Mechanic with Benefits

by Mickey Miller

  Part One

  Five Years Earlier

  One

  Amy - Five Years Ago - Barcelona, Spain

  Depression doesn’t give a shit about you. It nips at your heels, reminding you of all of the bad things in life, and how much better everyone else has it. On Facebook and Instagram people show the best parts of their lives. Rarely do they snap a photo of the worst.

  The thing I hated most about my depression was that it always knew where to find me.

  It would sneak up when I least expected it, tap me on the shoulder, and say, “Hi there Amy, what are you up to? I thought I might follow you around today.”

  The big bad D had found me in Barcelona and after a week of living here, I was thinking that my mom’s concerns about me not dealing with my depression were legit. It made adjusting to the language barrier, the jet lag, and starting classes the day after I’d arrived that much more difficult. I channeled my therapist and tried to think positive. I thought about my dad’s parting words before I boarded my plane at O’Hare in Chicago: it’s an adventure, don’t forget to live it, and have fun.

  As the busy traffic sounds of the city streamed through my window, I focused on coming up with one thing that was good about this morning. And that, I decided while sniffing the air, was that the coffee smelled damn good. I was already waking up when my host mom knocked on the door.

  “Amelita?” Doña Maria chirped.

  “Yeah…?” I returned, my voice hoarse.

  I heard her jiggling with the knob and then her voice filled my room. “Chandler is back from his two week spring break. Why don’t you get dressed and come down to meet him? I’ve made you two breakfast—your favorite—an omelet with bacon and avocado.”

  It was like she’d known I was down without actually knowing, and had taken extra care to find out a few of my food likes and make them for me. Clearly, she had experience dealing with emotionally fragile study abroad students. Her hospitality was really sweet and it did help. However, I was still getting used to the Spanish schedule of waking up around 9 a.m. and getting to class around ten most days. My host-mom’s mood rubbed off on me a little bit, and I decided that today, I might try a go at actually enjoying myself, as much as it pained me.

  “Amelita,” she repeated, a little more insistent.

  “Coming,” I finally groaned and forced my eyes open when something she’d said hit my brain. I glanced over at the door. “Wait!”

  “Yes?” Doña Maria said, and poked her head back into my room. I’d been living in her apartment in downtown Barcelona since I’d arrived, and I was under the impression that it was only me who was going to be living here with her. She’d never mentioned another student since I arrived, and the program advisor hadn’t mentioned it either.

  “Who’s Chandler?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

  “Chandler is your host brother, Amelita,” Doña Maria said, like it was the best news I could ever hear. “The program gave us two of you this year. Chandler arrived in January, and he’s here for winter and spring.”

  She smiled and closed the door.

  I propped myself up on my elbows and glanced out my bedroom window. The sun was bright and making me wince a little. It was mid-April, springtime in Europe, the best time to visit—or so I’d read. It was nice weather back home in Chicago, too; but I hadn’t come here for the weather. I had hoped a change in scenery would be better medicine than taking actual medication. I wanted to get away from the people around me, especially my mom—who was great, but living in the same city as her while going to college was a little much. Dad was more hands off and trusted my judgment, which was why I was probably closer to him. He saw me as Amy, his daughter; not Amy, his daughter with depression. I suppose it balanced them out, Mom over worrying and Dad being more easygoing. I just needed to figure shit out for myself in general.

  Studying in Spain had not been on purpose, but rather by happenstance. I’d decided to do this on a whim, last minute and it was by pure luck that I got in. At Columbia, my focus was on marketing and management—nothing to do with Spain or its culture—but I was ahead in my credits and taking all electives while abroad. I was here to have fun and do something different. Discover something new. But it would be a brief visit.

  My school here was on trimesters instead of semesters, so I would only be staying through the middle of June.

