by H. D. Gordon
My stomach flipped for more reasons than one, and my eyes slowly lifted to the deep brown of his. A small smile sat on his handsome face, his blond hair styled in that purposely messy way that I had never really found attractive, until I’d met him.
He leaned his forearms on the bar and brought his face close to mine, as if he was trying to make sure I wasn’t an apparition or something. I could do nothing but stare back at him. I had spent a considerable amount of time at the cabin thinking about him, about the fact that he probably already knew too much about me, and the even more disturbing truth that I had wanted to tell him more. I’d decided I would stay away from him. Now that he was this close, I realized I’d underestimated the difficulty of the task.
I had barely completed these thoughts when he came around to my side of the bar and scooped me up into a hug that lifted me off my feet. My arms went around him more out of surprise than anything, but once they were there, I remembered how safe I’d felt in his arms, a safety I had never felt in my life before. It made me instantly suspicious...and surprisingly sad.
He held me for nearly a minute, burying his face in my hair, his warm breath brushing across my neck. “You’re back,” he said.
I swallowed once. “Hi, Michael,” I said, amazed that I was able to get those two words out smoothly, especially with the way my heart seemed to be beating out of my chest.
Michael set me down, but kept his hands at my waist as he stepped back to look at me again. I stared at him in silence, both because talking was difficult for me, and because I had no idea what to say. I would be twenty-two years old soon, but the nature of my life had left very little time for romantic relationships, so even this was new ground for me.
One side of his mouth lifted into a smile, as if he could read my thoughts. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just beginning to think you were never going to come back from…wherever you were.” His hand came up and rested on my cheek, which I was sure looked like a rose garden in full bloom. “I just had to make sure you were real,” he added.
I felt my own lips pull up into a smile, and had to avert my eyes for no reason I could pinpoint. After everything I had lived through, how was it that one guy could make me so dang nervous?
Aunt Susan came out from her office beside the bar, and a humored smirk lit up her face when Michael turned to her, and with a huge, child-like smile on his face, said, “She’s back.”
Susan laughed. “Yeah, I noticed. Now get out from behind that bar, son, unless you planned on working tonight.”
Michael’s smile turned into a grin. “Actually, I have my shirt in the car. I could bar back if you want me to.”
It took me a minute to pick up on the implication there. My eyes went to my aunt, who had a sheepish look on her face. “Wuh-wait,” I said. “What?”
Aunt Susan shrugged. When I just stood staring at her, she tossed her hands up. “I hired him,” she said. “You were gone for nearly two months, honey, and he just kept on sitting there every day, drinking soda and eating cheeseburgers, so I figured I may as well put him to work while he was waiting for you.”
It took effort to keep my jaw from hanging open. This was all I needed right now. What came out of my mouth next did so on its own. “Waiting f-for me?” I said.
Michael shoved his hands in his pockets, and now it seemed he was the one would couldn’t look at me. “Well, you just disappeared,” he said. “I didn’t want to hang out on your doorstep. Actually, I tried that for a couple days, until that grumpy old man ran me off. So I just started coming here and your lovely aunt gave me a job.” He bit his lip to keep from rambling on. I couldn’t help a smile. From what I knew of him, Michael could charm the pants off of anyone, but he tended to ramble around me.
I turned and resumed polishing glasses, because I couldn’t seem to look at him without grinning like an idiot, even though my stomach was in knots. “Okay,” I said, knowing it was a lame response.
From my peripheral, I could see my aunt shrug at Michael. “Go grab your shirt then,” she said. “I think we’re going to be pretty busy tonight, anyway.”
Once he was gone, I set the glass I was holding on the bar and turned toward my aunt, eyebrows raised.
She waved a hand at me. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said.
I stepped closer to her. “He already nuh-nuh-knows too much,” I whispered.
She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “Do you trust me?” she asked.
I nodded. She knew I did.
“Then trust me on this. Michael is a good boy. I knew his father, Dr. Wilkens, and he was a good man, too. You should have seen the way he waited here for you all summer, the way his face fell when I shook my head and told him you hadn’t called, and I couldn’t tell him where you were, so all he could do was wait. I don’t know what exactly happened between you two…” Her warm hand came up and rested on my face. She let out a heavy breath. “You’re going to have to trust someone at some point, honey. Everyone has secrets, it’s finding people you can share them with that makes life worthwhile.”
For some reason, this made my eyes burn a little. I nodded, not wanting to deal with this right now. How could I make her understand that my secret was not like other peoples’ secrets? How could I tell her that bringing other people into my life not only put me in danger, but them as well? It didn’t matter anyway. She’d already hired him, and on top of that, Aunt Susan was like a mother to me, and I was not going to argue with the one person who had been there for me my whole life.
