by Opal Mellon
“Yes,” he said.
She clasped her hands and leaned forward on them. She looked at both of his eyes and then turned to her drawer and pulled out a form. “I guess you know what you’re doing. But can I ask why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You know you’ll essentially be starting over.”
“I know,” he said.
“You know you’ll need at least a Master’s?”
“Yup.”
“You know you’ll more likely need a PHD, and even then, will have a harder time getting a job than you would in engineering.”
“Yes,” he said. He took the form, grabbed a pen that was attached to a can on her desk, and read through the form before signing it.
“We’ll be sorry to lose you,” she said. She grabbed a Post-it note and opened a directory, wrote a number on it and handed it to him. “Here’s the number for your new counselor. They can help you get oriented with the major.”
“Thanks. Amy,” Justin said, reading her nametag.
He walked out of the career center feeling 10 pounds lighter and 10 inches taller.
He stretched. The air smelled better than he remembered. Spring coming. Lots of changes. And now he’d be on track to start working through his problems. He knew the next step was setting up an appointment for his own counseling, but for now he’d had enough of campus.
He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and hoped it was her. Maybe it’d been good to spend a week apart. He’d been able to work on himself. He still didn’t know exactly what to say to her. He pulled out the phone and opened the text from her.
“Need help. Hurry.”
He stared at the phone. Molly asking for help. That was a first. Maybe he’d proven he was reliable at the hospital. Then why had she thrown him out? She’d made it clear she didn’t want him around. Didn’t want him to worry like that. Didn’t think he was normal enough.
He’d ask her about that when he got there. And he’d tell her about the changes he’d made. Tell her why he was ready to be with her. The things he’d realized. And he’d just have to convince her that he wasn’t too damaged to try.
He had just settled into his junky LeBaron when he realized she might not be talking about her broken arm. What if the stalker was there? He slammed the door and started the car. He didn’t need this. It was like the universe was punishing him at this point. The injury had already shown him how important she was to him; shouldn’t it show her the same thing? It took two to tango. He moved through the parking lot faster than was legal, rolled past stop signs and gassed it through red lights, head spinning.
If he touched her.
It felt like fire moved up him arms from the steering wheel. She was his now, she was his to protect, his to be with. He’d show her and anyone with her that he knew that now. He pulled up in front and saw an elegant BMW parked outside. A rich stalker. Well she’d asked him for help and she was going to get it. He wondered for the first time if he should have come armed. Nah, he’d deal with the little weasel with his bare hands if he needed to. He ran up to the door and rang the doorbell. He waited then pounded on it with one fist.
“Open up or I’m calling the cops!” he said. The door opened.
Chuck stood behind it. Justin tried to look past him.
“Thank goodness you’re here. Molly called you too? I didn’t know she had your number …” he said, trailing off as he caught a glimpse of Molly, rolled up in a blanket on the couch.
“Let me out of here!”
Justin pulled back and looked at Chuck with one eyebrow raised. Then looked back at Molly, tucked in a burrito, arms presumably trapped against her side. Her face was red, and she looked at him with more annoyance than anger. “Chuck let me out of this! Justin it’s a trap.”
Chuck took his arm and pulled him forward into the house and shut the door. Justin moved to go past him and Chuck caught him around the arm.
“Don’t you even see me?” Chuck said. “Even now, do you not see me at all?”
Justin turned to him, impatient to spend even a few seconds looking at him when he had so much to explain to Molly. How had she even wrapped herself up in that blanket? “Why haven’t you unwrapped her?”
“Just see me!” Chuck said. “No one needs to get hurt. Just look at me for a moment.” Chuck pulled Justin’s head towards his, and Justin looked down at the short man. Looked over his features.
“All I see is my friend Chuck,” Justin said. He looked in Chuck’s eyes and saw fire, saw something burning that he didn’t like. “Who likes me,” Justin said. He tried to move to Molly again.
“No,” Chuck said. “I did that.” He pointed at Molly, who grunted in frustration. “She has a broken arm. And I’m not feeling sane. Are you going to risk her getting hurt, when all you have to do is listen to me?”
Justin looked at Chuck, then at Molly, then back at Chuck. “Why are you here again?”
“Justin for Pete’s sake, he’s the stalker.”
“What?” Justin turned to Chuck. “Is that true?”
Chuck moved forward and Justin moved backwards until his back hit the wall. “What do you want?”
“You know,” Chuck said. “You aren’t stupid. You know. You’ve seen me watching. Haven’t you seen me watching?”
Justin looked at Molly who reflected his grossed out look back to him. “No,” he said. “I thought you were my friend.”
“And you thought I just wanted to hang out at a straight club for no reason. I helped you with your clients. I kept the bad ones away from you. You’re my angel.”
Justin grimaced. “What?”
“Take me seriously,” Chuck said. “If not for me, then for her.”
“You won’t hurt her,” he said. “She’s mine.”
He avoided Molly’s eyes as he said it, though it was easy for him to look past Chuck’s shoulder to see her. It was something he wanted to tell her himself, and see the reaction for himself.
“Fine,” Chuck said. “But she doesn’t want you around. Can you protect her the whole time? How do you know when I’ll be around again?”
