Pink Shades of Words: Walk 2016 (37 page)

"That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

Ice filled my veins. When he said that it "wasn't so bad," he meant that it hadn't erupted into a screaming match or anything. However, it scared the shit out of me that he had witnessed Dan’s treatment my mom and could characterize it as "wasn’t so bad."

All I could do was wonder how long it would be until everything Sebastian thought was so adorable about me right now turned into annoyances he’d try to stamp out. I wondered how long it would be until I let him. Until I was trying to beat him to the punch by smoothing out everything unique or memorable thing about me to make myself bland and palatable.

God, I couldn't stand the thought of living a life where all I tried to do, day in and day out, was curl myself up into a metaphorical ball. To try to be tiny and unnoticeable. That was
death
. Everything inside me railed against that possibility.

Sebastian must have felt me stiffen, because he stopped walking and put his hands on my upper arms, turning me to face him. "What's wrong?" he asked, searching my face.

"How long will you like me the way I am?" I blurted out, my voice trembling. "How long until you just want me to be
normal
, like everyone else?"

He glanced away for a moment, his expression thoughtful, and then back to me. He looked unbearably sad, and I couldn't stand that I had done that to him. But I had to know.

He took my hands in his and spoke solemnly. "Miche, I don't know what more I can say to convince you of the way I feel. First, it was why do I like you. Now, it's how
long
will I like you. And I get it. Believe me. I get how hard it must be for you to trust. And, after tonight, I get it even more than I did before.

"But the truth is, there's nothing more I can say that will make you believe what’s in my heart until you know within yourself that you
are
good enough. All of my words will be nothing but empty promises to your ears unless you already know that deep inside. And I can’t do that for you. The only person who can give you the gift of knowing your own worth...is you."

He drew me to him and held me tight. I felt like I would shatter. I recognized the embrace. It was the one I had just given my mother. It was the way you held someone when you were afraid you were seeing them for the last time.

He pulled back and looked into my eyes. "Come on. Let's get you back to the hotel. I think maybe I should drive back on my own tomorrow. That maybe you need some time to think. Away from me."

Everything inside me screamed that it wasn't true, that I needed
him
, not time away from him.

Everything, that was, except for the part of my mind and my heart that recognized the truth in his words.

I nodded, and we continued on the long, wordless walk back to the hotel.

––––––––

C
HAPTER TWENTY

Sebastian

––––––––

"D
ude, seriously? You are bumming me the fuck out. Do you plan on, maybe, I don't know...leaving the room today? I know that's a radical idea. But just consider it for a moment. Also consider that foods other than Cup O' Noodle exist in the world. If you just, ya know...leave the room to go get them."

"Jackson, f'real, shut the fuck up."

He whistled low and disapprovingly. "God damn, dude. I never thought I'd see the day."

He was obviously fishing for me to ask him what day he was talking about. And I didn't want to give him the satisfaction, but the longer the silence stretched on, the more annoyed I became.

Finally, I rolled my eyes and said, "Fine. Fuck. I'll bite. What day?"

He grunted. "The day that Sebastian Winters was so pussy-whipped that he stopped living his fucking life because a girl wouldn't return his texts."

I sighed. It was true. I had expected to spend the hours on the drive back to Arcata apart from Miche. I had thought we would talk again that night when we got home. That we would iron everything out and things would go back to normal. But nope. It had been almost a week now, and I hadn't heard from her. Not one word.

I was about to respond to Jackson when he interrupted me with a groan.

"God damn it, stop sighing! I swear to God, it's like I'm at my junior high school sister's slumber party and they're watching fuckin'
Twilight
all the time with the nonstop sighing and melodramatic shit that's been going on in here! Now—and listen closely, compadre, because this is a one-time offer—if you want to talk, talk. Now. I'll listen. If you don't, don't. That's fine too. But if you choose 'don't,' then you've gotta get your shit together and pull your ass out of this funk on your own. I-fucking-mmediately. I'm pulling the roommate card, man. I've let you stew in your own juices for a week. It's enough."