“Okay,” I said again, telling her I wasn’t mad with a small smile.
She kissed my forehead. “Good. You need some normalcy in your life, honey. Just trust me on this one.” She patted my shoulder one last time and disappeared into her office.
Michael returned a minute later, and luckily, the crowd had already started to thicken in the bar. My aunt had been right, business had risen since I’d been gone. Soon, I was slinging beers and drinks too quickly to allow for conversation, which I was grateful for. I didn’t know what to say to Michael, or what to think about the fact that he’d been literally awaiting my return all summer. I definitely didn’t want to think about the way my stomach flipped every time he smiled at me or brushed against me. I had much more important things I should be contemplating.
But before I knew it, closing time was approaching and the last customers were leaving the bar. I looked around, intending to clean things up for the night, but realized all of the closing tasks were already completed. It seemed Michael was a good worker. In fact, he’d made the work much easier all night.
When I realized I could pretty much just empty my cash drawer and be done, I noticed Michael leaning against the bar, looking at me. “Th-thank you,” I said.
He waved a hand. “You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.”
I nodded and grabbed my purse from beneath the bar, intending to make a quick escape to my apartment, where I could think about all of this without being distracted by his pretty brown eyes. Taking the cash out of the register, I took it into my aunt’s office and put it on her desk. She smiled up at me over her reading glasses. “Thanks, honey,” she said, and I didn’t miss the twinkle in her eyes when she told me to get home safely. I suppressed a sigh.
When I came back out, I found Michael waiting for me with his car keys in his hand. “Did we finish up earlier than you expected?” he asked.
I checked my watch. It usually took me an hour to close up the bar after all the customers were gone. I nodded in answer.
Michael smiled. “Good, then do you want to…hang out or something? I mean, since you’d planned to still be working anyway.”
I opened my mouth to answer before I could change my mind. “I, uh, I don’t think nuh-now is a guh-good time,” I said.
He bit his lip. “Well, what about tomorrow? Or the day after that? Or next weekend?”
I looked down at my shoes. This situation was completely alien to me, and I didn�
��t know how to handle it. I spoke slowly to control my fluency. “I…I just…it’s just th-that I’ve got uh-a lot on my mind,” I said.
Michael opened the door for me and we stepped out into the parking lot. As the hot summer air surrounded us, silence fell between us. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked me to my car. When we got there, he put his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. He seemed to battle with what he was going to say next.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, his usually confident demeanor disarmingly apprehensive. “I get the feeling that it’s never a good time for you, and I get it…at least, I think I get it. Your life is complicated, a mystery even, and I suspect you have good reasons for that, but the thing is…” he trailed off.
I swallowed once. “What?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear whatever he was going to say next, but unable to stop myself from asking.
He let out a slow breath and met my eyes again. “The thing is I can’t stop thinking about you. The truth is…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the first time we spoke in creative writing last semester.” He ran a hand through his hair, as if the words were hard to find. “Hell, I’ve lost sleep thinking about you. I find every time I sit down to write a poem, you’re the subject of it.” His warm hand came up and rested on my face, and I found that it was a little difficult to take in air.
His voice was lower now, almost a whisper. “I promise I won’t ask questions. I don’t want you to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me,” he paused, his brown eyes staring into mine as if the answers to the universe were hidden there. “It’s torture,” he said. “These last seven weeks without you has been torture. So, please, you don’t have to let me in, just don’t…push me away.”
I found I could do nothing but answer honestly, and this increased my fear, which was only one of a million emotions roiling inside of me. “I don’t wuh-want you to get h-hurt,” I whispered, feeling a stinging in my eyes that embarrassed me. I hadn’t cried since right after the shooting. Why was I suddenly overwhelmed with emotion now?
A sad smile came to his handsome face, and it made my heart ache a little. “I’m already hurting,” he said, so low I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear it.
I had to look away. I had to focus on anything other than the way he made my heart race and my palms sweat, and tell him, for both our sakes, that what he wanted just wasn’t possible. A yellow flyer trapped under the windshield wiper of my El Camino grabbed my attention. I used it as an excuse to step away from Michael a little, pulling it free and ignoring the dropping of his shoulders when I looked down at it.
“What’s that?” he asked, and that was all I heard before the world was ripped out from under me.
***
I was on a road. Standing on a road I didn’t recognize, the world around me drawn in gray. The landscape to either side of me was barren, save for a few tumble weeds that added to the melancholy feel of the place. I felt my feet move forward, the soles of my tennis shoes moving silently over the tarmac, the wind blowing through my black hair and whipping it up around my face.
Ahead, all was dark. I could tell the road went on, perhaps endlessly, but could not see where it led, where it was taking me. Then, on both sides of the road, they started to appear, one by one. At first, I refused to believe it, tried to think of something else they could be, but as I passed a dozen, then two dozen, then a hundred, I found there was no denying it.
