Tinder Ella: A Modern Day Single Dad Fairy-Tale

by Eddie Cleveland

  Apparently, it was a scowl, because her deep lines shift and transform on her face as she tilts her head and smiles back at me.

  “It’s my fault, I was just blabbing about working in the Navy SEALs and totally lost track of time. I would hate to miss the… I’m sorry, what is the activity?” I lay it on thick. I know this woman’s type. She might have a good thirty years on me, but she still wants to have a strong, young buck give her a smile that makes her melt.

  “The what?” She blinks, like she’s just awoken on a stage at a hypnotist’s show with a crowd of unfamiliar faces smiling up at her. “Oh, uh, the activity. It’s an Easter craft,” she answers softly. Then, snapping her head back up straight, her lines return as she grabs a hold of her senses, “And you two are late! So, let’s get this show on the road,” she demands again.

  This time we both listen and get up from our seats at our cozy table and follow her out of the dining hall.

  “Easter craft?” I mumble to Holly. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, apparently, every week we have these mandatory group functions that we have to attend. It’s so dumb.” She rolls her pretty blue eyes.

  “Nothing like mandatory fun,” I smirk.

  The counselor leads us into a large room filled with tables full of crafting supplies and surrounded by groups of patients. Each table is filled with every preschooler’s dream of glitter, paints, stickers, pom-poms, glue and more. Well, doesn’t this look… interesting.

  I scan the faces of the present addicts in here. So many of them look unreasonably happy to be doing this right now. Like, this will be the highlight of their day that they write about on the sheet we have to turn in each night listing what we liked, hated and learned from our day in rehab. It’s just one more way I can’t relate to so many of these people. Not only are they in here because they let drugs or alcohol destroy them, and everything they held dear, but now they’re so deliriously happy to find meaning in everything, that simple things like compulsory craft time brings genuine pleasure to their lives.

  My eyes flicker back to Holly. I almost burst out laughing at the twisted look of pained disdain on her face. It’s like I can see the thoughts running through my brain playing out like a projector on a movie screen across her milky complexion.

  I might not be able to relate to these guys, but this girl? The one right I can’t stop thinking about. The one whose scent drives me wild. The one who I’ve only just met, but feel like I’ve known since we were kids, I get her.

  “Ok, enough dilly-dallying now. You both take a spot at that table back there,” the silver-haired woman points across the room to the only table with less than ten people crowded around it. “We’ve got to get started.”

  “Sure,” I start to walk away, “wait.” I turn back to face her and watch as her deep scowl evolves into a softer gaze again. “What is it we’re supposed to do?”

  “Oh, um, the activity is to take one of the cardboard eggs at your station and decorate it to represent your truth.” She explains, like she’s actually speaking English.

  “My truth.” I repeat.

  “Yes.”

  “And, these are… Easter eggs?” I try to make the connection, but can’t.

  “Yes.”

  “So, are we hiding our ‘truth’ around the building and doing an egg hunt or something?” I’m honestly not even trying to be sarcastic. Although, I can see it’s not being taken that way.

  “No, of course not.” She snips at me.

  “Are we donating these eggs to children or something? For them to enjoy?” I grasp at straws to make sense of what possible association this could have with Easter.

  “No! No egg hunt, no donations. It’s just Easter eggs of your truth. Now, get to your table and get it done before you run out of time,” she peers down at her wristwatch, reminding me of the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland always worrying about being late.

  I look around me for Holly, but see she’s already joined the table we’ve been assigned, so I clamp my jaw shut and head over. I guess it doesn’t matter if I understand the reasoning. Or, if there actually is any. It’s time to spend beside her, and that’s time well spent.

  “You ready to glitter your truth?” I slide in beside her at the table with a smirk. “Oh, look at this!” I mockingly point to the pile of art crap in the center of the plastic, pop-up table, “If glitter isn’t ‘truthy’ enough, you can put rhinestones on that shit!” I pick up a package of dollar store fake jewels.

