Walking Heartbreak

by Sunniva Dee

  “Yeah. Like with the kites.”

  “I can teach you,” I say, the thought tumbling out on its own. I comb my brain for objections or remorse, but neither appears… because my offer is innocent. It can’t be wrong to teach someone how to use chopsticks, right?

  Minutes later, a strange chuckle escapes me. Bo, who dominates his guitar with strong, agile fingers, should be predestined to master whatever requires nimble handling, yet he cannot get a grip on chopsticks.

  “No!” I laugh out loud. “You don’t understand, do you?” His “never really got into it” is a definite understatement.

  Bo’s cheek connects with my shoulder while he groans out his impatience, and his shampoo tickles me with an elusive drift of pine and musk. Soft hairs trail up his lower arm, his skin bare and warm at my touch.

  I force myself to focus on our hands, on how I’m forming his fingers around the chopsticks in an attempt to nestle them in the perfect spot: one on top of his middle finger and the other between his thumb and index. As I let go, they fall from his grip for the fourth time.

  “See? Unlike you, I wasn’t Asian in a former life,” he tells me.

  “Ha, but you’re not trying,” I laugh.

  “Wow, Nadia’s having fun,” Zoe informs Emil. I ignore her because I can’t deny that I am. Between Bo’s inept approach to the chopsticks and my own buzz, I feel lighthearted. Thankfully I don’t have to own up, comment, deal. Bo is too busy defending himself to pay attention to Zoe.

  I leave my brain on “idle.” Slide my fingers down Bo’s, and hold the chopsticks tight with his hand between my own. Then the two of us lift a shrivel of chicken to his mouth. It makes it high enough to smear his lips with grease. I watch the tip of his tongue come out, moist and poised to whip the food inside, but at the last second, the chicken slips from our grasp and rolls down his shirt.

  “Dammit, so close!” he exclaims, making me laugh—again—and I quickly reach down and locate the stray piece of food on his formerly white shirt. Bo doesn’t seem worried.

  “You’re gonna have to soak the shirt overnight to get rid of the skid marks,” I say.

  “Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, looking at me, not the food or his shirt.

  I fuss, suddenly shy. I wrap the piece of chicken in a napkin, a useless act because—where would it go except for in the trash? When I glance up, a few droplets of sauce gleam golden against his pale throat. Without thinking, I bring a finger to them. Who wouldn’t want to help? It’s the right thing to do, to help, just—I’m cleaning him up with my finger.

  At first, it’s natural and instinctive. Then it’s hot when his Adam’s apple bobs at my touch, and I can’t find the strength to withdraw.

  “You’re even prettier when you smile,” he whispers. There’s sauce at the corner of his mouth too, right where his lip plumps into succulent, living art made to—

  I should clean him up with his napkin or show him so he could do it himself. But captivated, I lift my hand and approach his mouth. Bo’s eyelids flutter as I touch him, the response so sensual, I bite down on my lip.

  Pull away. Sit up straight, Nadia.

  I’m not sure how much I’ve had to drink, but this is the alcohol acting. Not me. It’s been a happy night—I’m, I’m… touching a man’s mouth.

  I stroke his lips with the digit I used to remove the sauce. Soft, giving, alive, fleshy. Everything I imagined they would be. When you’re intoxicated, the importance of time fades, and sometimes it speeds by. Like now.

  I’m not sure how long I sit there, touching him and seeing us from the outside: a strange girl enthralled by the mouth of an utterly charismatic man.

  Gifs of his lips form in my mind, cycling on loops before retracting for others. In miniature film clips, I remember them shifting, smiling, parting in barely acknowledged disbelief. They round with a riff he pulled from his guitar and let cry out over the audience last night.

  Then this mouth I’m touching puckers. Kisses my finger, and my heart races like I’m scared. Because I am, or I would be, if hot sake hadn’t numbed my responses.

  Carefully, he steadies my hand with both of his and breathes against my palm.

  “Very lucky husband,” he murmurs.

  I pull my hand free, stand up, and run to the bathroom.

