by Brown, Tara
"I was fine." I'm humiliated just seeing him.
I ran out on him.
His hazel eyes are greener than normal. Against his olive skin they stand out, as does the worry and concern plastered to his face.
I stand up straight and climb off the treadmill. He grabs my arm. I pull harshly. I stop myself mid pull and shake my head, "Sor-sorry."
He puts his hand in the air fast, "No. I'm sorry. But you looked like you were about to pass out."
I put my hands on my hips and pace, "I was." I laugh and cough. My throat is ragged. I force myself to look at him, "I'm sorry."
He shakes his head, "No. Don't be. I shouldn’t have grabbed at you." He still gets it. Even after running out o him, he gets it.
I laugh, "I mean about the penthouse." I clear my throat and notice it's not happy with me. It hurts like it's bleeding.
He nods, looking crushed. "Ah yes, the lovely dinner I had being made for you that you ran out on. Yes, I suppose you owe me an apology for that. The chef was at my place for five hours prepping. It was delicious. You missed out. Maybe next time?"
I pace back and forth, "I don’t have an excuse. I'm just…well…I'm sorry." I could cry any second. I'm so embarrassed. I hate myself so much. I would do anything to make it okay, make me be normal.
He pulls hand sanitizer from his jogging pants pocket and holds it up. I burst into laughter. He smiles, "You've got me addicted."
He pours some on my hands and then his. I rub them and walk for the wipe cloths. I tug a few out of the dispenser and go clean my machine.
He grabs my water bottle. I can't drink from it now, but it was nice of him to grab it.
He sees me eyeballing his hands on my water bottle. He holds it out, "Drink some." His eyes challenge me.
I look at him, "I can't." I can't fight the frown on my face.
He stands in front of me and shakes his head, "Do it."
I stop and look at the bottle.
He speaks loudly, "I've cleaned my hands. I never touched anything before I touched it. Just have some water."
If only he knew what he was asking me. I shake my head and try to walk past him. He grabs my arm again. I don't pull away. He drags me into his embrace. He holds me tight to his chest. His shirt is damp with the sweat from his own workout.
I could die feeling the cold, damp fabric against my face.
"Drink it, Emalyn. Please." His voice has become a whisper.
I whisper back, "How did you know I wouldn’t have any?" He takes my hand in his and pulls me outside.
The fresh air is nice. It's not one hundred percent fresh with the humidity but it's better than the recycled air in the gym.
I pull at his hand, "How did you know?"
His eyes say things he doesn’t want to.
I jerk my hand free, "Which website did you check out?" I hate being diagnosed. He isn’t the first person to do it.
He sighs, "I called my uncle. He recommended a friend. I told him that you saw that chef and that penthouse and you spazzed. Any normal girl would have died and gone to heaven for a guy to put that kind of effort in."
Normal.
He sees how not normal I am.
My jaw trembles. I point, "I never asked you to be my friend. I never asked for your help." I stomp away. I would run but my legs are almost crippled from the run. It's a bad feeling. I ran so hard I can't run away when I need to.
I can hear his footsteps behind me. My heart races. I look back, "Just leave me alone."
He shakes his head and does the thing I asked him to do. He turns away and walks off. It disappoints me, which makes me mad at myself.
I hate being a predictable girl.
I slow down as I reach my dorm. He's standing on the steps with his arms crossed, breathing heavily. He's run around the other side of the building to beat me here.
"Didn’t your uncle's friend explain about the paranoia, people like me get?" I ask, trying desperately to be funny. I joke, praying he will give up on the water thing. The worst part about being me, is realizing how irrational I am. I only ever see it afterward. I know in an hour I'll be upset with myself.
Sebastian nods slowly, "He did. He also said that the only way to help was to force you out of your comfort zone, one tiny baby step at a time. He walks down the steps and holds my water bottle out. "Drink some."
I panic, "You've taken it with you. You could have done something to it." I almost stutter. I see the irrational behavior but am incapable of stopping it.
