Breaking Nora

by Matt Tims

  She instantly smiled.

  Mike moved to her side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You see that guy in the blue shorts and the obnoxiously bright green shoes?”

  “Yeah,” she laughed.

  “He’s the world’s biggest bullshitter,” Mike went on. “Now, what I need from you is to oversee our game. The next touchdown wins so it won’t take long, but I guarantee that Mr. Clown Shoes over there has more shenanigans planned.”

  Some random guy had his sweaty arm along her upper back, but she couldn’t care less. The perspiration from some hunk she’d just met was melting into her body, and she was on cloud nine. She looked up at the handsome face of the guy towering above her; and suddenly, her anxiety vanished. She wasn’t real life Nora or internet Nora. For the first time in her life, she was happy being herself.

  “I can—”

  Mike cut in before she could offer to help. “I normally don’t do this, but I’m willing to really make it worth your while. This might even sound crazy.”

  She had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth.

  “If you help us out, I’ll take you to Rick’s Ice Cream Shack down the road after we’re done, and I’ll let you pick out your very own ice cream.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “A cake cone, sugar cone, or you could get crazy and even get a waffle cone,” he said. “Now, Nora, this is where things get wild. You could get one, two, or even three scoops on that cone! I’m talkin’ vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Or maybe you really want to let loose and get one scoop of honey cinnamon oatmeal cookie, another scoop of lemon-blueberry cheesecake on top of that, and finish it off with one last scoop of pineapple cilantro sorbet. Nora, the world is at your fingertips. Big Rick has every flavor under the sun.”

  A now embarrassed Nora had loudly snorted after hearing that. Charisma oozed from every pore of this guy. It’d taken Brad almost an entire year to ask her out despite her best attempts to constantly smile at him. How obvious is it that a girl likes you when she’s always smiling in your direction? She’d never asked her ex-boyfriend if he had been too scared to make a move or if he was just oblivious; and at this moment, she really didn’t care.

  This was how a real man acted. There wasn’t a second of hesitation on Mike’s end. He was fun and flirty. He didn’t just offer her ice cream; instead, he reeled off three of the most bizarre flavor combinations in the world while confidently holding her like his longtime girlfriend. His deep voice sent her to a world of relaxation and comfort. His charm put her at ease. She didn’t know the first thing about this kid, but she was ready to do anything for him.

  “And what if I want sprinkles?” she asked, joining in on the playful fun.

  “Nora, Nora, Nora…” he jokingly teased. “Sprinkles now? You really are a high maintenance gal, aren’t you? Not only can you get sprinkles, but I’ll treat you to rainbow sprinkles.”

  She couldn’t believe how excited she was to entertain his act. “Are rainbow sprinkles more expensive than regular ones?”

  “They should be,” answered Mike. “They’re way better.”

  “Well, what if I want a milkshake?” she asked.

  “A milkshake? Jesus, Nora, you’re asking a lot from me now. We’re talking four, maybe even five dollars.” He took a dramatic deep breath to ponder her request. “You know what? I think I could manage a milkshake.”

  She smiled as he led her over to his group of friends.

  “Boys, meet our referee,” Mike announced.

  Eight smitten teenagers simultaneously waived.

  “This is Nora,” Mike continued. “She’s going to keep an eye on the rest of our game. No arguing, or bullshitting, or lying. I’m talking about you, Tom.”

  Tom rolled his eyes.

  “What she says goes,” Mike said. “We good?”

  Tom clearly wasn’t good. “Does she know anything about football?”

  “Umm…I watch…sometimes,” she answered. “I mean, I know the general rules.”

  “What about the play that just happened?” inquired Tom. “Was that a catch?”

  “She wasn’t watching then, dumbass,” one of the boys chimed in, resulting in a laugh from his buddies.

  Nora looked at the blond-haired high schooler who was clearly skeptical of her presence. “Explain what happened.”

  “Conner caught the ball, but he bobbled it on the way to the ground, and it shifted in his hands when he landed,” Tom told her.

  “No, it didn’t,” Conner argued.

