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Then I take the bottle inside.

The room is warmer than the air outside and smells faintly of cigarette smoke covered by something floral. I set the bag on the dresser, take off my jacket, and drop it over the chair without looking to see whether it stays there.

My duffel is still in the truck.

There’s nothing in it I need.

A second shirt, socks, and toothbrush I bought at a discount store somewhere in Ohio. The same clothes get worn until they smell bad enough that even I notice, then I find a laundromat and sit beneath fluorescent lights while everything I own turns in a machine.

That’s as close as I get to routine.

Drive until the truck needs gas.

Work when I need money.

Drink when I need sleep.

Leave before anyone gets familiar.

A garage outside Erie paid me cash to help replace an engine. The owner asked where I learned to work that fast. I told him I’d been doing it my whole life.

He asked where home was.

I said south because it was easier than saying nowhere.

Before that, a farmer needed help getting a tractor running before the rain moved in. A kid in West Virginia had a pickup he couldn’t afford to take to a shop, so I fixed the alternator in the parking lot behind the parts store while his mother stood nearby and thanked me three times.

I don’t bother to introduce myself. They don’t need to know my name. Most of them won’t remember my face after I leave, and that works for me because I’m not interested in being remembered.

Remembering is the problem.

The bottle opens with a soft crack.

I think about pouring some into one of the plastic cups beside the sink, then change my mind and drink straight from the bottle. The first swallow burns all the way down, sharp enough to give me something else to focus on. By the third, the edges of the room begin to soften.

Not enough.

It’s never enough.

I turn on the television and lower the volume until the voices become a dull murmur. Something flashes across the screen. A family sitting around a kitchen table, all of them laughing at something I can’t hear.

Raven would’ve made up dialogue for them.

She did that whenever we watched something bad, giving every character a ridiculous voice until I stopped pretending I wasn’t entertained. Half the time, I watched her instead of the movie, especially when she laughed hard enough to lose track of what she was saying.

I raise the bottle again and drink until the memory dulls.

My phone buzzes against the dresser.

I ignore it.

A few seconds later, it buzzes again, rattling against the wood.

“Give it up,” I mutter.

The sound of my own voice catches me off guard. I haven’t spoken more than enough words to get a room in days. Before that, there was the cashier at the liquor store. Before that...

I can’t remember.