He shakes his head, "I sprinted around the building to beat you here. You know that it's impossible for me to even have longer than a second to unscrew it. I would have missed you if I had. Drink some."
I snatch the bottle as my anger flares, "You're making a big deal about nothing." I snap at him.
"The penthouse wasn't nothing. Baby steps, Em."
The New Leaf. If not for him, for me, I sigh, unscrewing the cap and I licking my lips. His eyes are hopeful. I can't stop the trembling hand or the twitching lips, as I lift it to my mouth. The warmth of the plastic makes me sick. I almost gag but I tilt it back. He watches every tremble. Every motion and emotion.
I blank my mind and let the liquid pour into the back of my mouth." My throat wants to close. My lips want to clamp shut. But I take the control and force myself to drink the liquid. I lower the bottle and screw the cap on. "Happy?" My words are cold and dead. I'm angry and I hate that it's not entirely him I'm mad at.
"Not even close." His voice is so hard and filled with disgust. I disgust him. I can see it. He walks away from me. Leaving me standing on the stairs.
In the shower, I spend a long time trying to talk myself out of the crazy way I am acting. I like him. I like him a lot. But the crazy side of me has made up her mind. She hates him. She hates the challenges he creates. She likes the safety and comfort of the routine. There isn’t any point in arguing with her when she's lie this. I shut my mind down and try to relax and not think about the communal showers.
I rinse off and wrap myself in my robe. I shuffle down the hall, looking behind me several times. I despise the communal showers. It's the worst part of my day. I have to drag travel-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner and put them through the dishwasher afterward. Not to mention the number of rubber shower shoes I've gone through or the fact I can't touch the shower curtain with my bare hand, I always have wipes next to me.
Shell looks up from her phone when I walk in, "You okay?"
I shake my head, "I'm tired of being a shell of a human. I would do anything to be a real girl."
She grimaces but snorts, "It's not that bad. You're getting better everyday. I never would have imagined you would make dorm life happen and look at you. And we went to the bar. And you've eaten in restaurants. And Sebastian seems nice. Hot and nice."
I shake my head. "I don’t want to see him anymore."
She sits up on her bed. "Did he try something?"
I frown, "No. He's just like everyone else. He'll never see me." I lie back on the bed and close my eyes. She climbs on the bed with me and wraps herself around me. She smells like pumpkin-spice. It makes me happy.
"I see you."
I nod, "I know."
Her warmth and softness is comforting. I imagine it's what a mother feels like.
I let her wrap around me and be there. Be the wall that separates the girl I am and the girl I want to be. I feel her fingers at my ears. We're sharing ear buds, like we did when we were little. Mine smells like sani wipes. It makes me smile and feel grateful.
Bon Iver starts singing and I forget everything. It's me and her. I don’t need boys. I need her and ear buds, one for her and one for me. Mine has to be clean though.
My phone vibrates. I grab it.
'Hi. Are you having a good day?'
I'm confused. 'Hi. Did Doctor Bradley up your meds? You seem cheerful.' It's brazen of me, but I don’t care at the moment.
'Funny girl. What are you doing?'
'Hanging
out. Listening to music with Shell.'
'Call her Michelle please. What are you listening to?'
I grin, 'Bon Iver.'
'Bon Iver is a very talented group. I've been to four of their concerts.'
I laugh, 'No way.'
'Way! See how silly it sounds. Please speak like an adult.'
I laugh. Michelle moans, "What are you doing?"
"He's being funny."
"Who?"
I grin, "Uncle Daddy Dude. He's been to like four of Bon Iver's concerts."
She laughs, "No way."
I grin at her, "Way." It does sound silly.
"He's not as stodgy as we thought I guess huh?" She moans into my pillow and squirms into the bed to get comfier. I don’t love her face on my pillow like that. My nose wrinkles involuntarily.
The thought crosses my mind and I send him a text. 'You're cooler than I thought you were'
'Ah, so you see me as human now?'
'Just barely!' I smile when I press send.
'How's the guy from the gym?'
I frown, 'Not good. Bit of a wanker.'