  “Yes, it did,” Tom snapped back. “The ball shifted when you got tackled.”

  Nora wasn’t following. “The ball can’t shift?”

  “Oh my God, are you kidding me?” huffed Tom. “This is our ref? She doesn’t even—”

  She curiously watched him cut himself off and peer down at the ground like a child who’d been reprimanded by their parent. Her eyes moved to Mike, and a chill shot down her spine after she did. This stud was staring a hole through his friend.

  “Nora is nice enough to give us her time and help us out,” Mike verbally chastised his buddy. “She didn’t come over her to be talked down to. Apologize.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tom immediately said, his eyes still locked on the grass below.

  A light dampness overtook her senses. She didn’t know the relationship these guys had other than being friends, and she wasn’t familiar with their pecking order, but it was clear that Mike was on top. He calmly corrected one of his peers for stepping out of line, and Tom had instantly apologized. She shouldn’t be wet, but she was.

  She went out to a bar with Brad last summer, only to spend close to twenty minutes being catcalled and whistled at by a table of drunk college kids. She didn’t expect Brad to fight five inebriated frat boys—especially with them being larger than him—but saying something would’ve been nice. What was his solution to her being harassed? To ignore them. Did it make sense logically? Sure, it was what a mature man would do, but sometimes she wanted a guy with balls. There was no way that Mike would be okay with turning the other cheek. He absolutely would’ve said something., and part of her was thinking those guys would’ve shut up real quick if Mike told them to watch their mouths.

  The boys finished their game without any issues. It was Tom of all people who caught the game-winning touchdown from Mike. A chest bump between the two friends squashed any potential tension as the boys celebrated their victory.

  “Hey!”

  Nora was on her way to the woods when a loud voice caused her to stop and turn back. She couldn’t explain why, but she wanted to slip out of there. She agreed to help, the game was over, and now she craved to be back in her bedroom. She was getting anxiety again.

  Mike jogged over to her. “I owe someone a milkshake.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she declined. “Really. I have some stuff to do today, so—”

  “Nora, I promised you a milkshake,” he interjected. “That was the deal.”

  “No, I—”

  That was the look Tom had seen. It was an authoritative stare. It was a glare that said he would get his way. Mike explained the situation with his eyes. There was no pleading, begging, or even asking. This kid told her she was coming with him, and that was the end of the story. Who was she to say no?

  She nodded before walking alongside him to his car. The other boys were busy going over their plans in the parking lot, and a skinny kid with his fair share of acne announced that a party was taking place at Cindy Brookside’s house tonight—which the majority of them declared their intentions of attending—Mike included.

  Simply informing his friends of his plan to be at the party got them excited. She knew she wasn’t alone. There was an energy which followed Mike. This hunk had an aura that made him fun to be around.

  Depression flowed through her body when she watched him throw on a t-shirt before hoping into the car. She was quick to find the passenger seat. And just like that, she was off to get a milkshak
e with a guy she barely knew, but she had never been more comfortable in her life.

  Chapter 2 – A Relentless Kid

  Was she really doing this? She hadn’t even put up a protest. Somehow; unbeknownst to her, she’d agreed to go back to Mike’s house with him. Why hadn’t she asked to be dropped off at home? Or better yet, back at the park so she could finish her walk? Was this how good girls behaved? Did they venture into some some unknown guy’s house?

  She wasn’t going to do anything with this kid. She knew that. She’d discovered that he was eighteen years old and in high school, so the last thing she would do was mess around with some boy who probably didn’t even do his own laundry. Something about their time together captivated her, however. She’d only known him for an hour, but what an hour it was.

  Fifty-Three Minutes Ago.

  “NASA?”

  She embarrassingly peered down at the picnic table they were enjoying their milkshakes on. Why did she tell him that she wanted to work for NASA? Guys don’t like nerds. Their conversation would be so uncomfortable now.

  She started, “Well, I—”

  “You should work for SpaceX instead,” he interrupted. “That’s where the future is at. NASA is bullshit.”

