Right Now

by Marie Hall

  Nodding, I kissed the crown of her head. There wasn’t much else to say to that.

  Walking at a brisk pace, I hopped the steps two at a time and followed Thomas.

  “Hello, Walter.” Thomas leaned forward and shook hands with a barrel-chested man who was standing within a group of five older men. Walter’s hair was snow white and cropped short on the sides of his head.

  “Thomas,” he said in a thick Kentucky accent before returning to his group who, as we were walking away, erupted into a choir of laughter.

  Obviously Walter was somebody. Good to know.

  The room we walked into had rich wood furnishings. There was even a massive desk with a golden desk lamp that, with its green glass dome shade and dangling chain, reminded me of the kinds you saw in old crime movies.

  He closed the door behind us.

  It’d be hard to actually call this a room—it was more like an apartment. It was massive. Bookshelves lined every inch of the space from floor to ceiling. A standing globe dominated one corner. Anchors and small wooden ship replicas trapped in glass bottles were everywhere.

  “You like sailing?” I asked, flipping the globe around, letting my fingers run along the textured surface.

  “No. It’s Kaori’s doing.”

  I chuckled under my breath.

  “Care for a drink, son?” he asked, walking toward a silver cart full of clear glass decanters.

  After the disaster at the bar, I was trying to keep away from the liquid poison. So I shook my head. “Can’t tonight. But thanks.”

  Nodding, he poured himself a snifter of brandy and then headed to his desk, pulling out his ergonomic chair and taking a seat.

  “Sit, son.”

  The son shtick was starting to get annoying, but I sat anyway. Expecting a come-to-Jesus talk, I crossed my legs and waited for it.

  “I want you to leave my daughter alone.”

  I licked my teeth. “I was wondering when we’d get around to this conversation,” I admitted.

  Thomas merely inclined his head and then pulled open a drawer. He extracted a manila envelope and slid it across to me.

  “What’s this?” I frowned, eyeing the thing hard.

  “I appreciate honesty in a man, which is why you’ll get no bullshit from me. Open the file. You’ll know what all this is about the second you do.”

  Cold. Ice cold. That’s how the tips of my fingers suddenly felt. But the rest of me was hot as I cracked the envelope open.

  “You won’t have to dig far to discover that I know quite a bit about you now. Average student with a low-B average. You haven’t been on campus for a year. About the time a Ms. Liliana Delgado moved into your half-acre-lot ranch-style home.”

  He was talking but I wasn’t hearing, because there was a droning sound building in the back of my skull. Making me feel like I was trying to hear him through a tunnel.

  I flipped through page after page outlining my life and felt the sickness squeeze my gut, clamp on to my insides.

  Ryan hadn’t reported the crime, it couldn’t be in here. But I was like a man possessed, tossing one paper after another onto his plush, thick, expensive carpet.

  My high school grades.

  The first car accident I’d had when I’d turned sixteen. The three speeding tickets. I swallowed hard, stomach revolting violently.

  Ryan’s term of service and his honorable discharge was even in here. My skin was so hot, and my heart was moving way too fast.

  A picture of me in a toga, front page of the college paper from when my frat had thrown a party. I was obviously drunk—there were three girls hanging around my neck. Girls I’d slept with at some point that night.

  “Where did you get this?” My voice was even, not even a flicker in it. But inside I was seething, my palms were sweating. Black dots danced in my vision.

  “Where doesn’t matter. Point is, you’re not good enough for her.”

  I still wasn’t done flipping through the pages, and my hands shook when I got to the end and realized it wasn’t in there.

  “Who the hell gave you the right—”

  Taking a sip of his brandy, he smiled. “You did, son, the moment you decided to date her. I’m no fool. I knew you and my daughter weren’t actually dating the first time we met. Just like I now know that you’ve been seeing her this past month.”

  Gritting my teeth, I wanted to roar, rage, and slam my fist into his smug face, but all I kept thinking was: Zoe. I can’t, for Zoe.

