Chapter Four

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Chapter  Four

TPOV

It was a damn good thing that I audited classes instead of outright taking them, because my grades would have been shit, and because I don’t think most professors would have taken my excuse of ‘Well, you see, professor, I fucked this stripper in an alley and I had to stakeout her strip club for three days so I could apologize for that’ as decent and reasonable.  Probably wouldn’t fly well.  My job was something else—I had enough of a history with them to take a few days off, so at least I was covered there.  Caroline had been a bit of a different story.  She was a conniving little shit, my sister.  Must have been genetic.  

Truthfully, I would have agreed to just about anything she wanted—making her happy was one of my highest priorities.  I supposed Michael had a lot to do with that.  I wanted to keep up or emulate some example from him or something.  She was important to me.  And that she knew I was there, available, that was important to me.  And she happened to be pretty cool to hang around with anyway.  

I enjoyed picking her up from school or taking her somewhere, and we had a standing date twice a week.  I’d wait for her after school and we’d hang out before I took her home.  She kept me grounded, I think.  Truthfully, she was probably the only thing that kept me grounded period.  She was the bright spot, twice a week, in an otherwise annoying and frustrating time period.  So much of everything was just… life itself was just… maybe that was why apologizing to Allison had been so important to me—because she had been a bright spot in an otherwise dull and mostly meaningless day-to-day existence.  She’d come out of nowhere and threw my whole world that night on its axis.  She was completely unexpected.  And like a breath of fresh air.  I couldn’t let one mistake fuck that all up.  

Naturally, when I’d called to tell Caroline I’d have to miss a few days of us hanging out, the negotiation process started.  It wasn’t like I hadn’t missed other days—sometimes work or other shit got in the way and I’d have to hang out with Caroline another day.  I didn’t exactly have the same excuse with this one; I couldn’t really give her one.  Negotiations were most important, but eventually, she weaseled the reason out of me, too.  It was the tone of voice that did it; I couldn’t resist or listen to the pleading without caving to her like a complete pussy.  I managed to keep the shadier parts of the story to myself, but she got the gist.  

“So… why aren’t you going to be there exactly?  

“Uhm.  Because.  Just because.  I’ve got some stuff I have to do.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Shit.  “Stuff.  Just stuff.  Adult stuff.”

“Adult stuff,” she repeated.  In that insulted tone that she used when she knew that I normally didn’t pull that kind of card on her.  I tried not to treat her like a child.  I’d always appreciated Michael treating me more like an equal, no matter how unbalanced that may have been.  

“Yes.”

“Not class or work?”

“No.  Other stuff.”

“Tyler.  Are you ditching me for some girl?”

She said that in such an offended tone.  And I’d never actually do that.  Not if we had plans.  “No!  You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“So, what is the adult stuff?”  She enunciated it in such a way that I could literally see her making the quotation marks in the air with her fingers.  

“Shit,” I said, more to myself.  “Look, I screwed up, ok?  And I have to apologize to someone, but it kind of requires me to hang out where they work until they show up.”

“How did you screw up?”

Jesus fucking Christ.  “Oh, my God.  Is this the Spanish Inquisition?  Did you decide to stop being an artist and take after dad as a lawyer?  I promise I’ll be back in a couple days.  You won’t even miss me.”

Then she started the whining, “Tyler, it’s been, like, two days already!”

I sighed, “I know, but this is really important, ok?  You know I wouldn’t bail on you if it wasn’t really important.”

She was silent.  That was worse than the pleading or the whining.  If she turned on the tears, I was a fucking goner.  I would abandon all hope of trying to fix things with Allison because my sister ruled out in the end.  I didn’t want her pissed at me.  “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, dejectedly.

I sighed again.  Christ, I think I’d smoked an entire pack of cigarettes during this conversation.  “Listen, when I’m done with this, we can spend a whole day together, ok?  Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?”

“Within reason.”

“Dinner and a movie.”

“Done.”

“And an extra trip to the park.  On a day not normally scheduled.”

“Done.”

“And two more.”

“Caroline.”

“You said anything!”

I took a long drag from the cigarette.  Really, it was a pretty good deal.  “Yeah, ok.”

“And the Met.”

“Now you’re pushing it.”

She giggled, “And the Met, Tyler.”

“Fine.  And the Met.  Man, you’re a tough negotiator.”  Who had me wrapped around her finger.

“When do I get to meet her?”

Little know-it-all sisters.  “I never said it was a girl.”

“It’s a girl.”

I chose not to respond.

“What did you do?”

“Just something I shouldn’t have.”

“Like?”

“Like something I’m not telling you.”

She whined, “Tyler.”

“No.  I already agreed to the Met.  It’s not happening.  Go do some homework or draw something.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll call you when I’m done, ok?”

“Fine.”

Jesus.  “Caroline.”

“Tyler.”

“Are you mad?”

“Maybe.”

This was probably harder than the damn apology would be.  “I’m sorry.”

“Two trips to the Met.”

“Ugh, fine.”  Fucking A.  I think I was being railroaded. “Can I go now?  Because the sooner I apologize, the sooner I can get back to our normal routine.”

“Ok.”

“Bye, ya little–”

“It could be three, Tyler.”

“Darling little sister.”

“Bye, Tyler.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

God.  I didn’t even know what I had agreed to.  I’m sure she’d kept a list, so it’d be all plotted out for me.  She’d probably hand me a schedule the next time I saw her.  

~ ~ ~

So, she’d agreed to try this whole dating thing with me.  And I was ecstatic.  Because she had no reason to, besides the fact that I’d fucked up and I sincerely apologized, but maybe she saw something in me that I saw in her. 

I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what it was about her that I found so appealing.  I think a lot of it was the fact that she was not what I expected.  That night in the bar, she’d made me work so hard for just tiny little pieces of anything, and it was not how I’d expected the night to go.  The whole arrest thing hadn’t been planned either, but the fact that she stuck up for me just made me that much more interested.  Because no one else I know would do that.  And it was kind of a stupid move, because she had to know it was going to result in arrest, but she did it anyway, and was willing to take the consequences.  It was something I would have done.  It was the same thing that I’d basically done that night, but she did it for me, someone she’d just met.  Whether it was principle or lapse in judgment, it was probably weird, but it meant something that she did it. 

