False Start (Love and Skate)

by Felix, Lila

  “Because of this,” she squeezed me tighter. “The straights are long and happy. We just have to try and limit the corners.”

  “Avoid corners—got it. I feel like I have making up to do. How about dinner?”

  “I’m exhausted, Rex. I didn’t sleep a wink. Can we just order in?”

  “Yes. And I’m spending the night. I owe you a good night’s sleep.”

  She pinned me with her blue eyes, “I thought I was the one who made you sleep better.”

  “We just work together, Hayes. I’m better when I’m with you. I’m happier when I’m with you. I feel like me when I’m with you. If I can help you sleep better then I’m here, anytime you need me.”

  Her breath filtered through the threads of my shirt and somehow the warmth reached my heart. I was hers, heart, soul, and body. Kissing the top of her head, I whispered, “I’m gonna order dinner. Why don’t you pick a movie, get comfortable and let me take care of you tonight.”

  “I’m too tired to argue,” she laughed.

  “Good, now go,” I patted her butt, trying to get her going.

  “I said no butt touching,” she giggled.

  “You said ‘Boobs, yes, thighs, no.” I memorized that whole conversation. There was no mention of butts. You don’t outlaw it, I’m gonna take advantage.”

  “Why are you only funny around me?”

  I shrugged, “Because when I’m with you, I’m free.”

  Hayes went upstairs. I called in for Thai food and waited for her to come back down. Our food came and we sat in her living room floor, eating from chopsticks like idiots and watching Dawn of the Dead. She didn’t seem fazed at all by the similarity of our noodles and the guts of the humans being eaten. She was the perfect mix of feminine and bad ass.

  Suddenly the doorknob jiggled and Vera blew through talking full speed at full volume about Colt and moving somewhere. I really didn’t know what was going on.

  “Hi, Vera.” Hayes seemed less than enthusiastic about seeing her best friend.

  I didn’t want to go, but I was the third wheel in the situation and Vera looked upset.

  “I’m just gonna go home so you two can talk. Why don’t you call me later?”

  “No, Rex. Vera, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  Vera scoffed outwardly and I scoffed inwardly. What was Hayes doing?

  “Fine,” Vera stomped and then walked out the way she came in. I waited for her to explain but she stayed wordless for a while. The movie ended and she cracked open her fortune cookie after offering me one.

  She showed me the tiny paper inside which read, ‘May life throw you a pleasant curve.’

  I pulled mine apart and showed her mine, ‘Make two grins grow where there was only a grouch before.’

  “I’m the grouch.”

  “Yes, you are,” she paused, “I feel bad not letting Vera talk to me.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I’ve never come first in her life—ever. I’m always the second person she calls, the one she makes plans with after everyone else has fallen through. And now I have you, and if this goes anywhere then she won’t be first for me either. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling bad about it.”

  I cleaned up our impromptu picnic and she got in her chair, looking preoccupied.

  “I’m gonna go home.”

  She opened her mouth to rebel, but I stopped her, “You call Vera, find out what’s up. I’m going home to study. She’s your best friend. After she leaves or after you get off the phone with her, call me and I’ll come back if you want me to.”

  “That’s too much trouble for you to go through.”

  “Nothing is too much for you. Call me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I went home, feeling good about my decision. I sat on my bed and smiled. Hayes made me trust myself, maybe for the first time in my life. I could walk around now with my head up, satisfied with my life and craving more at the same time. She’d brought me to life.

  I pulled out a photo album from my closet and skimmed through the photos. I fumbled through them, numb to it all until I came to one of all three of us on the beach. I had probably looked at the pictures hundreds of times, but it was as if I was seeing this one for the first time. My dad wasn’t looking at the camera, or at me, he was looking at my mom and she was looking at him. It was a moment of clarity for him, I hoped.

  I’d give anything, my whole life, for just one moment like that with Hayes.

