Touch-Starved

by Celia Crown

  “What happened to the guy? Did he party so hard that he broke his wrist?” she continues with curious brown eyes.

  Jackie squints her eyes at me, dropping her hand to her lap and lifting it up again to point at me.

  “No, that’s not it,” she leans to the arm of the couch, “What happened?”

  Keeping a straight face, my voice is controlled and even, “Drop it.”

  “Why?” she frowns, eyebrows knotting towards the center.

  “You don’t need to know.”

  It’s true. Jackie has no reason to find out what I did. I’m not hiding it because I have my first physical contact, but because I was blinded by anger that I had snapped the man’s wrist for touching her.

  She is going to have so many questions, and I don’t have any answers to the questions that are too jumbled together. When and if I tell her about this incident, she will want to figure me out and how I did it; experimental setups will be drawn up with her harmless inquisitiveness being the center of her drive to get me to manifest the strength to touch an object again.

  “Did you do it?” she whispers as if she is revealing a secret and expect me to keep it for her.

  I come to the arm of the couch, kneeling on one of my knees as I press my forearm there to balance myself while she leans closer. The naïve sweetness in her eyes and the slightly ajar mouth that I want to pry open with my tongue hits me with the simmering heat of desire.

  “No.”

  Lying to her is easier, but it is because I’m doing it to make sure she isn’t going to be scared of me and ask questions before I can figure out what I did.

  I don’t want to think of how I can deceive her on anything else other than to protect her, and deep in my gut, I know that I’m not fully confident that I can look her in the eyes and lie to her face.

  Chapter Five

  Jacqueline

  One month passes with a breath of hot air, and Danni starts her residency. It takes her two weeks to decide that the one she wants to go to just so happens to have a very attractive older doctor, and it seems that her bartender boyfriend will have to step up his game.

  “Wow, I would have thought your nurse outfit would be sexier.”

  “Jackie, my furry friend, I am learning to save lives—not become the next Slutty Intern.”

  “For your information, I’m smoother than a Dolphin.”

  August comes with school supplies commercials and the strange need to go shopping. I don’t have school anymore, but the thought of new supplies excites me, but Eli doesn’t share my enthusiasm.

  “You don’t need another pack of highlighters, Jacqueline.”

  “It’s calling for me with the smell of success!”

  “It’s ammonia, dumbass.”

  September sets a new level of flooding in the city; every store is closed, and people are using kayaks. I want to borrow my neighbor’s beyond neon orange kayak and paddle through the rough terrains.

  “You are going to drown.”

  “It’s four feet of water, Eli.”

  “So you do know how preposterous you sound when you said you wanted to go kayaking.”

  “Did your mind warn you about this rainstorm beforehand, Mr. Negativity?”

  “You’re still not going outside, midget.”

  October rolls by with a spooky Halloween that Eli takes to his advantage to scare me every chance he got. That man has no qualm about my heart or the anxiety level when he has learned that he can make himself invisible to me when he tries with a lot of concentration.

  “I swear to every holy deity that I will summon Satan here to have him personally banish you back to hell, you demon spawn—okay, not funny. The chair going across the room is so old. Even the movies have made it a mandatory action for hauntings!”

  “Is that so?”

  “Fudging sheets! No one, not a single soul, haunts innocent victims through a bottle of lotion!”

  November has no transition between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Creepy decorations spread out in the lawns and on the windows as a frail hold of the fading celebration of a most beloved holiday. We were going to get ham for the lesser amount than a whole turkey at the market, but everyone seemed to have the same idea as us. We ended up with a turkey with a long neck.

  “Don’t slap the turkey, Jackie!”

  “I have gloves on! It’s a good thing to know if it’s fresh. We don’t want to have a tummy ache!”

  “It’s not a watermelon! Put that bird down or so help me God, I will shove these stuffing under your knees!”

  “It could be under-ripe, Danni—!”

  “It’s raw!”

  December is the season of snow angels and romantic getaways. I do love a week of freedom when the countdown to Christmas starts with a song and it’s accompanied by the fireworks of New Years. Spending time with Danni is hard when she’s always busy with her residency and splitting time with her doctor boyfriend—he’s not approved by me, only Scott is her dream match—while spending Christmas with me. He gets Christmas Eve, but I’m more important and I have invited Scott over too.

  “Jacqueline.”

  “Oh my, I must have done something for you to spit my name with such passion.”

  “Why is there a mistletoe here? We have guest over, this is—”

  “It’s Christmas tradition, Danni. One cannot have this holiday without a kiss of festivity, fret not, I have demonstrated what this tradition with a kiss blown to my dear Eli.”

  “Eli doesn’t exist, Jackie.”

  “Don’t say that; he’s sensitive.”

  January first is the morning of hangover and death looming over me with a disapproving scowl on his god-awful sexiness. He’s too beautiful and too bright for the morning of an absolute disaster. I don’t want to associate his angsty beauty with the unmentionable things crawling up my throat. At least he gave me moral support when I empty my stomach; it’s not pleasant and Eli doesn’t move away with disgust.

  “You’d make a great husband for a pregnant wife.”

  “Marriage isn’t for me.”

