Fighting for Arielle

by Karina Sharp

  I feel embarrassed that I just had a crazy person meltdown saying I can’t be around him in the middle of his living room. Plus, I can’t tear myself away from him. I feel like I might die inside all over again if I leave. I lean into McCrary’s firm chest as he closes his arms around me. This simple embrace gives me an instant feeling of closeness and safety, and it is the most intimate I’ve felt with anyone. There’s something so special about the simple moments of vulnerability shared between two people.

  “I’m so sorry I freaked out. I think it was just sensory overload with the piano and the song and my personal life…”

  I look up to him- this beautiful, caring man who shows nothing but warmth and support in his eyes -and I no longer feel embarrassed. I feel special. I feel that he actually cares about me and my feelings. He’s not mocking me or giving me a half-hearted response so that I will shut up. He’s genuinely comforting me and supporting me: trying to understand and help me through my confusion. I’m not falling for him; I already fell, and fell hard. I have no idea how all of this is going to play out with our complicated issues, but I’m charging forward.

  “Hey, you have nothing to apologize for. I know you have a lot going on in your life, given you have so many things to work through, Arielle. Against my better judgment, I kissed you at the gym and invited you into my house. I just can’t seem to stay away. I don’t want to stay away from you, but I also don’t want to make moving forward in your life more difficult.” McCrary sighs.

  I can only imagine what he’s going to say next, which is to let me walk away, and I begin to panic internally.

  “I don’t want you to stay away. I can’t guarantee that I won’t be an unpredictable mix of emotions and rash decisions, but as long as you’ll have me around, I want to be around.”

  I think I’m going insane. I just freaked out and pushed him away, but now I’m prepared to beg him to never let me go.

  McCrary’s eyes lighten, and he smiles. “Nothing with you is predictable, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He gives me a peck on the nose. “Now, how about that glass of wine?”

  “Wine sounds perfect.”

  “White or red?”

  “White.”

  “Done.”

  We sit at the bar that divides the kitchen from the living room and I sip on a delicious Pinot Grigio. McCrary tells me about some of the craziest clients and outlandish cases he’s ever had, like having to defend someone who allegedly broke a vase of someone’s that they claimed was worth $500. He didn’t believe it was worth that much and had the judge agree to award the $500 to the Plaintiff in exchange for possession of the actual vase. He still has the ugly vase, which is so not worth $500, but displays it as a humorous keepsake.

  He’s had many different types of cases spanning several types of law, which I think is why he studies so much. I’ve gathered that he’s a perfectionist, and on top of that, when he is tasked to educate himself on something, he takes it very seriously. He is a wealth of information, but I too like to study random things and am a random fact sponge.

  I have a genius idea.

  “Do you have Trivial Pursuit?” I ask excitedly.

  “I don’t have many board games, but actually I think someone gave one to me one holiday. If I do, it would be in the closet in the guest bedroom.”

  “Care if I go look?”

  “Help yourself. I will refill our glasses.”

  I’m a Trivial Pursuit nerd, who can get very competitive in quiz games.

  I enter the guest bedroom and see more of the personality of McCrary. It’s a very understated, but clean style. He has some pieces of artwork on the wall, which look like actual paintings, and they are muted colors in various soft lines and shapes that seem to move across the canvas. I open the closet door to find nothing hanging in this closet; however, on the shelf above, there are a few board games, including some that look like original editions of childhood games like Candy Land. I’m a little jealous of that.

  I spot a Trivial Pursuit game in a red box. That tells me it’s an older edition, but not the original, so I know as far as answers to questions are concerned, the USSR has been broken up, but the Berlin Wall is still up.

  “Jackpot!” I declare as I walk back to the kitchen.

  McCrary’s eyes light up. “Oh wow. I thought I had a copy. I haven’t seen it in years.”

  I giggle. “I bet you haven’t. You’re going down, lawyer man.”

  “Is that so?” He walks over to me with a wild look in his eyes. “Care to make it interesting?”

  He wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me into him. I’m not going to let him get into my head, though. Even if I’m easily lost in his eyes. And his face. And feeling his muscles against me.

  I shake my head and clear my throat. “Sure, but just know I am the Trivial Pursuit champion, so be careful what you wager.”

  “Mmmm... While I can think of all kinds of ways to make it interesting, I thought I might go easy on you and relive some college days by making it a drinking game.”

  “Aha… So, every time you miss a question you drink?”

  He looks at me, satisfied that I was picking up what he was putting down. “You read my mind, except every time the other person gets a question right, you drink.”

  I try to calculate how many sips that means when someone plays a perfect game. I don’t do all of the math, but I know it’s enough to get me very drunk. I don’t care. He’s going down in this game.

  “Prepare to be drunk very quickly, my friend.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Playing Trivial Pursuit with McCrary is so much fun. He is a very formidable opponent. We both drink quite a bit, because the other keeps getting questions correct. I have to drink for getting some sports questions wrong, while McCrary has to drink a few times for getting pop culture questions incorrect. Ultimately, I win the game, but I am pretty drunk by the end, and I mean wine drunk, which is the least attractive form of drunk for me. Wine drunk makes me feel all warm and sloppy and sleepy.

