“You freaked out by it? All the attention?”
She tugs at a strand on her jeans. “What do you mean?” Her eyes flick quickly to mine, then out the window.
“Look, Blaze, I know we just met and all, and I don’t expect you to spill your guts out to me. But you can trust me, that I can promise you. I’m told I’m a good ear. And I never spill what people tell me in private. So if there’s something else you wanna say about these things that happened today, go ahead. There’s no judgment about it on my part. I swear it.”
She swings her gaze briefly at me again. “Well...it just kind of made me nervous, all of it. You work and work and work for something for what feels like your whole life, and then it just falls in your lap? It almost feels like it’s weird that you suddenly don’t fail. It’s like it’s not real if something doesn’t go wrong. I’m just waiting for the piano to drop, or for reality to strike home. That’s how it always seems to go...”
She looks away, clearly thinking of that dropping piano.
Friend of mine ODed, she said to me yesterday, after I asked her why she stopped dropping Es. “Blaze.” I put my hand on her leg (her sweet, soft, beautiful leg.) “I’m gonna tell you something, OK?”
She nods.
“My mom died when I was eighteen. Almost four years ago.” I stop for a second to catch my breath because mentioning it always hurts. “Uhm...cancer. She suffered for years with it. Suffered horribly. In the end, I swear I cursed the government for not letting that euthanasia shit into this country. I cursed New York for not having something like that Death with Dignity Act they got over in Oregon. Because she was hurting like crazy. Unable to empty herself properly. Needing constant care. Shaking most of the time. Not able to recognize people. It’s...hell...just...nobody should go through that, you know?
“Pops, well, it really ruined him. Or maybe he ruined himself. We had a fallout after she died.” Because of his fucking whore.
We arrive at the gym’s parking lot and I stop the car.
“Anyway, my pops had this piece-o-shit truck in the back that needed fixing but which he never fixed. So I learned about cars, got a new carburetor for it. Wheeled and dealed in various ways with people. Exchanged with hard labor for a bit of cash. Anything I could do. And I got that fucker fixed and drove it outta there as soon as I could. Trev put me up for a bit—over in East New York FYI! So, I started moving shit for people, and soon I had enough dough to rent a place in Bushwick. And, well, things took off after a while.”
Blaze is staring at me with her adorable little mouth open.
I turn and stare out my window, suddenly thinking of Trev’s insistence I go see my pops. Because he’s your father...
I feel Blaze’s hand on my leg. “Uhm...it seems I got a little carried away there,” I say. “I actually just wanted to let you know that I understand what it means to lose someone...” I pause for a long while, squeeze the shit out of her hand for stability. Then: “...But turns out I ended up giving you my life’s story.”
She whispers. Because that’s how Blaze talks: In a soft, angelic whisper. Always. “I don’t think that’s your life’s story. I think there’s a lot more to you than that. And I appreciate you telling me.
“Deck, I’m...nervous. And I’m just gonna go out and tell you why. Things are suddenly so intense between me and you. Out of nowhere, and I’m trying to find reasons why they shouldn’t be. I’m trying to fit it all into logic. I’m trying to fit it into the perspective of what my mom always used to say, you know. ‘Take it slow. Get to know a boy first.’ But with you, it’s none of that. I...” Her lip trembles. She clears her throat. “...Hell, Declan, it’s a freaking rocket ride. And it hit me out of nowhere. And...you said you know so little about me, and yet you feel like you know all there is to know. And, like, that just doesn’t make sense.”
“Why doesn’t it? Maybe it does. Maybe it’s...this”—I point outside—“that tells us otherwise. ‘Society’ or whatever. I know this is gonna sound crazy but, that look across a room full of people...”
“Yeah!” Her eyes are wide, as excited as mine.
“...Who’s to say there isn’t some force, some element? Hell, maybe it’s scientific. I don’t know.”
“Listen to us. We sound like teenagers. Young teenagers!”
“And there you go again. Do you see that?”
“What?”
