Chapter 23
“Iwant to try something a little different today,” Iris told me, as she leaned forward in her chair, her elbows rested on her knees.
I was already slouched deep into the couch like I was trying to melt into it, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.
I was pretending I hadn’t thrown a massive temper tantrum in here last week.
I had tried to push down my shame and embarrassment as I walked in.
I had even brought Iris flowers and handed them over with a quick, “Sorry.” Her eyes had lit up and she had asked, “For what?” as if she had forgotten all about me yelling at her and smashing a mug against the wall.
“You’re not going to make me do breathwork, are you? Because last time I tried to meditate, I ended up obsessing over whether I could choke on air.”
The corners of her mouth lifted.
“No breathwork. But I do want to switch things up.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “Define ‘switch.’ Define ‘up.’”
“I’ve been thinking about last week’s session,” she continued. My stomach lurched uncomfortably. So, she did remember.
“We’ve done a lot of talking, a lot of opening up, and time spent discussing all the world’s issues, and I realized—you’ve done all these extreme things in the last year and a half.
Stunts most people would never even think about let alone do.
Ironically, you’ve lived a very full life recently with your escapades, but your circumstances caused you to skip over the middle. The normal.”
“The middle,” I echoed. “Is that something between electrocution and shark diving, or between ice skating on death traps and elevator surfing?”
She let out a soft laugh. “The middle is what happens between chaos and peace. Between surviving and actually living. You’ve missed out on the normal stuff.
Going grocery shopping. Watching a movie in the theatre and making yourself nauseous from eating too much popcorn. Making dinner. Baking cookies.”
“I’m not Julia Child.” Excitement that turned into unease gnawed away at me. I shifted in my seat; my shirt suddenly felt two sizes too small.
“You don’t have to be. That’s kind of the point.” She let out a giggle. I sat up straighter but kept my arms crossed protectively against my chest.
“You’re seriously suggesting we turn our therapy sessions into a cooking class?”
“I’m suggesting we try something grounded. Not dangerous. Not deep. Just experience something that doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping but something you still enjoy. Something… normal.” Her voice softened. “It might help more than you think.”
“There’s nothing you can do that’ll change my mind,” I reminded her. And yet, even as I said it, I felt something flicker under my ribs. A quiet betrayal of my own words. Something I wished I hadn’t noticed. But she noticed. She always did.
“You say that,” she murmured, “but your eyes just blinked in Morse code for ‘maybe.’”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
Once I agreed to go grocery shopping with her, we left her office and walked side by side to the Whole Foods down the block.
The air was cold on my cheeks, and I almost tripped over a pigeon at one point which made her crack up, but we made it to the store in one piece and entered through the automatic doors.
The fluorescent lights hit me like a punch to the face.
It smelled like smoothies and overripe bananas.
“I hate this already,” I muttered.
“We just need five minutes,” she assured me, grabbing a cart.
We meandered through aisles, passing a toddler crying over the color of his juice box, a woman trying to hand out samples of flax seed crackers, and a man comparing two brands of toilet paper with intense concentration, as if he wasn’t going to just wipe his ass with it.
Iris paused by the shelves of pasta. I had no idea there were so many different kinds, shapes, and colors.
“What’s your favorite meal? Let’s make that.” She looked up at me. I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really have a favorite meal.”
She looked back at me, surprise flooded her expression, a box of curly pasta in her hands. “Really?”
“I mean, I’ve never really had the chance to find a favorite.
When I was young, I ate when there was food offered to me, and it didn’t matter what it was.
When I grew older, I ate what I could afford, and now I eat whatever is easily available or will be delivered the fastest because I don’t care anymore. ”
The way she looked at me then made me uncomfortable—not in the usual way, but in a softer, quieter way. Like I’d just revealed something deeply personal without meaning to.
“That’s… really sad, Danny.”
I grabbed the box of spaghetti that she kept eyeing and deposited it into the cart. “Then let’s change that. Make me your favorite food and I’ll see if it becomes my favorite food.”
She beamed at me like I’d said something groundbreaking.
I pushed the cart after that and followed her around the store while she bagged vegetables, got some cans and spices, and chattered the whole time.
People smiled at us as we passed them in the aisle and when we checked out.
People usually barely looked at me when I was out alone but with sunshine and happiness next to me, I suddenly came across as wholesome and someone to smile at.
She didn’t seem to realize it was happening or that it was different for me, but I did.
Her apartment smelled like vanilla and cedarwood.
It was warm and glowing and looked like a Pinterest board had thrown up in here—in the best possible way.
Soft throws were over every armrest. Candles flickered on the windowsill.
A tea kettle whistled on the stove like it was personally excited we were home.
