Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  “During a panic attack, it feels like I’m going crazy. Like I’m losing my mind.”

  “The feelings you describe are common among agoraphobics. It’s my hope that I can help you deal with those symptoms.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I know the emergency room doctors gave you a prescription for Xanax for your anxiety. While the medication can help, I prefer a combination of cognitive behavior therapy and relaxation techniques for a long-term solution. CBT has two components. We work on changing distorted thinking brought on by the anxiety and slowly expose you to fearful situations. I also show you meditation and relaxation techniques to help lower your overall stress levels.”

  “That sounds like what Logan did when he tried to help me go out that first time. He had me drink this awf… uh, relaxing tea, and then we went to the roof.”

  Logan sincerely hoped Caleb wouldn’t mention what they talked about once they got there. He didn’t think he could stand hearing Caleb describe Logan’s long-ago illicit sexual experience with a lacy guest towel to his therapist.

  “It is my understanding that, until recently, it had been three years since you left your apartment. Is that correct?”

  “I went into my neighbor’s apartment and the stairwell a few times, but nothing beyond that.”

  “Okay. I would like to give you some material to read, and then we can hopefully meet again on Wednesday. I’d like to talk more about your experiences with panic attacks. Would that be acceptable? You can have Logan here again if it makes you more comfortable.”

  Caleb took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “I’m willing to meet again.”

  Smiling, Ryan opened the briefcase again and pulled out a stack of pamphlets. She placed them on the coffee table instead of handing them directly to Caleb. “I honestly believe I can help you take back control of your life, Caleb. As a homework assignment, I’d like you to start thinking about some short-term goals.”

  “What kind of goals?”

  “You could start with a list of places you would like to visit either on your own or with someone. Just give it some thought.”

  Caleb bit his bottom lip. “I’ll… try.”

  Logan leaned over and whispered, “Like the two of us going on an actual date instead of just a trip to the grocery store.”

  Caleb ducked his head. “Admit it, you loved that hagfish soup.”

  Logan grinned. “It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten and I loved every bite.”

  Caleb gave Logan a slight nudge in the ribs. “A date would be a good goal.”

  CALEB CLUNG to Logan’s arm with an iron grip, trying not to think about how much he wanted to be back home in the peace and safety of his apartment. Why had he even agreed to this? What was so great about seeing a movie on the big screen as opposed to seeing it on a flat-screen TV in the comfort of one’s living room? It must have been the way Logan had practically salivated when he talked about the big tub of buttery popcorn he planned to devour. The lights of the multiplex seemed too artificially bright for the middle of the day, and the smell of stale popcorn made Caleb feel vaguely nauseous. As Logan paid for the tickets, Caleb shifted restlessly from foot to foot, wishing there was some way he could wiggle out of the coming ordeal.

  “So, you wanna go find some good seats first, or get our snacks?” Logan smiled down at him with warmth in his eyes. He was doing a good job of hiding whatever concern he had to be feeling. Caleb appreciated that.

  “I-I guess food.” Caleb would rather have slunk straight into the theater to hide in the darkness, but it was a sure bet Logan would drag him out again. There was no way they could skip the food step. He looked over at the lines in front of the food counters. It seemed as though a lot of people were milling around over there. “M-maybe we should w-wait until the lines are shorter.”

  Logan’s only answer was to tug on his arm and drag him over to the shortest line. “Uh-uh. The longer we wait, the longer the lines might be. We came early for good seats and short lines, right?” They now stood behind a plump young woman who held a small boy by each hand.

  “Margie, can we have soda?” asked one of them hopefully.

  “No, honey, your mom only gave us money for popcorn.”

  “But what if we get thirsty?” the other one asked.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,” Margie whispered. She adjusted the straps of her large shoulder bag, and a clanking sound issued from within. At that moment, she seemed to realize she might have been overheard and glanced nervously over her shoulder at Caleb and Logan.

