See Her (Turn it Up Book 1)

by Natalie Parker

  I need to write. Now. I feel like a thick cloud has evaporated from my brain, and who knows when it will come back.

  Break through. Something happened when she said that. Mayzie. Why, I don’t know. People use those words all the time. Every day. But for some reason, her saying it at that moment, in that place, at that time…. It’s like the planets in my universe aligned and struck me with lightning. That didn’t make sense did it? See the kind of mind I have to work with here? But I don’t care right now, let the words come, no matter how crazy. There has to be some that make sense mixed in there somewhere, I can feel it. I write the words Break Through down in the middle of the page. I stay calm and stare at them for a minute, letting whatever thoughts come. The ones that make no sense and don’t flow, I acknowledge and dismiss them. I’ve heard that this is what meditation is like. Break through, break through…. I write words like walls and pounding around the Break Through in the middle of the page until realization hits me deep in my gut. It’s quick and fleeting, but I get the message. Up in the corner of the page I start to write:

  You’ve got your walls up, but I can see through,

  See through

  To everything I want,

  I’ll give it everything I’ve got

  To break through,

  Break through.

  “Holy shit,” I say to myself for, what, the third time since meeting Mayzie? I just wrote four lines. This is huge. For months I’ve not come up with anything. I’ve written words down, sure, but I didn’t feel anything when I did. No excitement, no energy, not the feeling of encouragement you get when you’re expressing yourself to the fullest and it just keeps coming out of you. But here I have four lines that I am passionate about. This could become a song.

  I set my pen down and sit back, allowing myself to think of Mayzie for a minute. Her light brown hair had a few lighter strands in it. Her grey eyes, wild and innocent held a hint of mystery. The feather tattoo on her inner left forearm that I only caught a glimpse of… She was sweet and a little shy. I could tell she was being brave by talking to me. When she came to my table she seemed so nervous, like she’d come over to talk to me on a dare, but not like she didn’t want to. That’s what was so heartening about it. She smiled at me like I was one of her best friends, without even knowing me.

  She’s a person that makes a total stranger feel good. And when I caught her dumping half a canister of sugar into her coffee she seemed so embarrassed, but she shook it right off. She can laugh at herself. Then I was a dumbass and got up and left. I figured she was just a person, and you come across a hundred of those every day. Sure, some are nice; you can interact with them for a minute and then go back to your life. But when I walked out the door, I realized the further I walked away, the worse I felt. During that short time in the café, I was feeling joy and didn’t realize it until I was walking away. Away from her. I could actually feel the warm, buzzing feeling in my chest dissipating with each step. And then I found myself standing outside the place, trying to decide if I should go back in and ask to sit down with her, or if that would make me look too much like a creeper.

  Then she came out and I didn’t think; I just acted. I felt ridiculous but I couldn’t bring myself to care. That joy came back immediately. The time I spent talking and laughing with her in the park ended too soon, but she inspired me, and I knew I had to get home and write. And as weird as this sounds, I had the crazy sense that if she knew what I was feeling, she would want me to write. It was crazy that she seemed to care, without hardly knowing me.

  Trooper comes over and nudges my hand that’s resting in my lap. Seeing his furry face reminds me that I get to see Mayzie again tomorrow and meet her dog, if she shows. Please let her show. “Hey,” I say to Trooper. “You want to meet a new buddy tomorrow?” He tips his head to the side, like he’s really listening to me. “Come on, pooch. Let’s go outside.” I get up and we head out the back door, into the early afternoon.

  Mayzie

  What the hell just happened?

  I’m sitting on my couch still trying to wrap my brain around it. This isn’t a very big part of town, then again, it isn’t tiny either. It’s entirely possible we’ve gone however long without running into each other before. And I know why I wanted to talk to him - because he took me hostage with his charisma and made me stupid - but why the hell did he want to talk to me? I rest my head back on the couch cushions as Penny, lying next to me with her head in my lap, rolls over for a belly scratch. Oh my gosh what a great guy, I think. How can I actually say that? I don’t know him, but how often do you meet a guy who looks like that, plays music, and yet is so down to earth? And nice. He was so friendly and not a bit inappropriate. He kept a safe distance, but still showed he was interested in getting to know me. He asked me questions. I’m trying to understand what it was that made him want to talk to me. I know he said it was my smile; he said it was genuine. I guess what I’m having a hard time understanding is the idea that that doesn’t happen to him often. It’s just so surreal. I was scared shitless to go talk to him, but the need to see what would happen was stronger. I can’t….

  I’m overanalyzing this to death. I can’t go back to what I once was - someone who loses time and energy over a boy. Can I even say boy? That physique of his... DAAAAAHHHH! Stop! I scold myself. I let out a huff, gently nudge Penny off me, and reach for my laptop on the coffee table. Time to be responsible. The bills aren’t going to pay themselves after all. I log onto my work dashboard to see if there are any jobs I can grab off my company’s site. There are several in my inbox that I look over and I sign up for two of them, which I’m guessing by the length and content, will add up to a day and a half of work. I take my laptop to the breakfast nook, fix myself a cup of tea, put in my earbuds, and get to work. I’ve gone way over my “obsess over a boy” time allowance for today and I need to return to reality. That’s right, I said boy. If I keep calling him that, maybe it will make it easier to not get in too deep.

