AnguiSH (14 page)

             
“You got another date, or do you have time to have a date with me?”

             
I made sure not to say ‘go out’ since we both knew that was a dead end road. 

             
“Yeah, give me a minute.  Do I need to wear anything special?”

             
God, there were so many things I could’ve said at that moment. 

             
“Nope, just you.  Take your time.”  I hoped those teensy candles lasted long enough for her to get the full effect.

             
I walked back to the kitchen and leaned against the counter.  I could see the luminescence of the candles reflected in the panes of our new greenhouse and I hoped it didn’t tip her off.  My demand for a better life tripled after kissing her today.  My want to be a better man twisted into a need to feel worthy of her hand and her heart. 

             
She came out minutes later, dressed in a purple shirt and some more of those damned jeans that made me want to do anything but go slow. 

             
“I set up something.  I don’t know…”

             
“Oh, no, you don’t get to start being sheepish now.  What did you do?”

             
“I’m trying to get the beautiful girl in this house to dance with me.”

             
“Ah, well lead on.” She put her hand in mine and I led her upstairs.  And the closer we got, the more like a loser I felt.

             
“It’s the best I could do without…you know…”

             
She stepped out on the balcony and looked around and the more she looked, the more I choked.

             
“Your best is amazing,” she said as she turned around to face me.  “You’re just gonna stand there?”

             
I walked over to her, now nervous and unsure again.  She was barefoot and I loved that she was so comfortable with me.   My hands found her waist and we began the courtship put to music.  She talked through every song, about the band, or the lyrics or whatever else struck a chord with her.  I loved to hear her talk about nothing—her voice was my everything. 

             
As my piddly candles finally lost their luster, I showed her the way to get onto the roof where I’d often gone to get out of this incarceration while still retaining my physical tether to the place.  The air was just better out there and it always had felt like freedom.  But now it was just another constricting tentacle of this solitary confinement. 

             
We sat there for a while; she leaned against me and wasn’t speaking.  I’d learned when she wasn’t talking, something was up.

             
“Why so stoic?  That’s my job.” I nudged her with my knees.

             
She shrugged.

             
“Come on,” I bumped her again.

             
She sat up and faced me, “I was just thinking.  The other day I saw some camping gear in a metal cabinet on the side of the garage.  It would get you out of the house and away from here, but we could pick a place that doesn’t have very many people.”

             
She resumed her previous place beside me and I appreciated the minute she gave me to think about it. 

             
“I don’t think we have a tent.”  It was the first of many pitiful excuses I would throw at her.

             
She laughed, “Come on, that was awful.  You know good and well there’s tons of camping stuff in there.”

             
“Well, what if it’s too cold.” She hit me in the leg for that one.  We were in Southern Louisiana.  It was probably ninety two degrees at that very moment.

             
“Give me a break.” 

             
“Fine, when?”

             
She shook her head ‘no’, “Nope, I’m not telling you.  You’ll just finagle your way out of it.  It will be a surprise. “

             
“I hate surprises.”

             
“I love them.” 

             
We stayed there all night.  I was surprised she didn’t ask me ten million questions, including the one I’d expected from the beginning.  Eventually, I knew she’d ask me about Holly, or at least what set me off that day.  I’d have to tell her that Dr. Mavis was coming tomorrow.  I didn’t want it to scare her.  She’d probably think she was gonna give me electrotherapy or put me in a straight jacket. 

             
“I wanted to remind you that Dr. Mavis is coming tomorrow.  She only stays for an hour but I didn’t want it to weird you out or anything.”

             
“What time?” I could feel her jaw against my knee.

             
“She should be here for nine.” 

             
“Well, that’s fine.  I have breakfast plans with Stephanie anyway.  And it won’t interfere with our run.”

             
“Damn it,” I was hoping to be excused for another muscle burning, chest heaving run.

             
We went back inside after she had yawned so much that tears were running down her face.  I’d asked her several times if she wanted to go inside but she refused. 

             
“Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand, “walk me to my room.”

             
I followed her down the stairs and the hall that I now thought of as hers.  We got to her door and I honestly expected nothing but to tell her goodnight.

             
But then she grabbed my shirt and before I knew it, I had her pinned to the wall, my hands in her hair, my tongue exploring the sweet cave of her mouth.  This time she groaned but as soon as I felt her hands under my shirt I slowed down and forced myself to move away from her.  She cleared her throat and touched her fingers to her lips before speaking.

             
“Tomorrow, when I get home, we’re still going to get flowers, right?”

             
“No, I forgot to tell you, I have to go to Blue Bayou waterpark and then I’m gonna hit the mall.  But then, I guess if I have time, we can go.”