  “Please marry me anyway, Eli. Oh, darn it, there are no human and wraith marriage certificates.”

  “There are exceptions, Jackie.”

  “I’m hungover with the sun glowing on my butt; stop being so cryptic.”

  February is the time of year for strategically formed advertisements, overly-priced things to showcase the love for couples, and the thick air of a snowy Valentine’s day. I spent two Valentine’s day with two of my former boyfriends, but I have never made them anything. I was just not the type of girl to decorate the piece of chocolate with frosting, but this year is different.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “It’s a cake, Eli. Have you lost your reading glasses?”

  “It’s moving, throw it away and wash your hands.”

  “What, no! This is hard work, and I’m going to eat it for you. It is my Valentine’s Day gift for you, Eli! Us singles can’t go out and mingle!

  “It has raw eggs in it.”

  “Well, of course it does; the recipe calls for it.”

  “Cooked, Jack, cooked. You shouldn’t be in the kitchen if you can’t properly get rid of salmonella to save your damn life.”

  “Did you have to channel Gordon Ramsey to insult my cooking?”

  March Madness has a certain stigma to it, and crazy doesn’t even start to describe the people who participate. There is vandalism and thievery around every corner when the basketball tournament ends at the college closest to where we live. Where there is a potential spark of inspiration, I am there to embrace it with a bucket of confetti and chaos around me.

  “This is an adventure, Eli!”

  “I am an unwilling participant.”

  “Live a little!”

  “I’m dead.”

  “My sarcastic ghost, you had fun, admit it. No need to be shy, I won’t judge.”

  “I was entertained through your embarrassing antics.”

&
nbsp; “I made you laugh. I’ll take that victory over something as trivial as having people watch me.”

  “It’s not trivial. I watch you.”

  April Fools is fun and games until someone gets offended, then it’s hilarious because modern technology doesn’t let scenes of stupidity pass. I want to have a little fun too, but offending Eli will never be my objective. That would be disrespectful of me even if it’s on a day of trolls. We have a great friendship going on and he has accepted me as his best friend. He’s in a little bit of denial, but I can get through him with my charm.

  “Alright, let’s make some background information for me since you don’t have any.”

  “No.”

  My cheeks puff up, “Yes, and you can’t stop me.”

  “Jacqueline,” the exacerbation rumbles through his chest. He does have an attractive frame and he’s well-proportioned that it makes him more symmetrically appealing to the eyes.

  “Don’t Jacqueline me. I am incomplete without context and I feel weird.”

  “I don’t care what you feel; you’re not making up my story,” Eli sits in front of me with one of his legs lifted up to support his massive arm.

  We had a lot of trials and errors, but we can definitively have him sit on the ground without phasing through the Earth. It’s weird how he can stand, but the moment he tries anything else is a tumble into the inner core of this planet.

  “Everyone has a story and if you can’t remember yours, then I can volunteer to do it.”

  “I didn’t offer.”

  “That’s fine, I offered for you,” I sip my soda through the straw and sigh at the carbonated bubbles sizzling in my throat. “No need to thank me, you’ll love the details. Hold your applause till the end, please.”

  “Jackie—”

  It’s easy to ignore his voice when I have had months of practice on developing my selective hearing; he gets opinionated about everything I do.

  “Your name is Eli, a Mr. December in the calendar for me so your birthday is December twenty-fifth and you are a Capricorn. You may be the Grinch deep in your dark, dark soul, but you’re just misunderstood by the porcupine exterior.”

  “My soul isn’t dark.”

  I have his whole story unraveling in my head. My voice is unable to keep up while I’m rambling quickly so I don’t forget. I bit my tongue a couple of times trying to articulate words and I have to reel back my elation; Eli’s deadpan face doesn’t dampen my enjoyment of our time spent together.

  “Your occupation is a gym instructor; a personal trainer sounds better with a body like yours. So many middle-aged bored housewives want to have an affair with you, but you’re secretly attracted to the Yoga instructor with great pectoral curves.”

  “Jacqueline—”

  Someone needs to teach this man that it is not polite to interrupt people when it isn’t his turn to talk. All children are caught to wait for their turns and not cut in line, but Eli is a ghost with no memories of his past.

  He should know better.

  “Don’t interrupt me. You can’t have your dream girl because she’s in a relationship with the janitor, and thus, a love triangle begins. It’s painful, but you want her to be happy so you—”

  Eli sighs, his gorgeous green eyes set on a glare, “Don’t be dramatic.”

  “It’s your past, and I’m giving you color to that blank memory of yours.”

  “It’s not my past, and it’s a shitty back story,” he’s rude and opinionated but dealing with Eli has given me a new perspective in life.

  There will always be someone more unappreciative of my help than Danni when I do the laundry.

  I clear my throat, “It’s interesting.”

  “It’s absurd.”

  “Anyway—”

  “Skip.”

  Eli refuses to budge when I try to explain his love life. He’s not giving me the credit that it needs to be an amazing fact that’s pertinent to his past life.

  “Fine, fast forward a bit. You decide to quit your job as a personal trainer and got hired as a cuddling professional; a man with your arm size is an amazing pillow replacement. I’d sleep on them if you were actually human.”