I didn’t know if it was a good idea for two impulsive and potentially destructive people to get together, but maybe it’d be like a positive reaction to two combative chemicals.  I wanted to know more.  And for the first time in a long time, it was about her personality and not anything else.  She was gorgeous, sure, I wasn’t blind, and she had these amazing green eyes and it was like she could see right through the bullshit.  Maybe that’s what I’d been looking for, why I’d stopped randomly going to all the bars with Aidan, maybe I wanted someone who didn’t buy the bullshit.  Maybe I didn’t care if we were potentially destructive together because it had to be better than potentially destructive alone.   
 
I was early for dinner—mostly because I was never screwing up with anything within my control again.  I walked around the block next to hers four times to kill time and then showed up at the door a few minutes early. 

I hadn’t been nervous for a date in a long time, probably because I hadn’t actually been on an actual date in an equally long time.  I knocked and waited patiently in the hallway, and was completely taken with her the minute she opened the door.  She looked gorgeous.  Her hair was totally different than I’d seen it the few times before, and it was down framing her face, and I managed to squeak out a ‘hey’ while she stepped back and let me in.  

“Hi,” she said, looking down after giving me a once over, too.  

“You look great,” I said quietly.  I think my smile was near cracking my face.  But fuck, I wasn’t lying.  She’d looked gorgeous the other times I’d seen her, even when she was in the damn strip club, but this was so… real.  Like this was the real Allison that few people got to see.  I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I knew that this was something that only the privileged were trusted with.  So I wasn’t gonna fuck it up.  

I probably looked like I’d gone more insane as I stood there smiling and musing and just taking the whole fucking picture in.  She had jeans on, but truthfully, I didn’t make it much past the shirt.  It was some sort of V-neck shirt, not a tank top because the straps were those little tiny ones – and my mind was completely at a loss for what they were called, but I was pretty sure it was some kind of pasta strap—and the shirt itself had a term, but my concentration walked right back out the door when I realized that the lil’ straps and the… everything… that there was no bra.  She wasn’t wearing a bra, and my motherfucking lustful mind was not going to be coming up with any terms for any type of clothing in the near future.  I’d be lucky if I could get back out of the apartment without walking into the door.  The lil’ strappy shirt with no bra was purple and black; purple background and these black doodle-like lines in patterns and shapes, and I mean, fuck all that, no bra. 

Wide expanse of skin on her shoulders and her neck and her upper chest, and no bra, and I was a dead man.  I was gonna be dead before we even left the building.  And Christ, I hope she was gonna wear a jacket, because if there was any cold air and nipple interaction, I was seriously gonna have to jerk-off somewhere between 8th and 7th Avenue.    

“Thanks,” she said quietly, “you, too."

“You… ready to go?” I asked, hoping she was ready to go, and that would include the jacket.  

“Yeah,” she said, “lemme just get…”

Thank Christ.  The jacket made focusing much easier.  

“Bye, Jordan!” she called.

“Have a good time!” she called back.  “Have her home before dawn!”

She rolled her eyes and shut the door.

The walk to dinner was uneventful.  We chatted about inane shit and I asked about her day.  I forced myself to not smoke my way through an entire pack of cigarettes in nervousness.  I wanted this to go well.  

The restaurant played that really generic Asian music—the kind that was half between elevator and half screaming Chinese lady.  I tried to just ignore it completely, and I was pretty focused on her anyway.  We grabbed a booth close to the buffet and waited for the waiter to come over.  

I was literally about to open my mouth to ask her what she wanted to drink and she held up a hand.  

“Can I just… I don’t want to talk about my childhood or any of that shit, ok?  Can we skip that for now?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“And I don’t want to talk about my job anymore right now, either.”

“Ok.”

“Or –”

“Are there any safe topics?  Maybe that’d be a shorter list.”

She glared at me.  I smiled.  “How about I avoid those, and if I ask something else that you don’t want to talk about, you can just tell me then that it’s off limits.”

She considered this a minute.  “Ok.”

“Ok, so is asking what you’d like to eat and drink acceptable?  Or is there some danger in me asking that?”

She smirked, “No, that’s safe.”

Girl liked her Diet Coke.  Not that this place had decent shit otherwise; their beer selection was pitiful.  That got me thinking, though. 

“How old are you?”

She froze.  Like, in fear.

“What?” I asked immediately.

“Why?”

“I was just curious.”

She eyed me warily.  “Twenty.”

I snapped my fingers and she jumped.  “That explains it.”

She was still eyeing me in that fearful way.  “Explains what?”  I swear she’d gone white as a sheet. 

“Why you don’t drink.”

Abruptly, she looked relieved.  “Oh.”

“What?  What did you think I was thinking?”

She waved me off, looking toward the buffet as though that whole odd exchange hadn’t happened at all.  “Nothing, forget it.”

Oooook. 

“I think I’ll have the buffet.  Then I can pick whatever I want.”

“Good choice.”  I waved the waiter over and he gestured for us to start. 

She was fascinating to watch.  She sort of threw everything on the plate in a pile; there weren’t sections of food.  Not that my plate was the picture of order and logic, but my cashew chicken wasn’t living with my moo shu pork.  If she’d have piled everything on top of rice, that I would have understood, but this was, like, one big pile together.  Like the one plate was all she was gonna get. 

“You do realize it’s a buffet you just ordered, right?” I teased.

She looked bashful for a minute but shrugged and stuck an eggroll on top of everything.

She was less guarded this time, less so than when we went to breakfast.  She was not overly talkative yet, but this was less awkward. 

The topics of conversation were kind of limited, but I figured asking her about what she liked of the food was safe.  I wasn’t exactly hyped about talking about my past either, so I understood why she wouldn’t want that to be dinner conversation.  She didn’t know if I was really trustworthy yet, so it could wait. 

“I don’t like eggrolls,” I announced.

She raised a brow and probably wondered what the fuck I was talking about eggrolls for, but she chuckled and took a bite of one.  “Why?”

“I think it’s the consistency.  Like, they taste ok, I just can’t get past all the… cabbage or something.  Don’t even get me started on sushi.”

“You don’t like sushi?”

She sounded all offended. 

“No.  It’s the seaweed.  People weren’t made to eat seaweed.  It’s just… no.”

She put her hands on the table.  “Tyler.  I’m not sure we can continue this dinner.”

I thought she was serious for a second.  And panicked.  I dropped my fork and everything.  She started chuckling and picked up her chopsticks, smirking at me.

“That was mean,” I breathed.

She laughed, “You’ll live.”  She paused a second and then asked, “Why don’t you use chopsticks?  Is that some form of protest because of the sushi?”

