AnguiSH Page 6

  “I don’t know Ash, if he doesn’t make your toes curl when you look at him, what’s the attraction.”

  “Shallow much?” I said.

  “I know. I was testing you. But now I’m serious. Your usual type is a mix of Vin Diesel and The Rock. But that’s just what’s in your brain. If this guy touches your hand and you almost come unglued, then there’s something to explore, don’t you think?”

  I sighed, “Oh God, Ash, you really need to see what’s there. All this sighing, it’s not good for your lungs.”

  “Shut up!”

  “But what else? There’s got to be something else. You don’t just get all goo goo eyed in a week because a guy held your hand.”

  I shrugged but I knew she wouldn’t let me get away with that simple answer.

  “I guess I could just follow you over there and see what the deal is myself.” She sat back in the chair, her ante on the table.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” I called her bluff.

  “Try me.” She did this thing where she pretended to look at the state of her fingernails when everyone knew she went to the nail salon once a week.

  I folded, “He likes my voice. Or that’s what I think I heard. And he doesn’t act like I talk too much. He—he acts like he likes to talk to me. And believe me, I was letting my blabber mouth flag fly high. I wasn’t trying not to talk too much like I usually do.”

  “Just keep it cool, Cormier. Don’t freeze up. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

  I rolled my eyes at her, “Thanks that really helps.”

  “Let me ask you this. Does he get your little smart ass quips?”

  I nodded a yes.

  “Oh God, he’s gonna break your heart or make it whole. We need some retail therapy. Besides, Ozark asked me the other day to put a good word in for him. What is he, wanting to date you or interviewing for a job. Ugh…”

  “This whole thing is wrecking my brain. Let’s go shopping.”

  I bought a ton of clothes since I now had a good deal of money in the bank courtesy of Mrs. Collins. I hadn’t been shopping like that in years. And I got the chance to buy some new bikinis. I was still wearing the ones I had in high school. We decided to eat at the food court in the mall when it hit me. Breaker hadn’t eaten mall food in years either—travesty.

  Stephanie left me there after a phone call from her boyfriend and I decided to get Breaker more of what he’d been missing. And then a gnawing thought hit me.

  What if he’s just putting up with me because he’s starved for a woman’s attention?

  Thirty minutes later I pulled into the driveway. I gathered all of my bags and walked into the house. Breaker wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I called his cell phone but got no answer. So I put all of his food in the refrigerator and wrote a note on a piece of paper from my purse.

  In the beginning I didn’t mind writing him notes, but now, in just over a week’s time, it just didn’t sit well.

  Breaker

  Decompression—that was the word I was looking for—decompression. If I came up too fast the panic would invade my lungs and coil through my veins. I sat in my room the next day until three or four o’clock just reading and being lazy. I hoped the aftershocks of making bounds to get out of the house would lessen—and I didn’t want Ash to think something was wrong with me. I walked downstairs and didn’t find her anywhere. Every time she left, this house was becoming more and more lonesome.

  I went back upstairs after grabbing a plate of leftovers. I started working on the leather bag, the one I was making for her when the feeling hit my chest and rippled over the rest of me—what if she just pities me? What if she feels sorry for the pitiful shell of a man and considers me one of her projects, like this house. Maybe I’m just another pith of dust and she intends to annihilate me. I breathed deeply and tried to forget the feeling but it needled the back of my neck.

  I heard her come in sometime later and ignored the ring of my cell phone. I wouldn’t be her little project and I couldn’t bear to see the look in her eyes if what I’d assumed was friendship had any twinge of sympathy in it. So I made up my mind then and there. I would have to try to ignore Ash, before she could burrow any further into my skin and leave me with the aftermath.

