The Petrichor Gazette

sinking, desperate to swap places with the cresting sun. But stray drops of moonlight still flickered on your face, and the whites of your eyes shone like saucers of milk.

You kissed me clumsily, drunkenly. Holding my face with one hand, the other dangling awkwardly by your side. Your breath was terrible, a sickening medley of tooth-rot and moonshine, and your mustache scratched my top lip. I could smell the tobacco on your yellowed fingertips, the dirt and the faint brushings of cheap perfume on your cheeks from the women you'd necked hours earlier. I could feel my heart beating in my throat, yours.

My eyes caught onto a faint blue silhouette a yard away. Dawn-lit eyes gleaming from behind a post, hair so brilliantly white in the dayspring that she appeared almost ghostlike. The girl.

I pushed you from me and punched you. White-hot anger burned through me, disgust and a sickening fear. I resisted the urge to vomit, I wished for my gun. Your expression was something unlike what I’d ever seen before. Something awful. You cradled your face and I trembled, holding my chin up, awaiting your rebuttal. I craved punishment, I was near desperate for it. For your perfect hands to come to me, discipline me. Tell me it was all in my head, just some fun as boys’ll do. I needed it, I needed to be beaten within an inch of my life. My skin was electric with want. I’d been waiting for it since we arrived here. I saw how the townsfolk watched us. Hurt me. But you didn’t. You just stood there, cowering like a kicked dog. Helpless, impossibly young. You weren’t even angry, you didn’t even speak.

Six days ago I stood at the edge of town and let you leave me. The sun was soon to set, casting apricot shadows down across your face. The sky was darkening, though it was without a single cloud. The moon hung opposite, a shadow of the night before. You stood just six feet away, but it could have been a mile and not made a bit of difference. I hoped rain might start to fall, forcing you to stay one more night. You held your horse by his bridle and god, just be angry. I need you to be angry. I need there to be a reason for me to have been so ashamed of you. So disgusted by you. Your eyebrows were knit together,