My face heats. Should I lie? Can I lie?
“To prove to myself that I could do it.” I throw that out there because, yes, it was a reason, too. It’s probably the biggest reason I initiate and excel at mostly everything I try to do. My art, the blacksmithing, the sword fighting. All of it.
Have I not been setting up these standards of personal worthiness my whole life? If I just get better grades in school, she’ll be proud of me. She’ll love me. If I become an accomplished artist, she’ll brag to her friends that I’m her son. She won’t stay away anymore…
When I breathe in again, it actually hurts. But I shove that old pain aside, willing it to go away.
Jenna’s shoulders hunch. “We need to get you used to crowds. Like a sporting event. Do you like baseball?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s just as well—there’s no baseball in March anyway. But hockey…we could go to a Ducks game?”
I shake my head.
“Come on. It will be fun. Hockey players are a lot like modern-day knights. They, um, wear their own sort of armor, they carry big sticks—like lances—and they fight a lot.”
I laugh at the thought of likening hockey players to knights. I’ve seen portions of hockey games before, and I would never view them that way. I chance a look at Jenna’s eyes and see that she’s not looking at my face. She’s staring at my chest. So I take this opportunity to study that dark circle of blue around those cornflower irises fringed with pale lashes. She’s fresh-faced and wearing hardly any make-up, and I think she’s more beautiful that way. I feel warm, like when the sun comes out on a cloudy day.
Her eyes meet mine without warning and I jerk my gaze away. I can’t look too hard or deep. It feels like I’m seeing things that I shouldn’t see.
“Do you trust me, William?” I hesitate to answer that. In all honesty, Jenna has given me no reason to trust her. She waits and then sighs. “If you go with me, we can practice. I can’t think of another way to acclimate you to crowds otherwise.”
“Did you do that? For your fear of loud noises?”
She nodded. “Yes…I went to see some movies. About war. And”—she shudders as she continues—“I went to a rifle range. That was hard. I freaked out pretty bad.”
I look up, suddenly wanting to know more about her—about when she struggled with panic like I do.
“How did you get through it?”
“I reminded myself that it’s mind over matter.”
Again she’s speaking in the language of metaphors. I’ve heard this expression before, but I still don’t get it and it’s even hard to envision. She seems to pick this up from my reaction.
“It means that I had to remind myself that I’m stronger than the fear.”
I nod, looking down, thinking about her words. How incredibly brave it was to force herself to confront that fear. Just the thought of her “freaking out” at a rifle range stirs something in me—a fierce protective instinct, I think. I imagine myself there with her, wrapping my arms around her, whispering that it will be okay, protecting her.
If she’s brave enough to do that…then I can be, too.
“And if I want to leave?”
“Then we’ll leave,” she says simply.
“Why did you freak out at the rifle range?”
“It brought back…memories. They took me by surprise.”
“What memories?”
Her face changes, along with her entire posture. “Bad memories. I’d rather not depress you with them.” She’s laughing as she says this and waving a hand in front of her. She doesn’t want to go into detail because, whatever it is, it’s dark. I remember the pictures and film I saw of that war. Horrible images come to mind.
And when she was little, she was there…in the middle of that. I’m marveling that she chose to expose herself to gunfire in spite of the terror.
I clear my throat. “I’ll go, then. If you come with me. But—”
“We’ll leave if you have to. The minute it becomes unbearable. No judgments. Okay?”
I nod, but my heart is racing. I’m not sure if it’s the idea of putting myself out there, or if it’s the fact that I’ll get to spend more time with Jenna.
***
I’ve purchased the tickets to the hockey game, and we are going after I leave work. I’d expressed doubts—via text message—about navigating the traffic around the hockey arena. She had the idea of parking at a nearby movie theater and walking. So that’s our plan.
I’m waiting at the curb outside her apartment. I’ve texted her twice now to tell her I’m here, and she’s finally just let me know that she’s on her way down. Minutes later, she appears wearing jeans and a long-sleeved sweater that accentuates the curves of her body. She smiles when she catches a glimpse of my car, her pale hair spilling out under a dark knit beanie. The more I focus on her, the harder it is to focus on anything else, so I blink and tear my eyes away.
“Right on time. Sorry I was late…” she says as she gets in.
“Again.”
As I reach over to adjust the temperature in the car, I note that her brows twitch, but she doesn’t respond. I pull away from the curb while she remains silent.
Her cinnamon smell assaults my senses the minute she’s settled beside me. It’s so distracting that I can barely keep my mind on the road.
I clear my throat. “I’m always on time. Or when I’m not, I have a good reason for it.”
She shifts in her seat. “Somehow I already knew that about you.” I puzzle over her words, wondering how she could know that about me. “So how are you feeling about this?” she asks.
I shrug. “I’ll have more information for you when we get there.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m trying not to think about it. When I think about it, I keep picturing massive crowds of people all shoving up against each other—” And again that image fills my mind. I can practically feel the press of bodies, and I can’t see anything but heads and arms all around me. I shake my head to rid my mind of the image.
“Don’t think about that.” She places her hand on my upper arm. “Try not to picture it that way.” I shrug my shoulder, causing her hand to slip away, but she doesn’t comment on it.