My phone rings. I roll away from Michelle, who sounds like she might fall asleep.
"Hi."
His voice is deep and relaxed, "I thought he was your dreamboat?"
I laugh, it's playful and resembles a giggle, "Who even says dreamboat?"
"Well?"
I shake my head, playing with the edge of the blanket I'm lying on. "No. Not so dreamboatish."
He sighs and I'm not entirely sure it isn’t relief, "Why? Did he hurt you?"
I press my lips together and nod. It takes me a minute to answer, "I guess so."
"How?" His voice is angry. The switch is fast and slightly creepy.
"He didn’t…like…touch…me. He just made me do things I didn’t want to do."
"Oh my god, what?" He sounds panicked.
I moan, "No. He...like made me drink water from a sports bottle he touched and made me dinner at a penthouse he lured me to."
He laughs. I've never heard a full laugh from him before. It sounds like he's pulled his hands away, and his laugh is an echo in the silent room.
He stops laughing. No amount of Bon Iver will fix the way he's mocking me. He's still chuckling when he speaks, "I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I very nearly made a phone call I couldn’t take back. You scared me. I thought he'd done something to you."
"Well he did. He's trying to fix me. He's trying to push me and I don’t want that. Not from him. I just wanted him to see me as a normal girl. As a girl at school. Not a project to fix." I realize I've raised my voice and am sitting up staring at the cold floor.
He clears his throat, "Have you considered he sees you as a girl. Not all girls are whole when you meet them. Sometimes you have to help them get there. Right now, you are a broken girl. That doesn’t mean that you'll always be broken. That doesn’t make you less of a girl." He clears his throat again, "I'll call the doc. She'll want to talk to you."
The tears in my eyes don’t come out. They stay in there like tiny kaleidoscopes, trying to make the world the way I need it to be. My words don’t come right away. I don’t hear the click on his end when I whisper, "I'm not broken." But he isn’t there. He never really is. He is the master of not being there.
Chapter Five
Weeks have passed and I have not seen him.
I miss him.
I don’t know what his number is or how to find him.
I can't find my way back to the penthouse.
I tried. I got lost.
I even attempted to use his name and 411 but that is an impossibility. People only have cell phones, which are hard to track. I almost asked Stuart to help me track him. But I didn’t. Who wants to be the girl the guy doesn’t want.
Sebastian has evaded me.
"He's still an asshole?" She mutters it over her laptop.
I look at her and frown, "What?"
Shell smiles, "I saw the look in your eyes."
I shake my head, "Just tired. No look."
"K. I won't say I saw him yesterday then."
My heart almost jumps out of my chest, "What? Where? Did he talk to you?"
She nods with a sinister grin.
I throw my pillow at her, knocking her computer screen down and closing the laptop. She shoots me a blazing glare and points a bright red fingernail, "That better not have done anything to that. I was done."
"What did he say? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?" I'm dying. Why is she being so sneaky?
She opens the computer. I groan, "Shell, I am going to snap that thing in half."
She laughs, "He said he was good and asked me a million, no maybe a billion, questions about you."
"Like what?" I quickly grab my pillow and put it back.
"He said he missed you and wished things had worked out."
I scowl, "That’s not good. Wished? Like past tense?" Shit, the only guy that ever got me. Shit.
She tilts her head, "No. Like he's picking you up in fifteen-minutes."
It takes a second to sink in, "What? Why?" Then I get angry, "I don’t want to see him." I know it's irrational but I can't stop myself from being indignant. "He's a jerk. Why would he be coming here?"
She laughs, "Oh my god, for a girl who has never dated you have spun out head case mastered."
I jump up and start grabbing clothes. I'm furious, "Why didn’t you tell me. Oh my god. I hate you." I pick up all her dirty laundry and put it in the hamper and wipe down the room again.
She laughs, "Because I knew you would find a way not to see him and you've been moping around here non stop. You're acting nuts dude."
I'm ripping my clothes off and then pulling on new ones. I'm not even sure what I'm wearing.
