Chapter 15 #3
And there was no reason to talk about any of that because the pasta was delicious, and the company was something singular for him, given that company was rare, by design, by virtue of trauma making it difficult for him to figure out how to interact with people. Whichever.
“I have some dessert.” She looked at him with a mischievous expression, and for a moment, he wondered if the dessert was metaphorical or literal. With Cara, it was difficult to tell. But then, she got up from the table, went to the fridge, and took out a layered-looking dessert.
“When I get home, the last thing I want to do is bake, but I really like desserts that are made mostly of cream.”
“Banana pudding,” she said.
He found himself being served a large portion, and then he helped himself to a second.
“You really ought to have this on the menu,” he said, scraping the bowl to get every last bit of the sweet, creamy dessert.
“I guess I could,” she said. “But it isn’t really good.”
“Do we have to be that literal about our desserts?”
She laughed. “I suppose not.”
She smiled, and he felt something shift in his chest. Felt something getting lighter. He wanted to follow that feeling. Wanted to extend the moment.
He wanted it badly.
She smiled softly. “It’s dark outside.”
“True.”
“You owe me some stargazing.”
She stood up, took his hand, and let him outside to the backyard. She had a porch swing out there and a couple of chairs.
She dragged the chairs out to the middle of the grass and wouldn’t let him do it for her.
And she put the chairs right next to each other, the arms of them touching, so that when they sat down, it was easy for her to put her hand over the top of his.
“Come with me,” she said.
“All right,” he said.
He should probably have his compass out. This should probably be a lesson. Another drill sergeant moment.
But she was snuggled up against him, and this made him think of the kind of ruse he might’ve thought of in high school if he had been a normal teenage boy.
Convince a girl that you were going to teach her how to identify constellations, do so, but use it as an excuse to be close.
There was something beautiful about it. Wholesome.
Wholesome in a way his life hadn’t been for longer than he could remember.
“That’s Polaris. The North Star.”
“I know that one.”
“Right there,” he said, grabbing her hand and guiding it upward, having her point right at the brilliant, bright star.
“If you ever have trouble finding it, look here,” he said, tracing the shape of the Big Dipper.
“When you can find the two stars on the outer edge of the Big Dipper’s bowl, then you can draw a line through them, and you can find the North Star.
If you can do that, then you can always figure out which way north is. ”
“Of course, I would have to know what that meant.”
“You’ll get there. Especially if you keep using your compass, especially if you keep on practicing. That way, you get found instead of lost.”
The words settled, quiet and soft, around them.
He knew what it was like to be lost, and no amount of compasses or stars had ever made him feel like he could find the right direction.
He had learned the tools of survival, and he’d survived. But he’d been in the goddamned wilderness all this time.
Sitting here with her right now, beneath those brilliant stars that were like an arrow telling him which way he ought to go, he felt like the first time in a very long while he might actually be right where he was supposed to be.
Didn’t feel like his feet itched. Like he needed to find the next thing.
Like he needed to do more, higher, do something to quiet the agony inside of his soul.
Because right now it was quiet.
Wasn’t that a hell of a thing?
They sat out there in silence until she kissed him, and kissing turned urgent, and they went into the house, into her room.
And he found her North Star and took them both home.
They slept with the lights on.
The next thing he knew, it was morning, the gold light from the sun streaming in, outshining the light overhead.
Gold.
He could hear her bustling around the kitchen. And he couldn’t remember falling asleep. Couldn’t even remember struggling to do that.
It was a revelation.
That kind of rest.
Something entirely unfamiliar to him.
She was cooking, he could smell bacon, and there was a rattling of dishes.
When was the last time he had heard domestic sounds like this? Someone else cooking in his house? Someone else moving around?
He couldn’t recall.
Or maybe he was just trying to keep himself from recalling specifically because it might break through the haze of… He felt relative happiness right now.
Happiness.
What an unfamiliar sensation.
No dread. Just for a moment.
He knew one thing for sure; he didn’t want to spend the night without her tonight.
He stood up, hunted around for his underwear, pulled them on, along with his jeans, and walked out into the kitchen.
She turned from where she was standing at the stove, and her smile was the whole sunrise.
“Morning,” he said.
“There’s coffee in the coffee pot. And breakfast will be ready shortly. Bacon, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes.”
“Good grief. That’s a lot of food.”
“You have a lot of work to do today. I mean, I assume. You are a rancher after all.”
“Sure. But I managed to get by most days with my sweet roll.”
She moved away from the stove, crossed the kitchen, and grabbed hold of his forearm, stretching up on her toes and kissing him on the cheek. “You can have one of those too.”
He smiled. Didn’t even think about it. Didn’t feel like it was being pried from his mouth with a crowbar.
“Stay with me tonight,” he said.
“With you?”
“Yeah. Pack up, come stay with me.”
“Okay,” she said, looking a little bit stunned. “Yeah. Okay.”
Zane had no idea what the hell he was doing. But he wasn’t upset about it. That was for damn sure.