“I can’t help it. It’s how I think. Everything is in pictures.”
“But there are other ways to be in a crowd—controlled ways. Like a hockey game where everyone has their own seat and more or less stays in their own space. It doesn’t all have to be like a mosh pit at a rock concert. You could imagine yourself at a museum, looking at pretty art, everyone respecting their own space.”
She watches me for a long time, but my hands are on the wheel and my eyes are on the road. I try to ignore that feeling I get when she’s near. It can be so overwhelming that it’s distracting, and I have to fight that in order to stay focused on my driving.
Minutes later we are in Anaheim, and I park the car. We make our way to the sidewalk along the busy, crowded Katella Avenue. The Santa Ana River, which, despite it being winter, is barely a trickle as we cross over the bridge. I glance over my right shoulder toward the mountains and see that there is very little white on them. Meteorologists are predicting one of the worst droughts ever this year, and I think they are correct.
When I think of droughts, suddenly I picture the empty high desert along Interstate 15 on the way to Las Vegas. But that picture is yanked from me the moment I feel someone take my hand and squeeze it. I jerk my head to look.
Jenna’s hand is holding mine, and everything speeds up—the pounding of my heart, the speed of my blood through my veins, the rate at which I’m breathing. I have no idea what this gesture means. I bring our hands up to stare at them.
“Sorry—do you not like that? I was just offering some moral support.”
“Support? Like…holding me up?”
“Figuratively, yeah.”
I ponder that. “Is that what holding hands means?”
“Sometimes. But sometimes it’s more.
It depends on the context…on the relationship.”
I realize that I’m focusing more on comprehending her than I am on the orderly file of human beings who are making their way toward the entrance of the towering Honda Center, home of the Anaheim Ducks. So I squeeze her hand back.
“Thank you for your show of support. So far it’s working.”
“We should have a code word.”
“A code word?”
“So you can tell me when you aren’t feeling so great.”
“Can’t I just tell you I’m not feeling so great?”
She shrugs. “Yeah. But a code word could be more fun. We could make it a game. Like…when you aren’t feeling great, you can say ‘pickles.’ And when you really, really feel like you need to leave, you can say ‘relish.’”
“I like relish.”
“It doesn’t matter what the word is. We can pick something else if you like.”
By this time, we are at the glass doors that lead inside. Sadly, I have to let go of her hand to pull the tickets out of my wallet and hand them to the ticket taker.
The building looms above us as we walk in. It’s big—really big. I’m trying hard to breathe the way she showed me, but I’m not sure it helps. I’ll keep trying though, because she showed me and she seems to believe in it. What does help is that we are headed in a direction that most are not taking. I bought the more costly tickets, hoping that would be the case.
Jenna looks down at our tickets stubs to determine where our seats are. “Wow, you spent the big bucks. I’ve never sat in the good seats before.”
“You come to hockey games often?”
She shrugged. “I dated a guy who was into hockey. He shared season tickets, so I came with him a lot.”
As we walk to the other side of the arena in search of our section, I’m overwhelmed with unpleasant feelings about what she just said. I can’t help but wonder who the guy was that she dated. It wasn’t Doug. As far as I know, he isn’t into hockey, and she didn’t date him for very long.
Suddenly, I’m furious as memories of seeing them together flit through my mind—sitting next to each other at RMRA meetings, holding hands, even kissing. That heated feeling inside me is jealousy, and it’s not rational because she’s no longer with Doug. But I hate those memories because they remind me that she was with Doug and not me. It makes no sense, but I’m angry anyway.
“You’ve had a lot of boyfriends?” I ask. It surprises me the way I blurted it out. I’ve learned over the years to keep my mouth shut and to force myself to think about what I say before it comes out of my mouth. About half the time, the words are left unspoken. But these words slip through when my guard is otherwise occupied with fighting off irrational jealousy.
“Um. I’ve had a few.”
“Alex says you don’t date people for very long.”
Her eyes fix on the ceiling. “Alex is overly critical of my dating habits. She doesn’t really understand.”
Well, that makes two of us. I don’t understand, either.
She stops and turns to me. “This is our section. Are you ready?”
I stop beside her and glance around us as people are heading toward our door. We are fairly early, so it’s not busy yet. “Yes.”
When we step inside, I’m immediately overwhelmed by the massive arena around and above us—so much so that it’s dizzying. But some people are already seated and it doesn’t feel as oppressive as I’d anticipated, so I’m relieved. Jenna is watching me closely as we walk down the stairs to find our seats. “Wow, William. You must have paid a fortune for these. I’m used to sitting up in the nosebleed seats.”
I look up at the top of the arena toward the seats she’s pointing to. “People get nosebleeds up there?”
She laughs. “Sorry, no. It’s an expression. It means the seats are so high in altitude that you could get a nosebleed.”
I picture the last time I had a bloody nose. I was jumped in high school and some kid head-butted me right in the nose while calling me a ‘hopeless retard.’ The blood was hot and tasted like metal.
I look back at Jenna, whose eyes are on my face. I jerk my gaze away.