“You live like a fairy who pays her bills on time,” I muttered, staring at a row of tiny potted succulents on the windowsill. I ran a finger over one of them. It tickled me and made me grin.
She laughed. “I like cozy things. They make me feel safe and happy.”
I wanted to say that I wouldn’t know what that felt like, but I bit it back. I’d already given her enough pieces of me for the day. Iris handed me a cutting board and a red bell pepper. “Let’s start with something simple.”
I looked at the vegetable like it was a small alien. “You want me to cut this up?”
“Yes.”
“What if I chop off my finger and bleed out?”
She gave me a look. “Then you’ll get your wish, and I’ll have to figure out how to discard your body.”
“Woah, Miss Morbid. Calm down.”
She giggled as she took the clip out of her hair, and I finally saw it fully down for the first time.
It was shiny and rested around her shoulders in soft, dark waves.
I wanted to touch it to see what it felt like.
I didn’t feel worthy of touching her though, so I curled my hand around the handle of the knife and shuffled in place.
She flitted around the kitchen in her white cable knit sweater that almost came to her knees, the black edge of her skirt peeked out from the bottom.
I watched from where I stood at the small island as she pushed her glasses up into her hair, and I got a good look at her big eyes and strong brows.
The kitchen smelled of garlic and butter, and the longer we cooked side by side the quieter the static in my chest became, like someone was slowly turning down the volume on my ever-present panic.
I didn’t think she realized it, but she hummed as she deftly cut up sun dried tomatoes for the sauce of the pasta. She said it was called, “marry me chicken pasta,” and then laughed when I got uncomfortable.
“Calm down, Danny, I can say ‘marry me’ without you acting like I’m proposing to you.”
I gave a hollow laugh back and said, “I don’t expect anyone would want me like that. I’m too crazy to marry.”
Her face clouded and I distracted her by dropping the knife and then moving behind her to go wash it off.
I copied her wrist movements and cut a second pepper into big, clumsy pieces which she told me were perfect.
I beamed under her praise even though I knew she was lying.
Then when I was done mutilating the vegetable and making a mess of the seeds, who knew peppers had so many little seeds in them, she had me make a salad dressing from scratch.
Apparently, balsamic vinegar does not taste good on its own, but it was delicious mixed with honey, a little mustard and some oil.
Then we pretended to bake cookies from scratch when really, we just peeled pre-made dough from the package and laid them out onto a cookie sheet and popped them in the oven.
She even let me eat a piece of raw cookie dough.
“Don’t blame me if you die of salmonella,” she warned.
“I’d consider it an honorable death. If I would have known how easy it was to die by cookie dough, I could have saved myself a lot of money in flights and a lot of fucking time,” I tossed back.
She couldn’t help herself and even though I was joking around about death, she threw her head back and laughed.
I basked in the glow of it; my skin prickled as she moved behind me, carrying plates to the coffee table in her small living room.
We ate dinner on the couch with mismatched plates on our laps. The food was delicious. She told me my peppers were the best part. I rolled my eyes and told her that this was officially my new favorite food.
“Marry me chicken is perfection,” I announced.
I caught her eyes watching my lips as I spoke.
When my gaze met hers, she looked away and reached for the remote to put on some indie movie I’d never heard of.
I didn’t really watch it. Instead, I watched her giggle at the silly parts and listened to her talk over the serious ones.
I learned that she picked her lip when she was thinking, and she curled her toes under the blanket like a little kid.
There was a moment—just a sliver of time—where I felt… not happy, exactly, but not empty either. Like I could maybe exist in this moment without dragging my thousand-pound past around with me.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up. The light was different, dim and hazy. A blanket had been pulled over me, and the scent of her lingered in the material around me. Lavender, maybe. And something smoky-sweet.
When I looked up, I found her sitting in the chair across from me, book in hand. She watched me as I stirred.
“You fell asleep.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t mean to enjoy any of this either,” I murmured.
“I know that too.”
I sat up, the warmth of the blanket slipped away a little too quickly, almost telling me that this sliver of happiness was complete. My cocoon away from the harsh world was over. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“You can stay,” she offered quietly. But I knew I couldn’t, so I stood and pulled on my jacket as I tried to dampen the feelings that were blooming in my chest. Then I thanked her for the life experience and the delicious dinner. She followed me to the door.
As I reached for the handle, she said, “We’ll try another one on my new list next time. And maybe a haircut for you?”
I hesitated. “You and your lists.”
She shrugged. I ran a hand over my hair.
“I don’t like when men touch me. I usually just cut it myself.”
“I can do it,” she offered quickly, too quickly.
I stared at her. “Is looking good before I die also in the ‘I Want to Die’ handbook?” I asked, half amused, half undone.
“No,” she replied, glancing up at me with a small smile. “I wrote that one myself in the margins.”