  BO

  “We’ll be back any minute!” Zoe shouts as she takes off with Emil. Nadia doesn’t object. An eye-roll is all she commits, and I lean on the kitchen counter, studying her.

  Emil’s and my place is walking distance from the Kagawa Hibachi House. He lured the girls back with us after dinner, tempting them with green tea ice cream and acting really fucking surprised when we didn’t have it. I mean, of course we didn’t. We never buy ice cream.

  Now, Nadia and I are alone in the apartment.

  Or she’s alone with me.

  I remember her well from a concert we played a year ago. Remember her friend too. Zoe came with Emil to Troy’s after-party that time, where the two of them engaged in some heavy petting in a corner. Nadia though, had disappeared, and I didn’t see her again until last night.

  To me, music is everything. Not that it wasn’t while I was with my ex, Ingela, but since our final breakup, it’s been truer than ever. I’m a been-there-done-that sort of dude with relationships. At twenty-five, I’ve lived in the US for two years, and whether it’s in Sweden or here, going steady works neither for me nor for the poor chick involved.

  Back when I made an effort at it, what I accomplished was a whole lot of tears from my ex, who loves with so much heart it’s painful to watch. She used to say I don’t have a love muscle, a good expression, really. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a hot girl.

  My ex was perfect. Sweet and funny. The sex kicked ass too. She was made for me, but after five years of giving her nothing but unintentional agony, I understood what I should have ages ago; I don’t possess the whatever-it-is that makes a person love beyond how you love family.

  It’s not a big deal. In my business, people exchange partners like they do underwear, and that’s what the ladies expect. They feel lucky if they get a night with the guitar player, the bandleader, whatever, while for me good sex relieves stress. Hell, even bad sex does. Sometimes, I miss the closeness Ingela and I had, but I have my bandmates. I’m good.

  Tonight, I’m here with Nadia. She’s stunning, for sure, but beauties flock to this neck of the woods for work, so that’s not what makes her stand out. No, the girl hides secrets. They simmer under her skin, at the back of her gaze, and they make her damn near irresistible to me.

  With her gaze glistening dark beneath long lashes, she’s relaxed from the booze and tempting as hell. I want to excavate her like an archeological site. If it weren’t for that wedding band, I’d want her in my bed, I’d do things to her—find out how to pluck her strings and make her sing.

  She looks Hispanic. Half the population of L.A. is from somewhere in Latin America, I’ve learned, and I’m not good at discerning accents. “Where are you from originally?” I ask. “Born in California?”

  She smiles. “Buenos Aires, Argentina. I moved here, or to Payne Point down by San Diego, when I was seven.”

  “Ah. What made you guys move from your country?”

  She shrugs. The lightness of the shrug is telling; she’s sad. I consider pulling her in and holding her until the tension eases. I’m a pro at that.

  “Family.” Her thoughts spill across her expression. She’s deciding how much to say and ends up giving me more than I expected. “My parents died.”

  “Shit. I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “No, it’s fine. I was little. I miss them but… Anyway. My grandparents and I moved here to be with family.”

  “That’s cool. Family rocks,” I reply, missing my own back home in Sweden. “Are you close?”

  Her eyes widen gorgeously at my question. “H
a, not at all.” There’s sorrow and humor in them at the same time. “My great uncle runs a very… extreme church, and I got excommunicated for not following the rules. There were some severe punishments for having— Crap. Sorry. This is a lot.”

  “I don’t mind. Keep going,” I say.

  “Ah that’s okay. I don’t usually talk about these things.” Nadia ran off like a startled bunny over too many questions earlier today, so when she continues, “Do you have anything to drink?” I allow the change in subject and lead her to the kitchen.

  “Tea? Coffee? We deff have alcohol. Loads of it.”

  “I bet you do.” She smiles up at me. “Black tea?”

  “Yep, got it. It’s, how you say, ‘Oooooolong.’” Nadia doesn’t strike me as the belly-laughing kind of girl, but I drag out the type of tea for a fleeting chuckle.

