by M. R. Joseph
She sits up in her bed, sipping on a cup of tea. The news is on the lowest volume possible, Tony texts his friends pictures of Matteo, and I see the passive look on my sister-in-laws face.
“Freaking say what you’re thinking Bella for Christ’s sake.”
She gives me the innocent doe eyes, and I know she’s a crock of shit.
“Moi? Whatever are you talking about brother-in-law?” She winks at Tony as he glances up from his phone.
“You know I can persuade some of those pretty nurses out there to withhold any kind of pain medication from you, so you better watch it.”
Tony laughs and Bella bats her eyelashes in a comical sort of way.
“Is that so? You’re not a stud-muffin everywhere you go, you know.”
But I do know that I am. True statement.
“Whatever. Just give me any of those chicks out there and a supply closet, and I’ll show you a stud-muffin as you like to call it.”
“Oh, yea, well what I call it is bullshit!” Bella gets a bit loud. The woman can have a temper. Tony calls her passionate.
Gross, but whatever.
“Care to explain mother of one?”
She shimmies up a bit in her bed. Tony flies to her side to raise her up, and fluffs her pillows to make her more comfortable.
He kisses the top of her head gently.
“Thank you, my love.” Her throat clears and the look in her eyes means she’s all business now.
Her index finger pointed at me, her foot tapping under the blanket and lips pursed.
“First of all, I talk to you once a week, maybe twice, same with your brother. When you first went to the shore it was all about banging the chicks, partying, who won at beer pong, whatever.” She’s flustered, and I think it’s hysterical.
“But as the weeks went on, every phone call began with something about that girl and ended with something about that girl. You told us so much about her and her life. I feel like when she walked in here today, I’ve known her for a thousand years.”
Now I think she’s stretching the truth a bit.
“And if you think I’m stretching the truth a bit then you’re the damn liar. How would I know she wears black rimmed reading glasses, and that she has freckles only on the bridge of her nose and they flow a bit outwards on her cheeks? Her life goal was to become a teacher? How do I know she’s shy, but when she speaks to you she makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the room?”
I shrug. “Fuck if I know.”
Tony slaps the back of my head.
“Watch your mouth, she’s a mom now, none of that language around her.”
“Raph, I know these things because you told them to me. Maybe you said it without knowing you actually did, but you did. She stood in that doorway before you introduced us and I saw a light in your eyes that I’ve only seen once and I’ve known you since you were five.”
I know the instance she’s talking about.
“When you came back from your last tour and saw us waiting for you when you got off that plane. That same look appeared when that girl was in the closest range to you. Then, by the grace of God, that look stayed with you, now it’s gone because she just left.”
Bella must still be on those pain meds because I’m pretty certain my facial expressions have not changed since I got here.
“You have problems, lady. She’s just a friend. We hated each other at the beginning of the summer, but we’ve developed a friendship and things between us have changed.”
“You’re darn tootin’ things have changed. That girl who just walked out of here changed you!”
I get up from my chair, scratch the stubble on my face and look out the window at the dreariness that is down below. I have been the same damn way for the past twenty four years and I’m not about to change. This is who I am. I’m someone who doesn’t allow people to change me. The only person who has ever changed me was my mother, and I think I’ve come to accept the fact that it was a good change. It made me strong, built my defenses up. It made me less weak, and gave me the mindset that I’m the only person I can count on. Well, that’s a lie. I’ll always have Tony and Bella, and now I have Matteo.
“I’m going to go grab a coffee. Anyone want one?”
Antonio looks at me confused.
“Since when do you drink coffee?”
“Oh, he didn’t tell you that part, did he?” Bella chimes in.
She crosses her arms over her lap and gives Tony her ‘I know something you don’t know’ look.
Frustrating woman.
“Well, he drinks coffee with Harlow every morning on the dock of the house they are renting. It’s just them, and they talk about all sorts of things, like she’s rich, he’s not, but she doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know about Rae and where he lives. He told her he’s from Cherry Hill.”
“What the fuck, Raphael? Why are you lying to her? Your life; our lives are what they are. If she’s your friend and you care about her then why lie?”
I really don’t want to have to explain to him why I lie. It should be clear as day from the scene that just took place in that waiting room. Why would I tell a girl who was raised by two loving parents, in a big house, with a top notch education and a big bank account that my mother is a crack-head? She whored her body out for drugs and my brother and I had to fend for ourselves for most of our lives. She’d probably turn and run and never speak to me again.
And that would kill me.
“You know what, you two, I’m going to the cafeteria and this conversation is over. Harlow is a friend. I don’t do the girlfriend thing.” I motion to them both. “And I certainly don’t do what you two are doing. I don’t want it.”
With that I walk out of the room.
I went into the Marines to escape the life I had, which wasn’t one. I know what it’s like to starve, to be cold, to not have running water ‘cause my mother didn’t pay the bills. I know what it’s like to wear shoes two sizes too small because there’s no money to buy new ones and socks that were somehow chewed up by mice in the middle of the night. I know what it’s like to be alone.
