by Lark O'Neal
As I wait for a reply, I google my name to see if anything else has shown up. There are a couple of speculations that I’m back to training, but both reference the same photo. Nothing else. Some of the tension flows out of me, and honestly, I’m still so high from that last run it seems impossible anything could really go wrong.
I’m packing frozen peas around my sore left ankle when Skype rings. I answer with a grin. “Hey! Two days in a row!”
She doesn’t smile back. The room behind her is quiet. “What’s going on, Tyler?”
“Nothing, Jess. Alice is my coach.”
“For snowboarding?” She gives me a perplexed little frown. “You’re riding again?”
“That’s the surprise!” I nod, but it’s hard to keep from grinning. “I am! The judge ordered it, can you believe it? He rides, I guess and watches the players, and he knew my name. He ordered me to make a bid for the Olympic team.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. That’s huge, actually.” She leans in. A frown creases her forehead, and I see something in her eyes that’s unsettling. Dismay. Disappointment, maybe. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know, Jess.” I find that my foot is wiggling, maybe picking up on something I’m too clueless to get. A soft pop of worry releases a bubble of acid in my gut. “I was afraid I’d be totally humiliated. I wanted to see if I had anything left, maybe surprise you with it.”
She nods, those long clear eyes sliding away for a long moment, and then she’s shaking her head. “So, this other person, your friend has been sharing this huge, important moment with you. Right?”
“Well, not really. I just ran into her here. She was training some other people who were going home and offered to give me a hand, to see if she could help me get my groove back.”
Again that nod. I notice that her mouth is sad. “But still, you’ve been sharing this with her.”
I have to admit that it’s true. “I wanted to surprise you, Jess. I wanted to be worthy of you.”
“I don’t need you to be worthy, Tyler, I need you to be real.” She shakes her head. “Lena and all the people at the Musical Spoon knew about your history, that you were on parole, all that stuff you didn’t tell me. I was the only one who didn’t know, and I was supposedly your girlfriend.”
“I was ashamed, Jess.”
“You hid it from me, like pretty dramatically.”
I reach for her face, her precious precious face. “Jess, please, let’s not fight, not when we are so far away. Let me tell you about today, about everything. I had the best ride this afternoon. Like, it was totally there, like I wasn’t sure it would come back.”
Her face is still unsmiling. Hurt maybe. “I feel really left out, Tyler. I told you everything that was happening here.”
“Let me show you everything.” I turn the camera to the room, and walk to the window. “This is the apartment I’ve rented, in Valle Navaro, which is outside of Santiago, Chile.”
“Tyler,” she says, but I can hear what’s in her voice and I keep going.
“This is my board, and my boots and—“
“Tyler, stop it.”
“And this is my little kitchen.”
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t talk to me properly.”
I sink down on the bed, looking into the camera “Don’t, Jess. I love you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it. You don’t trust me at all.”
“What? That’s not true.”
“You aren’t being real with me.” Tears are glittering in her eyes and I’m suddenly really, really afraid. “How can I ever trust you if you never tell me the truth?”
I swallow. “It’s not lying to—“
“To what? Pretend you’re something else? Hide things? That’s what you’ve been doing. I’m embarrassed and mad and I feel like a fool. Again, all these people know something really important about you that I don’t know. If I’m so important, how is it that you couldn’t tell me the most important thing going on it your life?”
I wish, so much, that I was there with her. That I could take her hand and kiss her face and hold her close, that I could make her listen. “I gave you hints. I just wanted to find out if I could even do it, and then I was going to tell you.”
Her eyelids fall, covering her expression. After a minute, she looks up. “I can’t trust you to be real with me. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I forgave you for lying about the parole, but—“ She shakes her head. “A relationship is about intimacy, about sharing who you are with someone else. You want everything I have and you’ll only give me those parts of you that you think look good.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. You know how it was in my family. I told you that. It’s hard to open up.”