  “Bullshit?”

  “I think so,” Mike told her. “Personally, I think we’re either on other planets, or we’ve never been past the Van Allen belts.”

  He knew what the Van Allen belts were? Could he be any more perfect? “That’s a big difference.”

  “No doubt,” he agreed. “It just doesn’t make sense to me otherwise. We landed on the Moon in 1969, but we can’t put anyone on Mars fifty years later? To me, we’ve either never gone up there, or we’re on Mars, Europa, and all kinds of other places.”

  “Oh my God, have you ever seen Europa Report?” she asked, her voice full of excitement.

  “All-time underrated movie,” he swiftly nodded. “It might be my favorite space flick ever, and it’s probably based on a true story too. Other than the bioluminescent octopus thing that attacks them at the end.”

  She wouldn’t argue that point. It was a rather outlandish finale to an otherwise great movie. “You really think we’ve been to one of Jupiter’s moons?”

  “Either we have, or we’ve never been more than six hundred miles up,” he explained his thoughts. “Now, SpaceX is a different story. Let’s say we can get past the Van Allen belts. If so, I absolutely believe Elon Musk is going to get to Mars, and I think trips to the Moon will be a thing within our lifetime too. Maybe it’ll never be affordable to people like us, but how unbelievable would that be? Your friend is going to the Bahamas, your parents are vacationing in London, and you’re going to the fuckin’ Moon.”

  Nora burst into laughter.

  “I’m serious,” Mike smiled. “People don’t appreciate the beauty we have on earth. They complain about where they live and how boring it is. Everyone wants to travel someplace else. The Appalachian Mountains took one hundred million years to form, and I don’t personally know a single person who’s hiked the Appalachian Trail. And it’s just a couple of hours away! But you know what’s impossible to ignore?”

  “Space,” she said.

  “You got it,” he verified her answer. “No one has ever denied the captivation that is space. It’s mysterious, but no one would turn down a chance to go up and explore it. It’s dangerous, but everyone from little kids to the elderly would give every penny to their name for a seat on a shuttle. It’s limitless, but it isn’t. Everyone pictures space as endless. You look up at night and it’s impossible to comprehend how it doesn’t go on forever, but it doesn’t. I remember seeing a picture from the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field when I was a kid. My teacher told us it was the deepest picture of the universe ever taken. There were thousands of galaxies in that image—each a different size, shape, and color. It was the first time I realized just how worthless my existence truly was. There were galaxies in that image over thirteen billion years old, and there I was, a twelve-year-old kid, and my biggest concern was playing Xbox online with my friends that night.”

  She was speechless. He was so different from every other man in her life.

  “There isn’t a lot of work worth doing,” he went on. “Most people have pointless jobs, and leave little impact on this planet other than the DNA they pass down to their children. It always makes me laugh how artists and actors look at themselves as important. Are they famous? Sure. Are they really meaningful to the world? Absolutely not. How many kids under twenty could name the four members of The Beatles?”

  “Probably not a lot,” she voiced.

  “They’re the most famous band ever, yet an entire generation of kids barely know who they are,” he said. “Do you think anyone is going to remember some Instagram model, or some guy with a huge YouTube following fifty years from now? Shit, how about in five years? But what about the people who truly leave an impact? You looked down—all shy—when mentioning wanting to work for NASA. Never do that again. Take pride in your passions. Don’t be ashamed of your intelligence. If you have a gift, refuse to waste it.”

  Currently in Mike’s Kitchen.

  It all made sense how she’d ended up at his house. The better question would be how couldn’t she be standing in his kitchen? This was a guy she was supposed to walk away from? Mike was someone who she would allow to fade from her life? They talked about space! And she rambled on about everything under the sun until they pulled into his driveway.

  His ability to have a conversation without dominating it was memorizing. The way he didn’t reveal himself left her wanting more. She told him everything: where she went to school, her issues with her ex-boyfriend, her hopes and aspirations, and her love of Quentin Tarantino movies. The latter led to a ten minute argument over whether True Romance should be considered a Tarantino movie since he only wrote it, but didn’t direct it. Mike thought it was on par with Pulp Fiction, and she responded by calling him crazy. It was a playful fight—like a longtime couple might have—but they weren’t a longtime couple. They barely knew each other!