“Looking for some reason why it can’t be. You’re looking for the piano that’s about to drop.”
“This is so intense. I keep getting the feeling it’s all gonna topple over sometime. It’s just too fast. The...the feelings. They’re...fast.”
“Well, it’s fast for me too. So if we fall, we fall together.”
“You definitely read too many books, Declan Cox. Don’t think I didn’t see that romance collection in your e-reader.”
I shrug, trying to play it cool. “Don’t think I didn’t see your own collection at home, neither.”
“Not all romances have a happy ending. In fact, some of them have a downright shitty ending.”
“But the middle is always good, and so is the beginning. That’s always the best part. That’s when it’s hot. That’s when there’s hope and sparks in the air; chests bared boldly to the raging forces of the universe, ready to take them all on.”
Her hand trembles under mine. “It’s not the beginning and the middle I’m worried about. It’s the end. When the universe wins because of a fatal character flaw or something.”
“Romeo and Juliet?”
“And others. All the timeless classics end without a Happily Ever After—Casablanca, Tristan and Isolde, Titanic? You think Leo DiCaprio woulda been so famous if he’d gotten Winslet in the end? Or was it that endless holding onto hope, him on that plank of wood, drowning, and hoping, forever hoping—right to the very last whimpering breath!—that keeps that story with us forever? Look at Nicholas Sparks. And people talk about his stories forever. The Notebook?”
I can’t answer.
Because she’s right.
Too right.
And I’m scared shitless because of it.
Scared out of my fucking mind.
-3-
I don’t realize I’m holding her hand until I get in the gym with her. Trev’s on the bench and Skate’s spotting him. Or, supposed to be. Because what he’s really doing is staring open-mouthed at mine and Blaze’s interlaced fingers.
He shifts the woolen beanie on his head, swallows hard, convincing himself that what he’s seeing is no illusion, and then gets back to spotting the barbell after Trevor groans, “MOTHERFUCKER GRAB THIS GODDAMNED WEIGHT BEFORE IT CRUSHES MY HEAD!”
Skate steps into action quickly, helping Trev up on his last rep, then hooks the barbell on its stand.
Trev sits up, flushed, downs water from a bottle. He smiles when he sees Blaze. “Waddup, Ms. Ryleigh? I assume you’re the reason this boy here is late for training! You know we’re trying to get him into the NFL, don’t you?”
Trev looks so serious that Blaze starts to feel like she’s done something bad. “Uhm, no, I didn’t know that... I—”
“He’s screwing with you,” I tell her.
“Am not!” He stands, moves closer to me. “Antonio Gates. Ray Seales. Darren Bennett. The list goes on. None of those boys played college football.”
She says, “I’m sorry—”
Now Trev grins his wide grin. “Blaze, it’s cool. Whereas I do believe Mr. Colorful Arm here could play for the NFL if he tried out, being ten minutes late for a workout is not what’s going to get him there. It’s changing the attitude in this”—he thwacks me upside the head!—“piece of machinery up here!”
I jump him and we start tackling right there in the gym! Skate shouts, “Dudes, the weights. The weights!” We almost make a whole stack of them fall and break toes.
Almost.
We stop our shenanigans and touch fists, bump shoulders.
Trev looks at Blaze and me. “You two make a good
couple by the way.” He says it with all the honesty in the world. And I stretch my hand out behind me absently for her to touch it, which she does, gently. Just a light caress. “So, lazy-ass, you’re up. And because you’re late, you’re skipping the first warm-up set. A hundred-and-sixty. Do it in front of your new girlfriend.”
“I’m not that desperate to impress her, bro. I’m gonna do some warm-ups with the dumbbells over there while you two monsters finish it off up here.”
“Hey, Blaze,” says Trev, “why don’t you spot him?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Spot. It means to help him lift the weights if he can’t. It’s really easier than it looks. You just need to push up gently under his elbows on the sticky spots. Go on. You can do it.”
