Chapter 3
I woke up the next morning feeling very content.
I lay on a couch that was kind of lumpy and smelled somewhat like mildew and BO, and it was early enough that it was still pitch-black outside.
The sound that had awakened me was a male voice shouting “hell!” in the kitchen, which was directly next to where I lay on the lumpy, smelly couch.
I smiled into the gray darkness and sat up.
I had spent the night at Callum’s, like he’d promised I could, and it had been great.
After dinner, I had been tired and yawning a lot as I’d washed the two forks and one pot.
So, he’d shown me the couch and then had tried to find a blanket but had only come up with his grandpa’s old winter coat.
It had been a little itchy and also had a strange odor (maybe cigars?), but it had been warm.
Now I folded the coat and I walked into the kitchen, careful not to put too much weight on my injured foot. “Why are the lights off?” I asked.
“Hell!” Callum roared again. He dropped the pot, his only one, and spun around to look at me. “I didn’t want to wake you so I kept them off, and I was being quiet.”
My ears rang with his shout and with the sound of the pot hitting the metal burner—for some reason, he’d been holding it over his head, so it had quite a distance to fall. “What are you cooking?” I asked.
“Nothing. I was trying to catch a spider to put it outside,” he told me, pointing at something on the ceiling.
It was too dark in here for me to see the spider but it was easy to imagine it falling onto my head, so I made a noise like a squeaky rubber duck and quickly hopped away. He turned on the lights and safely removed it.
He explained that he was up early out of habit and he wanted to get to the gym before he finished packing. “I could take you to the bus station on my way,” he suggested.
I had to digest that for a moment before I nodded. “Sure. Thanks.”
“What’s your destination?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided,” I said. “There are a lot of places that I could go.”
“Yeah, but you should…ok. I made some coffee, but I usually just drink it out of the carafe,” he told me. “And to be honest, I’m not sure how clean I get that.”
I had wanted to use dish soap on the pot and forks the night before, but he hadn’t had any, so I also wasn’t sure about how clean the glass carafe would be.
“That’s ok. I don’t drink coffee,” I answered.
Sage and I had usually started the day in pharmaceutical form rather than with a hot beverage, and I felt a little strange without that boost.
I also felt strange about having to leave here, because I had thought that things were going well.
But he had just said that he would take me to the bus…
didn’t he like me? Maybe so, but without sex (which he wasn’t interested in), there just wasn’t enough to keep me around.
I went to the bathroom and washed my face, then used some of his toothpaste and scrubbed my mouth with my finger.
I put my slippers back on and waited in the garage for him to be ready.
I hadn’t wanted to go outside, in case I ran into the dog again.
“Ok, time to head out,” Callum said as he joined me. “Let’s get on the road.” We sat in the green car and I watched the neighborhood through the window.
“Have you picked where you’re going yet?”
“No,” I answered.
“Where’s your family?”
“I grew up in Washington state.” But there was nobody left now, which was how I’d ended up in Los Angeles. “Are you leaving behind family when you go to Michigan?”
“No, there’s just me. I’ll have no reason to come back here ever again, especially if I get rid of the house somehow.
” He glanced out of his side window, too.
“After you said that this was a permanent move, I realized that you were right. Even if I don’t make the Woodsmen roster, I’m going to try somewhere new. ”
“I’ll probably do that, too, and I could let you know where I am. Then you could come there and you’d already know someone,” I said.
“That would be nice.”
It would have been. I remembered showing up in LA, all alone and pretty bewildered.
It would have been easier if there had been someone I could have texted to say hi, let’s meet up and have dinner.
I thought about inviting him over to an apartment I might have, where there was a table, plates for both of us, and dish soap.
“So you’re thinking about a destination?” he asked me, phrasing the same question in another way. He’d also asked that the night before and my answer hadn’t changed.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said. “Is the bus station near the monuments downtown?”
“Yeah, but you can’t stay there.”
“No, I don’t plan to do that,” I answered. We rode for a few minutes in silence. “I hope you have a great time in Michigan,” I finally said, breaking it. “I bet you’ll play for that team and be really successful.”
“Thank you. Why do you think so?”
