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More Than This: Contemporary Christian Romance Novel

Page 22

by Stallings, Staci


  “But I thought dys…”

  “Lexia.”

  “Yeah, that, was trouble with reading.”

  “Well, it is, but even that isn’t cut and dried. Some kids have trouble with reading because they can’t focus right on the words on a page. They have eye-hand coordination issues. Like the words go all shape-shifting on them.”

  The term jumpstarted his heart, but he fought off the smile in favor of interest. “Like how?”

  “Like a double-vision kind of thing. They see two of everything, so they close one eye to try to read. Or they move their head when they read because their eyes don’t focus close. Sometimes kids use these colored plastic things that focus their sight.” She looked down at her food. “Wow. This turkey is amazing.”

  “It’s all good.” However, he was thinking more about what she was talking about than the food. “So that fixes it then? Those colored-plastic things?”

  “Sometimes, but with some kids it’s not the vision thing at all. For some of them, they were never taught to decode words. It’s more an auditory thing for them.”

  “Decode?”

  “Yeah, you know, break a word down into the letters and sound it out. You know, phonetics.”

  Jake took a bite of green beans never tasting it. Sound it out— a phrase he was imminently familiar with and one he hated to his core.

  “See, the left side of the brain is the side that pulls things apart into pieces. The right side puts things together. Most people are dominant left-brain thinkers, so when they see a word, they naturally pull it apart into the letters or small bits of the word like phonemes. But kids who are dominant right-brain thinkers don’t do that. They don’t see a word as individual letters. They see it as a unit— as if each word was a picture rather than made up of letters.”

  This intrigued Jake. “Pictures. Like how?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly, but like they memorize the word bag as starts with a b, then a little letter, then a long letter.” She took her paper napkin, grabbed a pen from her backpack, and drew three boxes. “They see it like this rather than as three letters.”

  Jake’s eating slowed as he watched her. “And you’re not supposed to do that?”

  She laughed softly. “Well, no. You’re supposed to see the b, the a, and the g. Otherwise, you would get completely messed up by other words that look like bag. Like what if the word was bog or beg or boy.” She wrote them each down like they all looked different, which to Jake they really didn’t. “Then when they see one of them, they can’t tell which it is so they just start guessing.

  “The thing is, they are really super-super-smart people.” She laid the pen next to her plate. “That’s what’s sad. I mean, right-brained people are brilliant. They just don’t learn the way everybody else does, so they get pushed off into corners and sent to reading recovery until they either get frustrated and quit or the school system gives them enough modifications that they pass without ever really learning to read.”

  Jake was still back on the boxes thing. It fascinated him because that’s exactly how he had always learned words— like they looked like a picture. He’d always thought that’s the way everyone saw them. “So how are you supposed to learn that box thing?”

  Liz laid her fork down and grabbed the pen again. “Well, apparently with dyslexic kids you have to teach them to decode. They don’t understand that intuitively. So you go through linking the sounds to the letters, like buh-a-guh. Three sounds, three letters. Buh. That’s a b. Uuu. That’s u. Guh. That’s a g. She wrote each down. Bug. See, simple.”

  He nodded, but the lesson was as frustrating as it was intriguing. Was she saying that the way he had done it his whole life was wrong? Was she saying there was another way? He didn’t quite understand the buh, uuu, guh thing, and all those words on that napkin looked like all the other ones. Could she really tell them apart so easily? The questions flitted around his heart and mind through the rest of the meal and even after when they were cleaning up. When he came back out to the table to check it the last time, he saw the pen and the napkin still laying there. It was impulsive and maybe reckless, but he picked the pen up and traced once over the letters she had written. As his mind contemplated the lesson again, he drew a swirl above the word and one below and then in between he filled in a small flower and the outline of a silhouette— not because he was trying, just because he was thinking.

  “Wow,” Liz suddenly said from across the table. “What is that?”