  Holly laughs loud enough to deafen the scowls of other participants at the table. I don’t give a fuck about them, or what they think of me. I’m only focused on one person, and if I can make her laugh after how hard she was crying in the cafeteria a little while ago, well that’s a win.

  “Ok, I know it sucks, but let’s just do it. Who knows, maybe it’ll help out a couple of lost coke-heads like us,” she smiles up at me sweetly and it takes every ounce of physical restraint I have, in every fiber of my muscles, not to kiss her. God damn it! She’s so beautiful.

  She doesn’t wait for me to stop staring at her like a man who’s been shipwrecked and hasn’t seen a woman in a decade. Instead, she grabs some paints, an egg, and gets to work.

  I pick up a cardboard, unmarked egg shape and stare at it blankly. What the fuck am I supposed to draw on this thing? My truth. Whatever the hell that means. Like I’m going to paint my deepest pain or my biggest desires on the side of a pretend egg. Anger wells up inside of me at the thought.

  I can’t believe my brothers are back in Virginia Beach doing real shit, like fighting terrorism and defending our soil in operations most people won’t ever hear about and I’m here doing this. This fucking stupid craft. Like I’m a six-year-old boy instead of a twenty-seven-year-old man.

  Fine. They want my truth? Then the truth is what they’ll get. I grab a paintbrush and dab it into the paint.

  Time evaporates as I create my masterpiece. With a few flicks of the wrist, I admire my rudimentary artwork with a grin. Sure, it’s no Da Vinci painting, but it’ll do the trick.

  “Time’s up!” The counselor who rounded us up like a couple of stray cattle chirps. “I’m going to come around and collect your eggs in this Easter basket, one-by-one. I’m going to ask that you share the truth, your truth that you decorated on your egg with the group, please.” She stands up, with a giant wicker basket in tow.

  My mind blurs out the monotony of listening to person after person explain their biggest dreams and aspirations. The sheer volume of people who put down “getting clean” as their “truth” tells me, again, how little I have in common with these people.

  Finally, the scowling counselor makes her way to our table, collecting each egg in her basket like a reverse Easter bunny. When she asks Holly what her truth is, my hearing finally kicks back in. My focus lasers in on her as she explains the little puppy dog that she’s drawn on the side of her egg.

  “I, well, I guess even in my darkest times, and I mean the absolute worst moments I’ve ever lived, I’ve always felt a deep connection with animals.” She speaks to a room of nodding heads. “So, I guess, my truth is that I want to do something to help animals as much as they’ve helped me,” she answers, placing her egg in the basket.

  “Perfect,” the counselor gives her a flash of a smile and then turns her attention to me. “And what is this?” She points to my design.

  “That’s me,” I explain the little boy I’ve painted on the side of my egg.

  “What are you doing?” She looks at the rough artwork quizzically.

  “I’m smashing your basket of eggs,” I point to the cracked shells and exposed yolks spread around my egg in a mess.

  “What? Why? How is this your ‘truth’?” Her voice raises with anger.

  “Because, I truthfully think this activity is a stupid waste of time. If I was a little boy, and you sent me a basket of your Easter eggs of sadness, then I’d smash the shit out of them. And,” I pause with a smile, “that’s the truth.”
>
  Laughter erupts around me, but the only person I can really hear is Holly. Her quiet chuckle is, by far, the loudest in the room to me. I don’t care about the angry lines forming in the counselor’s face, or whether or not I’m going to have to sit in Ms. Morehouse’s office again today, the only thing I care about, the only thing that matters, is the moment of happiness I’ve managed to bring to Holly. No matter how fleeting it is, it was worth it all.

  14|Jake

  The desert wind swirls around me, the sand attacking my exposed skin like a million, tiny hailstones. That’s how I think of it anyway, even after living in Virginia Beach for years, it still reminds me of the brutal Colorado winters I grew up with.

  Why am I here?

  I don’t have time to ponder, my hands are suddenly weighed down by my Colt M4A1, and my tactical gear adds gravity to my body. I need to move.