And she does. I confess that it embarrasses me a little, and I don’t know why. I even try and reduce the groans on each lift. But mostly it just distracts me. Looking up at her one-sided hair, eyes so green they look like clubbing laser lights. O-shaped lips. A gently beaked nose like the head singer of Lorde. I manage little more than seven or eight reps on my first set. A ridiculously low number. But I do get warmed up. Eventually.
While us three gorillas edge each other on with the benchpress, trying to see who can out-ape whom (or maybe it’s who can out-groan whom—Trev won), Blaze hangs back and just watches, fat-ass headset on her ears. On occasion, while we slap each other and punch each other, she laughs.
Skate edges her on to try some of the exercises. She takes the headset off, shakes her head and says, “I’ve never exercised in my whole life.”
He insists. Soon he has her on the circuit-trainers, showing her how the different machines work. She laughs as he does it. After three machines, she’s hung over the bar on the lat-pulldowns machine. But Skate coaxes her on still.
I think to myself that life could not be more perfect. My two greatest friends in the world, a girl who makes me think I’ve been chasing all the wrong things in my life. A girl with a laugh so catching I find myself smiling and ogling her absently, while I’m supposed to be spotting Trev!
He stands beside me, puts an arm around my shoulders. “You gotta go see your dad, bro. He’s your father. Asshole as he is, that’s still the truth of it. You know, there’s this thing called Karma. Something this good”—he looks at Blaze—“doesn’t fall into your lap without wreaking havoc in your past and throwing it all up in your face again. If you wanna keep her, you better make sure your slate is clean, homes.”
“I know, bro. I been thinkin on that myself since I met her. It’s almost like someone—something—threw her in my way, just to show me what I could have if I got my shit together.”
“C’mon, Deck, it’s not like you’re wasting your life. Things are going well for you. So you gotta make good on this one thing. So what? I only mention that Karma shit because I see it in your eyes, homes. There’s something there that doesn’t sit right with you, you know? About your pops. I mean, if I didn’t see it in your eyes every time you speak about him, I wouldn’t push it.”
“I hear you. But there’s something else—on this ‘Karma’ shit or whatever—that has me a little more concerned.”
Trev’s lips tighten. He knows damn well what—or whom—I’m talking about...
He says nothing at first, then: “Well, Deck, you know my position on that. Gina Moretti was a big girl when she met you. And she knew damn well what she was doing with you, and with herself. Drugs don’t take themselves, you know?”
I know that. But she did it because of me. “None of us were big boys or girls. We were all fucking kids. And some of those kids followed me into the scene.”
“Bullshit! I dropped because I wanted to. Just like I stopped because I wanted to. Kids or not, people can think. And, FYI, seventeen ain’t no kid anymore. Kids grow up fast these days. And you can’t tell me a fucking seventeen year old doesn’t know what A is. She knew damn well what that shit was when she took it. Just like you and I never took it for the same reason.”
I don’t comment. It’s a never-ending point of contention between me and Trev. And me and Clarissa.
I get on the inclined bench, under the bar, and put my hands around it. Trev gets behind me, ready to spot. I lift the bar, groan. It’s been a long day. My delts are feeling the weight more than usual.
I try and focus on the two hundred pound weight. Every negative rep thrusts Gina’s gaunt face into my mind; every positive one—the upward motion—brings a sting of pain—her brother’s fists—into my ribs and chest.
I took a beating on that one. I hardly fought back. I had kind of hoped it would work like a type of spiritual flogging. A kind of cleansing. But it didn’t. All it did was leave me with blue ribs and a broken nose.
I sit up on the bench. Trev looks at me with concerned eyes. “So what’s your game plan?”
“Dunno, I might go see her. Clarissa said she’s ‘getting worse.’”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
I shrug to show I don’t know. I look over at Skate pushing an exhausted and shoulder-slumped (but absolutely gorgeous) Blaze around the circuit machines. I look at the mirror on my right, flex my bi once.
Trev sighs. “I thought you weren’t allowed to see her.”