  “I was human.”

  I would love more than anything for him to keep his comments to himself, especially when his sarcasm speaks louder than the construction down the block.

  “Hush, noisy old geezer.”

  “None of them sounds like me.”

  I have no reason to hold back the roll of my eyes, but I’m mindful of not rolling them too hard to make it look like I got something stuck in my eyeballs. “You don’t know that; even you said you don’t remember squat.”

  “Yes, but—”

  I put a hand up, silencing him with a purse of my lips. I don’t get through my story if he keeps shooting me remarks; it’ll be dark before I can get to his mid-life crisis.

  I’m still coming up with ideas as I go; the crisis might or might not present itself.

  “No buts. I think that you have a wife, you definitely do. No one can look like a handsome devil with the charm of a hornet and be single, but your wife probably has the patience of a saint for that impatience of yours.”

  “Don’t compliment just to insult me.”

  I take a drink of my soda, soothing the dryness of my throat from talking too much. I have so many ideas that I want to share with him, and the impassive stare is going to pierce through my skull at any minute now.

  “Maybe a kid or three. Retirement sounds good, but you hate being inactive so you decide to take upon golfing because that is what old, rich men do when they have brunch. You were overly confident in your ability to beat another player and you swing too hard, you sprang your back and now you really do have a middle-aged man’s problem.”

  Nodding at the details, I’m on a roll here and nothing can stop me from this free flow of concepts that are coming to me.

  “Do I look that old to you?”

  As expected from Eli, a man with no social cues. Or he just doesn’t care, but my thoughts are cut away from the creativity.

  “I’d say you’re a mature gentleman.”

  “Glad we established that.”

  Glad we established that he’s a nip-picky anal-retentive ghost.

  “You’re thinking about something offensive.”

  I choke on the sweet beverage and mentally singe his magnificent, thick mane off his head. I keep what little composure I have left and continue the story.

  “You get healed through physical therapy, and what gets you through it is the fire of determination in your eyes to have a rematch with your rival. You meet the golfing rival again and this time, you are prepared to be the laugh in his face when you win. By a miracle, you do win and you sprang your back again after your victory dance.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “Eli dances.”

  My representation of Eli does no justice to this man, but it’s something to go off of when I start to think that he’s too mysterious and unattainable.

  I hate the feeling of not knowing about Eli when he practically knows how many pairs of white panties I have. Ten, and they came in a pack on sale. I was broke, and I needed comfortable underwear; sexy is the last thing I want when I’m at home binge drawing all day long.

  “You figure that retirement is the only choice you have now, and you spend the rest of your peaceful life with your wife and your children. Your grandchildren come often and you’re always grumpy, but that comes with age. Then you pass angrily in your sleep, which probably explains why you’re such a cantankerous poltergeist.”

  My tongue nearly got a bit off from that description, but I managed to get it out and he looks murderous.

  “You don’t have more lies you can spin?” he raises an eyebrow, unruffled and pointedly monotonous in expressiveness.

  “You look like you want to hit me.”

  “I would never,” he says drearily.

  “You’re thinking about it.”

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bsp; “I am.”

  Finishing the beverage in my hand, it’s time to move to the next phase of this operation of getting to understand Eli on a more personal level. I’m glad that my drink didn’t spillover from the animated story-telling I was doing. Danni would have my head if I stain her precious rug.

  “How about we take a field trip?” I suggest with a snap of my fingers.

  The natural instinct in Eli shows through his face; he’s cynical and guarded. A part of me is affronted that he doesn’t trust me to make plans that we will both have fun in. I take pride in making him smile and I have made that a goal after I got him to talk with more than sarcasm and barbarian grunts.

  We are making progress, and I love it.

  “It’ll do you good,” I put the empty cup down and lean on my knees to make sure he sees the sincerity in my eyes.

  “I’m listening,” he says.

  Eli from months ago would have shot down any inclination of an idea, but he’s giving me a chance and I knew he liked me. I’m on his good side and as a friend, I’m obligated to help him find the thing that is preventing him from moving on.

  My heart throbs painfully, squeezing and suffocating at the thought of him leaving. I selfishly wish I can take back my offer, but Eli is important to me and I am stupid for having that vile notion.

  “We can walk around the city. Every day is a new adventure until we get through the whole city, and we’ll try to find places that might trigger your memory,” my voice is soft and quiet. Eli looks troubled while his other immobile hand reaches up.

  I don’t feel anything when he lets his knuckles glide down to my jaw from my peripheral vision. It’s as if he’s trying to caress me, hold my cheek with the same tenderness that reflects in those green hues.

  “Is that what you want?” he asks.

  My lashes flutter with my heart divided in half; I want him to remember for the sake of him because I want him to put himself as most important, but I don’t want him to leave if he finds what he’s looking for.

  Maybe it’s a woman.

  “Yeah, it’s the best for you,” I say. My voice tapes away and I can’t meet his eyes anymore.

  They can read me like an open book; every second passes with Eli gaining more insight into what my most inner thoughts are, and I can’t afford him to find out that I have been having dreams about him.