Chapter 16 Lost Pieces of You #2
Thank God for Aroldo, who was comfortable in his own skin. He kept pushing Harold, whisper-screaming into his ear: You don’t need hand sanitizer. Who cares if you’re dancing with a man? Lighten up. Loosen those hips. You are Aroldo. Harold is dead, dead, dead . . .
Then he got to Sandy, whose forehead glistened with a sheen of sweat. She looked like she was having the time of her life, half the age of the woman he’d met earlier at the bookstore.
She set a hand on his waist. “Are you picking it up?”
“Not even close.” He wasn’t sure if that was Harold or Aroldo.
“Let’s see what you got.”
She counted out to the music, then they launched into the steps. He’d gotten good enough to get through it at least somewhat.
“Look at you,” she said, a smile that he’d not seen before alighting on her face. “Who would have ever thought you could get those feet moving like that. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
As he’d discovered, Sandy wasn’t one to offer much praise, so when she did deliver it, it hit home. So much so that he felt a determined Aroldo peel out of Harold’s fragile skin. “Let’s try again,” he said.
“Stop thinking,” she said, “stop counting, lose yourself in the music and go.”
Aroldo did exactly that, focused on the rhythm of the music and on how her body followed his. It, of course, wasn’t perfect, but there were moments in this attempt when he felt free.
Hey, it’s Duo. Maybe you’re not such a dipshit.
“Unleash it even more,” she said. “Show me your passion, let it out here on the dance floor. Feel your love for Alice and what you’ll do when she comes back to you. Feel the pain of having lost her. Put every damn bit of it into the music and the dance.”
Aroldo was in complete control now, doing exactly as Sandy suggested, feeling his passion burning inside of him.
He didn’t even attempt to follow the steps.
He immersed himself in the moment and led her into Aroldo’s dance.
A sexual urge pulsed through him when their bodies touched, and he finished by sharply raising her hand in the air and guiding her into a snappy twist that he pulled off with shocking precision.
As the instructor turned off the music, Sandy stepped back. “Where did that come from?”
While Aroldo might have stifled his glee, Harold flashed his teeth. “I have no idea.”
“You made my heart flutter,” she said.
His soul soared.
He didn’t tell her that, though. All he could say was, “Thank you,” but maybe that was enough, because he’d never seen her light up like she did then.
Accepting that his friends would give him a hard time, Aroldo skipped his gaming session and slept till six.
Then he dressed in a new robe and sat on the balcony as the sun rose over the red city.
He took his time reading the news, and once the caffeine kicked in, he turned on Duolingo and went to work.
Though Harold might have an issue with the app, Aroldo loved it.
He loved the punishment from Duo if he was weak, if he skipped a day.
And he loved the challenge of wrangling this new language, the way the bouncy Italian phrases danced off the tongue.
When he took his morning run, flashes of being forced to play sports in PE back in Denver came to him.
He’d never forget that horrifying day when a punk kid named Jamie Everhorn, who had been the first to lose his virginity in their grade, jerked his shorts down during kickball.
Making it even worse was that Harold’s mom hadn’t done the laundry, so he’d gone commando.
And there, for all to see on that field in Denver, Colorado, was Harold’s pecker on display.
Even to this day, Harold wanted to strangle Jamie Everhorn, wherever he was. He’d love to sic Aroldo on him. Aroldo, who did not tolerate bullies, would see that Jamie got his due.
Halfway through the run, Harold checked his phone to make sure the app was counting his steps, then set off on a jog toward Renzo’s apartment. He passed by the entrance several times, hoping that Alice might appear, but he had no such luck.
As he was walking back, sweat dripping from his brow, he noticed the poster for the book club on the bookstore window. Aroldo would go—he had to go—because he had moved on from Alice, and he had a life.
After a shower, he stopped himself from turning on the Xbox. Aroldo didn’t play video games. His body and mind were temples. He danced the tango and studied new languages. Read poetry and self-help books.
In that spirit, he picked up Bianca’s book to read chapter 2, in which Bianca encouraged Peggy Meh to identify the wounds of her younger self, what had possibly led to what she’d confessed in chapter 1.
In Peggy’s case, she had an overbearing and abusive alcoholic father who’d told her all her life that she was good for nothing.
Though it wasn’t funny at all, Harold found himself chuckling as he read, because apparently, he wasn’t alone.
His father hadn’t had a drinking problem, but he’d definitely been an abusive asshole.
Few days went by that he didn’t hear his father’s discouraging words running through his mind.
As if Harold needed anyone else to beat him up for his failures.
And what were those? If he wrote them down, the list would go on for ages, but he knew that his biggest failure was not going to college. Because not obtaining a degree defined his future more than any other choice.
Everyone else around him had gone to school, or so it seemed.
All anyone was doing during senior year was chatting about all things college: which schools they were applying to, how they were amping up their extracurriculars to beef up their application, how their parents were taking them to tour their top three or four.
Why hadn’t Harold even applied? He was still scratching his head over it.
He’d had decent enough grades to get in a few places, definitely a state school, but it wasn’t like his parents had set up a college fund.
He’d have to take out student loans. His guidance counselor had tried and failed to push a few applications into his hand, but he’d always fed her excuses.