And I’ve learned to live with it. Harlow never had to deal with any of that. Just because her parents made her get a job and pay for some things on her own, doesn’t mean she would have any clue as to what my life was like. She’s so out of my league. It’s almost comical. She’s a pain in my ass with her big brain and her over-judging everything I do or say, down to the girls I bring home and fuck. Yes, I kissed her, which is still plaguing my mind as to why. Maybe it was because it was all those emotions that were built up over the day. I haven’t slept. We came right here from my twelve hour shift because I was worried about Bella. Holding my nephew in my arms… And then Rae showing up was the cherry on top of the mother fucking sundae.
I’m so tired.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and startles me awake. I must have dozed off in Bella’s room after I came back with my coffee. I look at my phone and it’s a text from Harlow. The roller coaster in my belly suddenly rears its ugly head, and here I am fumbling to press the message button as quickly as these large fingers of mine can.
hey dickcop, lol, home safe. hows the little man?
if you are referring to my penis, I think you have the wrong man
Haha. very funny. how is everyone?
fine. you ready for tomorrow?
as ready as ill ever be
good. my bus is @ 8 so i’ll be home in the early afternoon
ok. be safe.
good luck tomorrow. i know they are going to love you
lets hope. xx
“See what I mean Tony, look at his face. Since when does he get a look on his face like that from a text. It was her wasn’t it?”
Oh, my God! Damn, this woman can see through me like a pair of titties on a wet t-shirt.
“Bella, what do you want me to tell you?”
“I want you to admit that you feel more than friendship for her.”
> Tucking my phone back into my shorts, I cross my arms in front of me. “You want me to admit that I’m feeling something other than friendship for her?”
She nods and I really struggle with what I feel. I struggle with what happened between us outside the hospital and about the feeling it left me with. This can’t be happening to me. It can’t be real. What I think I feel can’t be. I don’t feel this shit.
“Fine, Bella. Maybe I do, but I’m confused and I’m trying to figure it out. All I know is I feel different when she’s here, and I’m feeling different when she’s not here. I can’t explain it, but I don’t know how to remedy it either.”
There. I was honest. I’m confused as to the way I feel. I know when I’m with her I feel something that I can’t recognize, and I know when she’s not with me… I want her to be.
“Don’t even dare say I told you so. It’s not a big deal. Nothing’s going to happen anyway. She’s way out of my league. She’s not even on the same farm team as me.”
I’m fucking McDonald’s and she’s Beef Wellington. Yea, I felt something when I kissed her. I didn’t know what I felt before I did that, but now I do. With my head running in a hundred different directions, is it that I just can’t see what is in front of me. Eight and a half weeks’ worth of getting to know her. Realizing she’s not the stuck up bitch I thought her to be. The spoiled, little, rich girl with the silver spoon in her mouth. The girl who always has the answers. But the truth is, most of the time she does.
She’s my therapy.
I’m pacing around this room, pulling at my hair, my hands shaking from nerves and Bella and Tony must think I’m having some kind of post-traumatic episode or something. I think Bella knows better. I see the way they look at each other as I wander around, not being able to sit still. I look at Bella, who knows me all too well. I’m like a piece of glass she can look through. A kaleidoscope of emotions, and she sees every one of them, like Harlow does.
“Raph, sometimes what’s right in front of us isn’t as clear as we hope it could be. Our minds are asleep, and then we wake up, and the possibility of what the reality is, stares us in the face. It’s scary, but the truth is, once it hits, we have to confront it head on and accept the reality.”
Her words knock me down like a tornado, and I’m pretty sure that kiss hit me to realize what this really is.
Harlow is my reality.
Damn it! Why is it that I was so blind not to see it before. Too close-minded, too quick to shut it all down.
Harlow, Harlow… Harlow.
Harlow is my warmth from the cold, and the food when I’m hungry. She is the light in my dark, the patch to the hole that’s inside my heart. In this crazy life I live, how can one person make me feel all the things I do? Before I met Harlow, I was a shell. I was just going through the motions for pleasure, not really feeling, just existing. Running through my life, or running from it, but when I see her on those mornings, by the dock so sweetly sitting there, waiting for me, her vulnerability slipping away day by day, I know that it’s where I belong. In her presence. Anticipating the time when I can be near her, close to her, breathing in her smell, her touch mere inches from me, every morning, every day, working its way into my soul. A soul that really didn’t work. A man on the outside. Inked flesh, wounded by so much, but she heals that. She believes in me, she believes I have a soul, she believes I’m worth something. To me, that’s more pleasure than I could never get from some random fuck I bring home from a bar. A year ago, she showed me pleasure, made me come so hard and fast, wanting that again in my mind a thousand times over after that night, but not realizing that the feeling she gave me was what I wanted again from her and more.
Was I trying my damnedest to fill that void over the course of the past year with other women because what I felt for her that night in that bathroom bar was something more that sex? Was there something deeper in those eyes when I looked into them? I played that night over and over again in my head, just thinking I’m a young guy who scored one night, experimenting with some uninhibited nature.