“But Tyler, going back to snowboarding is not like getting a new job. You went to a new city on a different continent and poured yourself into something that was very, very important to you, maybe even sacred, and you didn’t tell me about it.”
“When you put it like that, I get why you’re mad.” I touch her face, her mouth, on the screen. “I’m really sorry, Jess.”
“I need some time to think about this. I’m so tired I could fall over right now, and it’s hard to make good decisions when you don’t have a brain, but I am very upset with you. I don’t want to give you my whole heart, and have you give me the left ventricle of yours.”
I laugh. She smiles, reluctantly.
“Can we just talk?” I ask.
“No.” Her smile fades. “I am in New Zealand because you kept something from me before. Now you’ve done it again, and I am not sure that we should keep going. I’m not sure you can reveal yourself with anybody, and if that’s true, I’m going to be lonely forever.”
My lungs go airless. “Jess! I can’t believe you’re so upset. Can I please just tell you about today?”
“There’s not context, is there? I haven’t been in on the struggle. You’re just going to tell me about a good day. Well, hooray.” A tear drips from the corner of her eye. “I just need a little time.”
“This is about Kaleb, isn’t it?”
Her eyes narrow. “No, not really. But if you want the truth, he’s pretty open. We share a lot, talk a lot, and it feels good. Maybe that’s part of why I’m so upset about this.”
Immediately, I regret the outburst. “Jess,” I say, quietly. “Please give me another chance. I’m sorry. Genuinely, deeply sorry.”
“A few days won’t make or break us, Tyler, and if they do, maybe we need to be broken.” She swallows. “I do care about you, but I don’t want to wreck everything on a guy who can’t be real with me.” Her clear old-soul eyes are full of sadness, but also something else. Strength? Pride? “I have to show up for myself, you know? And right now that means I need some time to think.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Think about it in reverse, Tyler. What if I hadn’t told you I was cast in a commercial and was having this big adventure and I was doing it with a friend of the opposite sex, and then you saw a picture of me with him?”
“You’re right!” I burst out, hands in the air. “I was wrong. You’re right. Can we just start over?”
She shaking her head. “I have to go. I’ll email you in a few days.”
“Jess—!”
But her face is gone.
For long silent moments, I stare at the blue screen, feeling a buzz all through my body that makes me want to smash something, throw something. Half of me wants to call her back, and keep calling until she’ll listen, but she’s had enough of crazy town, and maybe I have, too.
I press my hands over my eyes and let go of a roar of frustration. Even when I’m trying to fix my life, I fuck it up.
chapter NINE
Under normal circumstances, I’d pace until I collapsed, or drink three pitchers of beer and start a fight, but the day’s training has kicked my ass and I fall on the b
ed instead, staring at the plain white ceiling. In the hallway, a family is arriving, banging and talking fast in Spanish. I can’t make out the words, but I catch the rhythm.
She can’t be serious, can she? Just because I was keeping a secret, and not like a fidelity secret or something, but a surprise. It was supposed to be a surprise!
Don’t women like surprises?
I can’t think how to fix it if I don’t know exactly what I did wrong. It’s like she wanted an excuse to stop talking to me, and maybe that’s all this is. She’s found a different life. I had a chance, back in Colorado, and I screwed it up.
As sleep starts to drag me under, a thought floats through, wavy like a banner being pulled by an airplane.
Is it possible she’s right? Have I been afraid to be real with her?
There’s nothing from Jess in the morning. I resist the urge to send a pleading email.
And maybe I don’t give a fuck anyway. All night, my dreams were filled with the taste of sky, with the sensation of flying. All I want to do, all I want to do, is get back out there. And that’s what I put on my Facebook status: Forgot how it feels to kiss the sky. backinthegame
Women have dumped me before, and I employ the same tactics now that have always worked. For three days, I train so hard there’s nothing left for thoughts of Jess, and spend the rest of the time sleeping. The crowds coming in for the contests in two weeks are getting bigger and bigger, and I book our tickets to Queenstown with a slight ripple of trepidation. Should I tell Jess I’m coming? Is that in the realm of keeping secrets or should I respect her silence?