  Caleb tried to give her a reassuring smile, but his lips seemed to have forgotten how. He remembered his own days of sneaking snacks and drinks into movie theaters, back when he was a pre-teen trying to make his allowance stretch.

  Logan nudged him with his shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, you wanna get the biggest size and share? Or do you want your own?”

  “Sh-sharing is good.” Caleb looked down at the floor, fighting a brief wave of dizziness.

  “That guy looks like Shrek, only he’s not green!” one of the children whispered loudly.

  The other one stole a quick look up at Logan before turning back to his brother with a look of contempt. “He does not. And only babies watch Shrek.”

  “He does so. And you watched all the Shrek movies, and you liked ’em too.”

  “That was a long time ago, Timmy.” The boy stuck his tongue out.

  “That was last Saturday!” Timmy exclaimed.

  Further argument was prevented by the necessity of ordering popcorn and fighting about the size. Timmy made a bid to get Margie to spring for some red licorice, but she shook her head. Caleb figured she had candy in that huge bag of hers as well as drinks.

  Logan glanced at Caleb, his expression troubled. “Don’t tell me I look like an ogre,” he murmured.

  This time Caleb’s lips remembered how to smile. “Only first thing in the morning. Once you have your coffee, you snap back to your usual gorgeous self.”

  Logan grinned down at him. “Thanks, I think.”

  Somehow they negotiated the hallway to their theater, even though Caleb could barely see over the pile of food he had been loaded down with. Logan had gone all out. It was a good thing they’d eaten only a small lunch. He didn’t think either of them would be up for eating dinner later if they even got through half this stuff.

  Their movie was in cinema number four, unfortunately located at the farthest end of the hallway. Caleb’s eyes darted about, noting exits and washrooms. He thought Logan might have been surreptitiously doing the same thing, but it was hard to tell because of the way his eyes were glazing over at the taste of the popcorn he couldn’t stop stuffing into his mouth. They passed through the doors and surveyed the rows of banked seats. To Caleb’s great relief, their theater was practically empty.

  “Where do you wanna sit?” Logan looked around. They had come in on a mezzanine and could go either down or up. “Up at the back?”

  “No, here is fine.” Caleb indicated the seats closest to where they stood. “Near the door.”

  “Okay. Pick the one you want.”

  Caleb handed his bundle of snacks to Logan and started forward on shaky legs. He chose the second seat in from the aisle. If he needed to leave in a hurry, he didn’t want to have to climb over a lot of strangers. Nor did he want to be directly on the aisle, so it was better if Logan sat there. Tipping his seat down with one hand, he set his drink in the holder attached to his chair.

  The large screen at the front of the theater was showing a commercial for some kind of chewing gum. The high ceilings and empty space around him seemed to stretch out for miles. A powerful urge to turn around and make a break for it swept over him, but he fought it back. Logan was enjoying his popcorn too much and was clearly looking forward to the movie. He had chosen it. It was something to do with comic book superheroes. After a quick glance in Logan’s direction, Caleb lowered himself into the seat.


  “Here,” Logan said, “take the popcorn.”

  The giant tub came at Caleb, and he had no choice but to lift his hands for it.

  “And these napkins,” Logan added.

  Caleb glanced down as a giant wad of napkins slapped down onto his thigh. A family-size package of candy landed on top of it. Beside him, Logan maneuvered his giant self into a seat obviously designed for mere mortals. This apparently could not be accomplished without a certain amount of huffing and swearing, which brought them a disapproving glare from a bespectacled elderly man who had just entered the cinema.

  “I don’t think we’ll be sitting anywhere near these young hoodlums, my dear,” he announced to his female companion and led her away, his back very erect. The woman glanced back at them curiously, as if she had never seen a hoodlum before.

  “Good! Get lost, why don’tcha,” muttered Logan under his breath, and he settled deeper into his seat. It made alarming creaking sounds under his weight.

  “Logan, are you sure that seat can hold you?” Caleb wriggled experimentally in his own seat, but unlike Logan’s, it didn’t make any noise.

