“Stop scratching. You’re making it worse,” Gray tells her.
“It hurts!”
“It wouldn’t hurt if you’d stop scratching for two seconds.”
“It’s poison oak!”
“No, it’s not,” he yells back. I look back and forth between them and try to gauge whether this fight is mutual disgust or sexual tension. Gray reaches his hand out to touch Kari’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, but she swats it away with a hard slap.
“Get your cheap hands off of me,” she screams.
It’s probably time to intervene, but I’m secretly enjoying the spectacle. I can’t hangout with Toolshed, but Gray is free to waste a gorgeous afternoon on crybaby here?
“Cheap?” Gray asks.
“Yes. This is your white trash idea of a date? Hiking?”
“White trash?” Gray repeats. He looks more confused than angry.
Kari nods. “Very clever ploy, Gray. This way you get out of paying for anything.”
He looks at the ground like there’s a response written out on his feet.
“It’s just a lame attempt to get out of spending money,” Kari demands.
“I bought you coffee,” he mumbles.
“Here’s some advice, since you obviously need it,” Kari shouts. “No woman actually likes hiking. Okay?”
“I love hiking,” Cat says under her breath, but Kari doesn’t hear her.
“And if they say they do, they’re lying,” Kari says. Miles, Cat and I exchange grins.
“We don’t like camping and tents and bugs and sporting events,” Kari insists.
“Hey,” Miles speaks up. Apparently dissing sporting events is going too far.
I set my hand on his arm and stand up. I offer to get some cortisone for Kari. This reminds her of the stinging red blotches on her legs. Her mouth starts to tremble and she bends down and starts scratching at them again. My eyes flicker to Gray and he looks guilty.
“I think I’m having a severe reaction,” she says. “I’m starting to feel nauseous.”
“Probably because you slammed a gallon of coffee on an empty stomach,” Gray says.
Before she can wind up and slap him again, I step between them. I offer to drive Kari to the emergency room if it would make her feel better. She sniffles and nods and Gray digs into his pockets and hands me his keys. His eyes meet mine and they barely look grateful. More than anything, he’s furious. I get the sneaking suspicion it’s my presence that’s bothering him more than anything. It makes me feel sick to see this is how he reacts to me. That I’m such a burden for him to bear. It’s making me doubt, again, what I’m doing here. The harder I try to knock down his walls, the higher he builds them.
Kari stomps down the steps and I follow her to Gray’s car. I yell that I’ll drop the keys off later. Gray’s already disappeared into the house, the screen door slamming shut behind him. I turn and wave to Miles and Cat, who watch me with concern.
GRAY
I’m lying on my bed, blaring Missed the Boat, by Modest Mouse. The lyrics seem appropriate considering my current disastrous dating karma. I’ve still got my practice shorts on and I’m icing my shoulder. I smell like sweat, my arm’s sore, and I need to shower and write that stupid book review for Psych class. I pull my fingers through my hair and stare up at the ceiling. I feel terrible about Kari. Maybe I deserved to be called cheap. Maybe she’s right, that I took her hiking so I wouldn’t have to fork over sixty bucks for dinner with a girl I might not have chemistry with.
I hear a knock at my balcony door and I sigh at the ceiling. Speaking of chemistry…
A second later the door opens and Dylan crosses the room. I can feel her presence like heat, like sun rays touching my skin. My car keys land on my dresser with a clang. Out of the corner of my eye I see her turn, and I think she’s going to walk right back out, but she sits down next to me on the bed. She props her elbow on my knee and her eyes study me, but I keep mine focused on a long, dark crack in the ceiling. It runs from one end of the room to the other. I wonder why the ceiling doesn’t crash down and for a second I’m jealous. I wonder how you can be strong and hold yourself together with cracks stretching through your entire surface.
“Hey, you,” she says.
I acknowledge her with a half grin. I love having her here on my bed. Her elbow resting on my knee. I hate that I love it.
“Kari’s fine.”
I blink at the ceiling.
“It wasn’t poison oak,” Dylan says. “You were right. It was just a reaction to field grass or something blooming on the path that brushed her leg. The doctor prescribed cortisone and Advil. She was hungry, so I treated her to Starbucks on the way home.”
I squeeze the icepack harder against my shoulder and thank Dylan for taking her to the emergency room. I tell her I owe her one. She’s quiet for a moment and I finally meet her eyes. There’s a deep crease between them. She’s upset about something.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Kari’s not such a bad girl, you know. She was just scared today.”
I shrug. I was scared too. It’s not every day someone tries to push me off the side of a cliff.
“I don’t think hiking is a white trash date idea,” she adds.
I exhale loudly. “Give it a rest, Dylan.”
“I’m just saying.”
“It wasn’t hiking,” I say. I sit up on my elbows and stare at Dylan. “It was watching someone have a nervous breakdown for two hours straight. Her autobiography could be titled Borderline Psychotic.” I flop back down on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
“I’m done,” I say.
Dylan looks down at me. “Done?”
“With dating. It isn’t worth it. It shouldn’t be this painful.”
“You’re a little young to retire in the dating department.”