  She felt outmatched by him. Was it his allure that drew her in? He came off as more intelligent than her, and there was no denying that her charisma and charm didn’t rival his. Even the looks at the ice cream shack were on him. She’d never experienced that with Brad. People walked by their table, and their focus would be on the handsome jock sitting across from her. It was everything she wanted: a guy who could break her out of her shell, but take the spotlight off of her at the same time.

  But none of that changed the fact that she was fresh out of a relationship, four years older than him, and she didn’t really know anything about this stranger. What if he was a sociopath? What if he wanted to cut her up and throw her body in a lake? She’d never opened herself up this way to anyone, so why was she so trusting of an eighteen-year-old high school kid?

  “Want something to drink?” he asked

  Did she want something to drink? No, what she really wanted to do was leave, so she could get out of here before something bad happened. What if his parents came home? How would she explain herself then? “Oh, hey, I’m just some twenty-two-year-old college girl who is somewhat infatuated with your son even though I barely know him. I wasn’t planning on messing around with him, but I can’t guarantee it. Nice to meet you, by the way.” Yeah, that probably wouldn’t go over so smoothly.

  “No, I should probably get going,” she said. “Thanks for the milkshake.”

  He calmly retrieved a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap, his eyes never leaving her. “You have plans?”

  That was perfect! All she had to do was tell him that she had something going on! “Yeah, I—”

  “Because I have plans,” he cut her off. Slow, methodical footsteps carried the still sweaty teen closer to the timid brunette who had her back leaning against the refrigerator door. “In fact, my calendar is jam-packed today.”

  “You have that party with your friends
, right?” she asked with her eyes down on the floor. Suddenly, her world was brought upward. Strong fingers slipped under her chin and raised her vision up to him.

  “That’s a lot later,” he told her. “I have something penciled in for my afternoon, however.”

  His warm breath tickled her forehead as he spoke. Her nostrils soaked in the minty scent coming from his mouth. His towering presence made her feel like a child. What could she do if this stud decided to turn things violent? He had over a foot in height and probably eighty pounds in weight on her. How effortlessly could one of his muscular arms throw her across the room? How badly would a slap across the face hurt? She’d put herself in this situation, and now everything could go wrong. She trusted a guy whom she didn’t even know the last name of. She was in trouble.

  His left palm thudded against the metal to her rear. The cool sensation of the fridge door chilled her neck. Mike’s strong, masculine frame dwarfed her, but the glass he was holding in his right hand allowed her access to escape. She wasn’t trapped. There was plenty of room to her left if she wanted to put an end to this situation, so why wasn’t she moving?

  “You see, Nora, there’s something about me you don’t know.”

  She nervously gulped.

  He nonchalantly took a sip of water before peering back down at her. “I always get what I want.”

  “Umm…”

  “Want to know what my middle school football coach told me back in the sixth grade?” he spoke.

  “Wha-what did he-he tell you?” she stammered, quivering with nervous energy.

  “I was a skinny kid back then,” he started, calm as ever. “Lanky, would probably be the best way to describe me. My coach told me that I would never be big enough to play at the high school level. He told me my body wouldn’t hold up from the amount of punishment high school quarterbacks take. So, do you know what I did?”

  Her eyes glanced to her left to observe all the open space she had to leave. Instead, she waited for him to continue.

  “I started working out,” Mike filled her in. “That asshole told me that I would never be good enough on a Tuesday in early September, and I was in the weight room on Wednesday. I’ve never missed a single day in six years. If I’m sick, I still lift. If my shoulder hurts, I do legs instead. If it’s Christmas, I workout in my basement. And not only did I play in high school, but I received a scholarship to play for a nationally ranked college next year. I’m fueled by people doubting me. I’m motivated by things I’m told I can’t have. I always get my way.”