  “Yeah, probably. Never had one break on me yet.” Logan reached for the popcorn and crammed another handful into his mouth. He winked at Caleb and crunched away happily. “Man, there’s nothing like movie theater popcorn,” he said after a minute. “Feels like forever.”

  Caleb handed him a napkin, thinking there probably hadn’t been much popcorn in prison. Apart from using surprisingly lyrical descriptions of his love for popcorn, Logan had also played the “I haven’t seen a movie since before I went to the pen” card. It had been effective. Caleb was here. He would just have to try to make the best of it. He snuck a quick peek at his watch. If it really was a ninety-minute movie, he just might be home in two hours. He hoped he could get through them without embarrassing himself.

  “Sure you don’t want some?” Logan shook the tub of popcorn at him.

  “Maybe later.” Caleb clutched the huge packet of candy and took a couple of deep, calming breaths.

  “You sure?” More crunching. “’Cause it’s still warm right now. And it’s making my fingers all… slippery and buttery.”

  Caleb’s eyes snapped open. Sure enough, Logan was busy licking butter off his fingers in a most provocative way. His eyes shone with mischief, and Caleb felt his cheeks getting warm. He couldn’t look away.

  “Oops, forgot my thumb,” Logan murmured and turned his head to offer Caleb a side view as he slid the whole length of it into his mouth. His lips closed over it tightly, and he moved it in and out several times while watching Caleb sidelong.

  “Ohmigod!” exclaimed a soft female voice nearby, and both Logan and Caleb jerked, startled, as they realized that a trio of teenage girls had just come in and stood stock still, staring at them.

  “Kelsey, don’t just stand there,” hissed the tallest of the three. “Let’s go sit down.” She attempted to nudge her friends forward.

  The one called Kelsey seemed reluctant to move. “But, Anna, did you—I mean, that guy, he was….” She glanced back at Logan and Caleb, her eyes very round.

  “I think we should sit right here,” said the third girl in a decisive tone of voice.

  Caleb heard the rustle of her jacket and felt a slight bump against the back of his seat as she entered the row directly behind them.

  “Fine with me.” That was Kelsey’s breathy voice as she hurried after her friend.

  “Shove over, you guys,” snapped Anna. “I am not sitting behind the Incredible Hulk here. How am I supposed to see the screen?”

  “Shh, he can hear you,” insisted Kelsey as softly as possible, but she obeyed Anna.

  The girls and their purses and backpacks bumped and smacked against the backs of Logan and Caleb’s seats as they all shifted over by first one seat, and then another after Anna made the discovery that she didn’t want to get stuck behind “Blondie,” either. Her friends grumbled and complained but did as she said. Caleb wished they didn’t have to sit so close to him. But on the other hand, he couldn’t blame them after Logan’s little performance. He became aware that Logan was refraining from eating any more popcorn. Maybe he was feeling self-conscious. Caleb gave in to the desire to rib him a little.

  “Afraid to get more butter on your fingers?”

  Logan grinned back. “I ain’t never been afraid to get butter on my fingers, baby.”

  The whispering behind them abruptly stopped, and Caleb had a sense that three pairs of teenage ears were waiting to hear his response. Suddenly he wanted to laugh.

  “Oh?” he said. “Why don’t you tell me about some of those other times when you got butter on your fingers?”

  There came the sound of a smothered giggle followed by a brief admonitory “Shh!”

  “Well, there was this one time,” drawled Logan, and the little tilt of his head told Caleb he was playing to the gallery, “when it was really late at night, and I was in a real adventurous mood….”

  “And you needed some butter?” Caleb tried to sound encouraging.

  “Well, we needed something. And butter was all we had.”

  “‘We?’”

  “Uh. Yeah. It’s not like I had this butter adventure all by my lonesome.”

  “I should hope not,” said one of the girls in a very low voice. Caleb wasn’t sure which girl it was, but judging by the way his seat was shaking, she was getting smacked by the other two.