I don’t have a clue.
The night before we leave, Alice and I are eating burgers, going over the day, when I’m tackled from behind and tumbled off the stool. “Ty-LER WILD-er, you asshole! I heard about it, but dint’ think it was true.”
It’s Pete Reed, one of my oldest buddies, a silver medalist in the Olympics ’10, and multiple x-games and world champion. “Dude!” I clap his back. “Just figured it out myself. What’s up?”
Pete laughs his big-hearted laugh, clapping my back, yelling as he hugs me again. He’s tall and slim, with long black hair and scruffy voice. “I’ll kick your ass out there, man.”
“Are you here for the games?”
He gives a shrug, rounds the table to Alice. “Chickee, chickee, what’s up!” He slides in beside her and waves for another pitcher and glass. “Just hanging out really. I like this course, worth some training here. Just got in from Wanaka.”
“That’s where we’re going to tomorrow.”
“No way!” He spreads his hands. “We’ll have to party in Tahoe, then.”
“We’ll see.”
There’s a lot of back and forth catching up, trading stories of who is in, who looks good, who is new. “Some of those Canadian boys are shreddin’ sweet.”
At least Pete’s my age. Hell, Shaun’s nine years older, and he’s doing fine. My sense of age is coming from the sense of wasted time, nothing more. I wasted a lot of time.
And in that second, I know what has to happen. I have to forget Jess for now. I’m not wasting one more second. Nothing is going to get in my way this round. Not even Jess Donovan. If she wants time to sort out her feelings, I’ll give it to her, and if she gets pissed off that I didn’t tell her I am coming, so be it.
Maybe we won’t even see each other.
The thought gives me a rustling sensation in my gut, and I lean in and take another swig of ale. “What’s up with Bitter? Have you seen him ride lately?”
In the morning, Alice and I head out of Santiago on a thirteen-hour-flight to Auckland, and another two hours into Queenstown. I try to sleep, but it’s impossible. On the smooth, quiet, long flight, I sketch with charcoal pencils in a notebook I had delivered to my room a couple of days ago. When I was training before, I hadn’t picked up the habit of sketching, but it’s surprisingly centering, like a meditation. My earphones block out the rest of the world and in the space of no-time, I let everything go. I sketch mountains, riders catching air. On the page emerges Jess’s face, her hands, her eyes. Over and over.
And I find myself sketching a tiger with up-tilted yellow eyes. There’s something about the drawing that catches me, something different in the way I’m seeing. I frown. What is it?
What animal would Jess be? I think of her waiting tables, and pulling her friend out of the rubble after the car crashed through the restaurant. A dove? Too chesty. A greyhound? Too skinny.
I put thoughts of her aside and turn the page, sketching Alice as a watchful wolf, with her round eyes and long hair.
The rest of the trip goes like that, me amusing myself turning people I know into animals. My dad is a clichéd bulldog, then I turn him into a great horned owl which feels more right. My mother is a skinny ferret with big teeth, which makes me snicker like a ten-year-old. When we start the descent, I still haven’t decided what Jess would be.
Myself, though—I’m an eagle, kissing the sky, wind ruffling my feathers as I soar.
77
By the time we check into a room in Queenstown, it’s nearly dark, and the Saturday night crowds are spilling through the streets. A thin, glittery snow is falling, and the light is unbelievable, pink and gray and purple hanging over the lake and reflecting off the water. The beauty quells my anxiety a little—I couldn’t get my internet to work, but a check of my email via phone shows nothing from Jess.
As Alice and I wander out to find some dinner, she says, “What’s up? You’re as twitchy as a Mexican jumping bean.”
