Wished for You

by KD Robichaux

  “Our tattoos always seem to match up in freaky ways, like remember when we saw Constantine?” I take a sip of beer and tilt my head at him. “Weird coincidences.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he states.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, loving it when I can actually get him talking.

  “I believe in fate. I believe everything happens for a reason. Even the smallest things that may seem coincidental, I think it’s all part of a big plan,” he confesses.

  “Wow, I didn’t picture you as the predestined type,” I remark.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, babe.”

  The tone of his voice makes it sound like he just might be ready to finally let me in on things he’s never been willing to share, things he’s always brushed aside, changing the subject when I’d ask about them. So I venture, “I wish you’d tell me more about you, the stuff you always try to avoid.” Doesn’t he know by now there’s nothing he could tell me that would scare me away?

  He sighs, seeming to war with himself, and then he abruptly stands and makes his way over to the bar. I watch as he leans into it, crossing his arms over the shiny wood as he tells the bartender what he wants. When he returns, he’s carrying two shots. One is what I have come to happily know is a Buttery Nipple, and the other is a dark brown liquid that looks like it would make me vomit just by taking a whiff of it.

  “Okay, confession time. I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted another girl before, so I’ll tell you anything you want to know. But if I’m going to reveal all, I’m not going to be able to do it sober. There’s fucked-up shit I don’t even want to remember, and much less tell the girl who looks at me like I hung the goddamn moon. But you asked for it, so bottoms up, babe,” he commands, raising his shot glass in the air.

  Lightly clinking his with mine, we tap the bottoms on the table, and then shoot our drinks. I chase mine with a swig of my beer, and the mixture makes me shudder. Not a good combo. I settle back into my seat and nibble on another cheese fry, waiting for him to start.

  “God, I don’t even know where to begin,” he says, more to himself. “Well, how about I just start with what my therapist says is what controls my whole line of thinking, which leads me to react in certain ways not…normal to other people?”

  I nod, accepting everything he’s willing to tell me.

  “In my mind, there is a set of what I call ‘principles’. It’s just a set of guidelines I live by, and if people don’t follow what my mind has deemed acceptable to these principles, I don’t react…nicely,” he hedges.

  “Okay, stop right there. You’re not going to scare me off, Jason. Stop trying to sugar coat and pussy foot around,” I tell him.

  He slouches down for a minute, staring at his beer bottle a moment as he twirls it around, and then straightens, seeming to gather the courage to confess his demons. “I almost stabbed a guy at McDonald’s once, because he called me a motherfucker.”

  I look at him, not flinching in the slightest. He must not realize yet that I’m the most nonjudgmental person in the entire universe. “Why just ‘almost’?” I ask.

  He looks startled, not expecting this to be my reaction to what he believes is some unforgiveable event. “I, uh…Gavin and I were there, and this dude from school was there, and he was just talking shit. I gave him fair warning. I told him if he didn’t stop fucking heckling us, something bad was going to happen, and that’s when he called me a motherfucker. I stood up, flipped the whole goddamn table over, and whipped my pocket knife open. If it wasn’t for Gavin, I would be in jail right now for murdering the son of a bitch.”

  “Well…you did give him fair warning,” I concede. He blinks at me a couple of times. I’d laugh if I wasn’t worried he’d stop talking. “Confession time of my own. I dated this Army guy once; he was twenty and had already been active duty for three years. He had been a part of some really bad crowds as a teenager, gotten into some terrible trouble, and they told him he had a choice either to join the military, or he’d have to be put in juvie until he turned eighteen, at which time he’d be transferred to real jail. He’d been in trouble before, but what landed him in this time was he curbed someone. Do you know what that is?” I ask him.

  “Yes, I know what that is. Hell, I’ve never done that to anyone. That’s fucked up.” He flinches.

  “Yeah, well, he also had a damn good reason to do it, seeing how the dude had pulled a gun on him, not knowing he was a black belt in Kempo. But my point is, three years later, that messed-up little asshole was working his way up as one of the best snipers in the Armed Forces. People can change,” I insist.