  “So,” Caleb said in the most casual tone he could muster. “Who did what, and to whom, with the butter?”

  Logan cleared his throat and then said, “Hey, it looks like the trailers are starting. Guess we’d better stop talking.”

  A collective wail of disappointment went up behind them, but it was almost immediately drowned out by the noise of music and explosions from the speakers. The sudden increase in volume made Caleb flinch, but when Logan winked at him and dipped his fingers back into the popcorn, he relaxed a little.

  The movie was okay. Logan had assured him it would feature hot guys with their shirts off, and it did. The male lead was handsome enough, although not quite Caleb’s type. The plot was predictable; the special effects exciting. But the most enjoyable part of the movie for Caleb was the snarky commentary being delivered in undertones by the three teenage girls behind him. They had something to say about almost every scene, and Caleb found that between the movie and the girls, he was sufficiently distracted to forget to panic most of the time.

  About twenty minutes into the film, his stomach settled down enough that he felt he could try the popcorn. The peanut gallery remarked on that too.

  “Whoa, you guys, butter alert.”

  “Huh?”

  “Blondie’s goin’ for it.”

  “Shh!”

  Caleb ignored them and pushed a few greasy kernels of popcorn into his mouth, savoring the salty taste and light, crunchy texture. Logan was right. Theater popcorn was way better than the microwave popcorn he sometimes made at home.

  “Good, huh?” Logan held out the tub. “What’d I tell ya?”

  “Gimme that.” Caleb took the whole tub. “I think it’s my turn to hold it for a while.”

  Logan relinquished it with a good-natured smile and tore open their package of Twizzlers.

  Behind him, Kelsey was being scolded for texting her boyfriend during the movie, and the third girl, whose name Caleb had learned was Megan, was excitedly drawing everyone’s attention to the perfection of Captain America’s ass.

  “Bet he’d love to get it rubbed down with butter,” remarked Anna, and this time when the other girls erupted in laughter, Caleb did too.

  Logan turned around in his seat. “Would you guys just let up on this little butter fixation you got going?” he demanded.

  “Dude, you started it,” said Anna.

  The next round of giggling was drowned out by a burst of music that was evidently supposed to be stirring, but as soon as it got a little quieter, the whispering started again.
By the time the movie was in the final stretch, Caleb knew that all three girls were out of school on a Friday because it was a teacher institute day, but all three of their moms thought they were studying at Anna’s house. He had endured some rather lurid speculation about his and Logan’s relationship, heard a few observations about Captain America’s pecs and abs with which he heartily agreed, and had accepted a shyly proffered stick of gum from Megan. She had written “U R hot!” on it with a fine black marker.

  Logan, upon being shown the wrapper, again turned around to take the girls to task for hitting on his friend.

  “‘Special’ friend, I bet,” said Anna.

  “Butter friend,” Megan added.

  “She doesn’t mean that!” exclaimed Kelsey, laying a reassuring hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

  “Now you guys are groping him!” protested Logan. “Paws off!”

  “Shh, we’re trying to hear this incredibly original dialogue.” Anna indicated the movie screen.

  Logan scowled and went back to the popcorn.

  Finally the closing credits rolled, and people started to get up and file out, leaving wrappers and trash behind them. Anna, Megan, and Kelsey seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time gathering all their belongings, dropping things, and bumping against Caleb’s and Logan’s seats.

  Caleb’s anxiety started to rise. As much as he wanted to return to his quiet, familiar apartment, he didn’t want to have to deal with any crowds out there in the cineplex lobby. There was also the trip home to be endured. He felt his hand creep into Logan’s, seeking support.

  Logan squeezed his fingers and said, “I hope you don’t wanna jump up right away. Let’s just relax a little longer. I’m dying to find out who the ‘key grip’ was on this movie.”

  Anna stepped out into the aisle and snorted. “That’s code for ‘I’m dying to make out with you.’”