  I squinted at the clock on the nightstand next to my bed. My Monday classes started soon and I needed to get a move on if I wanted to get to the subway and to my classroom on time. I threw the covers off and shuffled to my door, not in the mood to meet new people. I wondered if it’d be weird with this complete stranger and me living in this apartment—together? What kind of guy studies abroad, anyway? Of the three guys on my program that I’d met, they were all long-haired, skinny hipsters. Not my type. Yawning, I sauntered down the hallway still in my tank top and short pajama shorts. I took a second to glance down at myself. I definitely wasn’t looking my best.

  Whatever. I grew up around parents who walked around the house naked, so it wasn’t like I cared who saw me in my early morning state. However, the “whatever” mindset disappeared the moment I rounded the corner and laid eyes on my ‘brother’.

  He sat in profile to me, elbows on the breakfast table. He was sipping coffee and reading the local newspaper—in Spanish. I did a double take.

  Seeing him for the first time reminded me of Sixteen Candles when they cut to Molly Ringwald’s love interest for the first time. What was that actor’s name again?

  The sun poured in from the front windows, landing on him like a spotlight. When he flipped the pages, his arms flexed. His chest and abs were chiseled, with a tattoo of a rose above his heart, and another image that I couldn’t quite make out on his abs. His skin was olive-colored, and he looked as though he certainly had a healthy bit of Greek in him, or maybe Italian. Or maybe something totally different, but definitely a little exotic. His hair was a dark color, borderline black. When he looked at me, I stared at his eyes. They somehow ranged in hue from light blue to dark green, a combination that perplexed me.

  “Hola. You must be Amelita.” He flashed a cocky almost-smile in my direction. He returned the favor by looking me over thoroughly. The way his eyes scanned my entire body in a leisurely way, twice, sent chills through my body.

  “H-hola…” I stammered, expelling the air I’d been holding while he perused me. I shook my head. “Wait. Did you say ‘Amelita’? My name’s Amy but no one here seems to know that.”

  He laughed—a hearty laugh for so early in the morning. “‘Amelita’ means ‘little Amy’. Guess you haven’t had time to brush up on your Spanish yet. How long have you been here?”

  My pulse accelerated and I took the coffee Doña Maria placed in my hands and urged me toward the table. “Just over a week. And you’re…my host brother?” I asked, distracted.

  “Yep. Me llamo Chandler,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “I just got back today from a trip. Looking forward to living with you, little Amy.” He winked.

  Once again, I watched, riveted as his biceps flexed. He could have done ads for arm porn. And when he spoke in Spanish with Doña Maria, it sounded flawless and natural. In spite of my sudden inability to speak, I pulled out my chair and sat down across from him at the small wooden table.

  Chandler continued to watch me from his seat, as though waiting for me to say or do something. But I just kept staring back at him like an idiot. My host mom was intently watching the interaction between us as she set my plate with my omelet before me. Meanwhile, Chandler continued to watch me openly, which made me doubly nervous. He was a big guy, and his left knee kept bumping into mine, or mine kept bumping into his because I was suddenly jittery. And it wasn’t the coffee.

  He definitely wasn’t skinny. Or a hipster.

  I gulped down a bit of my omelet—which was delicious—and tried not to gawk at this guy sitting across from me shirtless.

  Maria gave a nod as she
sat to my left, a small smile on her lips. We both looked at her when she sighed, smiling. “I think you two are gonna be friends,” she said, in her cutesy Spanish accent.

  “Oh, I have a boyfriend,” I blurted out. As soon as I did, I felt my cheeks get warm from embarrassment. That was not relevant to the conversation. I couldn’t think in front of this guy because his damn abs were too distracting.

  Doña Maria let out a chuckle at my out-of-context statement. “It’s good. It’s okay. Chandler ya tiene muchas chicas. Muchas amigas.”

  I ruffled my brow at her broken English and glanced at Chandler. “What did she say?”

  Chandler cocked his head to the side. He quirked the corner of his lips. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Fine. I won’t.” But I was worried about it. Ya tiene muchas chicas. I made a mental note to look that phrase up ASAP.

