Lucky Scars

by Kerry Heavens

  “Oh, Trix,” Charlie sighed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Come for the weekend. It sounds like you could use a break from all that.”

  “Maybe.” I thought about how nice it would be to just kick back and relax for a couple of days with them.

  “No maybes. Meet us at the diner for Saturday breakfast. Liv will be happy to see you as well. I’ll save you a seat.”

  “Okay.” It sounded like exactly what I needed. “I’ll see you there.”

  “Good.”

  “And C…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for being my favourite brother,” I told him affectionately.

  “Always. I’ll tell Dad to stand down. And I’m telling Max you said I was your favourite. He needs bringing down a peg.”

  “Alright,” I laughed. “Wait! As long as that’s all you tell Dad,” I warned.

  “I’ll tell him you’re fine and that work had you out of sorts. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, brother dear. I should go back to work.”

  I returned to my desk quietly so as not to draw attention to myself. I failed.

  “Everything okay?” Ziggy asked as I sat down.

  “Yeah, everything is fine. Just talking to my brother.” I tried to keep my voice steady; I didn’t want to show any guilt for what I’d just admitted about him. I felt like it was written in my body language now that I’d finally said it out loud.

  Ziggy nodded and went back to his work, leaving me to reflect on what had just taken place. Had I really just admitted I was starting to feel again for someone real and completely unobtainable? If I had, then Hell had surely frozen over. I was screwed, and not in the way Jonathan was clearly referencing with his innuendo-laden smiles. Then, as if on cue, my phone sounded with a text message.

  Give me strength.

  Jonathan: So, did you think about it?

  I chuckled ruefully.

  Me: It’s been two hours.

  Jonathan: Two hours of thinking time. So?

  Me: You are a pain.

  Jonathan: One of those funny kinds of pains?

  Me: No, like a splinter that won’t come out.

  Jonathan: So, you’re telling me I’ve got under your skin?

  Fuck my life. I just kept walking right into them.

  Me: I have work to do.

  Jonathan: Say you’ll go out with me, and I’ll leave you to get on with your work…

  I couldn’t help but thaw to him whenever we talked. Maybe Charlie was right. I can’t expect to just stumble into “The One.” I tried to ignore the possibility that I had actually stumbled into Ziggy. He wasn’t an option, he was my best friend. I had to focus on the options I had, to take my mind off the ones I hadn’t.

  So what if Jonathan wasn’t who I truly wanted? He was nice. I needed the practice, and I had been clear about not wanting a boyfriend, so he couldn’t say I was leading him on. Maybe a practice date with someone who knew the score would be good for me. I rolled my eyes as I thought about Ziggy’s same words that morning.

  Well, I knew for sure what wasn’t good for me: pining for someone I could never have.

  Oh, what the hell.

  Me: Sigh FINE. I will go out with you, AS FRIENDS. What did you have in mind?

  Jonathan: My company has a box at the O2. How about this weekend? I’ll see what’s on.

  Me: Actually, I’m busy this weekend. Sorry. I just made arrangements to visit my brother.

  Jonathan: No problem. How about dinner this week? I can make reservations.

  Visions of The Ivy or some such place sent me into panic. I mean, his company had a box at the O2, so The Ivy was a total possibility.

  Me: I can do dinner but nothing fancy. Seriously.

  Jonathan: Define “fancy.”

  Me: Something I can’t wear jeans to. Something you need reservations for…

  Jonathan: Fine, no reservations. Jeans a must. Friday?

  Me: Text me the time and place, and I’ll be there.

  Jonathan: Just you?

  My heart actually hurt a little for him. I was a coward taking Ziggy to the bar. It wasn’t at all fair to Jonathan.

  Me: Just me, I promise.

  Jonathan: #win

  I would apologise to him for the night at the bar, but face-to-face was better I thought. And weirdly, I wasn’t dreading it like before. I could do this.