I tuck my hands into my pockets, looking right and left, scanning the crowds. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Is it the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The one you drew all night? And by the way, I had no idea you were an artist.”
I shrug. “Yeah. She’s supposed to be here, but she also sort of broke up with me.”
Alice stops in the middle of the street. Her face is hard. “She’s here? Is that why we’re here?”
“No, dude.” I frown at her. “You’re the one who said we should come here.”
She narrows her eyes, looking up at me with a tough expression. “I’m not going to pour all my time and energy into getting you into fighting trim if you aren’t 100% in. Women fuck things up.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Was it serious?”
I close my eyes. “It shouldn’t have been, but it is from my side. I seem to keep wrecking it.”
“Don’t we all.” She twists her mouth, and links her arm through mine. “Come on, let’s have a couple of shots.”
“Now there’s the Alice I know.”
It’s still early enough the Bardeaux isn’t crowded. We duck in and stomp our cold feet. Comfortable familiarity blooms through me and I lean on the bar, looking around.
In the corner is a noisy group, six or seven people around a table, toasting something. A trio of burly guys are belly-up to the bar. A tidy pair of elderly men sit by a window.
And standing against the wall beneath a small light, is a young couple, not touching, but standing within that intimate zone with each other, chests and faces only inches apart. The conversation is deep, and he smiles at her. She raises her head and smiles.
Her hair flows like pale sunlight over her shoulders, a cape around her shoulders, too long, really. Too much. So beautiful. He looks like a young tiger, healthy and fierce and completely focused on her.
And as I stand there, frozen, she leans forward and presses her forehead into his chest. His hand touches her shoulder.
It isn’t sexual at all.
It’s so much more. So very, very much more.
I’m frozen, staring, all my blood turning to ice. Can Jess feel his heartbeat through the walls of his ribs? Is she inhaling his scent, the way she does with me? His hand curves around her shoulder, moves up to her neck, back down.
“This’ll help” Alice says, handing me a shot of white tequila.
; I knock it down, pure fire, and then, just as I had daydreamed, Jess looks up and sees me standing there. For the longest time, our eyes lock, and a thousand things pass between us, one after another and another. Bright and dark, sharp and sweet. I see the love she has for me, shining there. I know it. I believe in it.
And yet, even as she stares at me, she doesn’t step away from Kaleb. There is no shame in her body language, no apology.
This is bad.
“I can’t stay here, Alice. I’ll meet you outside.”
She meets me in the street. Jess doesn’t come running after me. Maybe I thought she would.
Snow falls on my face, hiding the shattering of my heart. I think of the first moment I saw her, swinging that coffee pot around Billy’s. I think of the sweetness of her lips the first time we kissed, with lightning in the air all around us. I think of her coming to me, silky and naked, wary and hungry, and my lungs tear wide open.
I love her. There’s no way around that. I also know I’ve lost her, for now.
For weeks I’ve known what I needed to do—I have to let her fly, find herself, and in the meantime, I have to find myself, become the man I’ve got it in me to be. Actions speak louder than words. I’ll show her that I’m worthy of her. I’ll win her back to me and there’s only one way to do it.
By doing the one thing I was born to do. Becoming, finally, fully Tyler Smith.
I look at Alice. “Let’s have a fat cat dinner.”
“I’m in.” Her eyes scan my face. “That was her?”
I nod, eying the door. Actions speak louder than words. “Wait here for one second.”
She takes my arm. “No fighting.”
I shake my head.“Not even close.”
I might have lost for now, but right now, I have a chance to remind her of what we have been to each other. My body is humming as I walk back into the bar and weave through the people to where Jess and Kaleb are still standing. He gestures toward me and she looks up just as I reach them. “Tyler,” she says in a warning voice, “Don’t—“
“No worries,” I say and give Kaleb a nod.
He blinks, completely composed, alert but not afraid. His body is angled, ready to defend her if he needs to, and I like him for that.