JAMIE DESAI —
Jamie swallows hard and tries desperately to think of something to say. But what can he? Genevieve said it herself: she didn’t want his sympathy, and no amount of apologies from him ( or anyone, for that matter ) could give her back what she lost.
Despite her earlier warning, he does feel sorry for her. Her entire world was taken from her, not so simply lost, as his. Jamie could play music again, if he just had the courage to pick an instrument up. Genevieve couldn’t even dance if she tried. He feels guilty, suddenly, for the choices he’s made. That’s what they are, after all: choices. Genevieve was not awarded the same luxury as he.
“Yeah, I guess it did,” Jamie concedes, but he doesn’t know if it’s for her sake or his own. Passion got him somewhere, once. Made him happy. Gave him a purpose. Without it, of course, he’s been utterly lost. Life seems to merely pass by him now, just days on a calendar.
Jamie looks at her, really looks at her, searching her face for an answer to his question.
“But what do we have now?”
He supposes Rob’s gives him a purpose. He keeps it open because that’s what the old man wanted– what he trusted him to do– but mostly, selfishly, it’s just a reason to get up in the morning. A means to an end. He isn’t sure what the end is. Fucking dying, probably. Right here in Devinstone, where he started.
He takes another drink.
“I mean–” he tries again, offers her the bottle of whiskey– “what are you going to do now?”
Taking the bottle back from him is a bad idea. In fact, staying here at all is a bad idea. She hardly knows Jamie outside of his annoyingly close proximity to the few people in town she can call her friends. There’s still a mortifying possibility that he could throw all her insecurities right back at her once the fog clears and they’ve come out of their funk.
But Genevieve can’t find herself to feel worried. Letting her walls down just leaves her feeling... tired. The liquor might be partly to blame, but Genevieve still takes his words and weighs it heavily in her mind. What do they have? This town, and whatever’s washed up on its shore just like them. There’s no glory to be found in Devinstone — not for her, anyway.
“I thought about teaching dance — long ago, before everything fell to shit,” she admits, the confession surprising even herself. “It’s so ridiculous. Now, I’m going to do... abso-lute-ly nothing. It’s fitting, isn’t it? I am nothing, therefore I do nothing — I’m sure some old, mon-monoymous philosopher has said that before.” Okay, she’s officially drunk too much. Best to stop before she starts trying to do sloppy pirouettes.
She takes another sip, as though more alcohol can drown out the words she’s already said out loud, and then holds the treacherous bottle back out to him. “At least I don’t have to work. Must be horrible, if you have to drink to get through the days.” She was admittedly a little jealous of Jamie; he had something in his life that was still his own, even if it was just a shoddy little record store. What did she have aside from her bitterness?
