I smirked, “No, I use them.  I just didn’t tonight.  I don’t want to give away all my secrets.  I have to save shit to impress you with.”

“Why? Because you suck at Nintendo and getting chicks off?”

I dropped my fork again.  “Jesus.”

“I never said those weren’t topics we couldn’t talk about.” 

She was enjoying this—playing with me.  And of course I could say nothing, because I’d completely fucked up and guys had no leverage when they fucked up.  Too bad I hadn’t thought to bring flowers, but that probably wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere with her. 

“Do you want to talk about that?”

“No, not really,” she decided.

“Ok, then.”  She watched me for a few seconds before looking back at her food.  I blew out a breath, “So, why do you put all the food in one big pile?”

She shrugged, “Goes in the same place anyway.”

“Yeah, but you can’t appreciate the differences.”

She looked up at me like I was insane.

“What?” I asked.

“I guess I’ve never worried about the differences much.  I just ate it.”

Fair enough.  And I let silence linger for a few minutes.  It wasn’t really uncomfortable, but it was somewhat awkward.  I’d come up with all the other topics, though, so she could try a little.

“I like these,” she announced, holding it out for me.

“I can get on board with crab rangoons,” I nodded.

“That’s what they’re called?”

“Yep.”

“Huh.  I didn’t know it was crab.”

She seemed fascinated when she did know.  “How long have you eaten them and not realized it was crab?” I wondered.

“This is only the second time I’ve had them.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she smiled.  “The only other time was in Vegas when Jordan ordered a bunch of shit from this really cheap place that was a ways from our apartment.  Some fucking asshole had ripped me off and she felt bad because she’d kind of set it up and so she ordered Chinese…” she kind of trailed off, but she looked almost annoyed or frustrated.

“What?” I asked.  I was happy, that was an actual story.  It was like waiting for crumbs to fall from a cookie.  She didn’t normally say anything that had to do with herself, and I wanted more crumbs. 

“Nothing,” she said, but she was still annoyed, angrily stabbing something I couldn’t identify because it was mixed with everything else.

“I didn’t say anything,” I said quietly.  “I didn’t judge or–”

“No, it’s fine.  I just… I didn’t want to talk about my past.”

“When were you in Vegas?”

Her head came up slowly.  “Are you fucking deaf?  I just said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

I put up my hands while my eyebrows shot up.  “Sorry.”  I shuffled some food around on my plate and decided I didn’t want the rest of what was on it anyway.  I stood up, “I’m gonna get something else.”

She nodded, but her head stayed down. 

This was hard.  It was back to pulling teeth again.  And actually, in reference to her past, I think she would have been more comfortable with me pulling her teeth, or extracting her fingernails one by one.  There was something there that she didn’t want me to find out, or something that embarrassed her, haunted her. 

I knew better than to pry, and I wasn’t going to just spill my guts over my own pieces of haunted past, but… if we both had that, it was just another thing that connected us.  I just didn’t know how to really broach that subject.  Hey, so while I was contemplating fried rice and lo mein, I was thinking, we actually have a lot in common.  Well, insofar as I don’t really know you, but I think we do.  So… if I tell you about my horrid past, you wanna share yours over fortune cookies? 

I decided on both the fried rice and lo mein and went back to the table.  Her plate was largely finished and she was looking out the window again.  She did that a lot.  I didn’t say anything, just started eating again.  I couldn’t work with nothing; she had to give me something back.  Or the topic of all our date conversations was going to be completely food-related.  And I had to pray that the food didn’t spark some past memory and have her clam up for the rest of the evening. 

“I’m sorry, Tyler,” she said. 

When I turned back, she was looking at me again.  “It’s ok.”

“No, it’s not.”  She sighed, “I just… I react badly to questions.”

I wanted to snort and say no fucking shit, but the sensitive part of me made me stop myself.  “Ok,” I said instead.  I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t.  “So, does that mean I just can’t ask any?”

“No.  I just have to try not to freak out when you do.”  She took a deep breath and a sip of her drink.  “I’m not used to people actually asking because they want to know… ya know?”

No.  Not really.  “Uhm.  No?”

She chuckled.  “Yeah.”  She thought a minute, “Usually, if someone asked me, it was for a different reason, ok?”

“Ok.”  I pushed down the need to ask what reason that would have been.

I think she could tell I had no real idea what the hell I was supposed to do here. 

“I was in Vegas two years ago.  That’s where I lived before I moved here.”

I nodded and didn’t ask anything else.  We had to start somewhere.  She gave me that much.  

She was chewing on her lip right before she suddenly blurted, “Do you like sports?”

I stopped chewing.  “What?”

“Sports.  Do you like sports?”

I blinked at her.  Talk about outta left field.  “Uhm… not overly so.  I used to like baseball when I was a kid, but… not really anymore.  I’m not very athletic.”  Where the fuck did that come from?

“I never really played sports as a kid.  And I never really liked them, either.  I think most of them are pretty pointless, ya know?  Like, why would I want to try to get that really huge ball into a tiny hole.”

I snorted.  I couldn’t help myself.  “Sorry.”

She glared at me a minute and then looked down at her plate.  “I watched a few hockey games on TV, though.  I think those are kinda interesting.  I’ve never ice skated, and I think that must take some skill with the puck and stick and everything,” she shrugged.  

I really wished I would have had paper to write all of this random shit she was firing at me for analysis later.  Because random shit meant volumes sometimes, and there was no way I was going to remember it.  Plus, I’m sure she’d appreciate some feedback so the conversation totally didn’t swing the other direction, and I was suddenly the non-conversationalist.  Where was this coming from?  

“Have you ever ice skated?”

“Yeah, I’ve ice skated.  I wasn’t very good at it, but it was fun in the winter sometimes.  I used to like taking Caroline.  I haven’t in years.  Maybe we can go,” I suggested.

She smiled this crooked little smile, “I’d like that.”

I nodded, ecstatic again, because maybe this was turning around.  Maybe she just had to find her comfort zone or something.  I’m pretty sure I was just sitting there, basking in my own foolish smiling, when she asked, “Who’s Caroline?”

Subtle.  And my stomach did one of those little flip-flops that hadn’t happened in forever.  There weren’t occasions anymore where something someone had said made my body react that way.  But she wanted to know who Caroline was because I’d mentioned her so casually, and because it was obviously another female.  I smiled gently, because I didn’t want to be a prick, and I didn’t want her to think I was playing with her either, “Caroline is my sister.”

“Oh, right.”  She nodded, “I remember you mentioning you had a sister.”

