Chapter 10 Watching Scars Turn into Butterflies #2
“Ditch the lobster head. Then we can talk like normal people, and maybe I won’t think you’re a serial killer anymore.”
“Nah.” Simply nah. As if that’s something he could just say. Just like that.
“Umm. Okay. You know, I really have no interest in talking with a lobster today, so…”
As I move to stand up, the lobster wiggles his claws and blocks my way. “Hey, no, wait, sorry. So, I’d love to show you my face, but I feel like that would ruin the magic somehow.”
“You’re messing with me, right?”
“No.”
I blink. His oddly deep voice doesn’t make the whole thing any better. “No idea what your idea of magic is, but lobsters aren’t really my thing.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He stretches out a claw to push back into place a book that was about to tumble onto my head. That was considerate. Maybe I’ll just marry him and get used to the black-button eyes. Well, Aria, when all else goes to shit, you’ll still have the lobster.
“I mean, it’s cool to just be nobody for a while. Not you and not me. For a night, just Coco and the lobster.”
Uh oh. Red light. This dude’s not all there, Aria. Take off, far away, where no one can find you, and, above all, you can make your god-awful homework disappear.
I ignore the voice.
“In some weird-ass way I like that,” I say, sticking out my hand to shake the lobster’s claw. “Does that just go for the way we look or for our names, too?”
“As you want.”
“Hmm. A name would be good. Would temper the serial killer vibe a tad.”
“Cool. Well, so, I’m…Paxton. My name’s Paxton.”
I smile. “Cool, Paxton. I’m Aria.”
“Aria,” he repeats, real slow, with a low tone in his voice as if he wanted to let the sound melt in his mouth. “I’d love to get to know you a hundred times just to hear you introduce yourself over and over.”
“That’s a bit cringe.”
“Sorry.”
“So, umm, you from Aspen? Everyone knows everyone else here.”
He leans back against the bookshelf, tucks his tail beneath his legs, and sits so that he can cross his legs. “Yep. Born and raised.” His eyes wander to the hem of my dress. The black-button eyes come to rest on the torn piece that extends to the black fabric. “Your dress is torn.”
Just four little words, right? But more somehow, tugging at my memories the way they are.
“Yeah.”
“How’d that happen?”
He asks it like it would be of interest to him, but for some reason, that doesn’t feel right.
There’s something in his tone, something I can’t quite put my finger on.
There’s something in his voice, something sad and raw, but at the same time warm and homey somehow.
I break out in goose bumps. I don’t know what to think.
I mean, come on, I’m talking to a lobster here!
My lips move to say something but stop. I don’t want to talk about Wyatt. I’m just getting to know someone here and really, really want to try to do this right. In the end, I don’t care if something comes of it or not, but I really want to try; that’s the first step in moving forward.
“No idea,” I say tersely. “At some party or other, probably. Those things happen, right?”
It takes the chorus and half a verse from Snoop Dogg’s “Young, Wild I mean, I don’t know him.
I don’t even know what he really looks like.
But if he looks at all like the way he’s making me feel, then that’ll be enough forever and always.
“I’ve got to get going, but meeting you was the most beautiful thing that’s happened to me in years. ”
“I… Wait, what? Already?”
He stands up. “I’ve got to go.”
“Can we see each other again?”
Okay. Paisley was right. Too much pumpkin punch. Definitely too much pumpkin punch. This feels like a movie set in some other woman’s life that I’m lucky enough to be in once.
Lobster Boy picks his claw up off the floor and shakes his head. “Not for a while, I think.”
Oh my God! He doesn’t want to see me again! At first he couldn’t stop gawking, and now he’s had enough. This is so typical of my life! No, this definitely has to be my own movie. But I don’t want it to end already, so don’t give up.
“We could text each other,” I say, standing up and showing him my phone. “If you give me your number?”
Lobster Boy hesitates. He keeps looking around the room as if there was something that might either keep him from going or force him to disappear the very next second.
But then he grabs the phone out of my hand and types in his number.
“If you still want to in the morning, then text me. But if not, well…” He reaches his hand out to caress my face one more time.
The red satin shimmers in the light of the strobe.
His touch makes me feel like I’m everything.
As elegant as silk, as precious as diamonds.
Simply everything. “This will be our last moment, and I will love it forever but accept that that is what it was.”
Holy crap is that bizarre.
“Okay,” I whisper. His hand slides off my face. He turns and disappears within the crowd. I watch him go until his lobster tail is no longer visible, then wonder whether what’s wrong with me.
Well, wrong or not, this was the liveliest, most intense, and most heartwarming thing I’ve felt since that gray day two years ago.
And, to be honest? For that, I’m happy to be wrong.