“I suck at it.” I rub my hand over my face. “It shouldn’t be this much work.”
Dylan shakes her head. “Not if it’s the right person.”
I can feel her eyes on me, but I refuse to meet her gaze. She sums up my entire dilemma in one sentence.
Dylan’s voice softens. “Kari’s really beautiful.”
I smirk at this observation. “Beauty has its limits,” I say. “Hers ends on the surface.”
Dylan’s quiet and she taps her feet to the music. She leans against my leg. It makes my whole body heat up. I have an urge to grab her arms and pull her on top of me. I clench my fingers tighter around the ice pack instead.
“So, is Kari your type these days?” Dylan asks.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You know, petite, big boobs, wears short-shorts.”
I narrow my eyes at this question and I know what Dylan’s getting at. All of those features are the exact opposite of her, like I’m trying to avoid every aspect of Dylan. Find her complete opposite. Stay the furthest away from her that I can. In a way, maybe I am.
“I don’t have a type.”
Dylan’s hair falls over her shoulder and brushes the skin on my chest and it makes my stomach tense up. I glance at her but she’s oblivious to her affect on me. She’s looking away from me, absorbed in her thoughts. I touch some of her hair and it feels light and warm, like silk.
Maybe that’s why I’m so attracted to Dylan. She’s so unaware. She doesn’t even try to catch my attention. She doesn’t try to be sexy or force herself to look just right. She just is. And it makes me crave her that much more, because she hides all of that sexiness under the surface. It’s more of a challenge to pull it out.
I curl my fingers around her wrist and she looks down at me.
“You know why I asked Kari out, don’t you?”
She raises a single shoulder. “Because you like her?”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “I’m trying to avoid you.” I’m surprised to hear myself admit it out loud.
Dylan pulls her arm out of my grasp and leans away from me. “I get it, Gray,” she says. “You’re over
me. Congratulations. But you could at least be honest with me. You could have told me you had a date today.”
I look up at her. “You believe I’m over you?” I ask. Did I fool one of the most perceptive girls I’ve ever met?
She says it’s obvious. “You should see the way you look at me sometimes. Like you despise me. Like it makes your skin crawl to be in the same room with me. I hate that I have that effect on you.” She looks down at the empty space between us. “You were right. I waited too long and I’m trying to bring the past back instead of just accepting this is over.”
I feel my chest ache. Finally, all this acting paid off. Then why do I feel sick about it? Maybe I wanted to hurt her, because she hurt me. I wanted her to see what it’s like to feel powerless. To love somebody and lose them.
Her eyes meet mine and they’re filled with sadness. This has gone on too long. It’s time to stop thinking so hard and move.
I sit up and grab her face in my hands and kiss her. The ice pack slides between us and it’s wet against my chest. Even though my shoulder’s numb, when she touches it, her fingers burn my skin.
It’s just a kiss, I remind myself. That’s all.
I lean back and pull her on top of me. Her hair falls all around us and I have to brush it away. The ice pack crunches between us and I grab it and throw it on the floor. I wrap her in my arms and I feel like I’m holding layers of happiness.
It’s just one kiss.
I drink in her mouth and taste her tongue and my mind is a rollercoaster. My heart pulls apart and collides back together with so much force that my hands start to shake. I feel like I’m speeding down a highway in the middle of the night with no headlights turned on.
A single kiss can be one of the craziest things you ever do.
***
I stare up at my bedroom ceiling after she leaves and replay the kiss over and over in my head like a song on repeat and I taste it and savor it until my stomach flips so many times it hurts.
I learned something tonight. Love always finds you, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. It knows your hiding places. It’s smarter that you’ll ever be.
And love is patient. It waits. Sometimes it waits until you give up. Just to prove you wrong.
But sometimes I’d rather hide than feel this way because when I’m with her the chemical reaction is too strong. Sparks shoot off behind my eyes. It’s my own free firework show. But I don’t know if I want it. Fireworks scared me when I was a kid—the ashes falling from the sky, the screaming spectators, the flashing streaks of light and noise you could feel jostle the ground.
I imagined the fireworks could hit the stars. Could shatter something whole. That the lights could fall on me like boulders, crushing me.
That’s how you make me feel tonight. You. Crush. Me. Under your magnificent light show.
DYLAN
Gray once told me he thinks musicians are the greatest magicians. Sometimes that’s the way I feel about photography. It feels like magic, to be able to capture an entire mountain and hold it inside a tiny frame. To be able to take the sky-line of New York City, with all of its lights, or the city of Prague with its tunnel of bridges and compress it neatly on a single print. Cameras give one person a thousand eyes. They take us light years away. Pictures introduce us to a million strangers. They let us travel to other planets. It’s like teleporting. It’s the magic that intrigues me.
My first gallery show is a small turnout of dedicated regulars. I showcase twenty pictures and over the course of four hours about twenty people come and go. I end up selling eight prints.
I listen to people analyze my photographs all evening. They call my vision fresh. Innovative. People ask what inspires me. Is it my fascination with emotions? Is it to reveal our humanity? Is it to show people wear the same expressions, whether we’re young or old?