  Two

  Amy

  Another week went by, but I didn’t see much of Chandler, especially over the weekend. His classes were also completely different from mine so I never saw him on campus either. I wasn’t sure when he went to class because he seemed to sleep late every morning, and I was out the door before he’d get back. Then he’d arrive late in the night back to Doña Maria’s apartment when I was trying to sleep.

  And, I’d successfully Googled the phrase that I’d been wondering about. Ya tiene muchas chicas meant Chandler already has a lot of girls. I wasn’t sure if she meant friends, or girlfriends, or something in between. It was hard to say. But tonight, judging by the screams I was hearing in his room, he’d brought one of his girlfriends home.

  Again.

  In the corner screen I stole a glance at myself. My long brown hair and brown eyes didn’t look too shabby, if I did say so myself. And I wouldn’t put myself in the “flashy” category, but I had thrown on some eye shadow tonight because I felt like it. I thought I looked damn good.

  Scott, my boyfriend, hadn’t mentioned anything yet, though. I always wondered if he really thought I was pretty.

  “What’s that noise in the background?” Scott asked me via Skype, his face scrunching up. I stared into my computer’s web cam while I sat on the bed of my tiny room. Behind Scott, I could see into his dark bedroom. It was almost 11 p.m. here, which made it about 4 p.m. for Scott back in Chicago.

  Nevertheless, for the past half hour, we’d been trying to Skype while hearing constant banging on the headboard, moaning, and growling in the room next to me. Chandler’s room. Him and one of his chicas.

  “It’s my freaking host brother.” He’d only been back for a week, and I was already getting frustrated by his nightly ritual of bringing a woman home. For once, my boyfriend Scott and I agreed on something: Chandler’s behavior was ridiculous. “He’s been having sex for…oh, I don’t know, the last hour? I always hear a lull, I think it’s going to stop, and then it just starts back up again.”

  Scott shook his head. “Who the hell is this guy? I mean, who has sex for that long? It’s really distracting.”

  Scott had no idea just how much. I decided not to tell him about the morning sessions. And, sometimes, the afternoon sessions. “His name is Chandler. He plays basketball at the University of North Carolina,” I told him, pausing at a particularly loud bang. I eyed Scott. “Honestly, I met him the first morning about a week ago and since then I haven’t even seen him. He gets up late, goes to basketball practice, then goes out after, and brings a friend home almost every night.”

  “That’s gross. He should really get a room.”

  “Well, um, he kind of has a room,” I pointed out, a little surprised that I was defending Chandler. “But yeah, it’s annoying for me. I’ve been thinking about requesting a host parent change, but the program is really full this year.”

  “Your host mom doesn’t mind?” he asked, looking down at his watch and sounded bored. He also seemed distracted.

  “No, apparently not,” I answered, honing in on the weird vibe from Scott. “According to her, I guess it’s kind of a manly thing here to bring a girl home. And her room is on the opposite side of the apartment so I don’t think she hears it like I do.”

  “I see. Well…I have to go,” he said, already reaching toward the top of his laptop. “I hope you can sleep tonight with that!”

  I wasn’t expecting his abrupt cutoff. “Wait, Scott, I had an idea.” I puffed my lips as best I could, in a ‘Blue Steel’ kind of expression. I felt a little ridiculous, but I needed to carry out my plan to spice things up.

  Scott rolled his eyes. “What? What now?” he snapped. I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, so I tried fluttering my eyelids a little bit and puffing my chest out to make him wonder what might be under my robe.

  “Babe, why are you getting all upset?” I asked. My tone inferred that I was getting a little upset too.

  “I’m not upset,” he said, his tone of voice and expression hard and biting. “That’s usually your department.”

  I flinched at his remark. But for once, he also had a point. Even though I took my meds daily, there was still no guarantee that they worked effectively all the time, every hour. I did get moody with him but I thought he understood that about my disorder.