  Emil and Zoe are taking forever—which I don’t mind. While we wait for the water to boil, Nadia sits on my kitchen counter, busying herself with the mugs and pouring spoonfuls of sugar into them.

  She’s shy again, and I’m thinking her buzz is waning. I hope she doesn’t clam up. Of the little I’ve seen, Nadia open and accessible is awesome, like on our hours-long hibachi house visit and the detour through the park we took kites to earlier.

  But I’m making her nervous. Her fingers are unsteady around the handle of the mug once she’s done depositing the teabag inside of it. I support my elbows on the counter. I still her hand with mine and narrow my eyes while I try to read her.

  It’s two in the morning. Because I’m curious and I don’t get it, my question cuts from me without premeditation.

  “Isn’t your husband expecting you home?”

  Her sweet face immediately crumbles.

  NADIA

  When Jude came to Payne Point, I was young, confused, and unhappy. Once we found each other, he wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to simmer in my family’s dark convictions.

  Jude’s love was shiny, new, and ever-seeming. The times we were in the same room in public—in church—I couldn’t stop looking at him.

  Soon, he became my mood stabilizer and my reason for sanity, and early on, I knew that my life would not be worth living if he let our sinful love go.

  “Shhh, don’t worry. They’ve got it wrong, Nadia. They don’t know. They don’t know,” he whispered while I dug my face into the pillow on my bed, my head heavy with tears and fear and guilt.

  “How do you know that, Jude? Have you been in Heaven? No. So how could you know? My uncle says sinners who don’t repent aren’t invited in. What if we’re sent to Hell?”

  Jude’s fists barged into the comforter on both sides of my head. My heart skipped, but I didn’t cower because Father, not Jude, was the one who hurt me.

  “BECAUSE, Nadia. There is no way how we feel for each other is sinful. Innocent as children: isn’t that what we’re supposed to be in your uncle’s religion? We’re innocent as hell! You need to believe in us. If you don’t, how are we going to pull this off?

  “You want to end up married to some old guy you don’t love in a few years? Someone rich enough to suit the Heavenly Harbor and shed out tithes on the level of my parents’ monthly contribution when we attended?

  “Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to pull off tithes like that. So then you’ll have to have babies with that old, rich guy, lots and lots of babies—do your duty as a woman to spread Elder Rafael’s crazy story to the masses!”

  I sobbed, my face burning with red-hot anxiety.

  “I don’t believe in any of your uncle’s tales, the bullshit he concocts with his literal interpretation of two-thousand-year-old crap that means nothing anymore. And why are there no women disciples in the Bible? What about Mary Magdalene? Was she not present too? Did Jesus not love her? Love, Nadia. LOVE! Does Elder Rafael ever take a minute to think about what he’s doing to people’s brains with his crazy doctrine? It is not fair!”

  “Jude, please,” I cried, loving him so much. His thoughts were far out, so much more radical than my brain could comprehend, but in the soft darkness of our nights, I agreed with him in this: the feelings we had for each other could not be sinful.

  Life wasn’t easy in Payne Point, but it was safe. It was predictable. For a few years, I even controlled the demand for extreme penance.

  Because of Jude’s appearance in our lives and my obvious attraction to him, Mother quit her job as a teacher at the Heavenly Harbor to homeschool me. My days were supposed to be: Mother, sermons, Mother, Mother, then Father’s belt if my penance didn’t cut it. I was rarely allowed outdoors now.

  “Baby. Baby, baby, baby. Look at us. We’ve done this for years. Your grandparents are asleep, and I’m here at two in the morning because we have to sneak around. We’re seventeen years old. How much longer are you going to accept living in guilt and shame and denial when what we feel for each other is real and forever? At my high school, heck, everywhere else, people feel like fucking sunshine when they’re in love. Why don’t we? Why can’t we?”

  “We do, Jude.”