  Three days later, I found myself pacing my room incessantly. I swore the wood floors now bore a worn path where I’d stomped and slid my feet. I only went downstairs to get food and then bring my plate back down to put in the dishwasher. I got three calls and five texts from her, but I chose not to answer them. She tried to make conversation with me the first day after our little joy ride but I wasn’t having it. In fact, I didn’t even look at her. And as much as my mind told me it was for the best, I couldn’t help but feel the hairline break in my heart as I thought about her. Forget Agoraphobia, my official diagnosis, I was seriously beginning to think I was more bipolar than anything.

  I went downstairs the next Saturday and saw her mopping. She was an industrious little sap sucker, I’d give her that. She looked up and flashed me one of her smiles. Damn it—I had been really rude to her, purposefully for days and she was still smiling at me.

  “What’s your deal?”I said as mean as I could.

  “Nothing, I just haven’t seen you around. I called you a couple of times. But I figured you were busy or had school or something.” She propped her chin up on the tip of the mop handle and wanted me to explain why I’d not answered her calls or texts. But it was just so she could use me as her good deed of the day.

  “Sorry,” I said with no hint of actual remorse whatsoever. I hated it. I hated pretending to be a mean person just because of my ego. But there was a part of me, still desperately turning the key, jiggling the lock to my heart. And it was a sleazy salesman, trying to sell her to me, pitching her qualities and beauty and slinging facts and figures I was having a hard time ignoring. That she could free me of this. That she could be the needle to pop my ugly bubble.

  But I ignored it, slammed my fist against the door inside me, chained and deadbolted it just to make sure it was shut out.

  She cleared her head, nodded once, and resumed mopping. I grabbed ham and cheese and other sandwich makings and unloaded my armful on the counter.

  “Why don’t we order in pizza or I can go get us something to eat. You’ve been eating cereal and sandwiches for almost a week.”

  I didn’t even turn around to address her, “What are you, the food police?”

  “No, I just noticed. Sorry, I’ll get out of your way.” She leaned the mop against the wall and walked towards her room. I rolled my eyes, pretending it was what I wanted.

  I kept up the half façade/half ego trip for another week. But now instead of pacing, I was letting it shred me from the inside out. I spent Saturday morning gathering my laundry up since I had none clean again. I heard a noise outside and went to the window to see what it was.

  Ash was there, unfolding, more like wrestling, with a chair flapping the sides this way and that. She looked like one of those people who worked in the GAP with their perfected t-shirt folding contraptions. She finally got it situated and pulled a mini speaker and her iPod from the pocket of her dress. She ran her thumb across a screen and cocked her hip out, satisfied with her selection. She plugged it in and my ears and the neighborhood became audience to her playlist. I scanned the fence perimeter, more for her than me but found nothing and no one to feed my fear. But when I looked back I took a step back in sync with my swift inhale of breath at the sight before me. She lay on her stomach in a whisper of a black bikini, the dress she had on before long gone. I stepped to the side of the window so my body was hidden, and dared to peek once more. I gripped the windowsill, hoping it would absorb some of my out of control frenetic energy. I felt like I was seventeen again, ready to jump at any girl within spitting distance. But I didn’t want any girl, I wanted her.

  She had to be doing it on purpose. She began to sway her hips to the beat of the music just enough to make me groan. Then she reached up and
untied the string on her back and the one around her neck and let them fall down to her sides. I hated to admit that my attraction to her was the factor that tipped the scales in her favor. It sounded so shallow but it made me a magnet for her.

  I’m such a sleazeball.

  I ventured to look again and this time her head was turned towards me. I could see her plump lips mouthing the words to whatever song she belted out below. I thunked my head against the window and relented.

  “Screw it, even if she only helps me out of pity, I’ll take it.”

  So I waited her out. Because if I went out there, I couldn’t be held responsible for what would happen. My need for her was out of control.

  I did all my laundry, all while keeping one eye on the back door, or the window, whichever was closest to her. She finally came in and hesitated by the door. And it made me feel like crap for treating her that way. She didn’t deserve the brunt of my whacked out life.

  “Hey,” I approached it hesitantly, “How about pizza and a movie tonight?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then I could see she’d made a resolve of her own.