  “If you’ve checked into my life then you know I’m no different than most red-blooded males, but that I’m healthy, have never been in jail, and that I care for your daughter. A lot.”

  “All that’s well and good—for someone else’s daughter. Now I told Misaki that when she dated that scum Ricky, or Ryky, or hell… I don’t know what you young people call yourselves these days.”

  He laughed, but I wasn’t laughing, I was clenching my fist and trying to do anything in my power to keep from jumping over the desk and choking him out.

  “My daughter has made her point, and now it’s time for her to grow up. I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice guy, but I’m done seeing her throw her life away.”

  I jerked to my feet. “And being with me is throwing her life away?”

  “Tell me, boy…” He took another swallow of his drink. “When do you plan to finish college?”

  My nostrils flared.

  He shrugged. “That too hard of a question? Okay, how about this one, when do you plan to stop working at a coffee shop? Or do you hope to maybe make manager someday? It’s not that I think you’re not good enough, son, it’s that I don’t think you’re good enough for her.”

  There were no longer black spots; my vision was completely red.

  “Admit it, you’re adrift, and I just can’t have that. I’m a father, and I know you don’t understand it now, but someday you will. I love that girl. Only reason why I’m doing this is for her.”

  Turning on my heel and walking to the door was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m not a fighter. I’m not like Ryan. I like to laugh, to goof around with life. Things rarely make me angry. But I am human.

  I was halfway there when his words stopped me.

  “There was one thing I’d wondered about though. A 911 call made seven years ago. Something about your dad—”

  Too much. It was too much. I told myself to say nothing, to not let him do this to me. To let it roll off my back. “Fuck you. Don’t you fucking dare go there.”

  Both brows lifted and he paused, the snifter halfway to his lips. “Hit a nerve, have I? I could dig deeper. If I have to.”

  “Is that a threat?” A snarl ripped through me. “You leave my life alone—leave my fucking life alone.”

  “Sure, son. So long as you promise to do the same. I think we understand each other now, don’t you agree?”

  The door was flung open with a bang. We both glanced up to look into angry, molten eyes. Zoe stalked toward me, her hair wild, the hat long gone. The crochet top was also missing.

  “How dare you!” She screamed, but she wasn’t looking at me. There were tears in her eyes.

  Thomas stood up. “I assume by your outburst that your mother showed you.”

  I closed my eyes, unable to believe any of this, and a disassociated feeling completely overtook me. This felt like the worst kind of out-of-body experience. Then Zoe was there, her orangey smell was all around me, and it was like an arrow through the heart. I was both hot and cold and empty.

  Just empty. There was no noise, no more red vision or wildly beating heart. There was just nothing.

  “I hate you. Both of you.”

  “Misaki.” Thomas shook his head. “We only did this because we care.”

  One look out the door into the hallway revealed a gathering crowd. Politeness dictated they shouldn’t look inside, shouldn’t appear to care about the battle royale going down inside the study, but there was no doubt that bodies were getting closer and closer, th
at necks were straining to hear every single word uttered. It all made me sick.

  “Care? Care! Humiliating my boyfriend this way because you care?” She hugged my waist, but I didn’t hug her back.

  I needed to get out of there, needed to put distance between them and my truths. Truths I hadn’t even shared with Zoe. How much did she know? What had they told her?

  “Alex?” Her soft voice finally broke through my thoughts.

  I pulled away, moving around her toward the door.

  “Don’t call me; don’t write me. You crossed the line, Dad. You crossed the line.”

  My foot was halfway out the door when she slipped her arm around my waist. “C’mon, cowboy, let’s go home.”

  I don’t even remember how we got outside.

  ~*~

  “So let me get this right.” Doctor Alvarez scratched her cheek with the tip of the pen she held in her hand. “You dropped Zoe off at her apartment without talking?”

  Now that she said it, I realized just how much of a jerk move that had been. “I froze, Doc. It was like a scene out of a fucking movie. Her dad calling me a shit, a group of people I don’t know looking in and judging me—”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  Pounding my fists on my knees, I inched forward. “How the hell do you think that made me feel?” Unable to stand sitting another second, I paced the length of the small office. “Sick. Pissed. So damn mad I wanted to hurt something.”