I didn't answer. After a week's worth of moping around, doing nothing but listening to Seether on my headphones, I knew he was right. I was ready to snap out of it too. I just hadn't been able to summon up enough momentum to break the inertia of my downward spiral on my own.

"I definitely don't want to 'talk about my feelings.' I'm not that far gone."

Jackson looked distinctly relieved. "Fine. Well, what are you gonna do, then? If you want my advice, I've always found getting shitfaced to be a solid strategy."

"Nah. Not my style. I think I'm gonna go work out."

"There ya go. Sweat out those demons."

"Yeah. Maybe go for a jog, combine the endorphins with the fresh air."

"That oughta do you good. Shit, before you know it, it'll be like you never even met this girl."

"That's placing a lot of pressure on one run around campus."

Jackson grinned. "I'm nothing if not an optimist."

I laced my running shoes up and tried to get myself mentally pumped about the idea of getting my muscles moving, losing myself in the hypnotic rhythm of my feet pounding the pavement in a steady beat. My heart rate rising, sweat breaking out on my skin... But that made images, completely unbidden, of Miche and me, in bed, naked, pop into my mind. Our bodies pressed against each other, her skin so smooth and creamy under my hands, her head thrown back and her eyes closed in pleasure...

"Come on," Jackson groaned. "What's with the fucking sighing again?"

Yeah. He was definitely right. It was beyond time for me to get out of my head. I was an athlete, damn it. I had been trained to make my body perform to capacity regardless of what my thoughts or emotions were telling me to do. I was going to employ that training now and push my muscles to the limit, using the exertion to switch up my headspace. One thing was for sure—I had proved that sitting around eating Cup O' Noodle wasn't going to get me out of my head. Time to try a different strategy.

I stepped out of the dorm and into the bracing breeze coming off Humboldt Bay before I did a few stretches to work out a week’s worth of couch potato kinks. As I loped off across the quad, I put in my earbuds and started my workout playlist. Yeah, sure, it was still Seether. But at least it was
Rise Above This
this time. In my mind, that was progress.

––––––––

C
HAPTER TWENTY ONE

Michelle

––––––––

I
said a quick prayer—as I always did—that the Chevette would start and then turned the key. Yes! Success. The engine roared to life, and I prepared to pull out of my parking space. I was going out for the first time all week. In a very anti-serious-student—and therefore very
un-me
—move, I had blown off my classes for going on five days now and spent that time in my room. I had told myself that I was contemplating. Meditating.

But I was just stewing.

I just couldn't imagine a world where I would ever trust Sebastian's feelings for me. To trust that he liked me for exactly who I was and wasn't going to look for opportunities to change me into someone more mainstream as time went on.

Of course, this was a direct result of having watched my douche nozzle of a stepfather do that to my lovely, wonderful, free spirit of a mother over the years. Now, she was little more than a Stepford wife. She had been complicit in this change as well, yes. She could've kicked his ass to the curb at any time. Or she could've at least pushed back a little on all of his constant demands to sandpaper off any of the things about her personality that stood out—things he thought of as rough edges but I thought of as all of her best parts.

And, also of course, Sebastian never acted that way. Not toward me or anyone else. He and my stepfather were entirely different people. They were polar opposites. I knew that—in my head.

The problem seemed to be making my subconscious recognize the difference. No matter how many times Sebastian did something wonderful for me or said something that showed me that he looked at me and saw my uniqueness as something precious and special—something to be protected, not ground away—I still couldn't bring myself to trust it. I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And Sebastian was right—I couldn't keep putting him through it. I needed to solve this within myself. But I didn't know how. And, even if I had known how, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to.

It was a shitty situation to be in, and I resented the hell out of it, but I was also terrified and depressed. I was terrified I was about to lose the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I was depressed because it was entirely my own fault and I didn't know how to fix it.