“Clarissa said the doc figured it might help her. Like I’m the last link she has to reality or something. Maybe her parents have taken me off the blacklist—“
“You shoulda never been on that fucking list in the first place. You didn’t force the damn A down her fucking throat—”
“Trev, chill. I hear you.” Like I said, point of contention.
“And what about Dino. Dude damn near killed you last time.”
“I let him. And, besides, I don’t want it to come to that. He had his reasons.”
“Sometimes fixing the past just isn’t possible, Deck. Sometimes, the only way to fix it is to let it go, acknowledge it was crazy and screwed up. And then move on.”
“I hear you, homes. And I’ll do that if I have to. But I think I screwed up a lot of people’s lives back then, just by not realizing that maybe I had some influence over them. And I ain’t trying to come across as conceited or anything, it’s just...a fact. I think I’m only realizing that now.”
“Deck, you were the only one who never realized you were every pussy’s wet dream at school. If you hadn’t been too stupid to see it, you might’ve hooked up a lot more in high school!”
“I hooked up plenty!”
“More, I said. You could’ve hooked up more!”
“Maybe. But it’s not hooking up I’m talking about. And Gina...well...she meant something to me. Even if it was only a little. Acquaintances is one thing. But people you’re close to—well, you can’t just let em slide down the chute and not go after them.”
“Whatever. Do what you have to do. Go see her. Don’t go see her. Just know that I got my scholarship to think of, homes. I can’t bail you outta this one like last time. If you find that Big Brother Dino Moretti has suddenly taken a liking to juice or something, and is now the size of ten Arnold Schwarzeneggers, well, you’re gonna have to fight your way out of that one with Skate only.”
“Skate’s a good fighter.”
I see the giveaway smirk on Trev’s face. Almost at the same time, we both say, “Except against Midwood!”
High School Football. Only, the Midwood game was no football game, it was a bunch of dudes throwing fists at each other when they’d realized the actual game had been lost. “Skate really came out blue and black in that one,” I say.
Trev starts going into fits of laughter, demonstrating an upper cut connecting with Skate’s bloody jaw. Even their Tight End got in on the action! Kicking Skate on the ground.
I’m in hysterics now. We both start reliving it. I say, “And then he cries, ‘Hey, dude—oompf!—Declan started it! Declan started it!! It was his idea—oompf!” I demo a kick to the gut.
I’m almost on the floor with spasmodic laughter when Skate shows u
p. “You guys are assholes, you know? Every year. Every damn year it’s the same shit. Let it go! I was sixteen, OK?” Trev and I can’t stop the fits. Skate mumbles, “Assholes.” He fills Blaze in on the details—just—and soon she’s giggling as well. The laughter’s so hard that my stomach hurts.
Blaze looks up at Skate. “‘Declan started it’? Is that really what you said?”
“Oh, Blaze, not you too now!”
She suppresses a laugh. She sits next to me on the bench, puts her hand on my leg. Skate argues with Trev on the fine details of what really occurred. He tries to convince Trev that it really was my fault.
Soon, it’s just the two of them arguing. My own laughter settles.
I turn and look at Blaze. She looks otherworldly in her exhaustion, her hair matted and sticking to her face and shoulders. “I’m wiped.” Her soft voice is dizzying.
Surrounded by a background of playful teasing, I move down and touch my lips to hers. They’re salty, and her skin is wet. She places a small hand on my cheek. I meet it with my own, feeling my eyes close.
I’m almost drifting off into another world when I hear the mutual roar of my boys behind me: “OH, FUHGAWDSAKE GET A ROOM!”
So we do...
-4-
I drop her off at home. “Did you enjoy it?”
She grabs the car’s door handle. Looks down, ponders her answer. A gentle smirk hits her face that makes me grip the steering wheel tighter.
I want you, I think.
“I especially liked the line, ‘Declan started it!’”
“Oh, you liked that, did you?”
“Yeah...” She bites her lip.
“What?”
“I...” She exhales. “You know, this ‘spilling my guts out’ to you might be harder than I thought.”
“You gotta start somewhere. Now confess.”
Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) Page 11
