Some Sort of Happy

by Melanie Harlow

  But already that gut-gripping unease had me reconsidering my intent to speak to her. Even if I’d never choked anyone in the past, I must want to.

  The other voice refused to quiet.

  You know what will happen if you go over there and speak to her. So maybe you won’t choke her, but you’ll make a mess of things. Go ahead, start a conversation. If you’re lucky, she’ll remember you as the class freak and run off like a scared rabbit. If she likes you, you’re in even bigger trouble, because that’s how it all starts. And it ends with you ruining her life, just like you ruined Diana’s. You’re poison.

  By this time, my heart was pounding furiously and my hair stood on end. The voice was right, he was totally right.

  Distressed, I moved away from her, being certain to take an even number of steps, and sat down quietly in the sand, waiting for my heart to quiet down.

  But it didn’t, because a moment later, she stood up, brushed herself off, and saw me.

  Did she recognize me? I hoped not. I knew I looked different than I did back then, but I still didn’t want to take any chances.

  Don’t look at her.

  I said it eight times in my head.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her walk toward the steps and then hesitate, like she might say hello. I held my breath. Counted to eight.

  Suddenly she turned and went down hard in the sand, letting out a little shriek of surprise. Before I could stop myself, I was on my feet, rushing toward her.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, taking her by the elbow to help her up.

  “Yes,” she said quickly, her cheeks going adorably scarlet. “Just a little sandy and a lot embarrassed. Thank you.”

  Once she was on her feet, I dropped her arm and stepped back as the horrible fear of harming her popped back into my mind and stuck there. She looked up at me curiously, like maybe she was trying to place me. If it was possible, she was even more beautiful than I remembered.

  “I’m Skylar.”

  “I know who you are.” It came out colder than intended. I hadn’t meant it in a bad way, but I was trying so hard not to think about hurting her that my voice was strained, my tone sullen. Fuck, I’m an asshole.

  She must have taken offense, because her face fell, her complexion darkening further. “Right. Well, OK then.” Without any kind of goodbye, she brushed past me, scooped up a pair of shoes from the sand and stomped back over to the steps. She quickly slipped her feet into her heels and thumped up each stair with angry clacks.

  Part of me wished I would have at least told her my name, reminded her that we’d once known each other, but another part just felt relief that she was gone and I hadn’t harmed her. The thought of choking her stubbornly refused to leave my head, and I walked back over to where I’d been sitting and dropped down onto the sand, hating myself.

  Fucking hell. I’d made so much progress in the last year, and I’d let the sight of an unrequited ten-year-old crush undo it all. I was a fucking disaster and I always would be. Grabbing the notebook next to me, I hurled it into the water.

  Two seconds after I heard the splat, I regretted it. “Fuck!” I jumped to my feet and trudged into the water to get the damn thing, which hadn’t gone very far. The water was frigid but shallow, and I rescued the journal before it was submerged, although I soaked my sneakers and the bottoms of my jeans in the process.

  Reaching the sand again, I dropped down and fanned open the dripping notebook, its pages covered in neat, small, identical lettering. In the beginning, the pages all looked the same.

  Eight words per line.

  Every line.

  Ken, my therapist, never actually read my journal, it was just for me, so at first I’d reverted to the old habit, even though the whole point of the journal was to help me stop engaging my compulsive behaviors. But eventually, I’d stopped writing in it that way. I’d stopped doing a lot of things I used to do. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a setback like I’d had today. Then again, it was the first time I’d approached a woman I was attracted to since everything with Diana fell apart. Add to that it was a girl I’d crushed hard on back in high school, and maybe it was no wonder.

  Frustrated, I dropped the notebook into the sand. Maybe it was just too soon. Maybe it was just the wrong woman. Or maybe I was just doomed to be alone for the rest of my life. My own misery was enough—why should I make someone else unhappy too?