  A few hours later I’d gotten ready for bed and laid there, praying for sleep to come. I drifted off sometime later only to be woken by a knock at the door. I opened it to find Hayes, red eyed and incredibly sad.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She sold the bakery. I only have a month left to work there. She’s moving to Grand Isle to be closer to her husband. She thinks you’re wrong for me.”

  “It’s okay,” I pulled her to me, shutting the door behind us.

  “She didn’t come in to see how I was or to see how we were, she just came to dump all of her news on me and then leave. She shrugged off the fact that I will be out of a job soon.”

  “This will be good, right? You can find a place to work that you love. She will be happier, being near her husband. And we all know I’m wrong for you, we’ll just be wrong together.”

  She squinted at me, face full of fury, “When you get to be so perky?”

  “It’s a Hayes side effect.”

  “Ugh, she blows.”

  “She’s one amazing girl. Come on, talk to me in bed. You were exhausted already.”

  “Okay,” she didn’t even argue, that’s how tired she was. She kicked off her shoes and looked at my dresser.

  “Boxers? Please say boxers.”

  She cracked me up, “Yeah, top drawer.”

  She reached in, grabbed a pair and dug around for one of my tshirts and then ducked into the bathroom. I didn’t have long to wait. She came out a few minutes and collapsed onto the bed, immediately latching onto me.

  “Just sleep. Everything will be better in the morning.”

  “I actually believe it when you say it.”

  She was out before could say anything else.

  I wiped one delayed tear from her cheek as she slept and realized I was in love.

  Hayes

  There’s a reason people say things are a cake walk. What? You expected me to know what it was?

  I woke the next day in the company of a note instead of a boyfriend. Rex had written that he had to go to school to make up an exam he’d missed the day before and he’d see me that night at family dinner.

  I went to work late. I didn’t really care of Vera was mad or not. What would she do, fire me?

  She didn’t even show up for work. I hadn’t realized what a coward she was.

  That night, I went to Sylvia’s restaurant and though one of the families in the big family had just given birth, the rest of the them still gathered. It was so much like my own family that I instantly felt like I fit in. Rex smiled now. Rex had even called my parents and asked them to join us. They said it was the first time the parents of the new girl had come to dinner. It was so strange, how two weeks could change someone, but they had. It was as if Rex’s and my lives were intertwined all along, and we had just waited until our paths crossed.

  “Why so serious,” he whispered to me.

  “Not serious, just happy.”

  “Rex, come help me bring out the desserts,” Owen called him.

  He kissed my temple and after putting his napkin on the table, followed Owen to the kitchen. I watched him as he walked away, so in love with who he was, but not willing to admit it, yet. The world and the people around us would say it was too soon. But I knew what I felt.

  The girls around the table, talked babies. Reed was finally getting used to life with twins with the help of Falcon and the people around her. Sylvia would continue treatments, but the tumors were already shrinking. Storey’s little pudge grew more by the day,
she claimed, though the rest of us couldn’t see it yet. And Owen and Nellie were talking about having more, the babies around them giving them a clear case of baby fever. Around such stunning babies, who wouldn’t have baby fever?

  Sylvia gained my attention, “Hayes, will you please check on those boys. I’m getting tired. Anyway, they’re probably in there gossiping. Our boys are worse than women.”

  I laughed and walked to the kitchen, but as I pushed the door open, I heard them talking. I almost berated them for being such gossips until I heard Rex, his voice deeper and raspier than the other.

  “She’s absolutely perfect. I just feel inadequate sometimes, hell, most of the time. I have all this dark past and general awkwardness and she’s just—flawless. I wish I could get over it, but I just can’t. I’m trying, but every once in a while, it just bubbles up.”

  “No one is perfect, Rex.”

  “She is,” he said.

  I trembled inside from the anger I felt. I’d asked him to stop calling me perfect all the time, and he had. But it really didn’t count if he still believed I was perfect. I let the swinging door close and returned to the table. Nellie scrunched her eyebrows at me. Giving her a curt smile, I made my excuses, grabbed my purse and left. Thankfully I’d brought my car.