  “Alexander, look at me.” She was taking a mom tone. I hated the mom tone.

  But I also couldn’t help but respond to it. “What?”

  Doc bobbed her crossed leg up and down, up and down, hypnotizing me and drawing my eye. She just held my gaze, strong and steady and sure. Slowly I felt the beast relax as the anger, the disappointment, the disgust, but most especially the shame, started to let go.

  “But that’s not why you couldn’t speak, is it?”

  The words were so heavy, hanging between us, and I wanted to lie. Wanted to bullshit and call her crazy, say she didn’t know a damn thing she was talking about. But after a year, Doc knew me pretty well. I don’t know how she could just figure me out, but she had, and I didn’t think our relationship was typical at all.

  Flicking at a broad leaf of one of her fake potted plants, I twisted my neck from side to side until I heard it pop, then I sighed. “What if he’s right?”

  She shrugged. “Is he?”

  “Damn, Doc, sometimes I just want to have a conversation with you without everything involving a question or being forced to psychoanalyze myself.” I dropped back down on the edge of her gaudy sofa and rubbed my brow bone.

  “But that’s not what you pay me for, Alex. You pay me to cut through all your BS and get you to face the truth.”

  “Well, touché.” I smirked.

  Doc got up from her customary spot and walked around her gleaming mahogany desk before flipping open the lid of a lunch cooler she had sitting beside it. “I don’t normally do this, but I think today you might need it. Here, take a Coke.” She handed me a soda.

  “For a second there, you had me excited. Thought it was a beer.” I winked.

  She giggled. “Alex, you are ridiculous sometimes. Of course it’s not a beer.” Popping the tab of her drink, she took a sip of her own before saying in her no-nonsense doctor speak, “So tell me, and be honest, what about that incident was upsetting?”

  “Oh, hmm… how about the fact that my girlfriend read all that shit. Saw pictures of me with other girls.”

  “Yes, but by your own admission, she was quick to your defense.”

  Scrubbing my jaw, I once again felt the embers begin to spark deep inside my gut. I was so crazy, screwed up. Why did I walk away from her that night? Why had I left? Because I was ashamed… because…

  Frowning, I tipped my face toward the doctor, finally having an epiphany. “I’m a loser. That’s why. Because he’s right. Because I’m going nowhere fast, and I’m going to drag her down with me. Because I have a dad who’s a sexual predator, and I’m so damned ashamed of him I’d rather die than have anyone know that truth. Because I’m wasting my life and turning out to be just like him.”

  The last part was hard to say, it came out choked, and I had to stop and clear my throat before I did something stupid, like cry like a baby.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said softly.

  It took me a full minute to get my shit together. “I’ve been coming to you for a year now, Doc, and I don’t think I’m getting better. So what’s the point of this, huh?” I didn’t mean to sound angry, but I couldn’t hide it either. “I was good when Ryan was lost and drifting; I was getting decent grades in college. I was going somewhere. Then he got right, and I got lost. I don’t know what I’m doing, who I am. I know I like being with Zoe. I love it—she makes me laugh and not feel like such a douche bag all the time, but her dad was right. I’m going nowhere.”

  Wiping my palms on my jeans, I sat and stared at the fake potted plant and listened to the steady rhythm of falling water and feeling like I needed to take a leak.

  “How long have you been dating Zoe?”

  Her question took me off guard. I hadn’t expected it, had thought maybe she’d give me another long talk about me needing to do this or do that, not… how long had I been dating her. “Almost two months.”

  “That’s a record for you, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess.” She waved her hand. “In the year I’ve known you, your longest relationship lasted a week. Let that sink in.” Her eyes were huge in her face, her voice calm but strong.

  “Point?”

