Love at First Sight

On the way to the club, I put on my favorite song, "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters. The first guitar came in thin and nervous, the way it always does, and I turned it up until the windows hummed.

In the passenger seat, Thura had his phone pressed to one ear and a finger jammed in the other. "Mom, I said I'll be back soon. Don't worry."

In the back, Naing Oo leaned forward between the seats. "Dude, what is this? Is this rock?"

"Yeah. I used to play it all the time when I was a kid."

"Old man music." He grinned and sat back, already looking at his phone again.

Beside me, Thura's voice climbed. "Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? We're just out with friends. We're fine. Why do you keep saying you're worried?" He stabbed at the screen to end the call and tossed the phone onto the dashboard. Nobody said anything about it.

"We're almost there," I said.

Kyaw Paing looked up from the back seat for the first time since we'd left the mall. "Wathone. You got any condoms on you?"

"No. I have pills."

"Okay. Give me those, then."

"Me too," Thura said, holding out his hand without turning around.

Kyaw Paing frowned. "And condoms?"

Naing Oo patted his pocket. "Relax, relax. I've got a whole box. Let's go."

The club was dark and loud, the bass so heavy I could feel it in my teeth. We got a table near the back, and Thura ordered a bottle before we'd even sat down. The waiter brought it with four glasses and a bucket of ice.

Naing Oo swallowed one of my pills with his first drink. Thura took one too, and then Kyaw Paing, still laughing at something on his phone.

I didn't. I never liked the way pills made people loose and stupid. I drink, but I don't get drunk. I lit a cigarette instead. Smoking is the only thing that keeps my hands still.

Within half an hour, Naing Oo and Kyaw Paing were calling out to every girl who walked past our table, waving them over and pouring them drinks, and two of them ended up sitting in their laps, laughing at everything. Thura had already disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor, arms in the air, shirt half unbuttoned.

Naing Oo leaned over and shouted over the music. "Wathone, if you're just going to sit there thinking, go check on Thura. He's dancing again. Last time he got into a fight."

"Okay. I'll find him."

I put out my cigarette and pushed into the crowd.

People were dancing like they'd forgotten where they were, sweating and shoving, phones held up to film themselves. At a corner table, half hidden behind a pillar, I saw a face I knew: my old high school math teacher. He was sitting between two girls from the club, his hand resting on one of their knees. There had always been something off about him, in the way he talked to the girls in class. Some things don't change.

I found Thura in the middle of the floor, red-faced and grinning, dancing alone. He was fine.

Then I felt it. Someone was watching me.

I turned. Across the crowd, a girl was looking at me sideways, over the shoulder of whoever she was dancing with. She didn't look away when I caught her. Under those lights, she was beautiful in a way that didn't seem real.

I got Thura back to our table and sat him down next to Naing Oo. Then I went back into the crowd to find her.

She was still there, and she was still looking at me.

I stared back, and for a moment it felt like there was nobody else in the club. The music faded somewhere behind me, and her eyes were loud enough to fill the whole room.

Girls had never looked at me like that. When I was a kid, I was the weird one. I'd try to talk to girls about the movies and music I liked, and they'd drift away.

None of that mattered now, because she was walking toward me. I tapped the tip of my nose.

"Hey," she said. "What are you looking at?"

"Um. You?"

She laughed. "Okay. Are you here alone?"

I shook my head.

"Oh. Okay." She laughed again, softer, and looked down at her drink.

For a moment neither of us said anything, and I searched for something, anything, to keep her standing there.

"What about you? You come here often?"

"Not really. It's my friend's birthday." She nodded toward a group of girls screaming along to the song, one of them wearing a plastic tiara.

"I can barely hear you," I said. "Want to talk somewhere quieter? Over by the bathrooms?"

"Yeah. Sure."

My heart was pounding. Nothing like this had ever worked for me before.

Halfway there, she slowed and pulled back on my hand, glancing over her shoulder at her friends.

"Come on," I said. "It won't take long."

She hesitated a second longer, then followed.

By the bathrooms, the music was only a dull thud through the wall, and I could finally hear her. Up close she was even more beautiful, with skin as smooth as silk and long hair that moved like the strings of an instrument. There were small tattoos on her arms, and one curled down her leg.

"You've got great tattoos," I said.

She smiled and looked down, a little shy. "Just a few. My mom didn't let me get many."

"What's your name?"

"Moe Thiri Kyaw. You can call me Moe."