  All this time I’d spent breaking down his walls, yet I’d failed to allow him to break down any of mine. I was pissed at him—so pissed I couldn’t see straight. But I’d perpetrated the lie. In failing to tell him everything screwed up about me, stopping myself from completely opening up to him, I’d added fuel to the ‘Perfect Hayes’ fire.

  As I drove home, jerking the steering wheel this way and that, trying not to take my anger out on the drivers around me, I could feel the tears run down my face. This was all on me—all of it.

  I parked my tiny car and went inside before the idiot police got me.

  Was this what I wanted?

  A relationship, another relationship, where the other person only knew part of me?

  My phone beeped and I looked to see a text from Rex asking where I was. I laughed at myself as I threw the damned thing in the same crock pot under the cabinet, slamming it shut. I heard it ring several times afterward but let the crock pot take a message.

  How do you tell the person you’ve somehow managed to fall in love with that you’re broken? How was I supposed to convince him? ‘Hey, Rex, I used to be a fan of sharp things. Not so perfect, huh? ’ I laid down, face on the cool tiles of my kitchen and waved my arms and legs back and forth making an excellent air angel. I loved it when he called me Angel. He could have me completely undone by just calling me that.

  My home phone rang. My home phone never rang, so I scrambled to get it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, I’ve been calling your phone,”

  “Oh, that was you? Sorry.”

  “Wanna tell me why you missed out on the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten?”

  “He thinks I’m perfect.”

  Silence was my response. I laid back on the floor, letting the tiles cool my face one side at a time.

  “I was trying to think of the problem with that statement. I just can’t. You’re gonna have to Kindergarten that shit up for me Hayes.”

  I loved when my mom cussed. It meant she’d shed the mom persona for a while and had thrown on the friend coat.

  “I’m not perfect. He thinks he’s all broken and he let me in, Mom. He’s told me everything about his dad and all the shit that plagues him…”

  “And you haven’t told him yours.”

  “Exactly.”

  She blew out a breath that fuzzed on the phone line. My phone rang again in the crock pot.

  “Do you love him?”

  “Yes,” flooded from me.

  “And he loves you?”

  “Yes. I’m pretty sure. I hope so.”

  “I’m gonna say something as your friend here. As your mother I just want to hug you and tell you he’ll come for you. But as your friend…”

  “Just say it, Mom.”

  “You’re a hypocrite. You’ve always told me you wanted a relationship with a guy who could be your husband and your best friend at once. You’ve got one part, but not the other, but it’s all on your side. Hayes, if that boy doesn’t know all of you then he can never be your best friend. You’re cheating the both of you out of a truly great thing. Don’t end up like Hazel and her superficial marriage to that Steve Carrell wannabe.”

  I snorted at that. No, I didn’t want to end up like that.

  “What do I do?”

  “Oh baby girl, the Hayes I raised asks no one what she should do. Find that Hayes again. Her sass is something that no guy could ignore. I love you. Call me if you need me. And one more thing,”

  Her voice depreciated into a whisper, “That boy is too sweet and too fine to let go. I’m just sayin.”

  I laughed again and she hung up.

  By the time I dragged myself from the floor, it was after eleven. I paced the house back and forth, up and down the stairs until I’d exhausted myself. I laid in my bed, knowing that something had to be done but for the life of me couldn’t figure out what. I pictured his loving brown eyes that always told me more than his mouth did. I thought of his arms, more like strongholds of safety than limbs. His words either made me laugh or made me feel loved.

  And it was at that moment I realized I couldn’t live without him. I wouldn’t live without him. I glanced at the time. It was nearly one in the morning. But somehow I knew he’d be up. And without another care in the world. I got in the car and went to do something equally terrifying and exhilarating.

  Rex

  He doesn’t speak to me anymore. It stopped without my notice or my permission. I claimed to have hated it, but I actually miss it sometimes.