  Ken was always encouraging me to be more social, but I hadn’t come back here to make friends or reconnect with anyone. I’d come here for peace and quiet, to start over, to forget about New York and everything that happened there.

  Forget that I’d lost my mind.

  Forget that I’d lost my job.

  Forget that I’d lost the only woman willing to love me.

  No, that was wrong—I hadn’t lost her. I’d driven her away.

  I deserved to be alone.

  Inside my mom’s car, I pulled the door shut and let my forehead drop onto the steering wheel.

  Forget him. He doesn’t matter.

  But the way the handsome stranger on the beach had looked at me with such blatant contempt, the scornful way he’d said I know who you are, truly bothered me. How long would I have to be ashamed of myself?

  Don’t think about that. Think about the plan you have to make things better. Taking a deep breath, I sat up tall and turned the key in the ignition.

  When I got back to the guest house, I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and poured a glass of iced tea. With my sandwich in one hand, I opened up my laptop with the other. I found contact information for pageant marketing director Joan Klein easily enough, and as soon as I finished my lunch, I dialed her number.

  She didn’t answer but I left her a message explaining who I was and volunteering my time for the festival and related activities. I told her I was free anytime and eager to get started, and I gave her my cell phone number.

  After that, I changed from my work clothes into jeans and a tank and grabbed my bucket of cleaning supplies from the pantry. I’d give the place a good dusting and scrubbing, and then later I’d invite my mom over for a glass of wine and give her some more decorating ideas. I’ll show her the Pinterest board I made, run some paint colors by her for the bathrooms, and offer to do the painting myself—if I’m not too busy with my new job.

  I smiled as I filled the bucket. Through the open window I could hear an old Hank Williams tune, which meant my father was probably working in the nearby pole barn with his radio on. It lifted my mood further, and I hummed along to You Win Again as I dusted, the melody taking me back to grade school summers, when Jilly, Nat, and I would all pile in the front seat of his truck and go for ice cream after dinner, my mother howling from the driveway about seat belts. Those summers always went by so fast—you blinked and it was September again. I’d blinked and a decade had gone by! I couldn’t believe it had been ten years since I’d graduated from high school. Where had they gone? And what about the next ten years…would they fly by just as fast?

  For a moment, I tried to imagine myself ten years from now, age thirty-seven. Where was I? What was I doing? Did I have a career of some kind? A husband and family? I had no clue, which was kind of distressing, so I shoved that thought out of my mind and focused on my housework.

  About fifteen minutes later, my cell phone rang. I set down my dust rag and looked at the screen.

  Yes! It was Joan Klein.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, is this Skylar Nixon?”

  “Yes, it is,” I sing-songed.

  “Hello, this is Joan Klein from pageant corporate.

  “Hello,” I gushed like she was my long-lost best friend. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. I’m glad you called, Skylar. We’d like to meet with you.”

  “Fantastic!” I bounced around a little. “I can meet any time.”

  “Could you come down to the office this afternoon?”

  “Of course, no pr
oblem.”

  “Around three?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you. We have some paperwork for you to sign. Oh, and if you could just bring your crown with you, we’d really appreciate that.”

  “Certainly I can. I know just where it is.” Wow, they wanted a photo already! I’d put my work clothes back on—I hoped I hadn’t gotten my new skirt too sandy.

  “See you then.”

  “See you then!”

  I ended the call and hugged my phone to my chest, thanking my lucky stars that something had gone right today. Deciding to forego the floor mopping for now, I left the guest house and walked over to my parents’ house to fetch my crown.

  No one was there, but the door was unlocked as usual, so I let myself in and hurried over to the mantle above the fireplace. There was my crown, right next to a photo of me at the coronation. I picked up the frame and studied the picture—I looked so happy. So hopeful. So confident that every dream I had would come true if I just wished hard enough, worked hard enough, wanted it hard enough.