  “I’m sorry, Breaker, I’d love to, but I have a date.” I heard her words but I staggered, thinking it was her quick wit or her infamous smartassery.

  “Oh yeah, with who?” Two could play this game.

  “Why do you care Breaker? You’ve been doing a damned fine job of pretending I don’t exist for a week. What, you got a little lonely and saw me coming in like this and thought you’d take a cheap shot? Never mind, it doesn’t matter, I’ve got to get ready.”

  She left me there, the nausea scaling the walls of my esophagus and my legs swayed as it sunk in.

  I was too late. I was stuck, in the hell of my mind and this house. I’d lost her. I’d lost her—before I even had her.

  I sat on the couch for longer than I’d thought because before I knew it, I heard her bedroom door open. I scrambled to find the remote and turned the TV on before she came into the room. I heard her fumbling with something in the kitchen but I pretended to nonchalantly flip channels. But I could see her in my peripheral. She wore a red off the shoulder shirt and a pair of jeans that made me concerned for the arteries in her legs and for my own loss of heartbeat. Her hair was down and messy.

  I wanted it to be me. I wanted her to be getting dressed for me.

  Ash

  I panicked. I panicked and then I lied. I panicked, I lied and then I had to find a way to either get out of said lie or admit that I lied. Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.

  So I acted out of desperation. I shamelessly fumbled through the trash, looking for one of those damned cups. I found it and prayed Ozark had been coy enough to put his phone number on my coffee cup—again. And God bless him, he was. And when I called he responded to me eagerly.

  At this point, so embarrassed, I was willing to call Stephanie and get her to meet me somewhere and call it a date. Ozark didn’t hesitate to make a date with me.

  I got dressed, frustrated and angry. And I put on an outfit sure to get both of their attention. I didn’t want to go on this date. I didn’t have an ounce of attraction to Ozark but I couldn’t just wait around here for Breaker to decide what he wanted. One minute he is in my car, making great strides and turning my insides to goo. And next, he ignores me? I couldn’t live that way. I wouldn’t live that way.

  I walked into the kitchen looking for a pair of scissors to cut off a tag from my new jeans. I was louder than I should’ve been, slamming the drawers open, thrashing through the contents, and then knocking them closed with my hip. I saw him on the couch, scrolling through the channels as if he hadn’t spent the last week making my job feel more like indentured servitude.

  I checked my phone and it was now a little after seven. I wondered if Ozark had stood me up, that would actually serve me right. But a few seconds later the doorbell rang. I walked through the living room to answer the door. I heard Breaker say, “He’s late. No respect.”

  I stopped to glare at him, “You would know.”

  I answered the door and Ozark came in while I got my phone and my purse. He didn’t even tell me I looked nice or anything. He just squirmed like he had someplace better to be. Breaker continued to stare at the TV, pressing the controls on the remote aggressively. I ignored him the best I could and Ozark and I left for the movies.

  My disdain of the date, the person and the event, began in the car. He had the music up so loud that we couldn’t even talk. He opened my door for me and smiled. He had a great smile, I would give him that. I wondered what Breaker looked like when he full-on smiled—when he wasn’t too busy being a full-on jerk.

  We decided on an action movie. He circumvented the snack bar and I stared after it, wondering what offense it had caused him. Plus, I could smell the popcorn—it was calling my name. I thought about breaking away from him and following my stomach’s desire. At this point, I didn’t even think he’d notice. He was bee-lining for the theater; you’d think there was gold in there the way he was running.

  We sat in the very back and it disturbed me. He can’t buy a girl popcorn but he assumes I’m a back of the theater kind of chick? I sat next to him, inhaling lungfuls of popcorn infested air, hoping to trick my stomach into thinking it was actually eating. The movie started and as soon as the lights went out he put his arm around my shoulders. The movie hadn’t even started. I wanted to tell him to at least let the dancing Coke and hot dog finish their cabaret before he started getting fresh but I took it as punishment for lying to Breaker.