  I look outside of his patio doors to see the sun is soon to set and admire the grass that looks so cool and inviting. I stand up, reassuring myself inside of my head that I did not almost lose my balance as I stood, and without saying a word walk directly outside of the doors and collapse into the grass. I rub my hands through its texture and love its cool touch on my skin.

  Shortly after my sudden exit, McCrary joins me, only he’s seated.

  “It just looked so soft,” I answer a question that wasn’t asked.

  McCrary’s hands run through the grass beside me and then his fingers brush against my arms. “It’s very soft.”

  “I know. What kind of grass is it?”

  “The kind that they planted when they built this house,” McCrary responds with a laugh.

  “I thought so.” I try to sound knowledgeable, but not really knowing what I’m talking about.

  I continue to feel the grass under my hands and legs while I stare at the blue sky that’s beginning to show yellows and oranges. “Have I told you that I like you? Because I do.”

  McCrary smiles. “You may have mentioned it before.”

  “Yeah, probably,” I sit up to face McCrary. “I talk a lot and say lots of things. You wanna know something else?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I would totally do you if I wasn’t so self-conscious.”

  I pause and McCrary doesn’t respond.

  “But I’m working on it. One day, I’m going to take charge, and you’re not going to even know what hit you.”

  McCrary brings his face to mine. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  He wants me the same way I want him, and I am excited by that revelation. I think if I wasn’t so wine drunk, I would jump him right here and right now, but it’s probably better that I don’t. Instead, I place my lips on his and we kiss, but more tenderly than before. I pull him down on top of me in the grass and love the feeling of him over me. Not
only is his body covering mine super hot and sexy, but it also makes me feel protected.

  The sense of safety combined with a great deal of wine and almost no food makes the world start to spin. I know that my options are to either pass out or risk getting sick.

  “McCrary, I think I need to go to bed.”

  “Ok…”

  “Please don’t consider this a statement regarding what we were just doing, because trust me, I could kiss you all night, but on a night where I didn’t consume so much wine.”

  McCrary smiles and shrugs. “At least I can best you at drinking wine.”

  “Yeah, yeah... I’ll give you that you can handle your wine better than me. But, I wouldn’t be so drunk if I had eaten.”

  Even with the cloudiness from the wine, I recognize I just admitted that I haven’t eaten. It’s something I don’t ever say aloud. I keep myself in denial and tell myself that if I say something aloud, then there’s no going back- it’s real. I don’t want my having an eating disorder to be real.

  McCrary narrows his eyes on me. “I completely forgot about dinner. Would you like some food?”

  “No. I’m just going to pass out instead. Besides, I don’t need any food.”

  I try to play it down. Right now, I couldn’t eat if I wanted to. I don’t even think I can stand up.

  My head continues to swirl as I tell myself I am not going to be sick and be that girl who yaks when she drinks too much.

  McCrary’s hands stop moving in the grass beside me and he seems to be in deep thought until he says, “Can I ask you something?”

  I think I know where this is going. He’s going to want to know all about my eating habits and scold me for everything I’ve done wrong. Or maybe he’s going to say I’m not trying hard enough and need to look better. I’ve slowly been trying to eat snacks here and there, and the happier I feel about life, the easier it is to do that. With Brody around, I can’t bring myself to eat. It’s about control. I can’t control him, but I can control what I put into my body. I’ve shown McCrary plenty of crazy already today, why not go for broke?

  “Sure, but you’re going to get a very honest answer.”

  “Good. That’s what I want.”

  “Shoot.”

  A silent moment passes.

  “Have you eaten at all today?”

  I want to snap back and be defensive, or say I have, but I’ve already admitted that I haven’t.

  “No,” I say quickly.

  “When’s the last time you ate?”

  That’s always the next question, except he asks it in a way that seems more out of concern as opposed to accusation.

  I let down my defenses and sigh.

  “I don’t know.”

  McCrary begins gently running his fingers through my hair, which is both relaxing and exciting as it makes my scalp tingle.

  “Do you skip meals often?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  People ask that question as if the motivation is easy to explain. For me, it started as more of a compulsive act, an act of control. I felt like I had very little control of the world around me which made me anxious, so I naturally began to doing things to ease my anxiety. But, the reality is that not only do I see nothing but unattractiveness in the mirror, I’ve been told that I am too curvy or too fat or that I would need to starve to fit into costumes or dresses.

  We don’t naturally consider ourselves ugly, unworthy, or anything but equal to everyone else on this planet. Its society and those around us that shape our view and make us believe that we are supposed to be something other than what we naturally are. So, an act that started out of defiance and as a way to take back some ownership over my life, has turned into a ritual and a self-fulfilling prophesy that I cannot seem break.

  “Because I don’t need to eat. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. More than once.”

  “You’re perfect. You’d be even more perfect if you ate.”

  I want to believe him. I truly do. I want to believe that someone can love themselves the way they are. I also want to believe that that someone can love me the way I am. I know that some people find me attractive since they tell me so, and at shows I get a good response and attention, so I experience a great deal of cognitive dissonance. I justify it by repeating those negative statements to myself over and over. I tell myself that they don’t really know me, or else they wouldn’t find me attractive. Or that they’re just desperate to get some female attention. Or that they have no standards and will say anything to get into a girl’s pants.

