by Ashley Love
“Yeah, right,” Lex snorts, disbelief in it, and he rolls his eyes.
“Hey…you come in here for advice or to try and convince me that I’m wrong, just like you’ve been trying to do with everybody here?”
Lex chews his lip nervously, nodding an acknowledgment, an apology. “But I mean, the girlfriend thing…it’s not so bad, is it?”
“I’ll ask you again, what do you want?”
“I just told you, I don’t know what I’m supposed to want,” Lex says, previous embarrassment giving way now to frustration.
“Right or wrong doesn’t play a big part in this, hate to break it to ya. It’s just…how you feel.”
“Well then I want…” he starts suddenly, agitated, as if he wants the answer to be spontaneous, but again he lets his thoughts get in the way. “I mean, I guess I want what any person wants, someone who kinda…gets me, I guess, and someone who isn’t gonna run around. Somebody who’s gonna be able to handle this sobriety thing, and deal with all of that shit in my past, and forgive me. 'Cause it’s always gonna be something that I’m fighting with, you know, like you say.”
“Right,” Alan nods, sitting back, taking in Lex’s response before leaning in toward his desk, as if he’s got a really good secret. “But don’t you just want to…be in love with someone? Wake up with them? Go to sleep with them? All that stuff guys aren’t supposed to admit that we want, but actually just feels really damn good?”
Just the words are enough to make Lex want to smile. He tries not to.
“Well, yeah…that, too. I mean I want someone to really…love me, I guess.”
“Well she loves you, you’ve told me that much. Part of you knows it. Just…let her love you. Don’t think about all of the wrong you’ve done to her every time you see her; that part’s over. You can’t change what either of you did. You both have to move past that.” Alan makes it sound so simple, but Lex knows it isn’t.
He sighs, shaking his head. “I just…I just keep fucking up, man.”
“I think you’re your worst critic.” Alan points at him accusingly. “Cause I don’t see a guy who keeps fucking up. I see a guy who’s fucked up a lot, and doesn’t want to fuck up anymore, but thinks there's a right way to do the right thing. So even a small success, if it doesn’t end up being what you wanted, feels like a failure. You gotta cut that shit out, man. It’s exhausting.”
Lex laughs despite himself. “Tell me about it.”
“Just see how today goes. All we can worry about is today, alright?” Alan shrugs and glances at the clock. “It’s about that time, man. Go see what your girl’s up to.” He smirks, nodding toward the door.
“How do you know she’s here?” Lex asks smartly.
“'Cause it’s Sunday. And she loves you,” Alan answers assuredly, and Lex chuckles, half embarrassed and half nervous, or anxious, he can’t decide. “Now get outta here.”
17
We walk outside, slowly through the grass and he’s quiet but its comfortable, both of us looking down at our feet as we shuffle along, hands shoved in our pockets with our elbows and shoulders touching because we’re walking so close. Something is different. He’s different today, and I feel close to him, closer than I’ve felt in a long time.
We pass through the gravel, weaving around the tables in the smoking area and a few people are seated here and there. Some of them smile or nod at Lex and he pulls his hand from his pocket to wave casually as we continue toward the trees in the distance, my stomach suddenly starting to quiver at the thought of being alone with him, really alone and away from everyone. I don’t know if he wants to talk about what happened the last time I was here; about Seth and the overdose and how I almost thought he would cry. I don’t know if he wants to talk at all.
We reach the closest path leading into the trees and he suddenly stops. He looks up and down both sides of the trail sort of curiously before turning to the left and walking part of the path until it meets another and he takes that one instead. It leads straight out away from the treatment center and as I look back I see that we’re fairly far away now. He stops suddenly again just as we reach the tree line and I wonder if he knows where he’s going.
I look sideways at him and he’s staring straight ahead down the path into the trees, his jaw sliding sideways, tongue running along the inside of his teeth like he always does when he’s thinking. I turn toward him and he looks at me then, and smiles as he slides an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in to his side, both of my arms moving around his middle as he turns his chest to mine. When he puts his arms around me I can almost feel the cold breeze off of the ocean against my cheeks and see the fireworks sending colored lights across his face. I remember exactly how I felt that night, wrapped up in his jacket against the warmth of his body.
I smile, craning my neck back slightly to look at him. His face is fuller than it’s been in years, and though it’s not by much I can see his cheeks and eyes aren’t as sunken, his skin isn’t as ashen and pale. The steel blue of his eyes is sharper and a little more clear, the bruising around them now almost completely gone, fading and yellowed, the split of his eyebrow and lip now just smooth pink scars. I pull a hand away from his back to smooth over his hair, still short and bristly but starting to soften as it grows out. I can tell he hasn’t shaved it since he’s been here.
“You look good,” I finally say softly, letting my fingers trail over his cheek and he smiles and brings his face close to mine again, his tongue slicking across his lips as his arms curl around me tighter. A feeling of want starts to grow between us, something so innocent that I haven’t felt with him in a long, long time—a pull to just be pressed against him like this, to feel him.