  My level of depression was in the moderate to high range but my therapist, Dr. Han, had also warned me that most antidepressants only worked on really severe cases of depression. It’s why my therapy sessions were focused on keeping a positive attitude and learning ways to relax and control my anxieties instead of solely relying on drugs. Dealing with depression while abroad had been a huge area of contention between me and my mom. Luckily, with help from Dad convincing her I’d be fine, she’d been more okay with it. And, Dr. Han had thought it would be good for me and we Skyped once a week so she could closely monitor me.

  Despite the fact that I’d been diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder when I was young, I still struggled with understanding and dealing with it sometimes. I could be okay and then fall into a depressive episode for years and then swing back out and be good for a while. A number of factors played into all kinds of mental disorders and it was hard to say what exactly was the root cause of mine.

  When it came to telling people about my depression—I didn’t. Unless I had to or felt comfortable enough with another person to divulge that part of myself. I’m usually an upfront and confident type of person but my disorder was a vulnerability. It made me feel weak when I knew I was stronger than that. It made me self-conscious and doubt myself, adding to the cycle of depression and anxiety if I didn’t have careful control over my moods. It was a daily but private and personal struggle, and I didn’t see the point in opening myself up to criticism by people who wouldn’t understand and didn’t want to.

  It’s also why I was at a loss as to what to do with my crumbling relationship. I’d been dating Scott for ten months and for the first half, it’d been perfect. I’d felt comfortable enough to tell him, a little, about my disorder. What was weird was that he hadn’t really reacted at all and it’d made me feel like he didn’t care; and that he accepted me for me. I guess I’d taken that for something it wasn’t.

  I’d been taking the lowest doses possible since my therapy seemed more effective than being drugged all the time. It’d been a huge triumph and I’d credited Scott for some of that.

  Now, sitting here, I was rethinking everything. Getting verbally beaten down again was getting old, especially when I’d opened up to him. I could admit that managing my depression and everything that came with it could get taxing but I thought we were on the same page. However, I didn’t want to fight again. I reminded myself again of Dr. Han’s mantra of staying positive instead of giving in to the disorder when things got difficult. Like now.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I said, trying to be understanding but I also felt like I needed to defend myself. I might have depression but I wasn’t a goddamn doormat either. “I am staying up late to Skype with you, you know—because you asked me and I wanted to do something
for you, too. If I had passed out two hours ago like I’d planned, I wouldn’t have to be up and listening to this…noise.” I gestured with my hand in the direction of Chandler’s room. “So about my surprise…” I forced a smile.

  “Listen, I just can’t do this right now, Amy,” he said, impatiently. “I need to get to class. Okay?” He raised his eyebrows in a menacing way that conveyed the conversation was over.

  My disappointment was instant. “Okay. See you. Talk tomorrow?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” he said, not looking at me. “Might be busy. I’ll message you on Facebook. Bye.” He signed off.

  My heart sank. Something about our conversation didn’t sit right with me. I had been wearing a silk robe the entire time on our Skype call and he hadn’t even asked me about it. He hadn’t even acknowledged the “surprise” I’d mentioned: the black thong and black lace bra I wore underneath. I’d planned on doing a little virtual striptease for him since I knew how much he loved a good performance; but instead, he decided to get all passive aggressive on me.

  Oh well. His loss.

  I tried not to let it drag me down but he hadn’t even tried to hide his indifference. It was difficult to not to be hurt by his disinterest, but this was becoming more common and I wasn’t exactly shy about expressing myself. I’d been trying to ignore his bad attitude, like the comments he made about how I looked or performed in bed, and just tried to be a better girlfriend. I knew the distance wasn’t helping, which was why I tried even harder with these Skype calls, but it was having the opposite effect.

  I closed my laptop, took off my robe, and got under the covers, still in the lingerie. I hated being in this aroused state. I could take care of myself, but thinking about Scott’s odd behavior put me out of the mood. Maybe I was overreacting to the way Scott had acted. He did have to get to class, and I’d felt off since I’d arrived in Barcelona.