  I take my earbuds out and stretch my arms above my head. I’ve been working for three hours straight and it’s time to take a break. I grab a glass from one of the cupboards and get some ice and water from the fridge. It’s late afternoon, and I’ve put a good dent in one of the jobs I signed up for earlier. I pat my leg and call for Penny, who comes lumbering in from the living room. I take my water and we go outside to throw the ball for a few minutes. Just as we’re coming back in from the yard, there is a pounding at the front door. I have a feeling it’s my brother, Ian, so I yell “It’s open!”

  “Well it shouldn’t be,” he grumbles, letting himself in. “It should always be locked. You’re a single woman living alone for crying out loud.” He tosses his keys on my coffee table and heads to my fridge.

  “You seem to keep forgetting, I’m not alone. I have Penny.”

  “And?” he asks, pulling out a beer.

  “And she’s a good guard dog. Rotties are very protective of their owners.”

  “Hate to break it to you Maze, but Penny’s a wuss,” he says, cracking the beer open and tipping it back.

  “Sic ‘em, Penny! Kill-Kill!” I yell to my dog, pointing at my brother. He sits in the nook and she puts her head in his lap, yawning. “Shut up,” I say when he smirks at me. “What do you want anyway?”

  He runs a hand through his brown hair. Ian and I look a lot alike. Same hair and greyish eyes anyway. He’s just... bigger. And a dude. And a whopping year older than I am, which he won’t let me forget. We can really get each other going, but at the end of the day, there are times I’m actually thankful for him. Back in high school, he was the popular jock while I was the awkward girl that ran with the wrong crowd. Despite how different we were, he would not let anyone mess with me. That time could have been a lot more painful without him around.

  “Just got off work, didn’t feel like heading home just yet.”

  “And there was nowhere else you could go?”

  “Ouch,” he says, clutching his chest.

/>   “Excuse me, sorry. There wasn’t anywhere else you wanted to go?”

  “No. I thought I’d see what you’re doing for dinner.”

  “Just a bowl of cereal, probably. And why don’t you eat with Tina? Or should I even ask?”

  “She’s... ” he trails off.

  “What, are you guys fighting?”

  “Always! She is driving me nuts! She’s just picking fights left and right, and the thought of going home is exhausting.”

  “I’m surprised she’s not blowing up your phone right now then, since you should’ve been home, what, five minutes ago?”

  “I left my phone in the car. For that reason.”

  “What does she like to fight about?” I ask.

  “What I’m doing, who I’m with, who’s calling my phone…. you name it, she wants to fight about it. It’s like she uses it as a way to just keep my attention on her. All. The. Time.” He hits the back of his hand to his other palm, punctuating each word to make his point.

  “Jeez. You were so excited to move in with her. Of course, I still think it was a little fast.” Ian is a mechanic, and he met Tina when he worked on her Hyundai Elantra. He asked her out and they spent every waking moment together for the next three months, and when his lease was up they decided that since they were together all the time anyway, he might as well move in with her. That was four months ago, and he’s been in hell ever since.

  “Yeah, that first week was fun. But when you’re living in the same apartment, how much more time can you possibly spend together? It’s like she expected things to stay the same when I moved in and that we’d just be up each other’s asses all the time.”

  “Wow. That’s a great visual for me. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Anyway, she can’t bust my ass if I’m with you.”

  “Okay, well I want to get a little more done, but you can hang out. Do you want to order pizza?”

  “Yeah, I got it. Lemme grab my phone,” he says, heading out to his car. I sit back down and put my ear buds in, hoping I can knock out a few more paragraphs while we wait for the pizza. I listen to my music but can’t help but giggle to myself when I see Ian come back inside. He’s on his phone, and gesturing wildly with his other hand, obviously telling Tina to chill. I shake my head when he hangs up and takes a minute to flop back on my couch and blow out a huge breath. I see him grab his phone again, most likely to put our pizza order in. He better not order olives.

  Less than an hour later, I’m sitting on the couch, picking hideous black olives off my slice of pizza, while Ian scarfs his right next to me as we watch some Marvel or DC movie on Netflix. His choice. I’m not really into those movies. Nothing against them, they just make so many I can’t keep them straight. Spiderman has something like four movies all about him and I don’t understand what the difference is supposed to be.

  “Why must you always order olives?” I ask, trying not to inhale as I ull them off.

  “Why do you hate what should be a staple on every pizza?” he shoots back.

  “They…. ughhh… smell -hack- and taste even worse -gag. The odor alone makes me want to barf in my mouth.”

  “I’m eating here!”

  “I’d like to be too, but I can’t until I get all of these evil little demons off. Ugh, some are chopped up all tiny and hiding in the cheese!”

  “You’ll get over it,” he says, returning his attention to the TV.