“Yeah.”

She watched me a minute, “Are you close?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“She live around here?”

I smirked, “Yeah, she lives with my mom.”

“Oh.”

“She’s twelve.”

She smacked her own forehead lightly, “Right, right, you said that before.  I remember.  That’s… nice.  I bet that’s nice for her.”

“She keeps me grounded,” I admitted.  

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I like to hang out with her because she’s still a kid and she’s not as tainted by the world as most people.  There’s just no bullshit with her.  If she wants to talk about something, we talk about something.  If she feels something or she thinks something, she just tells me.  She doesn’t worry about what I’ll think about it.  It’s always honest.”  I looked down at my plate for the first time in a while and realized I hadn’t really eaten any of it, and I’d kind of forgotten that we were even eating.  I was sure it was cold by now.  

She was studying me again—I think we did this when we thought the other person wasn’t watching.  Maybe I’d said too much about Caroline or my whole rant about other people being dishonest when they talked.  God, I hoped she didn’t think I meant her, because for a half a second there, I thought we were doing pretty well.  I met her gaze and I thought she’d drop hers, but she didn’t this time, she just kept staring right back.  It was kind of uncomfortable when she looked at me like that.  “What?” I asked.

She shook her head.  “Nothing.  Just thinking.”

“I didn’t mean you when I was talking about Caroline—I don’t think you’re like most people either.”  It was true, but I dunno, I just felt like I needed to tell her that I had already set her apart from the ‘most people’ grouping.

She laughed, “No, I’m probably not.”

“I meant it as a compliment.”

She kept smiling at me, this thin but genuine one, and I wanted her to keep it all night.  “Thanks.”

“You’re pretty when you smile.”  That kind of slipped out without me knowing.

The thin smile turned into a smirk, half-embarrassed and half-flattered, I think.  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

I dropped my head, poking at the cold food.  She hadn’t touched her plate in a while either.  “You done eating?” I asked.

She nodded, “Yeah, I’m done.”

“You wanna get outta here?”

“Yeah, ok.”

I motioned for the waiter to bring the bill and he set the tray down with two fortune cookies on it, thanking us.  We both sat there a second, just looking at the cookies, and wasn’t it customary to choose your cookie instead of someone else doling it out?  “Pick one,” I said.

She looked between the two and impulsively grabbed the one on the right.  I opened the other one and cracked it, stopping when she hadn’t even opened the package on hers.  “What?  Open it.  And then you have to read it.”

“Ugh.”  She humored me and opened the package.  I think her cookie was largely destroyed in the opening.  

I did echo her sentiment when I read my stupid little white slip of paper, “Ugh.”

“What?” she said, suddenly all interested.

I exhaled, shaking my head.  “Mine says: About time I got out of that cookie.  What the fuck kind of fortune is that?  A lame-ass joke?  I want a new cookie.”  I tossed the little slip back on the table, nodding my head at her.  “What’s yours?”

She looked down at the little slip, holding it between both hands with just the tips of her thumbs and pointer fingers, like the damn thing was gonna blow away.  It was incredibly cute.  Her brow furrowed and then her eyes darted up to mine half-scared.  

“What?”

“This is bullshit.”  She tossed it to the table.

“No way,” I protested, shoving the slip back at her.  “I got a fucking joke about getting out of a cookie, yours can’t be any worse than that.”

Her lips pursed, and I could tell she was reading it again, and then she just looked at me and bit the bullet.  “Mine says: Love takes practice.  I mean, at least yours was a joke, I don’t even know what the fuck this means,” she said, tossing the paper on the table.  I grabbed it and read it over.  

“Well, obviously, this is karma or something.  Actually, this is totally some cosmic fuckery, I tell ya.  Because I’m the ass end of the Chinese cosmic joke, and yours is all introspective and obviously geared at your station in life right now.  It’s the Chinese telling you that this is a great thing and that you don’t need to be worried about the dating shit because it all just takes practice.”

She started laughing, “That is such bullshit.”

“No, no,” I continued, “look at the ‘Learn Chinese’ word on here – yours is ‘Ice Skate’—what are the odds of that?  Like, next to nothing.  One in a million.  There is no way that this could have been rigged.  You didn’t pick this cookie, this cookie picked you.”  

She was shaking her head and holding her stomach, “Oh fuck, Tyler.  You are so full of shit.  That’s hilarious.”

I smirked.  I thought I did a pretty good sell on that.  It was kinda creepy that the word was ice skate, but weird shit happened all the time, right?  

“Lew-bing,” I attempted reading the phonetic spelling from the paper.  “That’s how you say ice skate—I think you should memorize it so you can recall when we’re discussing the cosmic nature of fortune cookies and how that affects the world around us later.  You might want to write down those lucky numbers, too, because you so want to use them to play the lotto—this is so your night, your moment—this is the big one.  I, meanwhile, got the fucking fortune cookie shaft.”

She was sort of wheezing in between her laughs and she was wiping away tears, “Jesus, Tyler.  Stop.  I’m gonna pee my pants or something.”

I smiled.  She was amazingly unguarded when she was laughing.  It made me want to do it all the time.  And part of me didn’t want to leave the booth; I didn’t want this moment to end.  I didn’t want to see any of her walls go back up or the smile leave her face.  “I’m gonna just…” she pointed toward the restrooms, “before we leave.”

I nodded.  “I’ll wait up front for you.”

She nodded and walked off, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I totally watched her walk the entire way.  The jeans fit her amazingly well, tight but not overdone, showing off her long, lanky legs.  The line of the back of her shirt hung in a delicate swoop on the top and just barely covered her ass—which was a tragedy that I would have to write my Congressman about.  It swayed with her hips, just enough to be noticeable, the material light and airy and, fucking hell, I had to get up or risk having to sit here for a prolonged length of time.  I tried to shake the lust from my mind and was completely unsuccessful, but at least I got up and I paid the bill while I waited for her to return.  

I’d grabbed her coat from the booth and held it open for her when she walked up to me.  This was another thing that was obviously not something she was used to.  In a weird way, I kinda liked that.  That me doing shit I’d normally do was… I dunno, somehow more appreciated or something.  Or unexpected.  I held the door and she ducked her head with a smile as we walked out onto the sidewalk.  

“So, was it as bad as you expected?” I asked as we started walking.  

Her head was still down, her hair almost obscuring her face, but I could tell she was still smiling.  “No, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“Are you fishing for them?”

I chuckled, “Maybe.”

“I had a nice time, Tyler.  Thank you.”