“She doesn’t have anything you want.”
“She’s pissed me off,” he said.
Justin just wanted it all to be over. “What do you want Chuck?”
“Just once,” Chuck said. “Just once is enough.”
One of those then. Justin took a deep breath. Just one more of these monsters between him and Molly and peace. He was so tired of these people who seemed to think once would be enough, like tasting a special sorbet, or seeing a movie at an IMAX.
“I’m not an experience,” he said. “But I don’t care. Do what you want to, and then leave us alone.” Justin closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He felt Chuck grab his hands and lift them above his head, which felt ridiculous coming from the smaller man. It wasn’t going to be the worst thing that could happen to him. Once more, and he could start his new life. Just one more little price and he could start over with Molly. He thought about living with her, watching anime, practicing psychology and helping others overcome sexual trauma. He heard a loud thump and tried to look over at the couch where Molly had been laying. She wasn’t there.
Chuck turned away from Justin with anger in his face, as if he would go to Molly. Justin grabbed him by the arms and pulled him back. “Leave her alone. You can get what you need here.”
Chuck seemed unable to resist and reached up a hand around the back of Justin’s head. He leaned in to his neck and placed a kiss there. “You don’t know how well I would treat you. You don’t need to be at the club anymore. Just be mine.”
Justin rolled his eyes and was about to go back to his happy place when water and glass shattered around him and Chuck fell to the floor. Justin threw his hands up to protect his face then put them down. Molly stood by the entrance to the kitchen. Pink and white flowers littered the ground around her, and her mouth hung open, panting, and furious. He looked down to Chuck who had slid down to
his knees, then onto his face. The remnants of a glass jar hung around him.
Molly stalked over as ominously as someone in bunny slippers and a cast can walk. She put her good hand up on the wall behind him and glared. “What’s wrong with you?”
He flinched.
“You’ll give it up to anyone, won’t you? Anyone but me? Use it to solve all your problems, use it to get out of anything!” She removed her hand and then pounded it against the wall again and hung her head. “Why is it so easy for you with everyone but me? You’ll just sit there for Valerie. You’ll just sit there for Chuck. Why do I have to keep saving you? Do you even want to be saved?”
He grabbed her behind the neck and kissed her.
Molly froze as Justin attacked. Instant heat from his mouth was stark against the cold of her adrenaline-drained face. How dare he, how dare he let Chuck do that for her, how dare he think that’s what she would want, how dare he use himself as currency… She tried to keep up the angry tirade in her mind against him but found herself growing weak as he kissed her. She started to sink down, and he slipped his other arm around her waist and pulled her up against him. She tried to mumble against him, tried to tell him to stop, but his mouth came down on hers, over and over, his hand clutched her neck, and she could tell that he was transmitting feelings to her, trying to yell at her with his actions. And for once she listened.
And it was nothing like the way he sat and waited for Valerie or Chuck. Nothing passive or mocking. She could feel sincerity with each touch, could feel a promise in his mouth against hers. He pulled back and looked down at her, and she noticed he was flushed, eyes intense and glossy, looking at her like a man pushed past his limit.
In one smooth moment, he grabbed her under the thighs and pulled her up and around his waist and turned to the wall, trapping her there, allowing her bad arm space but trapping the rest of her. As if putting the rest in a Justin cast. She stared up at him dizzily and tried to think of what she had to say to him.
“Why do I let them?” he asked, and then came down and against her at the wall, pressing his chest to hers and pushing his mouth over hers. “Because it’s easy with them,” he said, pulling away only to come back to her neck. She gasped and grabbed his hair with her hand, torn between pulling him away so he could explain and trapping his head there so he’d have to touch her there forever. He picked her up and away from the wall and walked with her around his waist to the couch, where he dropped her, again gently watching for her arm, but otherwise being rough. She tried to sit up and he pushed her back down. He leaned in and kissed her again, pushed her mouth open with his tongue and went in, ran it along the inside of her teeth.
A tinkling of glass from where Chuck sat on the ground had them both freezing. Chuck started to stand and Justin stood up and walked over to him. He pulled Chuck up by the collar, punched him once, hard, across the face, and then dropped him back to the ground.
“Justin, you could have—” Molly tried to move to check on Chuck but found Justin straddling her on the couch. She leaned back and he put a finger to her lips.
“Shh,” he said. “You make it complicated. You think it’s the same with you as it is with them. It isn’t. It’s ten times harder,” he said, grabbing her good hand in his and entwining fingers with hers next to her head on the couch. He kissed her again and she melted, knowing that even if this was confusing, she couldn’t, wouldn’t stop it. It felt too good, too right.
“You hurt me,” he said, pulling away and bringing her palm up to press a kiss to it. Then he put it against his cheek and breathed out. “You confuse me,” he said. He put a hand on either side of her face and looked over her face, over her body. “I’m sorry you hate saving me. But they don’t mean anything. And I’d kiss all of them a thousand times to keep you safe.”