  My smile faded as I set the frame down and looked at the other items displayed on the parental Mantle of Pride. There was Jillian in her cap and gown, graduating from medical school. There was Natalie cutting the ribbon the day she opened the coffee shop. Moving back a few steps, I tried to look at everything as a stranger might. What did these things say about us? For a moment, I imagined my mom showing our photos to a new friend.

  This is Jillian, the smart one. She’s a doctor now, isn’t that something?

  This is Natalie. She’s our little entrepreneur!

  And this is Skylar. Isn’t she pretty?

  Frowning, I grabbed the crown off the mantle and left the house before my mother got home and asked me why I needed it.

  • • •

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” I was seated in front of Joan Klein’s desk, staring at her in disbelief. “Maybe I misunderstood.”

  Joan, a former beauty queen herself, had a blonde beehive hairdo that might have been shellacked in 1975 and eyebrows penciled in way too dark. She cleared her throat. “Corporate feels, Ms. Nixon, that your current reputation is at odds with the qualities we look for in a Cherry Queen. We do not believe you would be an asset to the pageant at this time, and in fact we feel you have violated your contract.”

  “Violated my contract? Are you joking?” I blinked a few times, but her pursed mouth did not ease into a smile.

  “No. I am quite serious. If you look at your contract, which I have a copy of here, you will see that you agreed to refrain from engaging in any public behaviors that would discredit the Queen or the pageant.”

  “But—but that was seven years ago!” I sputtered.

  “The contract has no end date. Once a queen, always a queen,” she said dramatically.

  “Oh my God. So now what?”

  “Your crown and title are being revoked, and we’d like you to sign right here.” She set another contract in front of me, the page full of tiny black print. “This says that you understand your title is being forfeited due to breach of contract and you will no longer refer to yourself as a former Queen, advertise yourself as such, or appear at any functions claiming to be such.”

  “Seriously? I made a mistake! Don’t we all make mistakes sometimes?”

  “Yours were very public, Ms. Nixon. Too public.”

  “It was just a TV show!” But in my head I heard Miranda Rivard’s voice: Perception is reality, Skylar.

  “It was a reality show. You played yourself,” Joan pointed out. “We would appreciate it if you did not speak to the press about this or mention it on any social media. We’ll handle it.”

  “Speak to the press? Are you kidding? Why would I want to call attention to this?” I scribbled my name on the contract without even reading it. Didn’t matter what it said, I no longer cared.

  “Leave the crown, please. It’s pageant property.”

  My jaw dropped and I hugged the crown to my stomach. “You can’t have my crown.”

  “Yes, I can.” She tapped my signature with the pen. “You just agreed to return it.”

  I wanted to throw it at her, but I mustered my pride and managed to set it down gently on the desk—right after I bent that stupid fucking rhinestone-studded piece of shit in half with my bare hands.

  After the episode at the beach, I went straight to the gym. In college I’d learned that working out helped me stay mindful of the present moment and stop “fearcasting” about the future. When I was running or lifting or hitting the heavy bag, all I thought about was my body getting stronger, my muscles working harder, my heart pumping faster. It forced me to stay in the moment, helped me work off the tension and anger I carried, and had results I could see, a clear cause and effect.

  However, even running an extra mile and adding extra reps hadn’t been enough to banish Skylar Nixon from my mind.

  But actually, it was kind of nice.

  Because rather than the disturbing thoughts I’d had at the beach, my head was filled with other images of her—pleasant images. As I pushed myself to the limits of exertion, I thought of her body beneath mine, her hands on my back, her lips falling open. I thought of those blue eyes closing as I slid inside her, slow and deep. I thought of the soft sigh of pleasure I’d hear before she whispered my name and pulled me in deeper.

  At home in the shower, I invited those thoughts back in, welcomed them as I let the water run down my body and took my dick in my hand.

  Oh yeah, jerking off was another activity in which I stayed mindful of the moment. Sex was too, although I hadn’t had sex in almost a year. Fuck, I missed it. But sex with strangers had never been my thing—although I might have to make it my thing unless I wanted to spend my life celibate.