“You pushed me into your car to save me from the dog and you stood up to it. Then you helped me with my foot and let me stay with you, even though I could have been a thief.”
“I don’t have much to steal,” he pointed out.
“I could have taken this car. Anyway, it was nice of you to do all that and I think that what goes around sometimes comes around. Not often, but I think it will for you.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be negative? Like if someone yells at a cat and then they step on a rake and get hit in the face, you could say, ‘What goes around comes around.’ I don’t think it’s for good stuff.”
“It could be,” I argued. “If things come around for you, they’ll be positive.”
“Thank you,” he told me again. “I hope positive things come for you, too.” But then he shook his head. “You can’t leave here in my T-shirt.”
“My gold dress wouldn’t expand enough for me to wear again,” I said. “It got so small after I washed it that the skirt won’t even fit around my arm. If you have an address in Michigan, I can mail this shirt back to you.”
“No, I don’t care if you take it. I mean that you’re only wearing a little dress you made and hotel slippers. You can’t travel in that. We should stop so you can get some shoes.” He exited the highway and drove toward a big, lighted sign. “This place is open.”
After we had parked, he rummaged around in the back seat. “I have this,” he said, pulling free what I thought was a comforter from a bed. But when he shook it out, I saw that it was actually an XXXL sweatshirt. “It was mine in high school. You should take it.”
“Are you sure? It’s probably a nice memento.”
“No, I don’t have a lot of pleasant memories of that time of my life, besides of the coach who tried to kick my ass into gear. Anyway, it seems like you get cold. You needed that coat last night,” he pointed out.
“Thank you. I’ll be glad to have shoes, too.
” We slowly went into the store, where I found a pair of flip-flops and a four-pack of thongs so I wouldn’t have to keep washing my underwear.
I dropped my items into a plastic bag at the register, because I planned to repurpose it.
When we returned to his car, I put on the shoes and I added my gold dress, extra bandages, slippers, and empty OJ bottle to the bag. Then I pulled on the sweatshirt.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” I agreed. But then he didn’t start the car. “Is something wrong with the engine?”
“I’m thinking that this is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done some really bad shit.”
I was confused. “What do you mean?” I looked around the parking lot. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to put you on a bus when all you have to your name is a bag of trash and less than forty dollars.
I saw how much money you were carrying when you took it out in the store,” he answered.
“You can’t even walk on your one foot. You don’t have any family to call and it seems like you also don’t have any friends who would help you. ”
“I’ll be ok. I went to LA with a bag full of clothes and pictures instead of trash, but I got robbed really soon after I arrived. I still managed to make it, even without anything to my name except what I was wearing and some change I found on the ground,” I said, to comfort him.
It didn’t work. “Hell,” he muttered. He thought for a second. “I can give you—”
“I won’t take money from you.” This wasn’t like how Sage and I had sometimes dipped into Damian’s wallet. He had owed us but Callum had done more for me than I deserved. “Let’s go to the bus station,” I directed.
He started the car and I thought that was where we were heading.
I had already decided that I would sit in that nice plaza for a while before I determined what I would do next.
There weren’t a lot of choices, so it wasn’t like I would have to ponder it very hard.
But then, when I looked through the window at the highway, things seemed wrong.
“You’re not going the right way,” I told him. “You made a mistake.”
“No, I didn’t. We’re heading back to my house.
I’ll drop you there and then I’ll go to the gym.
You could help me pack and meet up with my neighbor when he comes by to get his broken ATVs out of my garage.
After I’m done with my workout, we can sit down and come up with a better plan for what’s next. ”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yeah, I kinda do,” he told me. “There has to be a better option than leaving you like this and saying ‘good luck.’” He glanced over at me and smiled. “You seem shocked.”
“You’re the nicest person I ever met.”
“Then you need to get out more,” he recommended.
I had been out a lot, but I’d never come across anyone like him.
I made a decision as we drove: I was now his entourage, but I didn’t expect to receive clothes or drugs.
I would help him as he had helped me and my payment would be watching him succeed.
Hopefully, I’d also get some meals, since there also wouldn’t be money changing hands.