That made me smile.  “You had a nice time or you’re having a nice time?  Because if you’re having a nice time, why end it?”

She stopped walking for a second and turned to look at me, “What did you have in mind?”

The wariness was back, like she wasn’t sure she was going to like what I was going to suggest.  

“I dunno… coffee?  Bowling?  We can’t go to a bar because you’re not old enough,” I said that somewhere between a smug and disappointed tone.

She chucked, “Bowling?  And I never said I couldn’t get into a bar.  How do you think I met you, dumbass?”

I stopped walking.  She stopped a few steps later and turned to me, her face blank but amused.

“Did you just call me a dumbass?”

“I did,” she nodded.

I started walking again and she fell into step with me.  Despite my best efforts at making her feel bad and guilty for the insult, I think she could tell I was totally faking it.  Apparently, silences didn’t bother her.  I sighed. 

“Are you done pouting now?” she asked, smiling while watching her feet.

I snickered, “I guess.  You’re pretty harsh.  I don’t think I’m the dangerous one anymore.”

She laughed, “Oh, you never were.  I could kill you in your sleep.”

I chuckled, but something told me she probably could if she wanted to.  “So, do you wanna go to a bar, then?  Or you wanna do something else?  We could go back to my place and play video games again, or watch a movie.” 

Honestly, we could walk around all night on these less than desirable streets, walk to New Jersey or ride the subway until dawn, or watch paint dry.  I didn’t care, I just didn’t want the night to end. 

“Maybe another night,” she said.

I lit a cigarette and thought about that for a minute.  “So…” I blew out the smoke, “does that mean you don’t want to do anything else at all, or you just don’t wanna go to my place?”

She bit her lip and then her tongue darted out to wet them, and of course, my gaze zeroed in right there.  Shit, I wanted to kiss her, but I knew that wouldn’t be well received and I’d promised to be good.  Problem was, I already knew what it was like to kiss her and, like a junkie to heroin, I wanted it again.

“Uhm… I just don’t think it’s a good idea to go back to your place now, no.”

I smirked, “Afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me, huh?”

She let out a noise that I couldn’t identify, “Something like that, yeah.”

“Hmm…” I took a long drag of the cigarette again and stuck my hand out to stop her from walking out into the street at the end of the block—that whole looking down thing was great for not tripping and bashfulness or whatever, but shit for not being smeared by a car.

She turned her head and looked at my arm and then looked up at me.  I loved her eyes.  There was so much going on behind them, so much flickering.  It would have been nice to know what was happening up there sometimes.  Maybe someday she’d trust me enough to let me know.

“You know I’d never do anything that made you feel uncomfortable again, right?  I meant what I said, what happened in the alley, it won’t happen again.  I swear, going to my place is not code for ‘we’re gonna fuck now.’”

Her eyes never left mine, and then she nodded, seeming to decide that I was telling the truth.  “Thanks,” she motioned to my arm.

“No problem.”  We walked across the street and when we hit the other curb, I nudged her with my elbow.  “Might help if you looked up once in a while,” I teased.

She nudged me back, “Shut up.”

“You want me to walk you home?”

Her pace slowed for a second and I adjusted mine as well.  Her lip went behind her teeth, “Coffee.  Let’s have coffee.”

I smiled and nodded.  What I really wanted to do was jump up and down and throw my fist up in victory, but, ya know, I had to be cool about it.  

“There are quite a few 24-hour places around here.  If you’re up for a little longer walk, we could go to Tick Tock Diner.  The place is pretty cool, and they have really awesome desserts, but they probably have about the worst service in Hell’s Kitchen, if not all of New York.  Have you ever been there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You wanna go there?  We’re already walking that way anyway.”

“Sure, ok.”

“Great.”  Right then, we had, like, four more blocks.  Conversation for those blocks should probably not include my ecstatically soaring happiness.  Instead, I blurted the first random thing that entered my mind.  “What’s your favorite color?”

She let out a short bark of laughter and then craned her head at me.  Hey, she asked the sports one.  I shrugged.  

“Uhm.  I don’t know if I really have one.”

“Everyone has a favorite color,” I argued.

“I’ve never really thought about.  Ok, then, what’s yours?”  

“Never thought about it?  Blue,” I said immediately.  “Although, lately, I think a lot about green.”  

I hadn’t really meant to say that.  Not out loud and not to her.  It probably sounded like some kind of pick up line, but that wasn’t my intention.  I wasn’t trying to be charming.  I darted my eyes to her, trying to gauge how she was gonna take it.  

Her head was down again, so I couldn’t see much, but I thought there was a hint of a smile there.  I cleared my throat, “So… what’s yours?”

“Blue.  Definitely blue.”

Holy shit.  “Really?”

“Yeah.  Totally.  Sometimes a bluish green.”  Her eyes cut to mine for a second and then back to the pavement, chewing her lip.  “Grayish-blue,” she shrugged.

Score!  The euphoria was threatening to bubble out—it could be potentially embarrassing.  I’m sure I was smiling like a homicidal maniac.  “So… was that always your favorite color?”

“No, just recently.  I told you, I didn’t really ever think about it.”

“Not even as a kid?”

“No.”  That was a definitive kind of answer, so I didn’t press it.  

“So, when did you start liking blue?”

She shrugged, “Couple days ago, I guess.  I went into this bathroom in a bar, and the tile in there was really pretty.  Had all these, like, flecks, I guess, of green and gray.”

Wait, what?  “What?”

I slowed my walk and she turned around but kept walking slowly backwards.  “What?  What did you think I was talking about?”  

She was smirking.

I just got played.  I sighed and picked up the pace, falling back into step with her.  “You know, you’ve got a real knack for dashing a guy’s hopes.”  

She stayed backwards for a few more feet, nudging me again with her elbow and chuckling, “Oh, come on.  All that bullshit about green being your favorite color?  That was a total line.  I was just giving it back.”

I shook my head, “It wasn’t a line.  I didn’t mean it like that.  It just kinda came out.”

“You didn’t mean to tell me that your favorite color just happened to be the same color as my eyes.”

“No, I didn’t mean to tell you, because I figured you wouldn’t take it well,” I shrugged.  “I figured you’d think it was a line, but you didn’t give me any shit about it, so I thought maybe you just… thought it was sweet.”

“You were going for sweet?”

Ugh.  “I wasn’t going for anything.  Does everything have to have an agenda?”

“Usually,” she nodded.