  “Yes, for the stolen hours we have together. I can’t take you to the movies. Go bowling. I can’t join you when you walk the dog because someone could see us. Hell, I’d love to take you out for ice cream, have you over to my house more than twice in four years. Every night I come to see you, you’ve relapsed. You’re inside that grey muddy world of the Harbor, full of illogical shit and rules. Tell me you disagree.”

  I drew in a shuddering breath. I wanted his hands on me, those gentle, demanding hands that extracted pleasures I should not allow from deep, deep inside of me. Jude’s fierce tenderness was how I survived now that I had learned the beauty of unselfish love between a man and a woman.

  To my church, what Jude and I had should not exist. It was dark, immoral, unchristian. But with Jude, I hovered closer to Paradise than I ever did at the Heavenly Harbor.

  At sunrise, once his murmurs of love and his promises of saving me dissipated, another day with Mother awaited.

  Oblivious to his nightly visits, Mother hauled me to Earth in the mornings. When I wasn’t in Heaven with my Jude, Mother stirred the dirt up high down here. She anchored me in the desert of pitch-black religion. Spooned out shame over my small but noticeable breasts, the curve of my hips, and the sudden slenderness of my waist.

  But then the night would return with Jude’s love-struck gaze and reverent touches. He healed me, made me see my transformation the way he did, as something natural, something beautiful and pure.

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you this. You should know how beautiful you are. Never be embarrassed. And mothers are supposed to be there for you, to make you understand and believe in yourself.”

  I’d turn the lamp off then, and thus the conversation. Leaving us in the charcoal night, nestled in ourselves. Because besides his words, Mother’s were the only ones I knew. And I had no reply.

  BO

  “Isn’t your husband expecting you home?” I dislike making her sad as much as I like making her smile, but at least she doesn’t scamper off at my question.

  “Not really,” she says.

  She’s sad and trying to hide it even with her eyes glistening like this. I dry moisture off the tip of an eyelash and remove a stray hair from her face.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you. Again. Damn me,” I mutter while I pull her in for a hug. Still on the kitchen counter, she allows me to hold her, and I rest my nose on top of her head. It feels good to keep her like this. She’s warm and soft in my arms. I notice now how skinny she is. She’s supple lines broken up by sharp hipbones and bony shoulders. Despite the makeup and the glossy hair, she doesn’t seem to take very good care of herself.

  “Tell me what you do. You’re a student, right?” I rock her back and forth, soothing her. I’ve got practice in this, five years with my ex, only with her I’d been the reason for her s
adness, not just a catalyst.

  “Yeah, besides working with Zoe at the café, I finally finished my GED.”

  “Which is?” I stroke her hair while I ask.

  She pulls back enough to study me. “You don’t know? It’s a high school equivalency test. It’s something you do when you never completed high school. You get your diploma afterward and can go on to college.”

  I’m puzzled. Slant my head so I can look into her stunners. “Do they allow people to not finish high school in the US?” Nadia blinks back at me, embarrassed, until she understands that I’m curious, not disapproving.

  “Umm, not really. My parents homeschooled me because of their religion, and they didn’t do a very good job.”

  “Oh come on. It was you all along. You were a terrible student—be honest,” I tease, risking that she breaks into sobs. Instead, she chuckles, getting my humor.

  “Try being educated by born-again extremists,” she murmurs, her amusement fading.

  “Are you serious? Like on TV?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Because you can’t watch TV?”

  “Or more because I’d rather not see what others have been through. Zoe tells me I should go to support groups with people who’ve been through what I have—which would have worked for her. Me, I don’t need more reminders than the ones in my head.”

  I let my fingers brush over her cheek. “Your friend would rule that group.”

  “Yep, and hold them captive in all senses of the word,” she says, smiling at her own addition. I love it.

  Layers upon layers breathe below her surface; she’s a secret keeper. All the stuff I keep bottled up, the shit I only litter out through my music, stems from a focused, obsessive nature, and right now, that nature is focused on her.

  “I’m going to ask you another question, and I don’t want you to freak out on me,” I say. She doesn’t object, but her lithe little body tenses as she braces herself.

  “Tea?” she deflects, and I let go to pour the overly boiled water.