No, God damn it. That’s not it. It’s not that. If it was, I would have just forgotten all the details that made it real. I remember her soft skin, the way her thighs felt against my hand, the silkiness of her hair. She smelled like sugar, all sweet and tasted like it just as much. The way her lips felt on mine, not caring who was beyond that door. How her body reacted as I made her come, the pulsating way she trembled, the warmth that I felt all over my body when she did. I didn’t fucking forget it like I did with who knows how many others I’ve had between that night and now.
And I know that there’s something real I’m feeling. I knew it when I kissed her today. That feeling returned. I was just too caught up in the whole excitement of it all last year to truly know, to truly figure out that she’s what I want, what I need. I lied to Bella and Tony back in that room when I said I didn’t want what they have, ‘cause guess what, I do. I want Harlow. I want her like I want my next breath.
How the fuck did I come to this conclusion?
But how do I convince her that that night was more than sex, more than just some hookup. How do I convince her to give in to it? Give into the feelings, ‘cause God knows she’s the one who has made me give in. Harlow. She cracked this shell that’s been around me for so long. I’ve fought in wars, faced death, seen death, built up a wall of hardness around myself, and she broke it. Crushed it to the ground. I’m not the man I was, and she’s the reason. I feel safe and secure around her. Two things I’ve never had in my life. I’ve never given in to the whole soulmate thing. To me, it was nonexistent. A fable, something made up in a fairytale. I’m still not one hundred percent convinced of it, but I don’t think I can go on another second without finding out the truth behind it. I wonder if she felt something when we kissed. Did she feel that electric spark, the current running through us? How her body molded into mine. She couldn’t deny that… Right?
I’ve never done this before. Try and figure out if someone feels the way I do. Girls fall in love with me all the time.
See, that’s a lie. They fall in love with my body, my face, the way I make them feel. I’m a puppet on a string, dancing around for their entertainment, fulfilling their pleasure, while I mask mine with some fucked up fantasy of the way things should be when you’re with someone.
I have to tell her. I have to convince her that it’s more than friendship, more than just sitting on a dock telling each other about our life’s worries and war stories. It’s more than sexual innuendoes and drinking games. There’s some other kind of deeper meaning behind all of it and for the first time in my life, I’m going to find out what everyone else in my life is talking about.
My heart is not the cold sheet of ice I thought it was because Harlow Hannum melted that away. I’m not letting another moment go by without telling her, without trying to convince her to give in… To me… To us.
***
CHAPTER 11
And the teacher is the one being taught
Harlow~
I can still feel his lips on mine, even after being home, showered, dressed and asked a million and one questions by Willow, I can still feel them. As I laid in bed last night, constantly tossing and turning and unable to sleep due to the memory of Cruz kissing me, I have forced myself to believe that kiss must have been from pure adrenaline on his part. Lack of sleep, the rush of excitement, the new life he held in his hands, yep, that’s what I chalked it up to, pure adrenaline. That kiss was nothing more than a thank you for being there for him, he even said so himself. I know he asked me afterwards what I thought of it, why he had done so, but I was so taken aback, even I didn’t have an answer for once, so I used my interview as a distraction.
The interview.
My future rests in the hands of three men and two women. Throughout my interview, his lips had the advantage over my concentration. When the panel of principals and the head of the school’s administration looked over my credentials, my letters of re
commendation, a mock up lesson plan I had to come up with in well… Less than a day’s notice, the feeling of his lips on mine still lingered. The whole drive home was difficult in weighing out the reasons why I felt some kind of unnatural reaction to it. Or was it natural and I was so caught up in the moment to even know the difference. Still the fact remains, and the one I lost sleep over is his happiness, his passion, the excitement made him do what he did. He’s Cruz for God’s sake. Someone who I’ve come to admire. We have bonded over this summer. We tell each other almost everything, except I don’t care to know who his flavor of the evening is. We kid. We joke. It’s almost like hanging with Craw… Almost. He’s a force to be reckoned with when it comes to women. We’ve had lengthy conversations regarding his take on relationships and sex. Numerous times. His comfortable way of talking to me about those things is a red flag in my brain right now.
It was just a kiss between friends. He fucks them and leaves them. Famous last words by him: ‘Get in and get out’.
But why for the love of God does this plague my mind? Why is it taking up every corner of my thoughts and yielding them into some kind of twisted thought process? We need to talk when he gets back. I need to answer his question from before, at the hospital. What did I think about what happened between us? What did I think about the kiss, and I’m fully prepared to tell him exactly what I think? Or at least what I talked myself into thinking.
Before he came outside the hospital to see me, I knew I had to try to talk to Dr. Goldberg. Just being there made me panic and I’m pretty sure I did a good job of hiding it. I haven’t spoken to Dr. Goldberg, or at least needed to speak with him in a few weeks. Cruz was there to talk to me, to listen, but in this particular situation, he’s unavailable to help me under the circumstances, I had no choice but to call Dr. Goldberg. He instructed me to repeat my mantra, so I did. I’m not sure, but I think Cruz bought the whole Willow being on the phone story.