I just rant. "I cannot believe you would do this to me. I told you I have no desire to see him. He was a jerk to me." I can't stop my arms from dragging a brush down my hair or lipgloss from being applied. I look at her in the mirror as I draw on some eyeliner, "You are so selfish sometimes. You just want to go off and be with Stuart. You don’t want to leave me with the lonely so you hired me a babysitter."
She shakes her head slowly.
I inspect myself and look back at her, "And for another thing, Daddy Uncle Weirdo isn’t going to just let me go out. You've probably started a war now." I dump a ton of hand sanitizer on my hands and grab a wipe to open the door with. I glare back at her when I grab my cell phone and storm to the door.
"Where are you going?" She asks, stifling a laugh.
I snarl, "I have to go tell him to get lost. The nuns raised me better than that." I fling open the door and stomp down the halls.
A guy gives me a crazy look as he almost slides against the wall to avoid me.
I stomp down the stairs and fling the door open. Sebastian isn’t standing at the bottom of the stairs. He isn’t even there. I look at my cell for the time just as it vibrates.
I read, 'Hi.'
I roll my eyes, 'Not now.'
'Don't be sassy. What are you doing?'
'Waiting for Sebastian so I can tell him to get lost!'
'If you leave the dorms message me!'
'Whatever. I already left. I'm out front.'
'Don't push me!'
'Whatever!!!!!!!!'
I put the phone back in my pocket.
I jump when I hear a voice in the dark silence, "You look nice."
I glance up. Sebastian's staring at me from the shadows of the pathway. He's leaning against a post. He looks divine. How is it possible, he's only wearing faded jeans and a beige long sleeve shirt?
"Why are you here?" I don’t move. I'm terrified I will forget that I'm mad, because if I'm honest I want him. I want to be with him. More than I want anything.
"I needed to see you."
Need. That is a strong word.
"Why?" I still have acid on my tongue leftover from yelling at Michelle and my words are filled with it.
"I needed to see you." He rep
eats himself.
I smile. I like that word, need. It's not want. He had no choice because it was a need to see me. I like that.
He pushes off of the pole and walks towards me. His watch catches my eye. It's shiny and not his running watch.
"Why?" I ask again.
He climbs the stairs, standing just below me, down a couple stairs. His eyes are at my level instead of a foot above me.
He swallows, "I'm sorry I researched your paranoia and OCD. I'm sorry I presumed to hire a chef to make you dinner. Mostly I'm sorry I challenged your comfort and tried to get you to drink the water."
He melts all my irrational anger. I realize I'm more hurt that he stayed away so long. I lift my hand, it frightens me more than anything in the world, but I do it. I touch his face. His skin is warm. I can feel his stubble. He looks tired.
"Why didn't you come and see me?" I know the answer. Because I am a head case. Because I can't eat dinner or drink water.
He shakes his head subtly, "I thought I should stay away. I scared you. I didn’t mean to. The way you looked at me, when we were at my penthouse was so horrid. You were terrified. I never wanted to see you look like that again. I hated myself for making you feel that way. Not to mention how angry you looked when I made you drink the water. I'm sorry, Em."
My fingers dig in slightly. I have the strangest urge. Before I can think my way out of it, I grab his face and pull him in. His arms wrap around me. He squeezes me. There is a tremor to his touch. Like he's panicked. I know I am.
His arms are fully encompassing me.
"I never meant to overstep my bounds." My hair in his face muffles his voice.
I shake my head, "It was my fault. I just don’t trust people. You scared me."
"I know. I just want you to let me in."
I can't face him. I whisper, "You can't fix me, Sebastian. I'm not broken. I'm ruined." My brain holds all the reasons why I'm ruined behind a wall. I don’t ever get to see them. But I know they're there.
I feel his jaw clench against my shoulder.
"You have to accept me for what I am."
He nods, "Okay."
He lowers his hands and grips both of mine. He pulls back and presses his soft lips into my cheek. He stays there, breathing on me. It's disturbing and delicious.