  “What are you smiling about?” I hadn’t noticed Ziggy approaching, and I guiltily tucked my phone in my pocket. “Just arranging, er…something.”

  Ziggy’s eyebrows rose. “A date kind of something?” His tone said teasing banter, but his eyes held something darker. I hoped it wasn’t judgement.

  I took a deep breath. “More like a non-date dinner just as friends,” I grimaced.

  “Whatever you say,” he chuckled, and the darkness was gone. “So, listen, I’ve been working all night and I want to run this stuff past you. Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure,” I smiled, glad of work to soften the edges of what wasn’t being said between us.

  “Over here,” he said and led me to his desk where sketch after sketch was laid out.

  “Holy shit, Zig. This is incredible.”

  He ignored my compliment and launched into his explanation.

  “See, the girl, our character, has to work for something on each level. We already figured out what kinds of challenges there will be, but I wanted to try building a story outside the levels. So, this is her starting point on the map.” He showed me the first sketch of a cute-faced girl character completely surrounded by black scribble. “It’s all dark in her world, and she has to find her way through the levels somehow. So, she goes into Level One, and when she completes the challenge, she comes back out onto the map to find a light has come on, showing a tiny bit of map. She moves to that point where she meets this boy.”

  He handed me a sketch of an equally cute emo-type boy with a glow of light around him in the darkness. “He gives her a reward—the light—so she can find the next level.”

  I stared at the images and then glanced down at the others strewn around his desk.

  Ziggy vibrated with excitement beside me while I took it all in. My silence was obviously too much for him to stand because he launched into more of his explanation.

  “These gave me the idea.” He reached over and picked up my jar of stars that I hadn’t even noticed was missing from my desk and gave them a shake. “He gives her a single star in a jar to light the way, and then with every level, he gives her another star and she can see more and more of the world. We could even start them off black and white and add colour gradually as her world fills with light and colour.” He glanced at me nervously. “Something like that, anyway.”

  I watched him fidget.

  “Say something,” he pleaded.

  I looked again through his wonderful sketches. “So, the girl is in complete darkness until she meets the boy who lights up her world and fills it with colour one star at a time?”

  “Yeah,” he said shyly. “Is it stupid?”

  I gaped at him.

  “Sparkles, you’re killing me. What do you think?”

  “I love it,” I told him, trying to hide the emotion I was feeling. I was reading far too much into the whole idea, and I needed to cut it the hell out. But damn. “Can we call him Starman?” I tried to play it off with a laugh, but it sounded as crazed as I was feeling.

  Ziggy screwed his nose up. “He’s not really a man, is he?”

  “Starboy, then. What else would he be? He’s the boy with the stars. It fits.”

  “We should call her Sparkles, then,” he smiled, running with the idea.

  “But she doesn’t sparkle,” I countered.

  “Yet,” he said, snatching the papers from my hands and grabbing a pencil to make notes on the back like they weren’t the most valuable things ever. “She doesn’t see the sparkles in herself that he sees, but he will show her with his star light,” he mumbles, scribbling
down his thoughts. “We make the colour drab in the first level and gradually make it bolder and brighter as she finds his stars and begins to sparkle.”

  He pulled his sketch book into his lap at that point and started drawing. I couldn’t watch. My eyes were filling with tears that were threatening to spill. Tears full of joy, sadness, fear, envy, longing, and worst of all, hope. It was too much. I was on an emotional spin cycle.

  “Right, well…Let’s run with that then, and see where it goes,” I stammered as I retreated back to my desk. Luckily, he was in another world, his pencil flying across the page, so he didn’t notice how I almost tripped making my hasty retreat.

  When I returned to my desk, I was still holding the jar of stars. I set it down and stared at it, seeing it in a completely new light.

  I thought I had captured him, but maybe he was setting me free.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’m heading off,” Ziggy called over to me, pulling me out of the tedious spreadsheet I’d been struggling with for the past hour.