I stopped again.  “I think about you a lot.  That’s the truth.  And you should know that’s the truth because I staked out your workplace for three days.”

“Yeah, that was kinda creepy.”

I laughed, “Yeah, I guess it was.”  

“I mean, you could be a fucking stalker for all I know.  You could be a serial killer, a total psycho.”  She helpfully made the Psycho stabbing motion for my benefit, complete with an attempt at the screeching violins.  

“Do I strike you as the serial killer type?  What tipped you off?  The lack of food in the fridge?  The video games?”

She shrugged, “No lock on the door.  That’s what did it.”  

We started walking again.

“I don’t love my mother in that Norman Bates way.”

“What?”

“Psycho.  Norman Bates.”

She shook her head.

“You just made the whole,” I demonstrated the stabbing motion again, “thing… from Psycho.  Norman Bates is the main character in the film… the dude who kills everyone as his mother.”

She shrugged her shoulders at me.  

“You mean to tell me you know the stabbing thing but not the actual movie?”

“I dunno, I guess not.”

“That is a travesty.”

She chuckled, “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, we have to rectify this.  What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“I have to work tomorrow.”

Letting that one pass.  “What about the day after?”

“Work,” she nodded.

“You wanna come by after?”

“That’d be, like, after bar time, Tyler.”

I shrugged, “I’ll sleep during the day.”

She chuckled, “You’re either a stalking serial killer or really…”

“What?”

She giggled, “I was going to say pathetic.”

I made sure my face showed no emotion.  We walked in silence for a few minutes while I thought about that and made her wait.  She got more fidgety the longer the minutes stretched.  It was the only time during the walk where she actively looked at me without me saying something.  We rounded the corner for the diner and I held the door for her.  

She took a step inside and then back out and looked up at me, “I don’t think you’re pathetic.  I was just giving you shit.  Are you mad?”

All the bullshit and the teasing, it was fun, it was cute, but this I think was who she really was.  Her eyes were imploring, afraid that I was really mad about what she said.  Like she was scared it had ruined the whole evening or something.  Her eyes never left mine the entire time.  

I glanced away and sniffed, sighing.  “No, I’m not mad.  But you’re buying the coffee.  And I might want pie.  Ice cream is not optional.”

She smiled, her whole body relaxed and she did this almost full-body head nod thing before she ducked in the door.  I chuckled and followed her to a booth.  Her eyes roved over the interior of the place.  She blinked a few times as we sat down.  

“It’s a little busy with all the neon and chrome, but I think the place has character.  I like the 50s style.”

She nodded, “I like the hubcap lights.”  

“Caroline used to beg my parents to bring her here for birthdays.”  I shrugged, “It’s a cool place.”

She nodded, “I like it.”

Our waitress was very disinterested and rather rude, keeping with their theme of awesome atmosphere with awful service when we ordered.  “Two coffees, and what kind of pie do you have tonight?” I asked as politely and unassuming as I could.

“We’re outta blueberry and some brat just ordered the last peanut butter, I think.  We got apple and Oreo left.”

“Apple, then, unless you’d suggest something else?”

She chewed her gum at me as way of response.  

“Apple it is, then,” I answered.  “À la mode.”

“Right,” she turned to Allison, “and for you?”

“Just the coffee.”

And then she was gone.  “Quite the personality,” I smiled.

“Thankless job.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“If you think you’re eating some of my pie, you’ve got another thing coming.”

She smiled, “No, I’m good.  I don’t like pie very much.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Don’t have a favorite color.  Don’t like pie.  Never seen Psycho.  We have a lot to cover.”

She smiled at me.  “I guess.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna come over after work?”

“Do you turn to dust in the sunlight?  Is there some reason I can’t come over in the day?”

I laughed, “No, you can.  I have class on Tuesday and Thursday and I work during the day.  The bookstore doesn’t keep night hours,” I winked.

She rolled her eyes.  “You work at a bookstore?”

“Yeah.  At the Strand.”

“What… what are you going to school for?”

I shrugged, “Beats me.  I just take classes that interest me.”

“So, you don’t have, like, a major or whatever?”

“No.”

She nodded.

“Does that surprise you?”

“No, not really.  Just wondering.”

“Wondering if I have any ambition in life?” I smirked.

“No, I don’t really care.  I was just wondering.”

Huh.  “You don’t care that I have no ambition?”

She shrugged, “Should I?”

“Most people do.  Tyler, you have no direction.  Tyler, you need to figure out what you’re going to do with your life.  Tyler, you need to pick an area and stick with it.  Tyler, are you just going to work at that bookstore forever?  Those are usual topics of conversation.  Or my favorite: Tyler, I’m worried about you.”

I thought I’d get more of a smile out of that, but she was staring at me instead.  “It’s nice they care enough, though.”

Not where I wanted that to go.  “Yeah.”  I figured, if we were in that area, I could give it a shot.  “You have aspirations to do something other than stripping?”

I got the stare again.  I’m not sure it ever left, actually.  

I waved a hand, “I didn’t mean it like that.  It’s just a question.  I’m just wondering if you’re, like, putting yourself through school or saving up for something, or… just, whatever.”

She looked down at the table, shredding her napkin, “I don’t really think about it.  It’s just what I do right now.”

And here was me, not pushing.  The waitress came back with the coffee and the pie and basically dropped it and left.  “It may be thankless, but she could be slightly friendly.  I mean, her tip is based on service, right?”

“I’m paying for it, right?  So I’ll worry about the tip, just eat your pie.”

I raised my eyebrows at her and took a bite of the pie.  Here was me, following directions.  “You want some?”

“I thought I couldn’t have any.”

“I thought you didn’t like pie.”

She smirked, “I’ll have some ice cream.”

I pushed the plate in her direction.  “I won’t tell if you steal a bite of the pie.”

She had some of the ice cream but not the pie.  “I don’t like pie,” she pushed the plate back.  

I smiled, “I have Psycho on DVD.  You wanna come over and watch it during the daylight hours tomorrow?”

“Are you asking me for a date to watch a horror movie?”

“Yep.”  

“What time?”

“Two?”

“You might get sick of me if you see me too many days in a row.”

“I highly doubt that.  We could order in for dinner.  My treat, as long as you don’t insult me for being pathetic.”

She chuckled and I ate some more pie, pushing the plate back to her.  I didn’t touch the ice cream, leaving it for her.  She looked down at the plate and I held out the fork.  She grabbed it and took another bite of ice cream.  “Ok.”

