“Oh, yeah? All right. I’m gonna go see Anne. So what? Let me guess, you won’t be able to tell me if she’s gonna punch me either, right? Just tell me where you want me to take you and I’ll drop you off. You’re lucky I’m giving you that much.”
“Take me with you to Anne’s place. That’s where you’re planning to go, isn’t it? You’re thinking you have nothing to lose, so you might as well face it tonight since you probably won’t get any sleep anyway. Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”
“Stop that.”
“Guess what, though,” Sparks said, tapping a finger on the brim of the Yankees hat he knew Ollie loathed. “The gimpy Bronx Bomber is coming with you.”
“What are you gonna do? You gonna coach me the whole time I’m talking to her? Right. You’ll give me enough rope to hang myself. I bet you were yukking it up when that guy knocked me down in one hit. Besides… I think having you with me might make it a little awkward for all of us. Don’t you think?”
“I won’t even get out of the car.”
“Right. Social smoothness isn’t your thing. But you’d find some way to make me look stupid.”
“Trust me.”
Ollie scoffed. “That’s rich. Why should I?”
“Because you need me.” Sparks’ eyes looked serious; a little sad. “And you know it, Ollie.”
Chapter 5
Finding a parking spot around Anne’s apartment was never an easy task, especially at night. Ollie thought about asking where he could find the best parking spot, but before Ollie could say anything Sparks pointed toward an empty spot a short distance from Anne’s front door.
She was sitting on the stairs outside, chatting with a new guy. Ollie had never seen him before, which was odd, because he used to practically live at Anne’s place. He watched her flirting with him and an avalanche of bittersweetness let go inside of him. He felt sick inside at the thought that she only needed a few hours to move on from him, but Ollie also knew it had been a long time since she’d laughed like that at something he had done. He’d forgotten what it sounded like; it was music.
Ollie felt foolish, which dragged him mercilessly back to the softball field. He rubbed behind his ear. It was still tender. “Why didn’t you tell me the catcher was going to hit me?”
“I’m not the one knocking people over at home plate,” Sparks said. “Why aren’t you going to admit you’re the reason it happened; that it’s not anyone else’s fault?”
Ollie glared out the window, resenting everything in the world. Am I really asking for so much? Why can’t I just be happy? He blinked his eyes and groaned. It was masochistic, watching Anne laugh as her hand rested on this guy’s knee, but Ollie needed to punish himself for allowing their relationship to decay. It was like attending the viewing at a close friend’s funeral. “I ended up leaving the game looking like a fool.”
“Is that why you think I’m here?” Sparks asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? Everything’s your fault.” Ollie knew it was a desperate lie as soon as he said it, and he had a feeling Sparks would see through him.
“Can’t you just say it wasn’t my fault that the catcher hit you?”
“Fine. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have knocked that guy down.”
“Actually, you should’ve stopped at third base.”
“Come on! Are you really going to make me admit every tiny thing I did wrong today?”
“Okay, fair enough. I knew he was gonna punch you. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to.”
“Just like that. Because you didn’t want to.” Ollie kept staring at Anne and the boy. “That’s it?”
“It’s more complicated than that, but yeah. I didn’t want to.”
“So why were you ‘helping me out’ in the first place?” Ollie looked at Sparks and made air quotes at him.
Sparks grinned at him and said nothing.
Ollie looked back across the street to where Anne was sitting. “You know what I think?”
“Of course. I think you do a lot of thinking without really thinking.”
“So now you’re going to insult me. That explains everything.”
“It does?”
“Yeah, it does. You enjoy watching me squirm, you enjoyed the little awkward dance you made me do in the outfield, and you enjoyed seeing me get hit by the catcher, too. I bet any second now you’re going to start pouring some lemon juice into the wound that Anne left for me earlier today. You are, aren’t you? You chose to come to me because I’m a miserable person and you’re a miserability magnet.”
“Is that even a real word?”
Ollie raised his hands in exasperation. “See?” He looked Sparks in the eyes. “You’re a parasite looking to feed on my misery.”
“You got part of it right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re right that I chose you because I think you’re miserable.”
Ollie shook his head and looked back toward Anne: the object of all his affections, the One Thing he couldn’t have. Every second he stared kept the bubbles of pain boiling inside him, but every moment also brought him closer to letting go.
Sparks reached out and touched his shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “I know it’s tough to understand it. It’s just a little more complicated than we have time for right now.”
Ollie rolled his eyes.
“I promise I’ll give you all the details you can stand tonight,” Sparks said. “I just don’t think you want to know right now. At least not until you’re done staring at… at somebody else’s girl.”
Ollie’s eyes became moist. He’s right, was all he could think, and that hurt him deeply. He had come here to have a conversation with Anne, beg and plead and argue with her, try to get her back. But that wasn’t happening. Somewhere between a minute and an hour later, Ollie quietly turned the key and pulled out of the parking spot.