“You’re picturing having a nosebleed, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’m getting the hang of how you think. I’ll try to be more literal.”
She sinks into her seat with a small smile. “Want to work on some stuff while we wait for the game?”
“More visualizing?”
She shrugged “If you want. Or we can just talk.”
“What would we talk about?”
“Well…I was wondering about your armor. You said that wearing armor calms you because of the weight.”
I nod. “The pressure feels good.”
“I think I get that. It’s like when you’re at the dentist and they put that weighted blanket on you for X-rays. That makes me feel relaxed.”
I picture my last visit to the dentist. The hygienist, Nancy, told me she likes me because I don’t try to talk while my teeth are being cleaned. She has short, blond hair and her hairspray smells awful. “Yes. Not exactly, but that’s approximately it.”
People are filing in, talking loudly, laughing even more loudly. Odors of the food they are carrying from the vendors overpowers me. I’m hungry, but I am in no mood to eat.
All the while, Jenna is talking to me. I try to focus on what’s she saying, but I only pick up some of it. Shifting in my seat, I turn my ear toward her, but all I can hear are the people coming in, pressing around us, filling up the arena. The Ducks have been doing well, so she tells me, and it’s late in the season. Lots of people are coming to watch these final games.
“How are you doing? Are we getting close to pickles yet?”
I give her a look and then remember it’s a code word. “I’ll be fine if I can get my sketch book out. It’s something I do in public that helps.”
I pull out a small sketchpad from my back pocket and a retractable pencil I use when I’m on the go. She tilts her head and looks at me out of the side of her eyes. I look up and meet her gaze.
It’s a lot easier when she’s looking at me like that—less intense. Less like staring into a bright headlight or the sun. Jenna is definitely the sun to everyone else’s bright headlight.
“What are you sketching?”
I flip open my pad—naturally, it’s to the wrong page. There’s already a sketch on that page, but before I can flip it to the next blank page, she stops me, angling the paper so she can look at it. “Whoa, you drew that? It’s so good.”
I look down at the hand I’ve drawn. It’s one of my quicker sketches—from memory instead of a sitting model. It’s a strength of mine. In those few formal art classes that I did take, all I needed was to study the model for a few minutes from several different angles. Afterward, I could bring up the picture in my mind whenever I needed. It allowed me to take my time with my renderings.
“Whose hand is this? Every single detail is so…” Then she holds up her hand and positions it next to the drawing. I figure she’s guessing right now that she is the model.
“This is my hand?”
“Well…” I’m not sure how she will take that, so I don’t answer.
She points to the middle finger in the drawing, noting the chipped nail. “I chipped that the other day…the day I went to your house. When did you draw this?”
“This morning.”
She sits up, hunching over the drawing while tucking a strand of golden hair behind her ear. And now I can’t take my eyes off that ear…the shape, the texture. It looks soft and delicate like the rest of her. I’ll draw that ear next.
“How the hell did you do that, Wil? It’s such a minute detail for you to remember.”
“When I’m in the right frame of mind, I can recall anything I see. If I concentrate, I can see the details, too.”
She’s shaking her head as if she doesn’t believe me. I swallow, my throat feeling tight. She’ll challenge me
, call me a liar.
“That’s just…unbelievable.”
I blink. “It’s true.”
She looks at me sideways again. “Yeah, I believe you, William. That’s just so fascinating. Amazing, really. I wish I could do that. My memories of some things seem to fade so easily. Things I wish I could remember better.”
“Like what?”
She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth to bite it. Her lips are light pink and a little shiny from the product she’s put there. It occurs to me that I’d like to know what it feels like to press my lips against hers. I’ve never wanted to kiss a woman as much as I want to kiss Jenna.
Tonight. When we are alone. I’m going to kiss her.
I can’t dwell on it, though, because then I’d actually be tempted to do it now instead of later. “What would you like to remember better?” I repeat the question.
She shrugs, looking away. Her leg is bouncing up and down in place. “My father.”
“You haven’t seen him in a long time?”
She licks her lips and brushes her hand across her jeans as if to remove something that isn’t there. “Twenty years. He died in the war.”
“And you were…small.”
“I was five when I last saw him. Before we left to come to the US.”
This troubles me. I’d be very, very sad if my dad was dead. He’s a great dad—an excellent man. I’m suddenly lost in these miserable emotions, dreading the possibility of losing him. What must that be like to lose your dad? My dad…I’m lucky to have him. His brother died young. What if he died?
“I’ve depressed you. See…I should never talk about my childhood. It’s a depressing subject.”
I frown. “You grew up in a war. You can’t help that it’s a depressing subject.”
She clears her throat and bounces her knee some more before focusing on my sketchpad again. “So, back to the sketch…why did you draw my hand? It’s not a particularly remarkable hand.”
I trace the lines of the drawing, taking care not to smudge the pencil marks. “Your wrists…they look delicate, but they’re strong. Look here—” On my drawing, I point to the bump on the top of the outer wrist. “You have a prominent ulnar styloid, but a very thin distal radial-ulnar joint. And here—”
For The One (Gaming The System Book 5) Page 8