She gasped but he caught most of it when he came to kiss her again. She wanted to tell him she didn’t want that. That she wanted him to be safe too, and she reached up a hand around his neck, and pulled his cheek to hers, pressed her lips to it. Tried to tell him. He pulled away, froze for a moment, and then sunk into it. He twisted to kiss her cheek, then trailed down to her ear, kissed her earlobe, took it in his mouth, hugged it with his lips, then moved down her neck. He moved his hands to her waist, buried his face in her neck and reached around her. He pulled her up to him with one hand and moved the other to cradle her head. She moved with him, letting him control things, control her. His body was talking to her, and she wanted to know everything he was feeling.
He pressed her to him, aligning their chests, took her mouth, held it against his till they breathed at the same intervals, till their hearts synched and the room faded away to nothing. Just the warmth of this person, this friend, this man against her, worshipping her, holding her, scolding her. Holding her like the world would fall apart if he didn’t. He didn’t tongue this time, just let his lips press hers, let her feel the way they fit together as a man and a woman, let her feel his insistence and his pain and his love. Then he pulled back, looked at her face. His eyes looked troubled, his mouth stern. “You confuse me Molly.”
She sat up and hugged him. “Welcome to the club.”
He stiffened then hugged her back. “I don’t deserve that hug,” he said. He looked over at Chuck. “I guess we better take care of him first.”
Molly nodded.
“And then we need to talk,” he said, staring at her again, as if trying discern something from her face.
She didn’t blush. Was way past blushing. He stood and got off of her and she pulled her legs up and together, sat up and curled over them. Feeling hot, feeling jumbled. Beneath arousal, her anger bubbled up again as she saw Justin move over to Chuck. So he thought he could distract her by making out with her? He had another thing coming. She felt tricked again, put a hand up to her face and felt the warmth there. No he’d distracted her, but that was real. There was indeed a lot to talk about once Chuck was gone.
Molly turned her back to the living room and closed her eyes to rest. She heard Justin wake Chuck up. Heard him talk to him about leaving. Heard him warn him about telling the police. Told him he expected a resignation from the club. Told him to get help. Molly felt sick over it, wished it hadn’t happened. Remembered the happy man who’d been her friend at the club, made the other women feel special. Wished he could go back and just tell Justin his feelings in a normal way. But then she wouldn’t have erupted at Justin, and he wouldn’t have picked her up in that kiss, held her like his world depended on it … kissed her like …
She dozed off for a moment, and came to with Justin stroking her hair. She realized her head rested on his lap, rather than on her arm. She looked up at him, turned so that the back of her head rested on his leg.
“So now we have to talk?” she asked.
“I guess so.” He took a piece of her hair between his fingers and twirled it, then dropped it and smoothed his fingers down the side of her face, pushing stray hairs away. “I wish you could just read my mind, and we could make out again.”
She laughed and shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Rats,” he said. But he didn’t seem in any hurry to stop touching her hair.
“Justin,” she said. “I need to know what you’re thinking. I can’t take it anymore.”
He looked away to the side for a moment, seemed to be scanning his own mind, and then turned back. “I love you Molly.”
She put her hand up over her eyes, needed to hide from him. He pulled it away so she had to look at him. “No I mean it. I realized it when I thought I would lose you.”
“Cliché,” she said.
“Because it’s true,” he said. “Just relax.” He pressed her restless hand down and stroked her hair again. “You’ve expended too much energy already.”
“Like I was just going to watch him do that,” she said.
He laughed. “I guess I should have known.” He puffed out his cheeks and let the air out slowly. Rubbed his eye. “I thought that
was the easiest solution.”
“I hope by now you see that that’s never going to be easy with me around,” she said. “Gross.”
“All right,” he said. “Who am I allowed to make out with then?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Me.”
“Hmm,” he said. “So you were jealous.”
She pushed away from him and sat up. Folded her arms. “No. I was indignant.“
“But you’ve got it all wrong. You said something about how I could do it with everyone else. In some way, that’s true. It’s easy to be abused. It’s what I know.”
She huffed. Wanted to shut down again.
“But I’m done with what’s easy.” He tried to coax her back to his lap but she pulled back and leaned on the other end of the couch. “I changed my major today.”
“What?”
“To Psychology.”
“Why?” Did he not want to have her tutor him, to have to see her?
“I want to help people,” he said. “People like me.”
“Don’t you need to help yourself first?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I decided this week. After you threw me out. I decided that if you wouldn’t let me protect you as a friend, I’d get healthy and show you that I can be with you.”
“Be with me?”
“Like Jason could be with you. Like someone normal could be with you.”
“What happened with Chuck anyway?”
“I sent him home,” Justin said. He looked down at his hands, picked at a nail. “I really wish all of that hadn’t happened. He was a good host.”
“Yeah, he was,” Molly said. “I guess none of you are normal.”
“Do you want normal?” he asked. “Or do you want me?”
Molly looked him over and thought about it. Saw black hair that was fading to brown, saw ocean blue eyes that were bright and clear. He did seem happier. He seemed to have changed.
“You really want a job where you have to listen to people whine?”
He laughed and pulled her in for a hug. “Yeah, I think I do,” he said. “I want to help other people come to the conclusions I have. That you don’t have to run, and that you can be perfectly uncomfortable and perfectly happy at the same time.”