Before I can stop myself I’m kissing him, or he’s kissing me and I don’t know how we start even but it’s hesitant at first, his lips pressing against mine softly until mine press back and we’re both doing this. It’s not some apologetic thing or something that we owe each other or feel compelled or even entitled to do, we just want it. We want it and we want each other and I wonder when it all got so complicated and became about everything but just the two of us and how we felt.
With the drugs everything felt quick and dirty. It was almost like an affair; I was the mistress to his addiction and any attention he gave me was precious time taken from what I knew he really wanted to do. Before that I never had to question it, and now I’m starting to feel that same way, that this could be about us again, and it feels good. It feels so damn good.
Hesitance gives way to something more, something bigger and it makes my chest tight and my stomach flutter when his hand comes up to my face. I fist the shoulder of his jacket as his thumb presses against my chin, guiding my mouth open against his. One sweep of his tongue against mine and we both pull back, chills pricking our skin and it’s not from the cold. That thing making butterflies in my stomach now comes back to me crystal clear as I look into his eyes and he steadies his hand on my shoulder.
I want to be alone with him.
“C’mon…”
He wants to be alone with me.
He steps away from me and tugs my hand, urging me to follow, and I chase after his quick steps down the trail, rocks scuffling and skidding around his feet where they’re shuffling swiftly, hurriedly against the path.
“Where are we going?” I laugh, tripping a little as he pulls me along.
“C’mon,” he says again insistently, taking me down the trail, into the trees, farther away from the center. I twist around to look back every once in a while but it makes me lose my footing so I just give up and follow him, deeper and deeper into the trees. He faces straight ahead, jaw set, his breaths drawing in and out more ragged as we keep this quick pace longer and longer without slowing.
We finally reach some sort of clearing and he stops more abruptly than I anticipated and I bump against his side, knocking him a little off balance. We stand there, him still holding my hand. It’s sort of dark in the tre
es even without their full canopies of leaves to block the sun but the naked branches are still tall stretching over us, almost closing over our heads, a shade of some sort. I feel like we’re so far away. I look down the trail and can’t even see the large building anymore and we’re a world away. It’s quiet and still and we just breathe for a minute.
I finally ask, “Are we supposed to be out here?”
He turns to me and drops my hand from his, reaching up to tuck his head into the hood of his jacket, tugging the strings so it forms around his face more. His cheeks are pink and he’s still breathing kind of hard.
“Nope.” He smirks sort of devishly as he reaches up to cup my face and a flash of excitement races through me but it’s quickly followed by worry.
I sigh. “Lex…” My face starts to pull into a pleading expression but he cuts me off with a kiss, his hand wrapping around my jaw. It’s hard and needy and pent-up, my hands reaching up for the back of his neck, a little more difficult than anticipated with my eyes closed and the hood of his jacket pulled up and his teeth pulling at my bottom lip like that. My fingers finally slide in against his neck, the backs of my hands brushing against the soft material, his skin warm against my cold fingertips as they curl and scrape against the back of his head, pulling his lips harder against mine. His other arm curls around my lower back, the buckle of his belt pressing hard into my stomach, and I pull back, panting.
“Seriously, are we gonna get in trouble?”
All he can do is breathe out a laugh, his lips swollen and red as he licks them. “I was kidding. It’s fine.” He twists a loose piece of my hair around his fingertip absently and I mimick him, wrapping my finger in the cord of the hood of his jacket, anxiously biting my lip to keep from smiling as I look into his eyes, hope dancing in mine.
“You promise?” I ask softly.
“Would you stop?” He chuckles, nudging my forehead with his and the blush in my cheeks warms my skin almost painfully against the chill that’s there. He licks his lips again. “It’s fine.” His voice is soft, his breath warm against my lips before I press them to his, slower this time, softer, a pace that lets me enjoy it rather than being caught up in just wanting more. It’s a feeling of security that I’ve been missing with him for so long, new and old at once and it’s sort of overwhelming, kissing him like we used to when we used to really mean it, when we really wanted it. It used to really just be about me and him, and I miss that.
He steps away, walking backwards slowly with his eyes still on me until his heel bumps the root of a large tree he was moving toward and he reaches behind him, supporting his weight as he sits in front of it, still looking at me. He leans back against the thick trunk, head lolling lazily, his eyes asking me to follow.
“I’m gonna get dirt all over me,” I say, my resistance half-hearted with a laugh, wanting nothing more than to sit with him. His knowing smirk calls my bluff.
“You’ll live.”
I sit across from him, folding my legs, crossing them up and he does the same, our knees touching. I can’t look in his eyes but I can feel him watching me, head still cocked curiously, hands resting on his legs. His boots are untied and I play with the laces peeking out from the leg of his jeans, threading one plastic end through an empty metal hole, pulling it out again, my voice behaving in the same way, sneaking into my throat and cowering down thick into my chest.
“How do you feel?” It finally comes out.
“Right now?” I can feel the same resistance in his answer.
I look up at him. “Right now. Here.”
He looks down at my hands then, my fingers still twisting the end of his shoelace, and he anxiously wipes his palms down the legs of his jeans, resting his hands on his knees. “I remember what it felt like…” He goes quiet and I study his face, searching for signs to confirm what I’m scared of, that he’s afraid to talk to me, but then I feel his fingers walk under the palm of my hand, pulling it away from his shoelaces and letting it fall into his. I look down at our hands, palms pressed together, and when I look up at him he’s still looking at them and he says, nervously, “To want someone more than anything else.”