“Do you normally like horror movies?  ’Cause I technically wouldn’t even classify Psycho as a horror.  Or if it is, it’s horror classic, which is not the same as today’s horror.”

“I don’t watch a lot of movies.  I don’t think they’d scare me or anything.  What do you mean horror classic?”

“Well, classic horror was more about what you don’t see than what you see.  It was more suggestive and scary because you filled in the blanks.  You don’t necessarily see people get killed, you see the aftermath.  Today’s horror are mostly about gore and showing everything instead of suggestive.  It’s not really scary, it’s just gross and in your face.  And most of it, if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all.  I’d consider Psycho more of a thriller,” I shrugged.  

She was smiling when I finished my description.  

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?” I pressed, sliding the plate back and forth again.

“You think about that a lot?”

I smirked, “You asked.  I just provided my opinion.”

“Which do you like better?”

“Depends, I guess, what I’m in the mood for.  Sometimes mindless gore is preferable to filling in the blanks.  I get more freaked out by the psychological thriller, I guess.  The gore isn’t always believable.  Have you ever seen the Freddy movies or Friday the 13th?”

She shook her head, “I think I saw part of one of them when I was younger, but not a whole one.”

“Those were scary as a kid, but only because the whole idea of the killer is scary, and he’s all deformed and gross or whatever.  But once you get to be a certain age, or once, like, the third movie in the same series is out, it’s all the same.  It’s the same story line; he kills people and the movie’s over.  Not a whole lot of entertainment.  Classic horror you can watch more than once and constantly pick up something new.  It’s subtler.  I like the subtlety.  And I can appreciate the work that went into not showing something.  I think that’s harder to convey.”  

Film 101, according to Tyler Hawkins.  

I lowered my gaze back to the pie and told myself to shut up because there was no way she was interested in horror film theory from my viewpoint.  That was probably incredibly boring.  I risked a peek up at her and she was just watching me.  I pushed the plate over and scratched at the back of my hair.  “I’ll shut up now.  Sorry, I get a little… carried away.”

She grabbed the fork from me, “No, I liked it.  I… like when you talk.  People don’t talk to me that way.  It’s nice.”  

She didn’t look at me at all when she said it.  

I was curious, “How do people talk to you?”

She smirked, but sadly.  “They don’t really.  Or, if they do, it’s at work and,” she made a vague hand gesture, “it’s not really… it’s not talking like this.  This feels really… normal.”

I nodded.  Normal.  I liked normal.  Normal was good.  Normal was very good.  She thought we were having a normal date.  Normal dates were awesome.  “I’m glad,” I smiled.  “So, I’m weird… but this is normal?”

She chuckled, “Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah, it’s good.”

“Do you like popcorn?”

She laughed.  “Sure.  Why?”

“We can have some for the movie.”

“Oh.  Ok.”

“Butter or no butter?”

“Uhm, butter?”

“Butter is good.  I can even make it.  Pre-buttered.  In the microwave.  Comes in a bag, but I’ll even put it in a bowl.”

“Wow, I should be impressed, right?”

“Yeah.  I don’t make buttered popcorn for just anyone.”

She smiled while looking down.  It was incredibly cute when she did that, and the fact that her napkin was confetti on the table.  It was a nervous thing, I think, so I didn’t point it out, but it was cute, too.  

The waitress appeared suddenly—I’d forgotten we even had one.  “You want more coffee?”

“Yeah,” I said, pushing my cup over, “thanks.”

“I’m good, thanks,” Allison said.  

The longer I drank coffee, the longer she had to hang out with me.  That was my reasoning.  And this place served breakfast, so if it was late enough, we could just transition meals.  

“You don’t want any more coffee?” I asked.

“No, I’ll never sleep tonight if I have any more.”

New strategy!  Abort coffee!  “You want something else?  A soda or something?”

She chuckled, “No, soda would keep me up, too—caffeine.”

“Get something without caffeine.”

She smiled, “Can I just have a water?”

The waitress seemed more annoyed with me.  “Yeah, I’ll get the water.”  The only quick service we got was the water—she brought that the next minute.  Figured.  When I wanted her to be slow, she was all Johnny-on-the-spot.  

“You want anything else?  To eat?”

“No,” she chuckled, “I’m good.”

The waitress left again and I hoped she took as long to come back as she had to ask us if we wanted anything else.  “You come up with your favorite color yet?”

“Nope.”

“You like Pepsi or Coke?” I asked.  

She laughed, “I don’t care.”

“You don’t have an opinion about much, huh?” I teased.

“Not about those things.”

“Those things?  Like trivial things?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged.  I think she was trying to spare my feelings in case I was somehow offended by her calling some of the topics trivial.  “Just… stuff like that.”

“So, you’d have an opinion if you thought about it, then?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged again.  “Everyone in the South just calls all soda ‘Coke,’ though.  If it’s anything dark, it’s Coke.”

“So… if I wanted a Root Beer, I’d order a Coke?”

“No, you’d order a Root Beer, but they’d refer to it all as Coke.”

“Wait, so… like, I’d order a Root Beer and they’d bring it to the table and say ‘Here’s your Coke’?”

She chuckled, “Well, some might.  But it’s more like, when you talk about soda, if it’s dark, it’s just a Coke.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s a Southern thing, it’s ok.  They even call, like, grape soda, grape Coke.  You just kinda get used to it.  Like, they say, ‘How’s your grape Coke?’”

“Huh.  Did you like the South?”

“What do you mean?”

I shrugged, “I dunno.  Like… climate or atmosphere.  Is it different from here?”

“Everything is different from New York,” she smiled. 

“How?”

“It just is.  Everything here is really fast.  The people are fast, and they really don’t pay attention to you at all.  That’s not all that different from other places, but…” she shrugged. 

“Do you miss the weather?”

“Sometimes.  The heat here sucks just as much as it did there, but they didn’t have snow and that was ok.”

I laughed, “Yeah.  The snow can be pretty sometimes.”

“Yeah.  It’s different.”

Not that our weather discussion was captivating or anything, but I was enjoying it because she could have talked about mud and I would have been hanging on her every word. And wouldn’t ya know, the completely inattentive waitress—until I wanted her to be inattentive—was back with the goddamn bill.  We didn’t need the bill!  We weren’t done yet!  She dropped it at the end of the table and I reached for the paper but little fingers snatched it before I could get there.  

“Allison, I was joking,” I said.

She shook her head, “Fair’s fair.”

“Really.  Seriously, I was joking.  Gimme the bill.”