  I frowned and looked at my watch. It was only four. “O-kay…” I said skeptically. “Everything alright?”

  “Yeah, I just decided to leave early today. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” I said simply, not knowing what else to say. He had never gone home earlier than seven since he started. It wasn’t an issue; he put in more than enough hours to knock off early, but what the hell? He knew tonight was my non-date with Jonathan. I kind of hoped he would be here to talk me off the ledge and push me out the door, or at least tell me to get over it and stop making a drama out of “just dinner with a friend.”

  “Okay then, have a good night.”

  That was it. No, “Good luck.” No, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” which frankly left me with nothing. No pep talk. He just walked out the door and left me seriously confused.

  “What was that?” asked Mel, never one to miss the office drama.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted.

  “Maybe he has a hot date,” she laughed.

  I looked at her, trying to figure out how much she knew about Ziggy, and decided nothing was how much she knew if that was where her mind went. “Maybe,” I muttered, intent on keeping it that way.

  “So, what about you, hmmm? Tonight’s the night with your mystery man.” She grinned from ear to ear.

  “He isn’t a mystery. He’s a friend. The only mystery is why I tell you anything.”

  “Because you need me! Now, what are you wearing?”

  “Nothing that concerns you.” I scowled at her and tried to find my place again on the never-ending sheet of numbers.

  “Mmmhmm. Well, I hope you’re putting in some effort, at least.”

  “Mmmhmm,” I mimicked her snarky tone and went back to work.

  Two hours later, I was really wishing Ziggy had stuck around. It took all my willpower to leave the flat and some I didn’t even know I possessed to get on the tube. When I arrived in Notting Hill, looking for the Electric Cinema, I realised I was way out of my depth and was totally out of willpower. If Jonathan hadn’t spotted me and called out at that point, I think I might have turned and run home.

  “Bea!” he called from his vantage point outside the cinema. Maybe he could sense my flight instinct. He was smart.

  I waved and forced one foot in front of another until I was standing in front of him. He stepped towards me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. It was done in the blink of an eye, but it still sparked feelings that left me in no doubt that my desire to be touched again was alive. He ushered me into the neighbouring restaurant and out of the cold before I could give it too much thought.

  “Table for two, please.” He made a point of me hearing him ask so that I knew he hadn’t booked anything in advance.

  “You look lovely,” he smiled as I shed my coat.

  “Oh, thanks. So do you.” I cringed, feeling like an idiot for returning the sentiment. I had to tell myself to get it together; it’s a world of gender equality now, a man could look lovely. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and all that.

  Jonathan smiled graciously. “Why, thanks.” His well-fitted long-sleeved T-shirt showed off more muscle tone than his suits had previously. I suspected he might spend some significant time in the gym honing the definition I could see through the stretched fabric.

  And when I stopped to look, he actually did look lovely. To date, even at the bar, I’d only seen him sharply dressed in expensive-looking suits. In, okay, equally-expensive-looking casual clothes, he looked handsome in a less intimidating way. He smelled good too.

  I felt myself relax. The setting was perfect, burgers and sandwiches, that kind of fare. Nothing pretentious or scary. Just dinner with a friend.

  We ordered and fell into an easy conversation, which never ran out of steam. It was strange to chat so easily with someone new without fear of the issues I always tried to avoid coming up. Like Lewis, for example, which was a topic that in my life, at least, seemed to have a place in every single subject. Lewis had been a huge part of my life, but sometimes I felt like he was more a part of it in death than he had been in life, and then I just felt terrible for even thinking that way. I’d loved him with all my heart.

  Jonathan was so attentive and sweet, I began to think about sharing Lewis with him. It would explain things to him a little more at least. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to give him that. Lewis was mine to live with and live without. Sharing our story with someone who wasn’t likely to be around long term seemed to cheapen it. It hit me then that sharing it with Ziggy meant that I saw him in my future, even when I’d just met him.

