December 25 #4
He shrugged, trying to find a way to explain it.
“Come here.” He took her hand and led her to the side of the road.
After picking up a stick, he knelt down in front of her.
“This is me.” He drew a large circle in the snow and a smaller circle inside it.
“Everyone I care about is in this circle, the bigger one. And the only person who managed to weasel his way into the smaller one was Perry…because he was the only one who ever really understood me. After he died, it’s like there’s nothing there.
I was with him every day for fifteen years and now that he’s gone, there’s just this big, gaping hole.
This whole space feels so empty…Now, this is you.
” He drew a stick figure with one leg in the smaller circle and the other leg in the bigger one.
“You came along and hit me like a freight train. And you have no idea what it’s like for me.
I wanna be with you every second of the day and yet I can’t stand the sight of you.
You represent everything I shouldn’t have, every feeling I shouldn’t feel…
because that’s exactly what I took away from my best friend.
The guilt eats at me every time I’m around you, but all I want to do is…
be around you. It fucking kills me.” He paused, inhaling a deep, steadying breath.
“That day in Florida…I had two choices. One part of me wanted to let you in. I wanted you to fill the emptiness, take away the pain…and maybe even the guilt…but the other part of me wanted to keep you out…so that I never have to feel this way again. But you see, both choices were selfish, so I chose neither. I chose to let you go. I didn’t do it to protect myself.
I wanted you to leave and not look back.
What I said was fucked up, but I knew you’d get over it.
It would take a couple days, but eventually you’d realize I wasn’t worth your time and you’d forget about me. ”
She sighed irritably and shook her head. “Well, it’s been a couple days and look at where I am.”
“Yeah. What I didn’t filter into the equation is the fact that you’re bat-shit crazy.”
She smiled, kneeling down in the snow beside him. “I forgive you.”
“You can’t just forgive me.”
“Did you mean any of things you said to me that day?”
“No.”
“Then they were just words.” She shrugged as if he hadn’t ripped out her heart. “I forgive you.”
This was the type of craziness he would never understand. It was infuriating. “Fuck, Jazz! For once, can you just react like a normal person? Shout…or get mad, tell me you hate me, tell me to go to hell, call me an asshole. Fuck…anything!”
“You want me to hurt you?”
It only clicked when she asked the question, but that was exactly what he wanted. After the way he treated her, it was what he deserved. “Yes.”
“And what would the point of that be, Kevin? Look at how much you hurt yourself.” A long silence stretched on between them before she leaned forward and took the stick from his hand.
“You know what else you didn’t filter into the equation?
I have a massive rapper dick and it causes me to lean to one side.
” She drew a long, thick penis in between the legs of the stick figure and she made it so big, it filled the smaller circle.
“Whether you like it or not, I’m already in here, so the question is… what do you want to do about it?”
He sank back to sit on the ground. “I-I don’t know.
I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not ready for a relationship.
You’ve got everything going for you and I don’t want to hold you back.
” He paused, feeling utterly conflicted.
“I…I want to be your one in one hundred, but I can’t expect anything from you when all I have to offer is broken pieces of myself.
My life is a mess and it’s going to take time for me to get my head right…
I don’t know if I can give you what you need. ”
“Pffft! I honestly don’t know how you came to that conclusion.
” She crawled towards him and straddled his hips to sit on his lap.
She cupped his face with her gloved hands and tilted his head up so he would look at her.
“You have an odd way of encouraging me. I was so insecure before I met you and you told me to embrace every part of me, even if it’s weird.
You accepted me just the way I am. That’s what I needed.
You rented a family for me so I would know what it was like.
If I didn’t know, I would probably still be yearning for it, but now I can see that I have all of that in my dad.
That’s what I needed. When you held my hand the whole time I was in that boardroom with my mother and you sat outside the bathroom door until I was ready to talk.
That’s what I needed. And then you stayed with me for a whole week afterwards.
You gave me what I needed and you did that even while you were hanging a foot above rock bottom.
I don’t need you to be more than what you are, Kevin.
Now, I’m not saying that you’re not an asshole.
You are. And I’m not saying that everything’s okay.
It’s not. I’m not ready for a relationship either.
You’ve hurt me a few times and I don’t trust you with my heart anymore.
What I’m saying is that I leave for Chicago tomorrow, and I wanna know where do we go from here? ”
He took a few seconds to think about that.
They weren’t ready now, but it wouldn’t stay like that forever.
If they were both willing, they would find a way to make it work.
“Forward,” he answered. “Every day let’s try to take one step forward.
I don’t know what the future holds. And I’m gonna try like hell, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to earn back your trust. So let’s just start at the beginning…
as friends and take one step forward…together. ”
“Okay, Kevin.” She smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Okay.”
He pulled the woolen hat off her head, moving his fingers into her short hair as she rested her forehead against his. “I love you,” he whispered and just saying it made him feel like more weight was lifted off his shoulders.
She didn’t say it back, and he understood why, but she held him tighter.
That was good enough for him. They sat there for a long time, not speaking, just embracing each other and that moment.
He shut his eyes, inhaling the scent of strawberries and exhaling all the negativity he’d been trapped in.
For the first time in four months, he finally felt at peace.