  “Point is you don’t do bullshit well, Alex. You never have. That’s why you take what you want and you leave. The fact that this girl is still around, that you’re still wondering whether she thinks well of you or not, it means something. It’s also seriously making you question what you’re doing and why. None of those things are bad.”

  “Glad to be so transparent for you, Doc.” I rolled my eyes, but my words lacked heat. I was just tired. Tired of being me.

  She smiled back at me, her blunt teeth gleaming. “How does she feel about you?”

  Rubbing the back of my neck, I thought about it long and hard. “I don’t know. I think she likes me. I put her through so much crap though. Honestly, I’m not sure why she even still sticks around. I wouldn’t.”

  Worst of it was that was totally true. If I were dating someone who flaked out on me the way I did her all the time, I’d bail. I just wouldn’t put up with that it, so why did I keep doing it to her? Every time I did, I promised it would be the last time, and yet I kept falling back into the same trap. I still hadn’t called, but neither had she.

  “The thought of losing her makes me want to puke, if I’m being honest. But I just don’t know how to date, Doc. I’ve never actually tried to do this before.”

  “But that’s not a good excuse, Alex. A partner can only take so much. If you don’t want to lose her, then you know what you have to do.”

  “Tell her everything.” I chuckled, but it ended up coming out as a snort. “That it? So what exactly should I tell her? Where should I start? That my dad raped my cousin, or how about the fact that I didn’t report it? That I was too much of a chickenshit to tell somebody about what I saw? That he should be in jail if it wasn’t for me? Please, tell me how to start that conversation—I’m all ears.”

  Shaking her head, she held up her hand. “No, that’s not it at all. Any good relationship is built on a foundation of trust. Six weeks may not seem like a long time, but if you can’t be honest, then all you have are lies. One strong wind and the house of cards topples, and that’s it.” She shrugged. “I guess what you need to ask yourself is this: do you think she’s worth it?”

  “Of course she is.” I shook my head vehemently. “But I don’t know that now’s the time.”

  She shrugged. “I eloped with my husband after only knowing him three
weeks. The entire world told me I was foolish, stupid, and way too smart to do something so foolish. Next week we’ll be celebrating our forty-seventh anniversary. Sometimes you just know. If that’s the case with Zoe, then being honest now rather than later will only help, not hinder. It will save a lot of heartache in the end. If, however,” she said, crossing her legs, “you are only having fun and don’t feel this could be more, then don’t tell her. Enjoy the ride while it lasts and walk away with no regrets. Those are really your only two options. So I guess the question is: which option can’t you live with?”

  I clenched my jaw. The thought of her leaving me left me cold and hollow. But how could I just dump this on her? “I need her, Doc.”

  “Then there’s your answer. Maybe consider a dual session in the future, and in the meantime, here’s your assignment for the week. Find yourself again, Alex. Live. Don’t be afraid to fail, because it’s only through the possibility of failure that you fully begin to live.”

  ~*~

  Zoe

  “Oh my God, I love it!” The cheerleader jumped off my table, squealing as she jogged over to the full-length mirror and stared at the bright red jewel now firmly tucked into her belly button. The cute ash-blonde, who sort of reminded me of Jamie except with brown eyes, stared at her girlfriend in the mirror. “What do you think—will Tommy love it?”

  The dark-skinned girl with long red and black dreads looked up and nodded happily. “Girl, if that doesn’t make him want to hit it now, I don’t know what will.”

  Okay then. My brows lifted. I just pierced them—I had no control over the conversations that happened in this place, but they never failed to give me good chuckles. The girls left with hugs and promises of coming back again next payday for matching butterfly tattoos.

  Ryko laughed when he came up behind me. “Damn. Too bad we don’t hand out brains.”

  Rolling my eyes, I dropped the cash into the register and slammed the door shut before I turned to him. “Shut up, Ry. How ’bout that?”

  “What the hell is your problem?” His brows dropped. Dark brown eyes sparkling with a glint of anger stared back at me. I knew Ryko’s tells pretty well, and the way he was running his fingers through his spiky black hair let me know he was close to snapping.