  My feet grit against the grainy dirt as I quietly enter the dark building. It’s eerily calm. They know we’re here. It won’t do them any good though, we’ve got them surrounded.

  With my night vision goggles, I can see the blurry details of the house. The first floor is clear. I sweep each room, my gun held out at the ready, as I search for our target through a filter of green. The night vision makes it feel like a video game.

  I throw up the hand signal and make my way up the stairs. We’ve been briefed that this building has at least four floors. We have to sweep them all. We have to take out our target. No exceptions.

  I quietly creep down the hall, into the first bedroom. My partner is on my heels, ready to cover me from anyone stupid enough to try to attack us from behind.

  Empty.

  Next room is the same. As I inch toward the last door on this floor, I hear a woman say “Shhh!” They’re hiding in this room. But is he? I can hear them cowering. His family. I hope he’s not using them as a human shield. It wouldn’t surprise me though, you don’t get to be the head of the most powerful terrorist organization in the world living by a strict moral code.

  I open the door, I can see the women and children huddled against the back wall. The mothers are using their bodies to shelter their babies. I don’t care about them. I’m not here for them. I sweep the room, he’s not here.

  Suddenly, I’m blinded. I can’t see anything! I rip off my night vision goggles to see that a bright light has been turned on in the room, making them useless. There’s no time for my eyes to adjust to the light, because standing two feet from me is a boy, maybe eight years old. There’s a burning rage in his eyes and a snarl on his face as he points the gun in his hands at my face.

  BANG!

  Chaos erupts. Children and their mothers scream. They try to rush the door, but they can’t. My guys have them covered. One of the mothers crawls across the floor, wailing. She makes her way over to the body on the floor. The lifeless boy, who only a second ago was ready to kill me. Dead. His body floods the floor with blood. The blood of a child. Her screams grow louder and louder as the blood pools around him.

  “Fuck!”

  My heart is jackhammering in my chest as I shoot up in bed. Cold sweat trails down my face and my panting fills the night air.

  “It was a dream. A dream.” I repeat the phrase like a mantra. However, I know different. I know that this time it was a dream, but that’s because I already lived the nightmare.

  I swing my feet over the edge of my bed, letting them rest on the cool tile floor as I regain my senses. My heart rate begins to slow to a normal pace. I wipe the sweat from my face with the back of my hand and stand up. Giving my arms a shake, I try to push the thoughts back down.

  The clock on the end table says it’s a little after three in the morning. I don’t even need to check it to know that. It’s always the same. The dream is the same. The time I wake up is the same. The reality is the same.

  I know I’m not getting anymore sleep tonight. Normally, I would take a shower, maybe do some reading to kill time before the daily grind starts back up. Tonight, I feel trapped in this tiny room. I’ve never wanted coke this much. I need a distraction, and cocaine has been perfect for that. The endless rush of energy it’s given me has made these three-hour power naps I’ve been calling ‘a night’s sleep’ bearable. A little white powder can numb these thoughts haunting me every night. It isn’t the coke I’m addicted to, really, it’s the escape.

  I pull on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and step into my shoes with my bare feet.

  A walk will do me good. I just need to get outside these four walls. I need to give myself something to do.

  I make my way down the empty hallway. It’s weird to see this place so dead. All day long, there’s always a couple hundred patients milling around. There’s no escape from the shuffling bodies, clogging the halls as they make their way to lectures or therapy sessions like zombies on the Walking Dead.

  Tonight, there’s none of that. It’s just me. For a moment, I consider taking a little jog up the empty hallway. However, I know they have a night person who roams around here to make sure all the addicts stay nestled in their beds. I remember how Mabel, the old lady from my group therapy sessions, told me that they frown upon people doing exercise. That they think it gives you a mini-high.

  No. I won’t jog. When I run into the night guard, I’m sure I’ll already have explaining to do for being out of my room, I don’t need to add another layer by getting into trouble for doing some minor cardio too.