Even though she was probably wearing several layers of clothing, he still felt her shiver. “Let’s go somewhere,” he suggested.
“Where do you wanna go?”
“We could find a motel…you know, for old time’s sake.”
She smirked. “Sure. But we’re going in my rental car and not that petrol guzzler you came with.”
She stood up and he got to his feet as well. “How did you find me anyway?”
“Well, you told me about your hometown and once I got here, I looked for the Barber Shop—that was hard to find, but when I finally did, this nice lady named Rose told me where you live.”
“That was easy enough.” He opened the door of her rental car and she got in. He leaned in and pulled the strap of the seatbelt across her chest. “Safety first’” he said before he closed the door.
She followed him back to his house. After parking the Land Rover, he went inside and told his mother he would be out for the rest of the night. He picked up the black box as he stepped out onto the porch, then made his way down the stairs to her car.
He opened the driver’s side door and knelt down beside the car. “Hey, what time is your flight tomorrow?”
“Two in the afternoon. Why?”
“The rest of my family will be out tomorrow…skating at the lake. It’s tradition, but uh…” Somehow asking her this made him feel nervous. “My mom will be at home…and I want you to meet her. I could ask Momma B to come over too.”
“Really?” She beamed with excitement. “I’d love to meet them.”
“Okay.” He stood up and nodded his head towards the passenger seat. “Scoot over. I’ll drive.”
“Are you sure?”
Conquering one small fear. Having control of one small thing. Taking one small step forward. “Yeah,” he replied with a smile.
They drove to a motel a few miles outside of town and they spoke all night, exchanging stories about what happened over the last few days.
He told her about Momma B and Clayton. She told him she’d patched things up with her father and the whole sordid past of her mother.
Repairing broken relationships seemed to be a primary focus for them and it gave him hope that theirs could be saved too.
He told her what happened with Claire and she told him the truth about Dalton.
Although it grinded his nerves raw, he accepted it as a consequence of his actions.
When they climbed into bed, he decided it was time to finally open the box. Inside it he found a Ken doll, which he assumed represented Dean, and a rubber spider. Sitting up against the headboard, he took out a keychain that had a small plastic penis attached to it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“That’s the actual size of your penis,” she replied with a giggle. “The theoretical size of mine couldn’t fit in the box.”
He laughed and continued sifting through it.
He saw a snowflake similar to the ones they’d hung up on the Christmas tree, a CD of Michael Bolton’s greatest hits.
There were some other trinkets that he didn’t pay much attention to.
What intrigued him was a piece of paper right at the bottom of the box.
It was her list of objectives for the road trip and there was a tick next to number six: No matter what, no regrets.
Just below it, she wrote a message for him:
Dear Kevin
You were the rock during my storm. Strong enough to hold me up. Heavy enough to bring me down. You are a paradox, a walking contradiction to everything I thought I knew. You taught me that falling for someone means I have to abandon all reason because what I feel for you defies logic.
We are both imperfect, but it is within those imperfections that we found a way to understand each other.
You saw all my flaws and accepted me in spite of them.
I see everything good and bad in you and love you regardless.
You gave me a lifetime worth of memories in just one month and I will carry them with me forever to remind me that once upon a time I met a boy who changed my life.
This box is my way of giving you the same thing, a collection of all our moments of imperfect bliss.
Same gift, different package.
He folded the piece of paper and after placing it back in the box, he looked down at her. “So you were gonna leave this on my doorstep and disappear?”
“I just wanted you to know how I feel…and it was my way of letting go.”
He was glad that he’d chased after her, because reading that after she left would have killed him.
“I should’ve called you. I wanted to every day, but I just…
” He threw his head back, frustrated that he still seemed to be making the wrong choices.
“I should’ve called.” He scooted down until he was lying next to her and pulled her into his arms. “I’ve made a royal mess of this, but I’ll do it right this time. We’ll do it right this time.”
“We will,” she assured him.
She snuggled up against his chest and he gently ran his hand through her short hair. It wasn’t the same. He couldn’t even twirl it around his fingers anymore.
“I can’t believe you butchered it,” he complained.
“Oh, get over it. It will grow back.”
“Your hair was your only saving grace. Now you look exactly like a twelve-year old boy.”
She pressed her body against his and he held back a groan. “Well, you must have some sick kind of fetish, because this twelve-year old boy got your dick on H again, Kevin.”
He couldn’t deny it, so he simply smiled.
He wanted to reclaim every part of her. His hands were itching to slide beneath her shirt and he had to bite his lip to stop his mouth from wreaking havoc on her body.
But he couldn’t do anything because they’d agreed to just be friends.
Yeah, sharing a bed with her was really not a good idea.
She obviously noticed because a naughty giggle escaped her. “God, you are dying to fuck me right now.”
“With my penis,” he confirmed with a nod.
Her giggles turned into outright laughter and that brought the laughter out of him too. He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “I really do love you, Jasmin.”
“I know. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”
“Tomorrow…can you not wake up at the crack of dawn? I just wanna know what it feels like to wake up next to you.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
She held onto him and her eyes began to drift closed. This felt different to how it had been on the road trip. She was going to leave the next day and yet it didn’t feel like so many of their last days together. In fact, it felt like their first.