren’t real artists. I just don’t think you understand how it’s made. Or how the stuff that actually matters is made,” she said, letting it hang between us. The slow baritone of the Cake frontman crooned about the irony of late-stage capitalism and faux art appreciation. A moment I enjoyed as I stood across from the daughter of a wealthy family and fellow sneering fan.

The rest of the night passed in a haze. She idly brought up her old Italian love and how she still had over six thousand photos of him on her phone. I sleepily nodded and began wondering out I’d manage to walk away from this.

A week before the Vegas trip, she called on short notice about going camping. Knowing her van was a glamping dream, I figured one last adventure wasn’t out of the cards before I stepped into the wind. So, I packed a small bag and got into the van within the hour. We drove out to the coastal forest, out past Tillamook, and looked for a spot to park for the night.

She had been quieter than usual. No sharp jabs or diatribes about the failings of Phoebe Bridger.

“What’s up?”

“What do you mean? I’m my fine, dandy, normal self,” she said, clutching the steering wheel.

“Are you there?” I said before she slammed on the brakes.

“Am I?! Oh, wouldn’t the non-believer like to know!”

I turned to her slowly. “Jana…”

“Don’t fucking ‘Jana’ me!”

I began to regret getting into the van. Right after regretting meeting her for those initial drinks and continuing this well after knowing I shouldn’t. Had a cup full of tea leaves shouting, ‘Get the hell out!’ but the libido was stronger than reason.

“Let’s park the van, have a drink, and talk about this.”

“So what, you can tell me you think there’s some happy go lucky ‘Creative Spirit’ and that everyone should be nice to one another?”

“I don’t think that’s how I worded it, but being nicer wouldn’t be the worst problem, right?”

“I want you to get out of my van.”

“Jana, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Let’s just turn around, go back to town, and we can call it. Shit, you can even just drop me at the closest town.”

“No,” she said, pulling out a gun. “I want you get out of my van right now.”

I put my hands up slowly. “Woah, woah, woah. There’s no need for that.”

“I know what you really are. Does your family know? Do you friends?”

“Do they know what?” I said, trying to angle away from the barrel.

“That you’re a serial killer.” The confusion hit me along with the fear. I wasn’t going to leave this forest alive if I sat in this van any longer. I softly unclicked the seatbelt and turned to face her fully. Her hand wasn’t shaking, but she was giving me a small grin as if this were all part of a game. “When I was younger, I always secretly wanted to date a serial killer.”

I put my hand on the handle and put a hand up to her, “We don’t have to do this, Jana.”

She moved towards me and pushed the gun into my chest, “Go ahead on open the door.” I did, and she gave me a push.

***

It was an hour to sunrise as I ran through the forest. I had scuffed knees and a face full of pine sap from running into a tree. My long-rusted boy scout skills were kicking back in with the adrenaline. Jana couldn’t keep up with me on foot, but I didn’t trust her to not show up on some dead-end road, gun in hand.

My most honest regret as I kept charging through the ever-lightening forest was knowing I’d reached the end of a wildly unabashed roadhead from a person that swore they hated doing it. But kept offering each time I settled into the driver’s seat after they begged off driving because of a stomach ache. There were more important things to consider instead of the dueling sides of amaro, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what they were.