  My phone chimes with a text. It’s Annie.

  Annie: New jazz number starting tomorrow, you coming? 10:30.

  I’m meeting Jack tomorrow, and for some reason, I don’t want to tell anyone about it. I feel like I want to keep it to myself… at least until I see what happens.

  Mayzie: I have a job to finish and I don’t know how long it will take tomorrow. Is there a later time?

  Annie: No, but I could catch you up over the weekend so you can jump in on Monday morning.

  Mayzie: That would be great! Saturday? 10am? Lunch after?

  Annie: Yes! Awesome, see you at my place

  Mayzie: See ya

  It’s a given that if we’re doing anything that involves a lot of movement, we’re at her house. She has the bigger living room. I think about tomorrow morning and am secretly worrying if Jack will even show up.

  That whole encounter seemed a little too… great. And we didn’t exchange numbers so it would be incredibly easy for him to come to his senses and ditch me. This has happened to me before, and remembering the sting of it makes me worry. That’s probably why I don’t want to tell anyone about meeting him yet. If he doesn’t show up, I’m going to feel so embarrassed at having to tell Annie or Ian that this thing, whatever it is, with Jack went in the toilet before it even started. This way, if I am let down, I’m spared the humiliation portion of our program, can throw myself a mini pity party for the remainder of the day, and come out of it slightly less scarred. I’m still going. I’m not going to be the person I’m worried about him being. Plus, I still have hope that he’ll really be there.

  It’s Ian’s phone’s turn to beep with a text. Two right in a row. “Alright,” he says, picking it up and tapping out a response before tossing it back down. “I should probably head out. I can only hold the beast off for so long.”

  “Geez, Ian! That’s kind of harsh.”

  “Sorry,” he says, holding up his hands. “I should get going though; get home and do some damage control,” he adds, carrying his plate to the sink. He comes back to retrieve his keys from the coffee table and heads for the door. “Thanks, Maze. Catch you next time.”

  “Mm-hmm, good luck,” I say, waving him out the door. After washing both dishes, I go to my room to put on some lounge pants and remove my bra, which is beginning to strangle me. Heading back to the kitchen, I grab a couple of cookies and get back to work. Around 11:00, I let Penny out one last time and go brush my teeth and wash my face. I lock up the house and Penny follows me to my room, hopping on my bed to get comfy while I change into shorts and a tank top. I pull back the covers, climb in and grab my TV remote. I have a hard time going to sleep in dead silence, so I often read my Kindle with the fan going, or in tonight’s case, find an episode of House Hunters until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. When that happens, I click the TV off and turn over, drifting off to sleep.

  Jack

  I flop down on my couch after a busy shift at the bar. I got there at three when happy hour begins, and left at midnight. Trooper has his head in my lap as I nurse a beer and glance over my song notebook, continually coming back to stare at the lyrics for Breakthrough, which is what I decided to name the song. Trooper lifts his head suddenly as the front door opens and Tyler walks in. He’s a coworker and total man-whore who technically lives with his parents, but doesn’t stay there if he can help it. He spends his free time either at the gym or hitting on the city’s female population. If there is no random girl to crash with, he usually ends up here.

  “Hey, man” he says, as he throws his bag down by the front door and drops his keys on the end table.

  “What’s up?” I say back.

  We shoot the shit for a few seconds before he tucks into some motor-head show, leaving me with my thoughts.

  I look down at my notebook again. I still haven’t come up with more than those few lines, but I’m still encouraged. I think about Mayzie. I don’t know what it had to do with her, but I can’t help but think that she was some kind of inspirational trigger. I can’t wait to see her tomorrow. Not for more inspiration, hell I don’t care about that. When I asked to take a walk with her, I had no idea of the lyrics that would come to me from that conversation, and I still wanted to see her, just like I still do now. That short time with her brought my spirits to a higher place that they hadn’t been to in a long time. Maybe even ever. It was a joy and a comfort being with her, and all I know right now is that I want to be around her. And then, like a kid on Christmas Eve, I get up and throw my empty beer bottle in the recycling bin, tell Tyler to hang as long as he w
ants, and head to bed with the hopes that that will make tomorrow come all the sooner.

  4

  Mayzie

  I wake up the next morning to light streaming through the window. I wake up naturally early in the spring and summer months, pretty much as soon as the sun is up. This morning is no different, except for the fact that when I roll on my back and rub my eyes, it hits me that I am going to see Jack again, soon. A flutter manifests in my stomach and then shoots up through my chest. It’s such an exciting feeling, and yet it’s scary at the same time. I think they call that a thrill. I get out of bed and do my usual routine, throwing on my robe and taking Penny out back and starting the coffee. I stretch while I wait for it to brew, and decide this might be a good morning to do a little yoga. My muscles are tight, and who knows, it might calm me. After throwing on a bra and yoga pants, I take my coffee over to the breakfast nook and sip it while I open my laptop to check my calendar and log into my school webpage to check for new assignments. It looks like I will have to do a writing piece that will be due next Friday, so I have a week.