  “So, your friend Ziggy…what’s the story there?” Jonathan asked out of the blue.

  “Story?” I frowned.

  “Yeah. Do you two have history or something?”

  I was pretty sure I had a premature hot flush. “No, nothing like that. We’re just friends.”

  “Ah, so it’s not just me you threw in the friend zone?”

  “What? No. It’s nothing like that with Ziggy. He— Neither of us are looking for any kind of relationship.”

  Jonathan studied me. “I don’t think you can see the wood for the trees, beautiful Bea,” he mused.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’m close to Ziggy. He’s my best friend. There’s nothing between us but that.”

  “Maybe I’m just mistaken. You just move like you…”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you know each other intimately.”

  My eyes widened.

  “Sorry, that was out of line. You probably grew up together or something.”

  I shook my head. “We haven’t known each other that long. We just connected, that’s all. What Ziggy and I have, it’s purely friendship.” I was not about to tell him that we all met on the same day.

  “I see. I must have read it wrong, I guess.”

  “You did. As I said, I don’t date.”

  Jonathan leaned in closer and murmured, “And yet, here you are.”

  I groaned but managed a smile. “Yes, here I am, at dinner with a friend.”

  His smile was dazzling as he chuckled. “Yes, of course, how could I forget?”

  “Listen, I’m sorry I brought him along to your friend’s bar.” I blurted. “It was tactless of me. I was only thinking of myself. I didn’t do it to upset you. I was being a coward.”

  Jonathan nodded in understanding. “I know.” He said simply.

  “It won’t happen again.” I promised.

  A wide smile spread across his face. “I know,” he repeated. But I knew what his smile really meant. It meant that he had taken my words as a promise of future dates without Ziggy.

  “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean, Bea,” he laughed. Then he finished his beer on a long pull, and as if that conversation had never happened, he flagged the waitress down for the bill and casually said, “We can see what’s on next door if you feel like it. No pressure,” he added hesitan
tly.

  I studied him and weighed the options. I could go home and feel like a failure for bailing the first chance I got, or I could go and watch a film with him, have some fun and have something to tell my brother about this weekend that will have him cheering instead of rolling his eyes.

  It was a no-brainer. “Sure, why not?” I smiled. Because Charlie was right. Why the hell not?

  Jonathan had paid for dinner, so he allowed me, after some negotiation, to buy the tickets. Maybe a romcom wasn’t the greatest idea on a date where the romantic tension was already so fragile. A horror might have been better suited, but Jonathan was good company and it turned out not to be too awkward.

  We got popcorn, not that I had room for it, but I was grateful to have something to hold when we settled into our seats. Jonathan eyed me, clutching the huge bucket and smirked. He knew what I was thinking, but he let me have it. I had to smile; I was glad I came.

  At the end of the evening, Jonathan hailed a cab and took no arguments about letting me make my own way home. He ushered me into the cab and climbed in after me.

  “Where to?” asked the driver.

  I gave my address and then chanced a look at Jonathan. He looked confused. After all, I had just given my work address. We rode in silence for a minute, before he spoke.

  “I had a really nice evening, Bea. Thank you for coming.”

  “I did too. Thank you for inviting me.” I replied honestly.

  My mind was running through all the possible goodbye scenarios as the taxi took us ever closer to the point of no return. Would he expect a kiss? Surely he would. It seemed like a normal end to a pleasant date. My brother was echoing in my head… “go on a few dates…kiss a few hot guys.” I don’t know about a few, but maybe one?…I mean, people go out and sleep with people they just met and then never see again, right? There are worse things I could do. I could let Jonathan kiss me and see if I feel anything more.

  The idea of his lips on mine sent my pulse racing and a rush of adrenaline coursing through my body. It obviously wasn’t a terrible idea if the very thought made me feel that way. Right? I panicked about where it could lead, but convinced myself I could handle it. I could kiss him and then say goodnight.

  “Bea?”