  The feeling of dread needled the back of my neck when I’d returned to the table and saw her gone. But I figured she’d gone to the bathroom. But after a while I looked around for someone to tell me something. Her mom leaned over the empty chair and whispered to me.

  “She went home. Something spooked her. Know what it is?”

  I wracked my brain for something, anything I could’ve done.

  “I don’t. Let me text her.”

  My texts and calls remained unanswered. I left the table early too preoccupied with what happened to Hayes. I contemplated going over to her house but decided against it. I knew from her father that there were layers and layers to Hayes that I didn’t even know. And while I wanted her to trust me enough to tell me, I didn’t want to push her. I knew how that felt, all the walls zeroing in when all you wanted was space.

  I drove around town and ended up back at the riverfront. I sat there for hours and almost regretted the tickets I’d bought, the trip I’d planned for us that morning. I didn’t even know if she’d go with me.

  Finally giving up on calling or texting her, I went back home only to find the girl that I loved on my doorstep wearing one of my button down shirts and jeans, leaning on my door. My heart shattered as I saw her crying. Her whole body shook with emotion. She hadn’t seen me yet. Whatever I’d done, it was a doozy.

  “Hayes, are you okay,” I asked climbing the stairs.

  “I thought you were home and just ignoring me. And I left my phone in the crock pot again.”

  “I would never ignore you. And I swear that crock pot makes more phone calls than you do. Come here,” I picked her up, she helped by looping her arms around my neck. I fumbled with the lock and opened the door while she held onto me. She could hold onto me forever if she wanted to. I lifted her the rest of the way effortlessly and set her on the bed.

  “Talk to me Hayes. If I did something, let me apologize. But honestly, if this is going to continue, you and me, then you have to stop running and shutting me out every time it gets rough. You called me on that shit before. Running out on me is like…”

  “A hypocrite.” She answered for me.

  “Kinda, yeah.” I hated to agree with her. C
alling her any name felt so wrong, down to my bones.

  “I know. So first I need to apologize for that. And then I need to show you something.”

  “So apologize,” I smiled, letting her know that she was already forgiven.

  “I’m sorry, Rex. I’m sorry for so many things. But right this moment, I’m sorry for running from you, from us.”

  “You’re forgiven.” I murmured.

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes. Now, what are these many things?”

  She blew out a heavy breath and stood in front of me. She still trembled and I longed to cease it. I reached out for her, “No. I have to do this. You called me perfect. I asked you not to, and you stopped but only in front of me. I went into the kitchen tonight and heard you talking to Owen. But I realized the only reason you thought I was perfect was because I let you believe that. I worked to break down your walls but I didn’t let you into mine. You can trust me fully, but until now I didn’t trust you fully. So this is me, letting you in.”

  “Okay,” I answered. I had no clue what she was talking about.

  “It started when I was fourteen. I started having trouble keeping up with everything. It was all self-inflicted, ironically. I was overwhelmed with what most people would have no trouble juggling—school, clubs, sports, grades, home. I always felt like I was bloated inside, all the stress and worry. The pressure was too much to bear.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. I reached out to hold her hands and she was already crying. She began to unbutton her pants and I shot my hands out to stop her.

  “Please, Rex. I’ve never shown anyone this before. Don’t stop me.”

  She pulled off her pants one at a time and lifted her right leg to prop on the bed. She pointed to her thigh and I could see tick marks, like someone had marked the number of days they were incarcerated on her skin.

  “I did this to myself with a razor or sometimes with a knife in the treehouse.” She stopped, letting me process the fact that the little box of knives she kept in her treehouse was more than some tomboy hobby. It was the same place she hid to hurt herself.

  “Sometimes I cut once a week, sometimes twice a day. It depended on what was going on. It was kinda like I was a balloon with too much helium. When I got filled up, I cut a hole in myself to relieve the pressure. There’s more in the other leg too.”