He looked over at Sparks, expecting to see him grinning again. But he wasn’t.
***
Ollie was relieved to find the main room of Tall House unoccupied by any of his roommates, even though it was now well past midnight. He and Sparks trudged up the stairs to his room.
Ollie sat on the edge of his bed, resting his face in his hands.
“Would you like me to wait somewhere or do you want to talk right now?” Sparks asked.
Ollie collapsed onto his back. He knew Sparks already knew his answer, but he appreciated the courtesy anyway. “Where do I go from here?” He looked blankly up at the ceiling. His voice box sounded like it hadn’t been used in years.
“That’s gonna be completely up to you.”
“Can’t you just tell me what I want? I mean, you already know what I want, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sort of. But it doesn’t work that way. I know what you’re going to want, but since you don’t know that yet, well… You need to decide for yourself. Nobody can do that for you. I’ll just be here to help you get going once you know.”
“Can’t you at least tell me when? I feel stuck.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll know tonight what you want. You just need some time, is all.”
Ollie wanted nothing more than to push Sparks out the door so he could begin thinking right then and there. Every second he sat with the parking brake on his life was a moment of pain he could avoid. Still, he felt like he needed some answers first. He sat up. “So. Is this the part where you finally tell me who you really are? What’s your story?”
“Yeah, fair enough,” Sparks said, taking a seat on the cluttered floor. “I can tell you now. Should I make some popcorn or something first, though? Maybe get you your snuggly blanket? Go find Mister Floppy?”
“My mom told me not to bring it to college. Just tell the story, Bomber.”
“Okay, here goes.” He adjusted his position on
the floor a little. “When I was a kid, I was just ordinary.”
As Ollie listened, he felt like something important was about to happen in his life, that some small change was about to break it open, but there was no way of knowing for sure.
Sparks went on. “Nothing special or different about me at all. When I was fourteen years old, a friend of the family let me start working at their dairy farm to earn a little bit of money in the summer. I used my earnings to buy my first iPod.
“Even though my mom always told me not to wear it when I rode my bike, I didn’t listen to her. Well, I didn’t hear the car coming from behind. I never bothered to look for cars because there never were any out there. I mean, the dairy was in the middle of nowhere.”
“I suppose that explains your limp?”
“Yeah. I think I was just about to hit my growth spurt too, but I didn’t grow anymore after that. It looks like I’ll be stuck at five foot three forever.”
“Who was the driver? What happened next?” Ollie sat on the edge of the bed with a horrible sinking feeling.
Sparks nodded. “For a long time, I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember anything about the accident at first. I woke up in a hospital, unable to recognize any of the sad faces surrounding my bed, incapable of recalling any details from the accident at all.” He paused and held a hand to his mouth.
After a while, he continued. “My brain was damaged, but in a really unusual way. You know how different parts of the brain work to control different things, right?”
“Sure. One part is for vision, other parts control aggression, anger, memory… all that kind of stuff.”
“Yeah. To illustrate that point— and sorry to bring back something painful— but when we pulled up at Anne’s and you saw her with that other guy, your brain was going nuts. It immediately started communicating with all the different parts, piecing together what everything means.”
“And you could read that in me?”
“Sorta.”
“Are you trying to tell me that the part of your brain that interprets cause and effect was somehow… I dunno, that it got some sense knocked into it instead of getting damaged?”
Sparks grimaced. “Not exactly. It’s more like blind people. They tend to have very sharp hearing, right? It’s sorta like that. The accident was permanent in some important aspects, but not in others. The parts of me that weren’t damaged now work a little better than usual. Like you said, the ‘cause and effect’ parts.”
Sparks cleared his throat. “It’s been about a decade now. The more I work at it, the better I get at understanding what makes things the way they are and what’s going to happen.”
“So at some point— I’m guessing— you were able to put together the missing pieces of what happened with your accident. You caught the guy who hit you, didn’t you?”
“I did piece things together, yes. I remembered it all. I didn’t turn him in to the cops, though.” Sparks looked down and his face clouded with pain. “No. I never turned him in.”
“That was big of you. I woulda.”
“I’m not proud of what I did, Oliver. I should have turned him in. Instead I decided I’d go to his house and knock at the front door. When he answered, all I said was that I knew what he did and I wouldn’t forget it. Then I turned my back on him and walked off his porch.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s not so bad. You’re a bigger man than I would have been. I would have maybe hit him. I’m not that quick to forgive.”
“I wish forgiveness were the case.” Sparks didn’t raise his eyes from the floor. “I knew when I limped my way up his front steps that I would be sending his life into a tailspin. My senses had grown keen enough by that time to see how those simple words would be all the revenge I would need. What I wasn’t yet any good at, though, was seeing how my words would affect the rest of his family. He left ‘em, Ollie. He left his family. That night he loaded as many things into his car as he could fit, and without a word to his wife and daughter, he was gone. The thought of being charged with a hit-and-run, spending the next few years in prison, that was too much for him. He took off.