  “It’s actually funny that was what they gave him the option to do. After 9/11, my two buddies and I went and signed up for the Marines. Wes,” he points to his black sleeve-covered arm, indicating the memorial tattoo there, “and Larry ended up going for it, but again, I ended up getting fucked. I specifically signed up to be Intel. Larry and I got the highest scores in the country on our ASVAB tests, and were automatically qualified to enlist for whatever jobs we wanted inside the Marines. They guaranteed us the jobs we picked when we signed the contracts, but when we went that last time to finalize everything, it turns out the fucking recruiter had lied to me. There were no spots open in Intel, and he was hoping I’d get on the bus anyways, with the hopes I’d let them put me in whatever slot they needed a body. I told him to go fuck himself. It was the goddamn principle of it.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t go,” I say quietly. He cocks his head to the side, silently questioning my reasoning. “I mean, one, I wouldn’t have met you, and two, if you would have gone, you probably would have stuck with one or both of your friends if you could, right?” He nods. “Well, what if it was Wes you would have stuck with?” I look down into my French fries, hating the thought of never having met Jason.

  “People gave me so much shit after that. They taunted me, saying I was just being a pussy and was scared to go over there. I kicked their ever-loving asses. It wasn’t that though. Even if they would have told me a spot opened up in Intel, I wouldn’t have taken it, because the fact of the matter is that motherfucking recruiter tried to get one over on me.” He shakes his head.

  “You still haven’t told me anything that’s so bad you’ve been avoiding talking about it since we met,” I sigh. “Here I was thinking you had some deep dark secrets, and really, it was all just for show. You’re fake mysterious. I want a refund.” I grin. His lips twitch, fighting a smile. He really thinks whatever he’s done in his past is unforgiveable, when really, he’s just stuck to his guns and not let anyone fuck him over without them paying for it. “What else?”

  “I have this…anger. No one, especially me, has been able to figure out where it comes from. You know my family. You know they’re the greatest people on the planet, but for some reason, when I hit about twelve years old, I just got mad. That’s when my mom started obsessively trying to figure me out, what was ‘wrong’ with me. We tried out all sorts of therapists, doctors, church counselors, teachers… I went from being diagnosed depressed, to ADD, to OCD, and all sorts of stuff. I was put on antidepressants, then Ritalin, and some other crazy stuff that made me a zombie. Every different person gave us a different diagnosis, and none of them were right. When I was old enough, I started self-medicating, hanging out with some not-so-great people and doing every drug under the sun. That’s when it went from just self-destruction, to being a little shithead and an asshole to my parents. It eventually led to them finally kicking me out.

  “This was before the whole Marine snafu, and Larry, who had gotten in a fight with his parents, decided to kick himself out of his own house, and we lived in a minivan in the mall parking lot for a couple of weeks. That’s when I hit rock bottom. It was exactly what I needed, and I finally went crawling home with my tail between my legs. They didn’t let me into the house right away. I had to earn it. I lived in Dad’s shop for a while, upstairs above where we keep Mom’s Beamer. I st
ill go up there to this day when I need to cool off,” he confesses.

  “Did you ever figure it out?” I ask.

  “No. I mean, I’ve been able to tamp it down some. I have a little more self-control than I used to, but that’s a very, very recent thing,” he replies, and the way he says it, added to the way he’s looking at me gives me the impression it has something to do with me. The thought warms me.

  “I’m still not impressed. I thought you were going to tell me something like you’re in the Witness Protection Program as a deal for outing your sidekick after robbing some bank that led to a bunch of hostages getting offed or something.” I shrug.

  “Um, morbid much?” He chuckles. “All right, there, woman. Challenge accepted.” He straightens in his seat. I grin, knowing he’s about to try his best to rattle me. It’s not going to happen. Not only did I grow up with three big brothers who got in enough trouble to give my mom gray hair by the time she was forty, I grew up in a town full of soldiers. Put a bunch of testosterone-filled alpha men in one place and it’s always a pissing match of who-did-the-worst-stuff. Call me jaded, but not much fazes me. I’ve pretty much heard it all.