But...none of that changed the fact that my grandmother needed groceries, and I was the only one who could bring them to her. So there I was, firing up the Chevette and heading to the store—one of the many activities that would forever be tied to Sebastian Winters in my mind. I smiled a small, sad smile. It was true, I would never be able to make a grocery store run again in my life without remembering that night he’d saved me.

As I pulled out of my parking place, I did a double take. Was I hallucinating? Was I seeing visions of Sebastian because he had been the only thing on my mind twenty-four hours a day for the past week? I blinked. Nope. That was actually him loping across the quad in running shorts and no shirt, earbuds firmly planted in his ears and a determined expression on his face.

A wave of melancholy crashed over me, competing with the wave of lust that rushed through me with equal strength. God! As sad as I was, I would never see a shirtless Sebastian Winters and not have my libido sit up and take notice. That would just never happen.

I put my car into gear, a little more forcefully than necessary, and pulled away from the curb. I figured that the best way to shake loose of the powerful emotions was to remove myself from the situation. It didn't help much though. I pretty much sleepwalked through the grocery store aisles, throwing things in the cart without really looking at them. In a vague part of the back of my brain, a small voice whispered that I'd better hope I was buying the right food, but I couldn't even muster up the interest to pay it much attention.

When I got to Grandma Trudy's house, I set the shopping bags on the porch next to me and fumbled with the key in the lock. Fuck! What was wrong with me? Even my fingers weren't working right.

The door was pulled open from the inside with a sudden force while my keys were still in the lock, which yanked them out of my hand with no warning. I looked up into the concerned face of Grandma Trudy, who had chosen a palette of bright-purple eye shadow and shocking pink lipstick that day.

"Honey, what's wrong? Are you sick? What's the matter?" She came out onto the porch and placed her hands on either side of my face while studying my eyes. Then she used the patented "Grandma Trudy" method of taking my temperature—planting a big kiss on my forehead. When she pulled back, she still looked concerned, but not panicked. "Well, you don't have a fever," she said.

I believed her. In fact, I would have pitted her lips against the most finely tuned thermometer in a battle of accurate temperature gauging any day and expected them to come out on top.

"No, Grandma, I'm fine," I assured her.

"That's horse puckey," she replied. "Now, tell me what's wrong."

I gathered up the grocery bags and moved past her and into the house. "Come on, Grandma. Let's go inside or else we'll both be running fevers before too long."

"You're evading," she noted as she followed me in, "and that can only mean one thing."

I let out a beleaguered sigh. "And what's that?"

"This is about that boy. Sebastian."

I shrugged but didn't deny it, and then I silently put the groceries away. I willed myself not to cry in front of my grandma. She had enough troubles without having to deal with me falling to pieces.

My grandmother's voice was soft and sympathetic when she spoke again. "What happened, baby doll? Did he hurt you? I'll kill him!"

That made me laugh, which was a welcome relief from the nonstop melancholy.

"Unnecessary,” I said. “As a matter of fact, if it came down to which one of us is causing the problem, I'd have to go with me."

"So...are you broken up? Or is this just a hiccup?"

"I wish I knew. That's part of the problem."

"Okay. Well, what's the rest of the problem?"

I stopped putting groceries away and sat at the kitchen table. Grandma Trudy sat across from me and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. After taking a moment to get my thoughts straight, I launched in.

"I just... Well, you know how I've always placed such a high value on being myself. Even if I didn't fit in with the rest of the world. I have to be who I am, and I don't appreciate people trying to take all of the unique things about me and make them 'normal.' I can't let that happen, because once you let someone start chipping away at you like that, bit by bit, over time, suddenly, you wake up thirty years later and you don't even recognize yourself. You're not even the same person anymore. Like I said, I can't let that happen."

"That's true. But...
is
that what was happening?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, granted I've only met the young man and seen you two together a couple of times, but I have to say, he seemed to think you were pretty spectacular 'as is.' So, has he been trying to change you? That would surprise me is all."