Really, I don’t think about it. I don’t plan my photos in advance; I don’t try and predict what people will do. I never stage a shot. It’s more fun to be surprised. Life’s a better story if you let it unfold naturally. When you force it, things become a chore because you close yourself off to possibility. You experience the most when you’re not looking for anything in particular. Photography is the same way.
By the end of the show I’m giddy and exhausted and my feet hurt from wearing new sandals. Liz, (my fashion tutor), helped me coordinate the look of an aspiring photographer. She paired my knee-length turquoise skirt with a simple, brown tank top and leather belt, hanging low on my waist, with small amber and turquoise beads sewn around the buckle. It’s a little too color-coordinated for my taste, but Liz says my complexion works best with earth tones, whatever that means.
When the last customer leaves, Barb begins stacking dishes on the table next to the empty vegetable and cheese spreads.
“I think you found your calling,” Barb said. “Selling eight pieces is great for a first show. It’s all about networking from here.” She’s right, because even people that didn’t buy my photos were still interested in my work. One woman hired me do a landscape series of her property. A man hired me to photograph his Bernese Mountain Dogs. I set up two photo shoots for the following week. The word was starting to spread.
Barb tells me she has some book-keeping to do and asks me to lock the door on my way out. She disappears down the hall. I pick up a stack of flyers I printed to advertise my photography and lean down to stuff them in my backpack. Someone clears their throat.
I look up, and Gray is leaning in the doorway, decked out in his baseball uniform. He stands with one arm at his side and the other behind his back.
“Hey you,” he says and smiles. His skin is flushed, his hair is all messy and his eyes are bright. There’s dirt all over his chest and up the side of one leg. Seeing him in his uniform makes me want to do one thing. Rip it off. He’s standing there all normal like I should be expecting him to show up in his game clothes.
“Hi,” I say, standing up.
He glances down at my outfit and walks towards me. His face is glistening with sweat. It looks like he sprinted here after the game.
“Congratulations on your first show,” he says and from behind his back he pulls out a handful of my favorite flower, Birds of Paradise.
I reach out and trace their bright orange petals with my fingers. I take the bouquet carefully, like he gave me a rainbow and I don’t want to disrupt the beauty of it.
He looks around at the empty room. “Sorry I missed it,” he says.
“Sorry I missed your game,” I say.
“No you’re not,” he says. “You don’t have the attention span for baseball.”
I’ve only been to one of his games. Until a week ago I thought he’d throw a ball at my head if he caught sight of me in the stands. I sat with Liz and tried to concentrate, but by the fourth inning I couldn’t sit still and spent the rest of the game playing sports photographer.
“It could just use a few more exciting features.”
His eyes slide down my body. “Like what?”
A few sexual ideas come to mind.
I clear my throat. “Well,” I say. “First, I would change the uniform. You would all play in boxer briefs.”
“Nice,” he says. “I’m sure our mostly male fans would respond very well to that.”
“And there would only be four innings.”
“Four?”
“And each batter gets one ball and one strike. That’s it. The pitcher would have to throw the ball through a flaming circle of fire. And after every game there’d be a firework show, followed by a team strip dance.”
He just smiles, one of those lazy smiles that completes my day.
“I wouldn’t recommend going into sports marketing, not to kill your life ambitions,” he says. He walks around the room and studies my pictures and I just study him. He should look out of place wearing a baseball uniform in an art gallery, but it just makes him look more masculine. He’s still wearing his cleats and they tap on the wood floor.
&nb
sp; “These are really good,” he says. “You’re so good at seeing people.”
“It’s not that hard,” I say.
Gray asks me about a few of the pictures and I point out my favorites. Then he turns to me. He’s so close I can smell dirt and sweat, but mostly just him. He leans in closer until his forehead is touching mine.
“I didn’t really come here to see your photos,” he says.
“You didn’t?”
He shakes his head and leans away so he can look in my eyes. He slowly brushes the hair off my shoulders. He takes his time. First one side. Then the other.
“I wanted to see you in a skirt,” he says with another lazy grin. He runs his fingers down my neck and chest, until they land at my waist. I try to swallow or think but all I can do is feel the trail of his hands. He pulls me closer and closes his eyes and I think he’s about to kiss me so I close mine. But he stalls and then his lips are against my ear.
“You know I love you, right?”
His breathing gives me the chills. Or maybe it’s the words I’ve been waiting to hear for months.
GRAY
When I drop Dylan off, we both hesitate. We know what will happen if I go inside.
Everything will change.
I turn down my stereo, but neither of us says anything. She picks up her bag and gently lifts the flowers off her lap when she opens the door. I know she’s waiting for me to make the call. She leans over and kisses my lips. She takes her time pulling away. She says goodnight and I watch her walk up the cobblestone path to her apartment door.
She closes the door and I panic. What the hell am I waiting for? A written invitation? There’s no reason to hold back now.
Because everything already has changed.
I turn off the engine, grab a CD, and get out of the car. I cross the driveway and open the door without knocking. Dylan’s sitting on the bed with her legs crossed. She was expecting me. She’s already stripped down to her underwear. It’s a black, matching set.
Second Chance Page 12
