On the way back to the motel, Evan stopped at the same liquor store where they'd picked up their beer the night before. He bought himself a fifth of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey.

"I'm getting drunk tonight," he said to Lily as he parked the car. "Are you?"

"I'll probably drink," said Lily. "We have to finish that beer, too. I won't be getting too fucked up, though."

"You gonna have some H, as well?"

"Probably."

"And I still can't have any."

"No, you can't."

"Even though I just lost out on the one opportunity I had to make everything that happened this summer have some sort of purpose."

Lily sighed, looking at her phone.

"Evan, I'm not going to be the person who got you addicted to heroin. You don't know what it'll do to you or how you'll react—"

She kept talking but Evan got out of the car and slammed the door.

His phone had buzzed twice as soon as he and Lily had started back to the car. His parents had texted him back earlier that morning, the shitty service preventing the texts from getting through until he was out of the arena.

Good luck, hon, said his mother. Love you.

You're going to knock it out of the park, said his dad.

Evan didn't text them back. He couldn't think of anything to say. He'd fill them in when he got home.

Later on, he and Lily sat in the darkness before the flickering light of the motel TV, like siblings on their separate beds. They watched Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

The prostitute who'd been disfigured by a knife attack earlier in the movie offered Clint Eastwood a free fuck.

"You're a right pretty girl and if I was to have a free one it'd be with you," said Clint without looking at her, before making an excuse about his wife waiting back home.

Evan sat sipping the Jack, trading it off with a beer. He was feeling good and drunk already, but he was determined to get absolutely shitfaced. It was his last night in Nashville, and he'd accomplished neither of the things he'd come down here for.

Evan hadn't eaten since his snot nachos, and Lily hadn't eaten at all, but Evan wasn't hungry and Lily didn't mention it. She had indeed taken a line of heroin when they'd gotten back, making a beeline for the bathroom and rubbing her nose and sniffling when she came out, that same old serenity on her face.

Lily opened a beer of her own, and she took maybe one nip of Jack for every four of Evan's. She hadn't said much since they'd left downtown. She hadn't texted much, either. She seemed down.

She watched the movie silently, and then during a commercial break she lay down on her bed and arched her back, stretching and giving a satisfied groan. Evan heard her spine pop. Her mouth was a little twisted ribbon of pleasure. She looked down at herself, her breasts swollen under the dark t-shirt she wore.

Evan watched her lay there with her hands over her head. He had a sudden and intriguing thought.

Try again.

Now or never.

Why not?

One last try.

His veins filled with alcohol, he got up, went over and lay down next to her. No hesitation this time.

Lily reached down and lifted her shirt up to just below her boobs.

"I need to lose weight," she said, running a hand over her bare belly.

"No, you don't," said Evan.

He reached his hand out over what felt like a great chasm between them, an infinity of air. He put his hand down, rested his fingertips and palm and felt the warmth of her skin. He slid his hand back and forth twice, slowly, savoring.

"I love your tummy just the way it is," he said.

He propped himself up on one arm, head swimming, bent and kissed her just next to her belly button, feeling the rush as his lips touched her, seeing the little shine of saliva they left on her skin.

Lily reached up and gently pushed his head away.

"Don't," she said.

Evan felt a terrible and calamitous rage course through him for a brief moment, but then he regained control and stepped back off the bed. Lily pulled her shirt back down, sat up again, and looked up at him with those brown eyes.

There was so much he wanted to say but it was all stuck in his throat. Finally he got something out.

"What is about me that you don't find attractive? Just tell me and I'll change it."

Lily looked up at him. She didn't answer.

"Cause no women seem to like me and I want to know what I'm doing wrong. What is it?"

"It's not that you're unattractive," Lily said slowly. "It's just... I don't want to do anything with you. I like talking to you. I like that you're not the type of person who just sleeps with anyone and I don't want to ruin that."

"That's bullshit," said Evan. "Then why let me lay down next to you and kiss you on your stomach like that and then push me away? Why lift your shirt up after I've already laid down next to you? Why come with me at all when you know you'll be spending three nights with me alone in a hotel room and then sleep in a separate fucking bed? I mean, we're both adults here."

"Jesus Christ, just because we're alone doesn't mean I'm going to sleep with you."

"You'll sleep with anyone. Anyone but me."

"Because I like you," said Lily. "As a friend. I don't want to ruin that."

Evan was disgusted.

"That doesn't make any fucking sense."

"Too bad," said Lily.

"Whatever," Evan said. "What the fuck ever. Time for bed."

He capped the Tennessee Honey, but not before sucking down on final, burning gulp. From the second Lily's hand had pushed him away, all he'd wanted to do was pass out.

Swooning back onto his own bed, Evan shimmied out of his jeans and t-shirt and lay down under the covers in his boxers, drunk and delirious with rejection. He heard Lily shut the TV off.

"I will say this..." Lily said from across the divide.

"What?"

"You don't take rejection well at all. And that is unattractive."

"That's because rejection is all I've ever known," Evan said.

"Yeah, see, right there. All you do is feel sorry for yourself."

Evan didn't answer.

"If you wanted my brutal honesty, there it is," said Lily.

Evan still didn't answer. He heard her get up, shut off the light over the sink, lay down, draw the covers to her chin.

He drifted off, his mind awash in acrimony and whiskey. He faced away from Lily, and she didn't say anything else to him.

That night Evan dreamed the most vivid dream he'd had in months.

He dreamed of an infinite open prairie with green, green grass and a vast dome of a sky so wide and huge it chilled him.

The sky was day-blue at the horizons but inky-black at its epicenter. The effect was disorienting. There were no stars. It looked like a tunnel to hell.

"The sky is intimidating, if you think about it," said a voice from far away.

He looked across the expanse and he saw Jason, standing knee-deep in the waving grass, hair ruffling in the wind. His hair was shaggy again, the way it had been when they were kids.

"You're not looking at a ceiling," he said, his voice like a roll of thunder. "You're looking into eternity, when you look into the sky."

Jason was smiling, and he had no teeth. His gums were red and raw.

"There's only ever one moment," Jason called across to him, his voice echoing over the miles.

Evan looked to his left and saw Lily lying on a bed of clover. She was naked save for a green winter hat, and she was writhing with lust.

"Don't you want me," she moaned. "Don't you want me?"

Evan saw she was crying, tears seeping from her beautiful brown eyes. He looked between her legs and saw her pubes were shaved into a heart.

"It's heart-shaped," said Lily, patting herself. "For easy entry."

Evan tried to bend down and take her into his arms, to show her how beautiful he thought she was, to release the tension in himself. But the more he leaned down, the farther away she seemed to get.

Evan looked up and he could see Jason, very far away, wading in the grass that seemed to be growing longer and longer, swallowing him.

He looked down at Lily and sucked in his breath.

Lily was gone, and in her place was a decayed corpse, her black hair the only living thing on her peeling skull, her eyes dead sockets, her mouth a shriveled, gaping hole like the center of the sky.

The wind picked up.

He awoke in darkness, sopping with sweat.