by Isobel Irons
But I’m also worried about Tash, because it feels like she’s been gone a long time.
“Should I go back and check on them?”
“What’s that?” Dottie turns her head toward me, and I remember Tash telling me that she’s mostly deaf and almost completely blind.
“I said, should I go and help?”
“Oh, no.” The old lady waves a hand in the direction of the hallway. “She’ll be back, once she finishes heaving that old lush into bed.”
Old lush? I try to find a tactful way to bring it up. “I heard about Tash getting kicked out of bingo.”
“Tash?” Dottie cackles like a witch in a Disney movie. “No, Beverly was the one who got us booted. You’d think someone as old as she is, who drinks as much as she does, would’ve learned to hold her liquor. But my sister is as much of a lightweight as ever.”
Inwardly, I breathe a sigh of relief. Deep down, I don’t think I really believed that Tash would be that irresponsible, to drink and drive with a bunch of senior citizens in the car. But then again, today is a day for letting my fears have free reign.
“She’s a good girl,” Dottie says. “When I was her age, I was out getting blitzed on hooch and letting all kinds of servicemen feel me up behind the dance hall. But not our Tash.” She takes a breath, and I get the feeling I’m in for a story. “She comes over here almost every night, taking us old ladies out so we don’t grow into our chairs, making sure we have enough groceries, and talking to us so we don’t get lonely. You won’t find many girls like that, boy. Not today, not tomorrow. She’s special.”
I open my mouth to tell her I know that, but then I don’t. Because it seems rude to argue with someone that old. She waves me close, and I have no choice but to lean toward her.
“I’m going to tell you something, handsome. Everyone thinks I’m demented and weak because I’m a million years old. But I’m not a total loon. I see what’s going on. And if you ever make our Tash cry again like she did last night, I will beat you to death with my walker. Understand?”
Tash was crying last night? Why? Was it my fault? Of course it was. It had to be. How do I fix it? I need to fix it. Before she changes her mind, decides I’m too much of a freak. Before she gives up on me.
My throat suddenly feels tight, so I swallow. “Yes ma’am.”
She pats my arm with her liver spotted hand. “Good boy. Now fetch me the clicker. I want to watch the new Dallas on my DVR.”
When Tash finally emerges, I’m standing by Dottie’s chair, reading her the show descriptions so she can figure out which episode was the last one she ‘saw.’ She stands at the end of the hallway watching us, arms crossed, face unreadable.
“You’re still here?”
“Yeah.” I pick the right episode and hit enter, then pass the remote to Dottie, resisting the urge to whip out my travel bottle of hand sanitizer. I can wait to do that until I’m back in the car. I straighten up, rubbing my hands on my slacks.
“I uh… I was wondering if you wanted to come for a drive? With me?”
Tash sighs. “I’m really tired, Grant. It’s been a long day.”
I knew it. She’s mad at me. Now, if I could just figure out why. I have to get her alone, and make her talk to me.
“Please?” Let me fix this.
“Go on, girl,” Dottie says. “I’ve got my Life Alert right here, and Beverly will be fine. She’s just smashed.”
At the old lady’s insistence, Tash follows me out to the driveway. But instead of getting in her car, she turns the other way.
“Let’s walk over to my place instead. It’s not that far.”
“Okay.” I use the cover of darkness to use some sanitizer, then put my hands in my pockets and follow her down the street.
The walk is mostly silent, until just before we get to her house.
Then, she stops. “Last night really sucked, you know.”
Again, it’s a massive understatement. “Yeah, I know. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. It’s just…I saw him, and I started thinking about that night, and I was just…I didn’t know what I would do.”
I should have been stronger. I should have handled it. I should have been there for her, protected her. Instead, I couldn’t be what she needed. I was too busy letting the fear control me. Again.
“Yeah, me neither.” She turns and goes up the steps, unlocking the door. “You know, every time I open this door when I’m by myself, I keep my back turned? It’s stupid, because I know it wouldn’t make a difference if…but for some reason, I just feel like…at least I’ll see it coming this time, you know?”
My heart squeezes. “Tash….”
I can try harder to be normal. I can fix this. Please, let me try to fix this.
“No,” she shakes her head, then pushes her front door open and flips on the porch light. I’m momentarily blinded. “Don’t say you’re sorry again. I can’t take it right now, I really can’t.”
I climb the stairs and follow her into the house, watching as she takes off her jacket and drops it on the counter. All I want to do is hold her, but I know she won’t let me. Not now. I failed her. I wasn’t there when she needed me, why would she want me here now when she doesn’t?
“It kills me…what happened in May. You know that, right? I still kick myself, every day, trying to figure out what else I could have done, to make them do something. Or at least listen. It kills me that he’s still walking around. That there are more guys like him out there, just walking around.” I feel like punching a wall. “And there’s nothing I can… I can’t protect you. I can’t even keep it together when….”
I trail off, shaking my head. I’m so mad at myself, at the world around me, it’s hard to focus.
This must be what Tash feels like all the time, why she never wants to talk about it.