  Or maybe sex with a friend…

  I tightened my fingers around my shaft and stroked myself with long, hard pulls as the steam billowed up around me.

  God, what would it feel like to get inside Skylar? To smell her skin, taste her lips, watch her arch beneath me?

  Could I make her come?

  Was she quiet or loud?

  Did she like it on top?

  Would she let me tie her up? Pull her hair?

  Bury my tongue in her pussy?

  My hand worked faster, harder. “Fuck,” I whispered, over and over again as my cock went rock solid and then throbbed in my hand. I groaned as the tension inside me released in thick hot spurts, my leg muscles tight and trembling.

  For a solo flight, it was a pretty fucking good orgasm, and it made me wonder if maybe I should try talking to her again.

  Immediately, the voice was back.

  Don’t be fucking dense. You think jerking off to some adolescent fantasy means you can handle being alone with her?

  I wouldn’t have to be alone with her. I could just talk to her. Reintroduce myself. Be her friend.

  No. You can’t trust yourself. You want her too much.

  I wanted to argue, fight back.

  But I had no weapons to battle with, no words to hurl at this fucking ghost that refused to stop haunting me, shadowing my every thought, my every intention.

  After getting dried and dressed, I scrubbed my shower tiles and called my therapist to see if he could fit me in this afternoon.

  • • •

  “I had a setback today.” I wasn’t much for small talk.

  “Oh?” Ken, a soft-spoken man with glasses and a thick blond beard, crossed his legs and regarded me patiently. “What do you think triggered it?”

  I shifted uncomfortably on the couch in his office. “I saw someone from my past, a girl I went to school with.”

  “A friend?”

  “Not exactly…I didn’t really have friends in high school, partly because of my erratic behavior in years prior, but also because I kept to myself. People really didn’t know what to make of me. But this girl. She was just…nice. We were assigned as lab partners in chemistry a few times. I used to get so nervous be
fore school if I knew we had to work together.”

  “Did you have thoughts about her back then?”

  Fuck yes I did. I still do. “Not obsessive thoughts. Just average teenage boy thoughts and average teenage boy nerves around a pretty girl. But mine were compounded by the fact that I knew everyone thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy.”

  Those years had been such a fucking nightmare—my father dragging me to doctor after doctor to figure out why I was so obsessed with germs, why I was always counting things like leaves on trees or blades of grass or lines on the highway, why I was convinced that terrible things were going to happen to people I loved because of me. They did everything from dismissing the shit I did as adolescent quirks to diagnosing me with depression.

  Several therapists were convinced I secretly blamed myself for my mother’s death from a car accident when I was eight (she was coming to pick me up from a friend’s house) and believed the fear of doing harm stemmed from that, but they couldn’t tell my dad why I had to flip a light switch on and off eight times before leaving a room or explain to my teachers why I had to click my ballpoint pen eight times before answering every test question or clue my middle school gym classmates in as to why I would play second base but not first or third. I could still recall the what-the-fuck looks on their faces when I tried explaining that two was a good number because it was even, and even better, a factor of eight, but one and three were bad numbers because they were odd.

  Ken pushed his glasses further up his nose. “You once mentioned things were better by the time you finished high school.”

  “They were,” I conceded. By junior year, we’d found a doctor familiar with OCD and I was put on medication, and started seeing a therapist regularly. “By then, I had more good days than bad, but the social damage had been done, and I just figured, fuck it, I’ll start over in college.”

  Ken flipped back a few pages in the notepad on his lap. “You said your undergraduate years were fairly normal, but we haven’t talked much about them. You had friends? Dates?”

  “Yeah. Starting over in a new place felt good. The thoughts and the compulsions never entirely went away, but I learned to cope. I felt I had control over them.” I thought about Skylar and the back of my neck grew hot. “As opposed to fucking today.”