  “What?” Jake’s head jerked up, and he was surprised to see she was looking not at the television but at his drawing. Quickly he straightened, grabbed up the napkin, and crumpled it. “Oh, nothing. I was just messing around.”

  However, her gaze came up to his in complete awe. “I didn’t know you could draw.”

  He shrugged, crumpled the paper more and went to trash it. “I can’t really. I was just trying to get out of doing the dishes.”

  Liz wanted to argue with him, to pin him down that he had real talent. That flash of what he could do with a pen was incredible. However, he seemed stuck on fast-forward-auto-pilot when he came back into the room. “So, are we eating pie now? I can cut it if you want.”

  “What? Uh. No. I’m stuffed. Let’s watch the game.” She snuck a playful look at him. “If you can manage to stay awake this time.”

  He smiled. “Sorry about that. Jasmine kind of had me up all night, running for her life.”

  “Jasmine? Really?” Liz grabbed a pillow and sat down, excited to hear more of the story. “I thought her getting the book was going to solve everything.”

  “Yeah, so did I.” He sat down on his side and put his head back in consternation. “Then last night, I had this really intense dream that she went to take the thing back, and Mr. Nguyen, the librarian guy had been disappeared.”

  “Disappeared as in…?” Liz ran her finger under her chin as Jake looked over at her and laughed.

  He turned so he was lying on the back of the couch but looking at her. “That’s just it. I don’t know. She showed up to give the book back, and there was no trace of him ever having worked at the library. So then she tried to get out of there with the book, and it was this huge chase all over the library with these goons that were waiting for her. I think I was up writing until about six.”

  Liz’s head came forward in surprise. “And what time did you start writing?”

  “Like three.”

  “In the morning?”

  “I know.” He shook his head and sighed. “It’s nuts sometimes. It’s like this spigot— either it’s all the way on or shut off completely.”

  Liz looked at him, digging into his skull for the story of him. He seemed so completely deep, like if she dove in, she might never find the top or the bottom of his existence. “Man, I’d love to live just ten minutes in your head. It must be so full of neat things— stories and characters and places and action.”

  “Remember that chaos thing we talked about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um-hm. That’s pretty much it 24/7.” He shook his head. “It’s weird.” He sat for a long moment, seeming to dive beneath the surface of his own mind. Then he exhaled. “I guess I’m weird.”

  Hearing the note of self-scorn in his voice, Liz felt her heart pang. “I don’t know about that. It’s not weird. It’s more…” She gazed at him. “Intriguing.”

  He looked at her as if she’d sprouted an extra head. “Intriguing?”

  “Beguiling.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Fascinating.”

  He laughed. “Now I think you’re the one who’s lost it.”

  “No, seriously, Jake. It’s cool that you can come up with these awesome stories and they are just hang-on-and-let’s-go-for-a-ride. I don’t know how you do that.”

  Honesty blanketed him, beckoning him forward even as his rational side said he should quit while he was ahead. “I guess I’ve always kind of done that. I mean, even when I was little.” He put his he
ad back and stared at the ceiling. “I’d make up all these stories to put myself to sleep. I remember this one about this pony that could fly. Its name was Marco, and it would go on all of these cool adventures.” Then Jake realized how silly he was being telling her this, and he looked over with an embarrassed half-smile. “Too much information, huh?”

  “No,” and she really did sound fascinated. “How old were you then?”

  “I don’t know. Six, seven. I drew some pictures of him once, but my dad said drawing was for girls.”

  “For girls?” Liz backed up in horror. “He told you that?”

  Jake shrugged. “Dad was never much into stuff like that. He wanted me to grow up to be tough. A manly-man. Not drawing and writing.”

  “But that’s what you’re good at.”

  He laughed softly. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Well, I would.” Then she did something she’d never done before. She slid over to his side of the couch. “I for one think you are incredibly talented, and I’m glad we’ve gotten to be friends.”