Instead, we just skirt around the details, because that’s what we said we’d do after May. The police station, the hours of interviews and embarrassing questions that ended up going less than nowhere…it was the first time I understood why it took her so long to tell the truth. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Tash tried to report a crime and ended up being treated like a criminal. And when I tried to help, everyone acted like I was guilty by association.
So in the end, we let it drop. It was her choice, she said. It was what she wanted, to move on.
But how are we supposed to move on when there’s this giant obstacle in our path?
“God, you’re such a martyr sometimes, Grant!” Tash spins to face me. “You seriously think I’m mad because you didn’t go all caveman gorilla and beat up some hometown loser? I’m mad because…when you left last night, after pushing me away again, without explaining why…and then you didn’t call me like you said you would, I didn’t get mad at you like a normal girl would. I got mad at me!” She laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “I blamed myself, because you didn’t want me. Because, there will always be this fucked up part of me that thinks…” her voice cracks, and her eyes fill with tears. The next time she talks, her voice is thicker. “…If you don’t want to…it’s because you think I’m gross. Or, I don’t know…dirty. Because everyone else, that’s all they’ve ever wanted. And I know it’s wrong, and I know it’s crazy, but deep down I think I’m always going to worry…what if that’s all I am?”
Her words couldn’t sound more familiar if I was the one saying them. How many times have I asked myself that same question, just today?
What if everyone found out about my secret? What if everyone knew? What if they couldn’t see past it, if they thought I was crazy, or a freak? Worst of all, what if they were right? What if deep down, that’s all I am? A crazy person, who’s just really good at pretending?
I take a step toward her, reaching out. “Tash, I know what you mean, but that’s not you.”
“Yes! It is! That’s the thing, it is me. I’m fucked up, and I’ve finally started to accept that about myself. I’m damaged, and that’s okay, because I can lear
n to like myself this way. But you…you have so many more important things to do than stay here in this bullshit town hauling recycling and taking me to the movies, and dealing with my shitty, Trent-shaped emotional baggage. You should’ve left, Grant. You should’ve done the course at Duke. You’re obviously not on some quest to lose your virginity this summer, so what’s the deal? Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance?”
“Because I love you,” I blurt.
The second the words leave my mouth, I want to take them back. Not because they aren’t true, but because they’re too heavy. Too soon. Too real.
I watch her face crumble. I don’t know what she was expecting to hear, but it wasn’t that. Angrily, she steps toward me, and her hands reach toward my chest, fisting in my shirt. But she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t answer my unspoken question. Maybe she’ll yell at me some more. Anything would be better than the waiting.
What if she never says it back? What if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if she tells me to leave, and means it?
I honestly don’t know if I could survive that, and I’m pretty sure that’s not just the OCD talking.
So I keep talking, keep sharing, like that will help. “I’m not just saying that to say it. You’ve made my life better…more real…for as long as I’ve known you. I’m pretty sure I loved you before I even liked you. You’re perfect. At least to me…or maybe for me, I don’t know. All I know is…you make me feel like I can just…be. I don’t have to pretend. And honestly, I don’t really care about anything else. I’m not sure I ever did, before now.”
She’s shaking her head. “Do you realize how insane that sounds?”
“Yeah, I do.” I say. Then, I take a deep breath, and I tell her my greatest fear: “Maybe I am crazy.” Another breath. “Would you still like me if I was?”
Finally, the tears spill over. She pulls me toward her and presses her lips to mine, the only way she knows how to do anything—hard. I wrap my arms around her, and she breaks our kiss to tuck her face under my chin. She sobs into my shirt.
“I fucking love you too, Grant Blue.”
I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh. I hold her tighter, as a wave of euphoria washes over me. My chest feels like it’s going to explode. I pull back, wiping her tears away with my thumbs.
“I thought you said you only cry when you’re mad.”
“I know!” She laughs, shaking her head. “What the fuck is that about?”
We look at each other, and there’s a long moment of quiet. Her eyes clear, and my body slowly awakens to the fact that she’s pressed up against me. The girl that I love. The girl who loves me back.
What are the odds of that happening?
Slowly, I bend to press a kiss to her forehead. Then, her cheekbone. Then her jaw. Then her neck.
Finally, I kiss her lips, but one more kiss just isn’t enough. So I kiss her again, and again. Each time, each kiss is deeper, warmer, longer. But I want more.
My skin feels like it’s on fire, but in a good way. I push her up against the kitchen counter, running my hands down her back, pulling against her and leaning into her at the same time. No matter how I move, I can’t seem to get close enough.
Tash doesn’t seem to mind. Her hands slide up under my shirt, feathering across my skin. It feels so good I don’t want her to stop. And she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls me down the hall to her bedroom. Our lips somehow stay connected, even when we crash through the door and run into her dresser.
The frenzy of skin on skin is intoxicating, like too many uppers. Like the rain. Her tongue tangles with mine, and I feel a thrill go through me, even stronger than before.
We’re in a race now, trying to see who can take off each other’s clothes the fastest. It’s not about thinking anymore, or counting, or worrying. I’ve lost count of the kisses, along with any good reason for being cautious, or waiting. It’s time for doing now, for being alive and just feeling.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, my brain climbs into the back seat, and stays there.