  “I disagree,” I say in defiance.

  “You’re beautiful and perfect, no matter how you look or how much you eat. Will you promise me to eat?”

  I wonder why he’s not scolding me or telling me how bad it is for me, or even saying how stupid I am to limit food intake. I was also expecting the usual responses of how I’m just attention-seeking. He is genuine, and it makes me want to try to be better to myself and my body. It’s not like this will happen quickly either, but he has enhanced my desire to be the best person I can possibly be.

  “I can’t promise that I will eat regularly, but I can promise to try. I’ve been working on it. I promise I will eat at least one meal a day. Deal?”

  “It’s a start. And thank you for trying.”

  McCrary kisses my forehead, and I smile a weary smile in return.

  “Can I pass out in your bed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Will you sleep with me? I mean, cuddle with me?”

  “Of course.”

  Chapter 15

  Arielle

  I wake up with the sun shining in my eyes, which is in stark contrast to the typically dark room in which I normally arise. I look around the room to remind myself where I am. I'm in McCrary's house, in McCrary's bed, but with no McCrary. Perplexed, I complete a mental run-through of last night. I am almost positive I fell asleep in his arms. I reach down and feel the same shirt and boxers I was wearing when we went to bed- his shirt and boxers. I look to my right and take in the smell of him on the pillow and sheets. The aroma is intoxicating and heavenly. I sit up in bed and look around the room, which looks the same as yesterday, only I get to observe it a little better and without distraction. The furniture has surprisingly soft lines with a muted color palate like the guest room. Books line the walls, and from my vantage point, I can see many classics and a good number of history books. I wonder what time it is and subsequently wonder why I don’t see an alarm clock. I decide I should either find McCrary or find my purse and keys so I can leave as his absence might be a sign that I should go.

  My head is killing me, so I first set off to find a remedy for it. Not bothering to check my hair or attire, I walk to the front of the house where I see McCrary in all of his morning glow glory. He’s in a grey t-shirt that settles on his chest and arms just tightly enough to not be a baby tee, but enough for the wandering mind to think of lots of unlady like things to do with him. He has a few books around him with a yellow note pad in his lap, scribbling away.

  I am happy and relieved to see him, but then realize I haven’t even viewed my reflection. I’m sure I look like Medusa on crack.

  Sensing I am there, he looks up from his notes and smiles so warmly that I don’t care that I probably look like death warmed over. “Morning, sunshine.”

  My throat is dry and raspy. “Morning. You look like you’re working awfully hard on a day that’s supposed to be a day of rest.”

  He looks at me in confusion.

  “It’s Sunday, isn’t it?”

  He places the books and notepad on the side of the couch. “Is that a thing? I don’t think I’ve ever known such a concept.”

  I’m sure he probably doesn’t rest much. He seems to be the type to take his work home with him and use any extra time he has working.

  “You haven’t? Let me fill you in. On days like this, you’re supposed to lie on the beach, drinking cocktails with little umbrellas in them, and m
ake shapes out of the clouds. After that, you’re supposed to lie in bed, watch TV, snuggle, and eat Velveeta Shells and Cheese.”

  He blinks his eyes slowly and places his index finger on his chin. “I’ve been so disillusioned. Here, I thought it was just a day to prepare for Monday and the start of the work week.”

  I shake my head, smiling in return.

  He closes the book in his lap around his notes and looks to me cheerfully. “Okay. Let’s try it your way.”

  His response ignites that feeling that you feel when you’re so overjoyed and excited that there are no words to express it, and you just want to squeal and jump up and down and clap your hands. I keep it in so I don’t look like a fool, but I do all of those things on the inside.

  “Awesome flossum! I just need to go by my apartment and grab some things. I bought a swanky new swimsuit that I haven’t yet-”

  Some reality slaps me. “Oh my god!”

  “Something wrong?” he asks, reading the concern in my face.

  “Swanks!” I say, feeling like I might cry.

  He looks confused. “Come again?”

  “Swanks- my tortoise. Señor Swankypants?”

  I feel as though I might panic, and I know it won’t be long before I’m walking in anxious circles, going nowhere.

  McCrary continues to look a bit perplexed. “You were being serious when you said you had a reptichild named Señor Swankypants?”

  I look at him, a bit insulted. “Of course I was! Why would I make that up?”

  Looking a bit more satisfied, laughing he says, “No, no... Of course you weren’t. How could you make that up?”

  He stands up and moves closer to me. “And the mountain of beer bottles?”

  “Yup. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” I raise my right hand as if I’m taking an oath. “Anyway, I’ve been neglecting my poor tortoise. He’s been stuck in that awful apartment all by himself.”

  Sensing my oncoming panic mode, McCrary raises an eyebrow and says, “I think I have an idea. He is more than welcome to come over here for his day of rest. He might enjoy the spare bedroom and the large windows in the dining room. That’s assuming that he too adheres to the same ‘Day of Rest’ policy.”