  Friends? Is that what they were? Surprise jumped on Jake about the time she laid her head on his chest. For a long second he had no clue what to do, but then as if nature had taken over, he let his hand fall to her shoulder and then slide down her arm as she snuggled into him. Wow. Did that feel incredible! How had he lived nearly 30 years without this feeling?

  “I’m starting to see why you fell asleep over here,” she said, and there was a yawn tucked somewhere in the midst of that statement.

  “Why’s that? Am I that boring?”

  She yawned for real. “No. Not at all. Just really relaxing.”

  He ran his hand over her arm again, agreeing totally. The breath was slow and tranquil. “You know, you don’t have to stay awake on my account. I can just sit here and watch the Broncos.”

  “The Cowboys.” But she was already drifting out.

  Jake smiled. “Like it matters.”

  He felt her laugh and then slide off into oblivion. The world seemed to spiral around him. Here he was, with her, loving her, holding her, and it all felt so very easy and right. If life could stop right there, he would certainly have accepted it with complete peace.

  “Will you do something for me?” Liz asked as they sat later finishing up supper, which was just dinner-heated-back-up.

  “Sure. Anything.” Jake had enjoyed every moment of their afternoon together even if it wasn’t doing more than sitting on her couch with one of them sleeping.

  She reached around her chair and pulled out a notebook and a pencil. Sliding it across to him, she let out a breath. “Draw me something.”

  Panic attacked him as his eyes went wide. “Like what?”

  “I don’t care. Just something. A flower, a building, anything. Whatever you want.”

  Jake looked at the notebook and mechanical pencil lying there taunting him. Was she completely crazy? He ran his hands down his jeans. “I’m not…”

  However, her face was soft, hopeful, safe. “It doesn’t have to be good. I’m just curious. Please.”

  With a long sigh and knowing he was going to regret this, he picked up the pencil and shook his head. “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  A moment more to beat all of the screaming protests in his head back down and Jake traced the outline of the plate with the turkey that sat in front of him. He purposely let go of the rest of the world, noticing the lines and the arcs of the dinnerware. Carefully he let the drawing encapsulate the stemware glass beyond— her glass. Somehow it captured the spirit of the holiday and the end of a beautiful time of being together much like the scraps of turkey lying there did.

  When he was done, Jake looked at it, knowing his artwork could use a lot of work. He shrugged. “Something like that.” Wishing the embarrassment would leave him alone, he slid it across to her.

  She took it, wide-eyed, and sat back in the chair hard. Her face fell into incomprehension as she continued to stare at it.

  Worry slithered over him. “Is it that bad?”

  Her gaze came up to his as if she was seeing him for the very first time and not at all sure she liked what she saw. “Bad? This is incredible.” She sat forward, meal forgotten. “How did you learn to do this?”

  “Draw?”

  “Yeah. This is… It’s… amazing.”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s just freehand, nothing to write home about.”

  At that she almost came out of her chair. “Are you kidding me? Look at the lines on the plate. It’s like they’re for real.”

  “Well, they’re right there.” He didn’t see what she was seeing that was so great. “I just drew what was there.”

  “Yeah, but… You… It’s like it’s real and you just… did it. You didn’t think about it. You didn’t plan it out and do six sketches. You just…”

  Jake laughed and shrugged. “It’s some leftover turkey and a glass. Big deal.”

  But Liz knew it was far, far more than that. She was beginning to sense something about Jake, something that maybe some small piece of her had always suspected but had never really understood. She vowed to read more in the dyslexia book once he was gone. For now, she needed to drop the subject before she made her guest uncomfortable. With all of her willpower, she laid the notebook on the table. “Do you mind if I keep it?”

  He shrugged, ducking his head so she couldn’t see his eyes. “Suit yourself.”

  Carefully she closed the notebook. “Thanks.”

  Again he shrugged. “You want some pie now?”

  “Sure.”