Before I know it, I’m sitting on the edge of her bed and she’s in my lap, riding me. My hands are tangled in her hair, clutching her back, holding on for dear life. It’s a wild abandon like nothing I’ve ever felt. Not chaos, but freedom.
I want it to go on forever, never stopping, but I’m not strong enough to resist the pull of gravity. I bury my face in her neck and clench my jaw, as everything I ever thought I knew about life shatters into a thousand pieces.
I never lived before this moment, not really.
When I finally come back down to earth, we’re both shaking. I reach up and take her face in my hands. Her smile is timid, almost shy.
“I love you,” I tell her. I’ve never meant anything more. “I love you so much.”
I kiss her again and again, soft and hard, fast and slow.
For the rest of the night, my mind stays quiet, at peace. It’s more than a perfect moment. It’s a perfect everything.
CHAPTER TEN
JULY
You know it’s too early when you can see your breath in the middle of the summer.
City Hall is closed for the Fourth, but Melody volunteered me to help get the parade floats in order, so here I am, clutching a clip board and shivering in the parking lot of my old high school at the crack of dawn.
All around me, flatbed trucks covered in chicken wire shapes and crepe paper flowers idle exhaust into the chilly morning air. Little kids wearing face paint and patriotic t-shirts chase each other around, and I stress about one of them getting run over by a four-wheeler or an out of control horse. I see and feel everything in high-definition now, without any kind of barrier between me and the rest of the world. Colors are brighter, smells are stronger. Good moods are better, bad moods are worse. But somehow, I manage. That’s what I am now: a manager.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve managed to bury the panic I feel under layer after layer of self-control, until the only ritual I have left is no rituals. With every breath, instead of counting, I fill my thoughts with passing observations of things that don’t upset me.
The Carter’s Print Shoppe float is really cool looking; they must have worked on it for months. Miss Guthrie’s dress is a really nice shade of purple. The deejay from 104.9 AM looks like he’s nursing a hangover. The little girls from Miss McLane’s gymnastics class are really cute, but also very loud and shrill. They’re probably going to scare the horses.
No problem. I’ll just put them further away from each other in the lineup. Maybe… I go down the list, looking for a gap. Next to the Shriners. Perfect. Most of those guys are hard of hearing, anyway.
Tash is almost a half hour late. I try not to let that bother me, even as I check my cell phone for the however-many-number time I’ve checked it. No missed calls.
I’ve taken to carrying my cell phone around in my hand, not just so I’ll hear it when Tash calls or texts me, but also because about a half hour ago, one of the ‘scoopers’—the very unfortunate parade staff members who dress up as clowns every year and follow the horses around with a dustpan and broom—tried to shake my hand. I had to pretend like I was getting a call, so I wouldn’t have to do that whole awkward ‘yeah, there’s no way in hell I’m touching you man’ dance.
“Hey Parade Boy,” Melody comes up behind me, startling me, like she always does. “Where are we on the list? My dad wants to know if we’re going to be able to start on time.”
She puts her hand on my arm, looking over my shoulder at the clip board. She’s close enough for me to smell her hair and look down the front of her shirt, which is clearly what she intended. I really, really wish I could go back to when she was just really rude and bossy all the time.
“Here, see for yourself.” I hand her the clipboard and start to walk away, but she pulls on my shirt. I close my eyes against images of her getting kicked by a horse. Technically, that wouldn’t be something I did, so I don’t feel quite as guilty about picturing it.
It’s been almost a month since I secretly went off my meds, and I haven’t killed anyone yet. Maybe Jeanne is right. Maybe people with OCD really are the least likely to become serial killers—because we’re afraid of the unknown. So as long as I never start killing, I’m good, I guess. The secret is in indulging the impulses, refusing to let myself be horrified by what I see, and reminding myself that I lack the initiative to follow through on any of them.
“Wait a second,” Melody’s hand tugs against my shirt. “You put our convertible next to the Guthrie High Cheer Squad? What happened to Saint Mary’s marching band? I don’t want to be stuck listening to their stupid cheers for two and a half hours. You need to change it!”
I sigh. Then again, maybe I will eventually snap and kill her. Maybe I’ll even enjoy it. Maybe I’ll become a serial killer.
Maybe it would be worth it.
“Saint Mary’s wasn’t here on time, so they got moved to the end. If you want to talk your dad into driving at the back of the parade so you can be serenaded by a bunch of kids with tubas, that’s fine with me. But I’m not changing it, Melody.”
She scoffs, flipping her hair. “It’s not about the band, it’s about being true to my alma mater. Plus, Guthrie’s color scheme is disgusting. Brown and orange? Their uniforms will clash with my outfit.”
I look at her again. “You’re wearing blue. It’s Fourth of July. Everyone is going to clash with Guthrie’s uniforms.”
“You’ve got a point there.” She smiles, putting her hand on my arm again, switching to a new kind of manipulation. “But come on, Grant. Can’t you just change it again…for me?”
“No.”
“Not to interrupt, but do you guys know where the Teen Anarchists of America float is? We have some pipe bombs we need to drop off.”
Melody and I turn. I smile. She scowls.