“Tyler,” she stared me down, “you bought dinner.  I said I’d buy the coffee.  I’m buying the coffee and your pathetic pie.  So shut the fuck up.”

I smiled, raising my hands, “Ok.”

She got up from the booth and I begrudgingly followed her to the front of the diner.  Damn inopportune waitresses and their penchant for ruining my good time.  I stuck my hands in my pockets while she paid, and it was weird waiting for a girl to pay.  It just… seemed wrong.  She didn’t seem to think it was odd at all and just turned for us to go.  

She held the door for me on the way out, smirking.  

“My, how the tides have turned,” I said.  “You know, you keep holding doors and shit, and buying me pie, I’m gonna get spoiled.”  

She seemed incredibly pleased with herself, but she didn’t give me any retort.  The walk back to her apartment seemed blindingly short and I couldn’t really recall what we’d talked about.  We both got quieter when we got to her block.  I really didn’t want it to end and I hoped her silence was something similar.   

We were climbing the stairs to her floor when she said quietly, “I had a really nice time, Tyler.” 

She looked down when she said it, bashful or some shit and, holy hell, I felt high.  Just that simple statement meant this had gone well, despite the rocky start.  That meant there might be more.  I mean, I knew there was tomorrow already, but she wasn’t just being nice or cordial or going out with me because there was literally nothing better for her to do.  God.  I needed to shut up and take a mental breath, and shut up.  Stupid.  And I better fucking say something. 

“I did, too.  Thanks for giving me another shot.” 

Yes, and things were going so well it was prudent to bring up that piece of my asshole history.  Excellent.  As soon as she was inside the apartment, my head was going to find the nearest wall and bounce off of it a few times.

We got to the door and she unlocked it.  I didn’t ask to come in and she didn’t offer, and I figured a goodnight kiss was probably pushing my luck for the evening.  I backed up a step to give her some room and shoved my hands in my pockets so she wouldn’t feel obligated to do anything. 

“So… I’ll see you tomorrow, then.  Two?  My place?”

She nodded, biting her lip, “Yeah, two.”

I made some sort of waving hand gesture that I’m sure made me seem mentally challenged and was actually quite relieved when she shut the door.  There was too much excitement and psychosis bubbling and it would be a good idea if the display was not something she witnessed at this early juncture.  There may have been some sprinting down the stairs in glee, and a fist pump in the air to no one, and an embarrassing little dance at the bottom of her stairwell that some creepy-ass chick saw, but I couldn’t really be bothered to care.  

When I hit the street, I was happy—a level of happiness that I normally only experienced anymore when I was with Caroline.  And I left her apartment wanting to do something I hadn’t done in quite some time.  I walked to the diner that Michael and I always ate at, and I wrote to him.  I sat there through the night and breakfast, and even though I hadn’t done it in a while, I wasn’t sure why I was still doing it at all.  Maybe I held out hope that there was some way he could still see it or hear me, but the probability of that was nonexistent.  Maybe I just couldn’t let go of the connection completely, wanted it back so badly that I resorted to talking to my dead brother instead of someone living.  Maybe it was that I wasn’t close enough to anyone else to have these kinds of conversations. 

Who the hell knew?  I was talking to myself anyway, but I needed to get it out.  I just wanted to tell someone about her.  Someone who wouldn’t waggle their eyebrows and drop stripper references.  

Michael,

So, I met someone.  Someone different and opposite and refreshing, and I think you’d love her.  I haven’t felt this… I haven’t felt anything in a really long time.  And I’d forgotten how addicting it is right from the start.  In a lot of ways, she’s sort of indescribable.  Part of that is because she’s hard to read, hard to get things out of, hard to get to know.  The other part stems from this mass of contradictions that encompass her.  She is nothing but contradictions. 

I think that probably has something to do with her job.  See, she’s a stripper, and on the stage—even though I was seeing nothing but fiery red anger—her body is amazing and lithe and sensuous, her back elegant and smooth, and her legs never end.  The outfit she was wearing—if you could even call it that—left very little to the imagination.  Everything I couldn’t see, I have no doubt it’s equally amazing.  Her breasts are small but perfect, and certain lustier parts of myself were disappointed that I didn’t get to study more of that before I pulled her off the stage.  That made me feel like such an asshole, but I couldn’t help it.  Maybe I was slightly more redeemed because my intentions when I looked at her were nobler than all those faceless dicks there? 

From just the few times we’ve spoken, I can’t figure her out.  The sexual on-stage and the off-stage versions weren’t likely to be the same girl, this I realized, but the whole contradiction thing just sparked there, too.  She was like a strutting jungle cat on stage, like she was just waiting for her prey.  Off-stage, she seemed somewhat bashful about anything sexual.  Or just constantly guarded, but against what I didn’t know, and she wasn’t likely to tell me. 

She was so guarded, but when the walls slipped, there was so much there.  It was like anger and pain and childhood innocence all flickered like a movie reel in between genuine amusement and teasing, all on a constantly changing loop.  When those walls slipped, her eyes reminded me of Caroline’s—so much promise and wonder that sometimes shifted to sadness or blankness.  Caroline did that when she was drawing sometimes; Allison did it when the movie reel became too much.

The intensity in her eyes; her eyes expressed everything I felt.  I had no idea if my eyes were as expressive as hers, but all the anger and pain and confusion—and the fact that I couldn’t reconcile the way the world really was with the way it should have been—it drew me to her.  I wanted to get lost in her eyes instead.  Her gaze was normally filled with wariness that never went away, and underneath it were all these layers.  Fierce and innocent at the same time.  She seemed so strong, but her actions made her seem vulnerable—the way she pulled the cuffs of her shirts over her hands, the way she folded up on the couch or made herself as tiny as she could in a chair.  Like she was used to being small.  I didn’t like that idea. 

Then there were times like tonight, when I asked her some inane and random question, and her eyes lit up and the wariness dropped away and there was a girl under there that just wanted to be unguarded and happy.  I think it surprised even me how much I wanted to see that all the time, how much I wanted to make her unguarded, to keep her happy, at any cost. 

And I almost fucked it all up, Michael.  The details aren’t really important anymore, but when I was basically stalking this girl to apologize, to try to make amends for something I did unintentionally but should have had the brains to know better, all I could think about was something Gandhi had said.  He said that “whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it’s very important that you do it.”  I’ve always agreed more with the first part than the second; but meeting this girl, Allison, I wonder if all of it isn’t true. 

One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) |   Two   |  Three  |  Four  |  Five  |