  “Larry and I used to hang out of his Buick and bash mailboxes,” he proclaims.

  “Child’s play.” I wave my hand at him dismissively.

  “We got kicked out of school for setting a dumpster on fire with fireworks at our high school.”

  “Lame,” I say in a bored tone.

  “Gavin and I had to spend a night in jail for public intoxication when we were caught drinking inside one of the new houses being built in my neighborhood.”

  “Losers.”

  “I stole a bunch of jewelry and money from a bedroom at a house party,” he confesses quietly.

  “Was it a friend’s?” I ask, thinking that was kinda messed up.

  “Nope, it was the asshole who called me a motherfucker at McDonald’s,” he says with a smirk.

  “Dumbass should’ve locked the doors.” I shake my head.

  “I punched a cop once,” he whispers, leaning across the table.

  “What did he do to deserve it?” I question, realizing a pattern. Everything Jason did, it was actually called for. He just acted on what people wished they could. Sure, it wasn’t a good thing, but it also wasn’t the worst. He was a real-life vigilante of his own principles.

  He grins mischievously. “That one was by accident. I was at a club and we dog-piled this dude who was bad-mouthing the Marines, and the cop tried grabbing me from behind. I didn’t look before I swung. Oops.”

  This makes me burst out laughing. “Did you get in trouble?”

  “Nah, thankfully the cop was the brother of one of my friends, and when we told him what we were fighting about, he let me off with a pat on the back. He was an ex-Marine.” He chuckles.

  We grow quiet for a few moments as we finish our food and beers, and when the waitress comes by, Jason asks for a dessert menu. When she returns with it, he orders the one chocolate item available, my favorite, chocolate mousse pie. He also asks for two more Dos Equis, even though I tell him it probably won’t go very well with the sweet dessert. He doesn’t care.

  She serves it a few minutes later, setting it between us with two spoons. When we’re halfway through it, after I’ve moaned and groaned with pleasure during every bite, he says out of nowhere, “You’re kind of amazing.”

  “What?” I mumble with my mouthful of gooey chocolate.

  “There’s no shaking you, is there? I could tell you I kidnapped someone and turned them into my sex slave and you wouldn’t bat an eyelash, would you?”

  I cough. “Actually, yes, I would, but it would be out of jealousy. I read a book like that once and it was the hottest thing ever.”

  He shakes his head at me. “See? I’ve never met a girl like you. I didn’t think one like you existed, one who could accept me the way I am, accept all the shit I’ve done in my past. Like I said, I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “Why, Jason,” I say in an exaggerated southern belle accent, “are you saying we were fated to be together? I do declare!” I make a joke, because I’m not sure if this is what he’s really saying and don’t want to freak him out if it’s not.

  “I believe we were at least meant to meet and know each other. I mean, you have no idea what I’m feeling right now, having let all of that stuff off my chest. I feel like I could fucking fly right now, all this weight lifted off me. Add in the tattoos…and not to mention I’m the only one who’s been able to get you off…several times in fact,” he says the last part quietly, his beautiful dark eyes gleaming at me over the table. “Way too much to be coincidence.”

  My heart leaps in my chest. I feel like I could float away myself, having trouble believing this isn’t a dream right now, with Jason verbalizing everything I could ever hope he’d say to me. I’ve felt these things for a long time, even before I really knew much about him. I felt this connection to him I could never explain. A pull…a link…whatever you could call it, he felt like home to me.

  Kayla’s Chick Rant & Book Blog

  April 24th, 2005

  I’m so sorry I’ve been offline for so long, peeps. I’ve just been so busy trying to balance school, work, and spending as much time with Jason as possible, that my blog has suffered. I haven’t even had time to read that much, except for what I sneak in at work, when I’m not napping on my desk. Thank goodness my door has one of those button code lock knob-thingies and I’m a light sleeper. I can pass right out, and as soon as I hear someone punching in the code, I snap up with papers in my hand like I’ve been filing the whole time.