  And he was silent. I liked to talk a lot, everyone knew that. But my ultimate favorite thing to do, especially with a new movie, was make fun of the acting, pick out plot mistakes. It was my thing. So I liked to talk through movies. But other than the arm around my shoulders thing, I seriously considered calling 911 and reporting a death by silence.

  “This is a great movie. I love Jason Statham.” I whispered in his direction.

  He cut me a look that could only be described as a dictator’s nod, hushing his crowd of followers. I pulled my lips inside my mouth and crushed them between my teeth in an attempt to stay quiet. After a few more minutes, I shrugged out of his arm and got up wordlessly to use the bathroom. I didn’t really need to use the bathroom, I just needed a minute to breathe. I took my time and by the time I got back, the movie was almost over. He had his hand in my chair and when I moved to sit down, he took up residence on my shoulder again. I wished I was with Breaker. Even as a jerk, he still magnetized me. And the one next to me, with the ‘make the girls drool’ blue eyes—he might as well be a speckled trout for all I cared.

  Ozark drove me home and even though I didn’t want to, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was nervous. He’ d always talked to me before, when he was at work. That had to be it.

  I got out of the car at the driveway and he barely said goodbye. He didn’t even walk me to the door.

  I unlocked the front door and walked in, shutting it quietly behind me. I really didn’t want to tip Breaker off that my date was over so quickly.

  “You were only gone two and a half hours. Did he have to get home before curfew?” So much for that theory.

  “No, I showed him such a good time that he was exhausted.”

  I heard him huff his disbelief from the couch.

  I pulled off my heels and sat next to him. I wanted to be near him after sitting next to the floppy, silent fish for so long. He was watching Gone In 60 Seconds. “Ugh, I love Memphis Raines. So hot. And the English guy, the one who doesn’t talk? Double hot.”

  “I have to ask you something, Ash.” He turned to face me on the couch.

  “What?” I thought this was a setup for something rude.

  He looked around the room once and then pegged me in a dead stare.

  “Did he tell you how beautiful you look tonight? Did he tell you that this red,” he worked a piece of my shirt between his thumb and his finger “really sets off your eyes? Did he hold you
r hand? Did he bring you to the door and make you wish you were the kind of girl that would invite him in?”

  I swallowed and looked back at his fingers, still on my shirt, “No.”

  “No to which question?” He moved his hand to my hair and twirled a strand around his hand.

  “No to all of them.” I was almost ashamed of my answer. It wasn’t my fault, but I didn’t like admitting it.

  “What a shame. I owe you an apology.”

  “Do you?” I looked down at my jeans.

  “Yes, I’ve been a jerk to you. I thought maybe you were just helping me because you felt sorry for me. So I took it out on you. And I had to force myself not to talk to you and to be really rude. I’m so sorry. I wish you’d been with me tonight. I would’ve made sure I said all those things to you. I would’ve made sure you knew how beautiful you are.”

  “And now? What do you think now?”

  He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest like he was helping his skeleton keep himself together.

  “Now I don’t care. I really could care less if you’re helping me because you want to or because you pity me. Either way, I’ve got a great girl living in my house, trying to help me break out of here. Either way, I’ll take it. If you still want to, that is. I’d completely understand if you don’t. I was an ass.”

  “Yes, you were an ass. But I really want to help you. And I hate pity parties, so I’m not throwing one. But I’m starving to death. Ozark just passed up the snack bar like popcorn isn’t the greatest thing about the movies.”

  “Wow, Ozark is a really, um, unique name. He didn’t buy you popcorn or anything. What in the hell possessed you to go out with him?”

  I chuckled and figured since he was being all upstanding and honest, I’d better join in.

  “Well, I was so pissed at you for being an ass and then asking me to spend time with you that I made it up. But then I called him and he agreed to go out. It was easier than admitting that I’d lied. But damn, no popcorn and he wouldn’t talk to me in the movie. He was like the movie police or one of those guys with the flash light that busts you for using your phone. It was insane.”