My stomach lurches up and squeezes all the air out of my lungs, making room for the emptiness, making it hard to breathe, making everything inside my ribcage tremble.
“Yesterday we were meditating…and all she said was think of a place, like a place you feel safe or whatever, and then in group we had to go around and say what it was, and I figured, you know, that everyone would talk about home, and their families, and I was ready to lie, and then no one said that. So I was waiting and I changed my story like five times waiting for my turn and I thought what is the fucking point of all of this if I’m just gonna lie all the time. Nobody likes their family any more than I fucking do.” He barely takes a breath through all of that and my nerves start to quell just because I don’t know where the hell he’s going with this anymore.
“Lex…”
“I’m just tired of lying. I did it as much as I did the drugs, to everybody, to me, to you, and I know you think I was always straight with you, and I tried to be, but fuck, my whole business was built on lies. Calling people my boys, they’re not my fucking boys. I don’t give a shit about them more than anything else. I sent them out to die for my money on a daily basis. It was all bullshit, all lies, all of it, lying to get what I needed, to get ahead. And look where I am. Look where we are…”
“Lex.”
He breathes out a deep sigh that I wish I had in me, my chest still tight, his fingers curling up against my palm, drawing gentle lines with his fingertips, still looking at my hand in his. “And the one thing I actually wanted…I still want. And I never had to lie to get.” He looks up at me and I feel warm all over, the absence of fear in his eyes filling my lungs again. I feel my hand melting into his. “Guess it takes a special kinda dumbass to let everything else get in the way, huh?”
I laugh to keep from crying, because even though there’s no tears in my eyes I feel like I could get a few out if I let myself really sit and take in the fact that he basically said everything I’ve been wanting to hear for months now. He wants me. He remembers how it was, the same way that I do. All in his own special fucked up way with his terrible timing, but it means a hell of a lot to me, nonetheless. I turn my head to swallow the lump in my throat before looking at him again, him still looking at me sort of imploringly and all I can do is smile.
“Well, if you were ordinary I’m sure I would’ve been bored with you by now.” I resign to this and he laughs, relieved, nodding as he ducks his head to hide a big stupid grin.
18
Sam and I have been talking about my future a lot lately. I’ve finally buckled down and decided I want to go back to school, and Sam, well, buckled me down to it. School or a good job, we decided—I decided. So when I left the center after seeing Lex, which was bittersweet after what felt like some sort of breakthrough in our communication, I met up with her at Los Angeles Valley College to collect some information.
The woman at the registration desk is very polite and helpful, answering all of my questions about transfer credits and certificate programs, placement tests. She hands me packets of available classes, lists of other local campuses in case there is location that better suits me, information about transferring into a state school with a certificate completion or an associate’s degree, and more pamphlets than I can keep up with.
Sam grabs a few local papers. “For the job hunt,” she says as we trek down the hall to a student lounge we’d passed on the way in, somewhere to go to make sense of all of this information.
We’re quiet for a while but I can feel her watching me, I can feel something heavy on her mind.
“So…where is he? What’s going on?”
“Huh?” I ask, drawing my brow in question but not looking up from the campus listing the woman had handed me. “Who?”
She simply says, “The person I’ve been avoiding t
alking about since I saw you in the bookstore.”
There it is. I’ve been wondering when she would actually get curious enough to bring it up.
“Oh. Lex?” I play innocent as long as I can with her, and just as I suspect when she goes quiet and I finally look up at her, her blank look tells me I’ve used my stupid all up. “He’s…he’s actually in rehab. Right now.” It still sounds weird coming out of my mouth.
“Really?” She’s genuinely surprised, which relieves me temporarily but I know explaining how all of that came to pass will get a little complicated. I go back to the list, reading, highlighting, attempting to stay as cool as I can as I breeze through the details of his situation.
“Yeah. I can’t really…I mean, I can’t tell how he’s doing yet. He gets visitation once a week. He’s not really in the same kind of program that I was in. He was appointed by the court, so—”
“By the court?”
Dammit.
I sigh. “He got arrested. I was with him, and he…he got arrested.” I shrug, as if it’s that simple.
“Arrested? And he’s in rehab?” Her voice raises slightly and I give her a pleading look, glancing around in suggestion that she should probably keep it down.
“He was high when they took him in, he pled in court as an addict, so they deferred his sentencing until he completes a state rehab program,” I mutter, grabbing for the class packets and trying to look particularly interested in some of the listings there, hoping she’ll take the hint.
“But then he still has charges…”
I roll my eyes slightly, pushing the papers away as I see that she’s not going to drop this. I fold my arms on top of the table. “Probably not. Or, I mean, at the least they’ll be minimal sentences. Fines. Community service. His lawyer has it all figured out.”
She scoffs. “Listen to you…fines, community service, arrested, lawyers…like it’s nothing.” She sits back in her chair, folding up a newspaper, studying me. “Can I ask why in the hell you’re doing this?”