             
She turned me away from her with her hands on my shoulders and pushed me a little, “Ok, don’t forget your sunscreen.”  And as she closed the door to her bedroom I heard her mumble, “And he calls me the smartass.”

             
I went back to my room, still wrapped in the smell of her.  I swore for the rest of my life when I smelled freshly cut grass I’d think of Ash.  I heard a car in the driveway about an hour later and looked out the blinds to see Ash get into the car with a girl about her age.  After they drove away I went downstairs to test myself one more time.  I opened the front door, intending to go outside and maybe take a walk around the block—but I froze.  My toes were glued to the threshold and my hand became cemented to the doorknob. 

             
A waterfall of despair and doom poured over me, glassing over my eyes and filling my ears with trickles of dread.  I took a step back, removing my hand and my foot from their traps and tried to emerge into the moonlight, thinking of Ash, and the way she’d held my hand the first time I crossed the same entrance just a few days ago.  But it wasn’t enough.  I couldn’t make   myself do it.  It was like one of those vampire books where they couldn’t enter a home without the owner’s permission.  And at that moment, I felt like the pale, fanged bloodsucker and Ash owned the world I was trying to enter.  But she wasn’t present to give me permission. 

             
The repercussions of what I’d figured out squeezed the air out of my chest.  And it was there, still frozen in place, that I made another brash decision that I knew one day would come back to haunt me. 

             
“I can’t tell her.  I can’t tell her that I have to have her to leave.  She’ll know.  She’ll know and then she’ll leave me.” I spoke to the designer wallpaper around me.  But the walls gave me no comfort.  They provided no advice, no solace for my restless thoughts. 

             
I shut the door, watching the outside world grow smaller and smaller as the oak fell into the doorframe. I locked it; and with it any hope I had for getting better. Tectonic plates shifted within me and I realized what the future held for me.  But I was determined to hold on to Ash, even if that meant lying to myself.

             
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

              Dr. Mavis sat across from me tapping that damned gold and burgundy pen on her damned leather clad legal pad.  Why did they do that? Lawyers, secretaries, and yes, even shrinks.  Everyone knows it’s a plain, yellow, ‘I bought it at the local office supply store just like everyone else’ notepad.  But they always bought it a pretty brown leather dress and made it look like a Madam when really it was just another two dollar whore. 

             
Damn, I’m all piss and vinegar today.

             
“Tell me about
the maid
.” She said
the maid
all snot nosed.

             
“You mean Ashland.”  I didn’t want to hand her the whole basket yet, just pass her one treat at a time.  It might make me actually enjoy this visit.

             
“Oh, we’re on a first name basis with the help?”

             
I wondered if I threw a throw pillow at her at just the right angle, would it take her eye out and we’d have to postpone until next week—maybe it would dislodge that huge stick up her ass.

             
“Well, I’m only twenty one so I don’t really refer to her as Ms. Cormier or Mademoiselle Cormier.  So yeah, I call her by her first name.”

             
“So how close have you gotten?” She scribbled and spoke at the same time—everything she was doing that day was pissing me off to no end. 

             
“We’re friends,” she popped her head up at that revelation, “What?  I can have friends.  I’m not a serial killer.  I’m perfectly fine punishing myself.   And she doesn’t judge me.  She’s been helping me.”

             
“For example?”  Sometimes she would say one word, like example, and it came out with an almost English accent.  The product of too many fundraisers and pompous board meetings.

             
“We started with a car ride, then we went to a drive thru and yesterday we went to a hardware store.”

             
“I’ve been gone for a week and you’ve gone out in public.  Well, what happened?”  She was now roosted on the edge of her chair, apparently I was telling her something she found juicy.  I was like her very own soap opera.

             
“On the drive, I was fine.  I felt uncomfortable at the drive-thru but she—I handled it.  I felt an attack coming on at the hardware store but Ash and I got into a conversation and it stopped.  I was fine.”

             
She propellered her legs, crossing them one over the other and back again, “So, it’s Ash now.”

             
I threw myself back against the couch and created a distinct strangling motion with my hands.  It was directed at her, but she was too busy scratching on her cheap yellow notepad.

             
“Yes, I call her Ash sometimes.”

             
If she had a monocle, this would be a lot more fun.

             
“I’m not judging here, Breaker.  If you’ve made progress, more than what you’ve told me, then I need to know.”

             
“Then you’ll probably want to know about me kissing her.”

Ash

             
“I am so pissed at you right now.  I can’t even look at you,” she seethed at me.

             
“Steph, I’m sorry.  But that’s why I wanted to meet you today, to catch you up.”