  If it weren’t for those little catnaps, I’d probably be walking around like a zombie. As soon as I get out of school, I go to work, and when I get off when we close, I go down to Friendswood, where I hang out with Jason and his family, who still don’t know we’re together…well, I say together, but we’re still not official. He hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend yet. Ugh. Anyways. Then, I drive my happy ass back home around 3am and sleep until it’s time to go to school at seven.

  Thank God, the semester is almost over. I’m finishing up my US History paper as soon as I publish this blog post, and then for the next week, I’ll be doing my finals in my other three classes.

  So I just wanted to update y’all, and let you know I haven’t died since I’ve never gone this long without posting before. I’m just a busy girl! Next review will be of the Karen Marie Moning book I’m reading, Kiss of the Highlander. Holy hell, peeps. I might have a new favorite! Stay tuned. ;-)

  May 7th, 2005

  I survived another semester of college and managed to get all As and Bs. Don’t ask me how. I’m just glad I’m naturally good at writing essays and could pretty much bullshit my way through Computer Science class.

  As a job well done, the Robichauxs have sent Jason, Gavin, and me on an overnight trip to Galveston. At first, I didn’t think it was a good idea. I mean, Gavin knows Jason and I hang out a lot, but he doesn’t know we’re together without a title. He doesn’t know we’ve slept together either. When you’re around someone you’re seeing, you act differently with them than you would just a friend, even a best friend. You look at them, casually touch them, and just all around move differently around them. How the hell will I be able to hide all of that? It’s easy with his parents, because I wouldn’t be groping their son in front of them anyway. Plus, I’m only around them for short periods of time, like dinner, before Jason and I are off to do something on our own. But this weekend, we’ll be with Gavin 24/7.

  Jason assures me we’ll be fine though, so I’m going to trust him and just follow his lead. Right now, we’re in line in Jason’s truck to board the ferry boat from Galveston to Bolivar. As always, I’m riding in the middle between him and Gavin.

  We’ve been waiting in this line for nearly an hour, but listening to the guys crack jokes is entertaining enough to make the wait not so bad. When it’s finally our turn, Jason follows a man in a
neon yellow vest’s hand gestures, guiding him to drive directly onto the boat to park snuggled with all the other cars on board. This is wild to me. We’re in a truck…on a boat.

  When the ferry is full, I watch in the rearview mirror as the back raises slowly right behind us, kind of like a giant tailgate. I catch Jason smiling at me out of the corner of my eye, and I playfully stick my tongue out at him, knowing he’s wanting to pick on me for being such a small-town girl as I view everything through my wide eyes in my fascinated face.

  Once the ferry starts moving, the guys open their doors, leaving me with a confused look on my face as the hop out of the truck. Gavin shuts his door, and Jason sticks his head back in and asks quietly, “You comin’, babe?”

  “Where are we going?” I slide across the bench seat and out his door as he holds it open for me.

  “We’re going up to the top. You can stand up there instead of just sitting here in the truck,” he explains.

  I follow him as he maneuvers between all the vehicles until we make it to the center of the boat, where a metal door leads to a set of steep, shallow stairs. He gestures for me to go first, and I feel him playfully poking my butt cheeks as I carefully climb the steps, making me giggle and swat at him with the hand not gripping the railing.

  When we come out the heavy door at the top, straight faces are back in place like we weren’t just flirting up a storm. We spot Gavin at the very front of the ferry, leaning over as far as he can to look at the water below. Jason sneaks up, grabs his back from behind, hollering out a growl and making Gavin jump a foot off the ground.

  “Holy shit, fucker!” Gavin exclaims, punching Jason in the arm. Jason cackles as he rubs his bicep, and I have to keep myself from drooling as I watch his muscles flex and stretch. There is just something about those tatted arms…

  “So what do y’all want to do first when we get to Bolivar?” Jason asks.