Bodies wrapped in white sheets.
The wind continued to stir as I moved forward, wanting to either run or curl into a ball, but unable to do either. The white sheets rippled and small fingers peeked out here and there, small shoes and uncombed hair stirring in the breathless wind. I could feel warm tears streaming down my face and a gut-wrenching cry coming up my throat, but the only sound was the ripple of those white sheets, the only option to keep on walking.
Something wrapped around me, encircling my waist, and I fought to push it away. I didn’t want to be here. I had to get out of here. I tried to scream again, and this time, it ripped up my throat painfully. Somewhere in the distance, a familiar voice called my name.
A moment later, I snapped back to reality, the road and its dreadful illusions melting away like warm butter, and I blinked up into worried brown eyes. “Joe?” Michael asked. “Joe, are you okay?”
To my embarrassment, as reality slowly came back to me, I realized that my knees must have given out, and that Michael was holding me up in the parking lot of the bar. I shook my head to orient myself, trying to remember what happened. “Wuh-wuh-what huh-happened?” I asked.
Michael’s face was tight with concern as he helped me stand on my own. “I don’t know,” he said. “Your eyes just rolled back in your head and you collapsed. I thought you were having a seizure, but then you screamed and I started shaking you to wake you up.”
Just then, Aunt Susan came running out of the bar. She rushed over to us. “What happened?” she asked. “I heard a scream.” She looked at me with wide eyes. “You okay?”
“I…yeah. It wuh-wuh-was nuh-nuh-nothing,” I said, cringing inwardly at my inability to speak clearly. Even if she didn’t know me so well, the stutter alone was enough to belie my words.
Aunt Susan gave me a hard look. “Right,” she said, and turned to Michael. “Would you mind seeing her home? Just in case ‘nothing’ happens again?”
“Th-that’s nuh-not—”
Her steel gaze snapped to me again, cutting off my protests mid-sentence. Michael nodded immediately in answer. “Of course,” he said.
Before I could protest again, he picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder, carrying me over to his Lexus like I was nothing more than a bag of feathers. I was caught so off-guard that all I could do was shoot my aunt disapproving looks as she stood there and watched as Michael set me gently in the passenger seat of his car and buckled me in.
“I’m rrrreally fuh-fine,” I said, though my shaking hands said I was not.
“Right,” Michael said, before shutting the door and heading over to the driver’s side. I glared at my aunt until we exited the parking lot, and though she still looked worried, I could see the smile in her eyes even from the car.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning and bring you back to your car if you want,” Michael said, once again reading my thoughts. At least his insight could be convenient sometimes.
I let out a slow breath, desperately trying to steady my racing heart. I didn’t seem to have control over anything lately. “Okay,” I said.
One side of his mouth pulled up. “Try not to sound too excited.”
I shook my head and spread my hands, realizing only then that I was still holding the yellow flyer, crumpled now into nearly a ball as I had crushed it in my grip. I smoothed it out slowly and stared down at it. The only picture was that of a huge crucifix and words typed in bold print. They seemed to scream out at me from the page.
Come join the people of Heaven’s Temple!
We understand your struggle! We feel your pain!
Let the Father lead you down the Road to Salvation!
Come hear the word of the Lord and cleanse your soul!
This Sunday at 6 p. m.!
135 Leads Road, Sandersville MO
All are welcome!
“Look,” Michael said, drawing my attention away from the flyer and pointing at his windshield, where another piece of yellow paper was slowly working itself free in the wind. “They put one on my car, too.”
I nodded and didn’t speak the rest of the ride home. Though I could tell he wanted to, Michael didn’t ask questions. I was beyond grateful to him for this. Being at the cabin alone for so many weeks had made me forget how much I appreciated this quality of his, of knowing when to not speak.
My head was still reeling over what had just happened. Never in my life had a vision done that to me before. What did it mean? How was it connected to my drawing? I rubbed my forehead with my fingers. I could feel a headache formin
g. The events of the day had put me in informational and emotional overload. What I wanted right then was to be curled up on my bed with my head under the covers, alone.
But we can’t always get what we want, and I should’ve known better by this point in my life, anyway. The board had been set, the game had begun, and I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to be tossed into the arena, where the starving lion was making its den.
And I wasn’t the only one. Not by a long shot.
Chapter 7
Joe
Had I not been so distracted, I would have noticed his car in the small parking lot. As it was, I didn’t know he was there until it was too late to prevent an awkward situation. It didn’t help that Michael, gentleman that he was, insisted on walking me up the stairs to my apartment door. I saw Kyle standing on the landing when we were about halfway up, and he saw me, so it was too late for retreat.