  Chapter 13

  Ten seconds after Jake closed the door following the last good night kiss, Liz bolted from the door and raced to the couch. Yes, it was after eleven-thirty, and yes, he would be back some time just after seven, but this was important.

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she pulled up the second book— Dyslexia: Creativity & Intelligence Uncovered. Willing herself to calm down enough to read and comprehend, she angled the little lamp closer. The answers were here. She was sure of it.

  All the way home, Jake felt the smiles bubbling up from the center of him, and he couldn’t stop them. By some power other than himself he had landed in this strange and wonderful land of being loved and wanted. He didn’t remember ever being here before, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was all some grand illusion that he would eventually wake up from. However, even that thought was all right because if this was a dream, it was worth every chance of it coming to an end.

  He remembered how her head felt on his chest, how she breathed, the little sounds she made as she slept. He could get used to those sounds— very used to them. As he crossed the street to his apartment building which loomed high above the street, he asked himself a logical albeit startling question: What would it take to make tonight permanent?

  His heart skipped at the thought. What he would give right now to simply walk back to her apartment and live there the rest of his life. However, there were little things like the real reality of his life that told him asking her for forever was selfish. Did she really want to be with a guy who drove a forklift and made barely over minimum wage? An uneducated dreamer who believed more in his stories than in reality?

  Trying to push down the hurt those questions brought up, he unlocked his apartment and disappeared from the outside world into its confines. He needed to tell her, to be honest with her, and then he would know if this was real or just some elaborate dream.

  Tomorrow, he told himself as he went to the bed and pulled off his boots. Tomorrow I will find a way to tell her, and then she will be able to go on with her life without me. He lay down and put his hand behind his head. He wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t let himself. No. Just the blessing of this one moment with her was more than he could ever have hoped for. How could he possibly be sad about that?

  Many dyslexics are fantastically talented in areas that require understanding and the ability to intrinsically know how things are put together.
Examples abound: master mechanics who put engines and even whole cars together, architects who design elaborate buildings, painters, dancers, even writers— all have a strong right-brained, creative bent. This reliance on the right brain, which is the natural creative center of the mind, is the hidden treasure that even they do not realize they possess.

  Liz sat back, thinking and rethinking through everything, every moment since they had met. It all fit too perfectly for it to add up to anything else. She sat forward, her arms resting on the open book. “He’s dyslexic.” But she shook her head at that. “Jake is dyslexic.” Dyslexic. It suddenly sounded so… unwhole, so abnormal, and Jake was neither of those. He was special, intelligent, fascinating. The problem was, she realized as she continued to think it through, that he had absorbed all of the bad karma of dyslexia without realizing there was anything good about him or it at all.

  Once again she sat back, thinking through it all again and again, and suddenly she saw something she had missed. The understanding made her laugh out loud as her gaze went upward. “You planned this, didn’t You? You sent him to me.” She breathed that in. “Or did You send me to him?”

  Did it matter? Either way, she felt God’s hand on the relationship. This felt like far more than boy-meets-girl and they fall in love. Her heart jumped at that word and then settled into it peacefully. Yes, she loved him, and this insight into the depths of him only made her love him all the more. He was incredibly strong to have survived with this disability for so long.

  There were so many questions she wanted to ask him: Did the schools know? Was he given any modifications? What form did his dyslexia take? How was he able to write whole novels if he couldn’t even read? How much could he read? Was he functional at all? Was spelling a problem? How about math? Writing?

  Then she realized how incredibly hard it might be to ask any one of those questions, much less all of them. He was a man who had suffered a great deal. That much was screamingly obvious. She remembered him sitting over in the corner of the coffee shop— huddled was a better word for it, hunched over his little laptop as if, if he could disappear altogether, he would. Only now did she see the dimness of the light in his eyes and grasp that it was dull for a reason. Her heart ached at the insight. All she wanted to do at that moment was put her arms around him and give him a hug and tell him it could be so much better. He didn’t have to struggle.

 

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