Chapter 2 #2
The well seemed to have dried up after that. What was the point of saying nice things to myself if it felt like I was lying? At what point would that practice get easier?
I sighed.
“I want to be better.” I settled on.
I’d work on that more later. I needed to get out of this rut. Dr. Spinner was right. If I was going to change my patterns, then I’d have to actually change my patterns.
I sat back and stared, losing a few minutes as I completely zoned out, processing this last call with Dr. Spinner.
It was only after a thump downstairs shook me loose from my staring that I realized I’d been hyper focused on a perfect set of abs.
Those abs were attached to a sculpted pair of wide shoulders.
It was like a twisted version of a children’s song .
. . the six-packs connected to the hard pecs, the hard pecs connected to the full biceps . . .
The Cozy Creek Fire Brigade charity calendar hung over my desk, an important investment to support the local firefighters.
Each month featured one of the hotties who either worked or volunteered for the local station.
The CCFB calendars sold so fast last fall, it was easily their most successful fundraiser to date.
Except maybe last year’s bachelor auction. But that was a whole other story.
Grandma alone had bought a box full and continued to sell them to tourists who bought them, ironically.
Yeah, sure. I bought one and “ironically” stare at each chiseled hunk every month too.
I imagine this will be a new annual tradition, as the year is three-fourths over and we still sell the occasional copy.
The abs I’d been inadvertently memorizing were those of Pace Leigh.
Now, there was a man who had it all. People like him were an absolute mystery to me.
It was now a few days into September, and I must have forgotten to flip the calendar over. He was the star of August—a Leo if there ever was one. Not that I was ready to say goodbye to ol’ Cutie McDimples just yet.
Pace Leigh.
I bet life came so easy to him. He moved through the world with such ease. Everybody in town loved him. Even in high school, it was as if the world were custom built for him. It’s been over a decade since we’d even exchanged words. Did he even remember me?
It was wild that people like him existed.
To be that good-looking and charming. It was like a free pass to life.
He could get whatever he wanted from anybody in town.
To his credit, he wasn’t abusive with his powers.
He was a pretty decent human. I mean, he was a firefighter, for crying out loud.
He was always putting himself out there.
I often saw him from my second-story window, zooming around town from store to store, helping residents.
Never still, always coaxing out smiles and blushes like a prospector panning for gold.
He was just so damn attractive and charming.
It seemed criminally unfair that so much of that could be poured into one human recipe for life, and then there’d be people like me who spent thirty minutes deciding what to wear to check the mail, only to stay in their pajamas and then never leave the house.
In this photo—I was still staring at it—Pace was shirtless with only his boots and baggy firefighter pants on.
He leaned against the antique fire truck parked in front of the station that the tourists loved to take photos of, with his thumbs in his suspenders, slightly tugged out so his small, dark brown nipples were on full display—that had to be a safety issue.
He had a smattering of reddish-brown chest hair that was a few shades darker than the tousled flop of hair on his head.
Even his short, trimmed hair seemed to fall just right where it was supposed to go to look the maximum amount of perfect.
One booted foot rested effortlessly on the other in a relaxed lean.
He had his typical confident, half-cocked grin that made everybody bend to his whims. He was still rocking that mustache in this picture, but he had since shaved it off.
I didn’t hate it—to be honest, I think it sort of worked on him—but now his sharp jaw was more prominent along with his Romanesque nose.
People like Pace were aliens to me. Or rather, I felt like an alien compared to them.
How did they know just how to move and act and talk?
My whole life, I’ve always felt so alone.
What would it be like to charm everyone everywhere you went?
What would it be like to say exactly what you mean when you meant to say it?
Or even if you do make a little bit of a mistake, to be able to make a joke about it and laugh it off.
And, oh my God, I was still staring. Thankfully, nobody could see that I’d just been drooling over him.
It wasn’t just the golden Leo man that had me hesitant to turn the page to the start of the “ber” months of the year.
These months were by far the busiest in Cozy Creek.
We loved a reason to have an event. There were dozens just for fall alone.
Which meant another four months of me trying to work myself up to go somewhere, only to talk myself out of it, and then wallow as I hid indoors for months.
Turning down Grandma’s helpful attempts to get me out.
Grandma.
With every passing year, her comfort and health moved up the priority pile. I would be here at the sunset of her life and would need to be able to call doctors and make appointments. I would need to be able to hold conversations about difficult topics.
The anxiety of Grandma’s health and happiness being at the mercy of my current brain was terrifying.
I wanted to change. The time was nigh.
Determined and feeling the same trickles of excitement that came with finding a new fun hobby, I made a decision. I reached for the nearest notebook and pen.
I couldn’t help myself; I was a tactile person, especially when I really wanted to process something. It was the reason I took laborious notes in college instead of recording them, but I almost never went back to them. I just needed to write things out to feel them settle.
Plus, Dr. Spinner was probably right. Making a list and checking things off it would be exponentially more satisfying than zeros and ones in my phone.
That being said, I would have to guard this list with my life.
I ripped out a page from one of the notebooks that littered the shop with the logo of knitting needles and a ball of yarn that had a gray topknot like a granny. I flipped it over and wrote, “My To-Do List.”
I let myself feel excited about the notion that this list might actually fix me.
If I could make it to the end, then I could prove that I wasn’t fundamentally broken.
Unfortunately, that same brain that locked me in a prison of what-ifs also understood that the only way to change my life was with action.
And that sucked.
“Time to get serious,” I said out loud, and a shiver of hopeful anticipation straightened my spine as I got to work.