  I push my hands into my pockets and shake my head, annoyed at the stupidity of some of these rules. Before I know it, I realize that I’m approaching Holly’s room. I stop in my tracks. I shouldn’t be here.

  But I am.

  My heart rate quickens again, but this time it’s not from fear. From the crack under her door I can see light spilling out across the hall floor. A rush of adrenaline shoots through me.

  She’s awake.

  At least, I assume so. I look down the hall behind me. Should I? I slowly close the distance between her door and my body. I shouldn’t, right? I should keep walking. Talk to her in the morning. I know this, yet I still approach her room. I don’t remember my feet stopping, or making a fist, but my knuckles lightly rap on her door somehow. I tilt my head and listen.

  Nothing.

  Damn. I guess she is sleeping. The air feels like it’s deflating from my lungs as I start to move away. It’s for the best. I don’t need to get in the kind of trouble that going into her room in the middle of the night will surely bring. And, I’m not talking about getting my knuckles rapped by the Director either.

  “Who is it?” Her voice is little more than a whisper, but I’m sure I heard it.

  I stand up taller and walk back to her door. “It’s Jake,” I whisper back.

  15|Jake

  I can hear her feet hit the floor and pad over the tile as she makes her way to the door. When she opens it, the bright light casts down from the ceiling, glowing around her like a vision from heaven. She looks like an angel. My eyes slowly travel over the formfitting t-shirt she’s wearing as a pajama top. Her perky, little tits are pressed up against the fabric as her rock hard nipples are begging to be freed. She tugs the shirt down over her creamy thighs, but it barely covers the glimpse of her sexy underwear. She’s an angel alright. She looks like one of those Victoria’s Secret models.

  “What are you doing here?” She looks nervously over my shoulder into the hallway.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t mean to come here, but then I saw your light on,” I whisper back.

  She bites her lip. Her perfect, plump, pink lip and my cock stirs. God, the dirty thoughts I’ve already had about that pretty mouth of hers.

  “Ok, come in,” she holds the door open and I walk in. I hear the distinctive click of the door closing behind us. I can only go by my hearing because Holly turned off the bedroom light. We’re both standing in darkness. I can hear her breathing quicken and my cock begins to get hard.

  “What are you doing?” I murmur.

  “Just a se
c,” I hear her walk past me.

  Click! A subdued light casts across the space as she turns on the small lamp on her bedside table.

  “If you came here because you saw my light, then the night patrolman might do the same. I can’t risk getting caught with you in here,” she explains.

  Makes sense.

  I nod, silently, as my eyes trail over every inch of her like my tongue longs to. “Good idea,” I finally manage the words.

  “Why are you here? Is something wrong?” I can’t pry my eyes off of her. She’s perfection. The way her shirt rides up as she takes a breath, exposing her silky legs. Legs I’ve already imagined wrapped around my waist, or my head. Holly looks down and pink flushes over her cheeks as she seems to remember, for the first time, what she’s wearing. She hops into her bed and pulls her blanket over her. She casts her eyes down at her buried legs, like she’s studying the comforter’s pattern with deep interest.

  “Sorry,” I look away, a pang of guilt hits me in the gut for making her feel self-conscious. “I swear,” I hold up my hands, “I didn’t come here for that,” I try to explain.

  “No?” Her blue eyes meet mine.

  “No.”

  “Then what did you come here for?” She raises her chin and looks me straight on, sticking out her bottom lip like I’ve insulted her somehow.

  “I… I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep, so I guess I just really wanted to see you. Being around you, talking to you, seeing you, it makes me feel better.”

  “You can sit over here,” she pats the space on the bed next to her. I don’t need more than that. The mattress sinks under my weight as I sit beside her.

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” she confesses. “I have a lot of bad dreams.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Really?” I can feel her scrutinizing my face, but I can’t look at her. I can’t tell her about the image that haunts me every night. Instead, I swallow hard and try to bury it inside.

  “You know, when I was younger I had a friend that told me something kinda interesting,” she changes the subject.