“Then, after a little less than a month, he came back, but the damage to his marriage was done. He turned himself in to the police, did six months, and by the time he got out the divorce was final. The story only goes downhill from there, and all because of the way I handled it.”
“It wasn’t your fault. The guy committed a crime.”
“Yeah, but I could have handled the situation differently. That was the hardest part, knowing that things wouldn’t have ended up how they did if I’d chosen to have the whole conversation. He wouldn’t have left them, maybe. If I’d have left it alone, maybe he wouldn’t have…” He backhanded the thought and moved on. “I was too focused on revenge. I didn’t pay attention to who else might suffer. Some children grow up just fine without a father, but that girl… she needed her father.”
Sparks looked very sad to Ollie. He asked softly, “Where is she now?”
Sparks shook his head and continued to stare at the floor.
Ollie wasn’t sure what to say now. Remorse and regret poured off of Sparks as he paused again to gather himself. Ollie waited, suddenly feeling less alone. Not only was it a little comforting for Ollie to know that Sparks had normal emotions and feelings just like everyone else, but in a selfish kind of way he found a little relief in knowing he wasn’t the only one in the world who was hurting.
“After that,” Sparks said, “I started to realize just how different I am. I also saw the path I was starting to take, and I didn’t want to be that kind of person. I didn’t want to be the kind of guy who spent his time picking people’s lives apart. Instead… well, here I am with you.”
“Not to sound insensitive, but why didn’t you try to find the girl and try to fix—”
“Because I did try.” Sparks didn’t allow him to ask the whole question. “I tried to help her when her life started to spin out, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Remember how I said some people won’t accept any help? She’s one. I’ve tried to go back more than once, hoping for a chance. But every time I only make it worse. Maybe… hopefully someday, but not now.”
“And I suppose this also explains… uh, your stubb— er, your personality?”
Finally, a smile. Sparks made eye contact and let a small laugh slip out. “I know. I know. I’m the life of the party.”
Ollie felt satisfied that he had a general idea about who Sparks really was. He was still, however, left with one question in regard to himself, and it was the big one: what— specifically— was Sparks here to help him with? He knew he wanted help getting back on his feet somehow, but he felt like he needed to pin it down better than that. He didn’t quite know how to articulate it.
“I’ll be back in the morning, Ollster. You can tell me on your way to class what you’ve decided you want out of me.”
“You make me crazy, you know that?”
Sparks grinned again.
“Alright then. Whatever I decide to do, you’ll uh, you’ll help me with it? Whatever I want?”
“Yeah. I mean, I already know what you’re gonna decide. You’ve just gotta come up with it on your own. And there are gonna be some strings attached.”
***
Autumn wasn’t terribly cold unless it was spent in one of the houses surrounding the university campus. Tall House was big, which made it nice for guests and parties, but it was really hard to keep warm. The old fashioned windows, the roof, the lack of insulation sucked every bit of warmth right out of it. When the roomies at Tall House got their first utility bill, they freaked out and decided unanimously that each person would use a space heater to cozy up their own room at night rather than keep the entire house warm while everyone was sleeping.
Ollie had taken out his small space
heater a few days earlier, placing it in the center of the floor. It had a built in thermostat, so it turned itself on if the room got too cold. The coils inside glowed orange as it worked to heat up the room, periodically illuminating everything around as it buzzed. Every three or four minutes the room lit up enough so that Ollie could see the hands of the clock hanging on the wall across from his bed.
He lay on his back, eyes fixed on the clock, his brain fixed on Anne. Maybe she is better off without me. Maybe I’d be better off moving on as well. And if he did succeed in getting Anne back into his life? How would things go after Sparks was gone? Surely he wasn’t going to be sticking around forever. I hope.
The clock continued to glow orange every three to four minutes as he thought and worked things out. He couldn’t help but lie there wide awake in his thoughts about Anne and his thoughts about what he was going to ask Sparks in the morning. He thought back to how he had felt when Sparks told him his personal story… about the accident… about the choices he’d made… about how life can turn on a dime… The orange glow on the clock read nearly four o’clock in the morning when Ollie finally stopped wrestling, made his decision, and fell asleep.
Chapter 6
In spite of having slept only a few hours, Ollie found himself awake much earlier than usual. He hovered obsessively over the collection of thoughts left over from yesterday as he showered and got ready. Today’s the day. He found himself more nervous about committing to a decision with Sparks on his future than he was yesterday when he was proposing to Anne.
Sparks had said something about strings being attached to his momentous decision. Ollie found it hard not to worry about what those strings might be. I hope I don’t end up face down on the softball field again. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be up to the challenge of someone giving him real direction in his life.
Ollie sat down for breakfast alone. He poured his cereal into a bowl and flooded it with milk, sitting down at the table to eat. His hand dipped the spoon in.
Sparks the Matchmaker (Aaron Sparks Series) Page 5
