Talkative drunks. Julia missed the chatty stage. Where beer or wine or whatever it was crawled out under your skin and made you comfortable, enough to open up boxes or doors, to let walls dissolve. Hers were constructed on electric crackle and it took being far enough away from the live-wires in people's pockets to truly forget. "You don't want to go see him?" she asked, from the cradle of her palm. If only her brother was in Oregon to visit.
Talkative drunks who picked up people. Julia's smile was for all the lost waifs and strays. She had tried dragging home puppies or broken birds, she'd tried fixing people and then she'd gotten lost herself. "You want to stick around, or you wouldn't be sat in a bar talking about leaving. You'd be in a car, bailing."