"Moe," I said, trying it out. "Like rain, right?"

"Yes!" She tilted her head and studied me. "You look a little weird, you know that? Do you like horror movies?"

"Yes," I said, too fast. "Why?"

"Me too. Mostly the killing ones." She laughed and covered her mouth. "Sorry. Did I scare you?"

"No. Not at all."

And then, because she liked killing movies and because she was looking at me like that, I told her.

"You know, when I was young, I used to kill birds and cats around my house. I buried them, one hole for each." I was smiling, and I couldn't stop. It was the widest smile I had ever felt on my own face. "I've always wanted someone who would understand that."

"Oh." She laughed, a little uncertain. "Haha. You're weirdly funny."

She looked confused. Maybe she thought it was a joke, or maybe she just didn't take me seriously.

"I like your eyes," I said.

I stepped closer, and she didn't move away.

"Yeah?"

"And your lips."

I kissed her, and she kissed me back. She tasted of alcohol, and her hair smelled of lavender, and somewhere under my ribs, something I had kept quiet my whole life woke up and started screaming.

My hands were shaking. I pulled her into the bathroom and locked the door behind us.

She laughed against my mouth. She liked it. I could tell. But I wasn't thinking about her lips anymore. I was thinking about what was underneath them, about her blood and the inside of her. I wanted to open her up and see. I wanted to keep a piece of her and take her home, the way I used to take the birds.

I turned her around, slid my arm around her neck, and squeezed.

"Wha—" She clawed at my sleeve, and her breath came out in a thin, wet sound.

I locked my wrist with my other hand and pulled back hard. Her nails dug into my forearm and dragged, tearing four hot lines through my skin. She slammed an elbow back into my ribs, once, twice, but there was no strength left in it. Her heels skidded and squealed on the wet tiles.

Then her stomach heaved. She gagged against my arm, and a hot rush of vomit spilled over my sleeve, sour with alcohol, running down my wrist and dripping onto the floor between her feet. She choked on what was left, coughing and gurgling, still trying to scream with no air to do it.

I didn't let go. I held on tighter, counting in my head, waiting.

My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it over the music through the wall. I had never felt so awake in my whole life. Every gasp, every kick of her heels against the tiles went through me like electricity, and I realized I was smiling again, that same wide smile, pressed against her hair.

Then someone knocked on the door.

"Hey! Is everything okay in there?"

I froze. My arm loosened for half a second, and I held my breath. "It's fine," I called back, as steady as I could. "Bad stomach."

Nobody answered. I counted the footsteps as they moved away, one, two, three, until the music swallowed them. That was when I understood I couldn't finish it here.

When I looked down, Moe had gone limp. I let go, and she dropped. Her head hit the floor with a crack so loud I felt it in my chest, and a dark line of blood crept out from under her hair and across the white tiles.

I stood there looking at her, breathing hard, until the noise in my head slowly went quiet and I could think again.

I couldn't carry her out, not with a hundred people on the other side of that wall. I had made a mistake. I had been too excited and too careless, and now I had to get out before anyone knew I had been here.

I eased the door open. The hallway was empty. I walked out slowly, the way anyone walks out of a bathroom, and made my way back to our table.

My friends were gone. Their glasses were still there, half full, the ice melting, but there was no sign of them. It didn't matter. I had to leave.

She had liked it. I was sure of that. She had laughed when I locked the door, and she never once screamed. When she woke up, she would remember me. She would want to see me again. I was almost sure of it.

Nobody stopped me on the way out. Nobody even looked at me. I walked out to my car, started the engine, and drove home.

My phone rang on the way. It was Dad.

"Hi, Dad."

"Wathone, are you home yet?"

"Not yet. I'm on my way."

"It's late. Your mother just called from her trip to check on you two. She's worried sick. Come home now." There was music behind him, and a woman's laugh, quickly hushed. "I left your gift in the garage. Check it in the morning."

"Okay, Dad. Good night."

He hung up first.

He wasn't home. I could tell. He was out with another one of his girls again. My mother was still away on her trip, and I found myself hoping she would come back tomorrow. I missed her cooking.

My sleeve was still wet and sour, stuck to my skin, and under it four red scratches ran down my forearm, already starting to swell. I rolled the sleeve up and left it.

The jasmine was still lying on the passenger seat, already turning brown at the edges. I looked at it for a long time at the next red light.

That was when I remembered my sister's anime figure.

I had forgotten it.

To be continued...