Let it Be

(From A Taking of Ashes.  Setting: 1980s.)

WARNINGS: Language, alcohol abuse, and allusion to sexual abuse.

Rock 'n' Read

*

Travis passed Joy one of the root beer bottles and one of the packets of jerky, tearing into his own with his teeth.  She thanked him and punched his arm when she caught him tipping the hip flask over his soda.

“Stop that.”

“Right – sorry.”

“Why do you drink, Travis?”

His gray eyes glinted at her from inside the shadows of the car.  The dim glow of the gas station made them the only part of his face with any light at all.

“It hurts less,” he answered at last, hiding the flask in the back seat instead of inside his jacket.

“Than what?”

“Everything else.”