After that, I’m sure Brian will call too.
I haven’t seen him since Christmas last year when he came to visit with his new girlfriend. That’s still going strong actually, and I couldn’t be happier for him.
Then again, that guy dates a lot like he did back in high school. So far none of the girls have stuck around and the wish I made for him the day he came to see me in Connecticut two years ago is still unfulfilled.
But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is the real deal. That my best friend finally falls in love after the inadvertent pain we caused each other.
Oh and my mom might call too.
We talk occasionally and over the last two years, we’ve come closer. I’m still convinced that it was the story about my real dad that helped pave the way. Although, it could also be the fact that she’s waiting for the day I’ll wake up from my dream and get my heart broken – since I chose to run away from Connecticut again, despite all her warnings to give up hope – so she can pick up the pieces and say I told you so.
But the thing is I’m not waking up again.
The thing is I live in a new world now.
A world of dreams. A dreamland.
Anyway, I’ve got another person in my life, my sister, Fiona. Although I don’t think she’s calling. We hardly ever talk and some people in my life don’t like her.
Well, one person in my life doesn’t like her all that much. He doesn’t even like my mother all that much either, but he tolerates her because I tell him to be nice to her.
Which reminds me I have to tell him again because big day tomorrow.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that a girl is staring at me.
It’s not a very hard stare, honestly.
The girl who’s doing it is looking at me for a few seconds before focusing away, toward the fresh vegetables; we’re at the produce section.
So the prickling – the thing that happens on my scalp and the back of my neck when someone stares at me for longer than acceptable – isn’t very continuous. It comes and goes with her eyes on me like a flash of lightning and maybe that’s why I missed it.
But I can feel it now.
I can feel the prickle. I can feel the flush spreading around my throat. I can feel my heart picking up speed and my doomsday brain banging.
Chaos.
That’s what anxiety is.
It’s mayhem inside your head. It makes you jumpy and restless. It makes you want to hide or run away to a place where there’s silence. And peace.
Yeah, it’s a peace-stealer, anxiety.
There are many ways to get rid of it and in the past, I’ve done it by taking the easy way out. By denying that it’s there or by using crutches.
But these days, I handle things head on.
It’s not easy. So before I can chicken out, I glance up from my phone and look directly at the girl.
And smile.
“Hi,” I say.
She appears startled, her eyes going wide and her lips parting a little. That wasn’t my intention at all though. I was just trying to get control of the situation, as my therapist, Kate, says.
Get control of the situation, Vi. That’s the best way to beat anxiety. Get out of your head and try to do things, pay attention to the surroundings.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” I chuckle slightly. “I just thought you wanted to say something to me.”
Although for the life of me I can’t imagine what.
My knee-jerk reaction is to assume the worst. Maybe she wants to tell me that my dull blonde/brown hair is a little too dull or my lips are a little too thick. Maybe she wants to comment on how pale I am.
All these thoughts run into my head but still, I smile. I keep smiling at her, waiting for her answer.
“Sorry.” She chuckles too, a little bashfully. “I just… I love your dress.”
Surprised, I look at it myself. I’m still not a dress or make-up kind of girl but I do wear both sometimes.
I sweep a hand down the skirt and take a deep breath.
See?
She gave me a compliment. It wasn’t anything bad that my doomsday brain made me think. Everything is really fine.
“Thank you,” I tell the girl, looking up and smiling again. “I love it too.”
“I just love the colors.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I love how pink and red go together.”
Okay, now this makes me happy.
Like, really, genuinely happy with no hint of anxiety at all. It fills me with warmth and safety, and I look down at my dress again.
It is a pretty dress.
Pink in color, like really girly pink – my favorite, with giant red roses on it – his favorite.
The man who bought it for me. For whom, I wear dresses and make-up. Not because he asks me to but because I want to.
“They do, don’t they? I love that too,” I say, looking back at the girl.
“I know.”
And just because I’m bursting with happiness, I tell her, “He bought it for me.”
I tip my chin up and point in his direction. The girl turns and looks at what I want her to see.
Him.
My honey.
That’s what I like to call him these days. He’s got a lot of names though.
Strawberry Man. The Beast. Mr. Edwards.
Graham.
And the best part? I get to call him by every single one of them whenever and wherever.
Right now, I wanna call him honey.
Because of what he’s doing – he’s in the candy aisle, directly opposite to me, buying me lollipops, and not just one pack of them either. He reaches up and I see him going for at least a couple of them, which he then proceeds to throw in his cart.
Gosh and he looks so sexy doing it too.
His big hands dwarf the colorful packets of candy and his frown as he reads their label is so totally in contrast with the cheerfulness of lollipops.
But that’s how he does things, my Graham.
With care and precision, especially if it involves me.
“He loves me in red. But my favorite color is pink. So we compromised,” I continue as I watch him buy me candy.
“Oh,” the girl says in a surprised sort of way as she looks away from Graham and focuses back on me.
There’s a glint in her eyes. It’s a glint that I’m familiar with and if I’m being honest, it’s a glint I kinda have a problem with.
At least, sometimes.
It’s a glint that’s speculative and that says she’s wondering about us. She’s wondering if we’re together, Graham and me.
Over the past two years, ever since I started going out and mingling with the world – all alongside Graham, we’ve gotten quite a few glints and looks like this.
First of all, it’s the fact that he’s huge and he dominates over everyone around him. He’s doing that even now. In his plaid shirt and hiking boots, he’s the tallest man in the aisle. Tallest and broadest. So when we walk down the street together – him, all giant and me, all tiny – people stop to take another look.
But most importantly, it’s the age gap.
I’m twenty and he’s thirty-eight, eighteen years older than me. And people notice.
They notice the lines around his eyes that have deepened and increased in number over the course of time I’ve known him. They notice the silver hair in his trimmed beard and his sideburns. They notice the maturity on his face and in his demeanor.
They notice all the things about him that make him so freaking irresistible to me.
Often times, people are okay with it. They don’t give us a second glance. Other times, they stare and wonder but don’t say anything. But occasionally, we’ll come across someone who stares and wonders and also says things.
Turns out, this girl falls in the third category.
“Is he… Is he l
ike, your boyfriend?”
Good.
I’m glad.
Surprisingly, I’ve come to be a fan of facing things head on. I like when people are upfront. It doesn’t give my doomsday brain time to make up disastrous scenarios – something Kate pointed out to me in one of our sessions when I told her that I hate it when strangers talk to me.
Besides, stares are still a trigger for me. I can manage things better but still.
Still looking at Graham, I answer, “No. He’s not my boyfriend.”
As if he knows we’re talking about him, he lifts his eyes and looks at me.
He likes to do it from time to time, when I’m away from him. He likes to stop whatever he’s doing and look up at me, to make sure I’m okay.
I smile as soon as his gaze hits me.
I can’t see the color of his eyes from here but I can guess. They are most probably a warm green just like his expression: all calm and peaceful.
Then I bite my lip and I know that they must be changing colors right about now.
They must be going darker.
And sure enough, I see the effects of it on his body. His chest pushes out with a breath and a lopsided smirk appears on his lips. He’s still too severe to smile but he tries.
At the sight of his sexy smirk, I can’t stay away from him.
I don’t even say goodbye to the girl who’s staring at me with confusion over my ‘not my boyfriend’ comment, I think.
I push my cart across the space, keeping my eyes on him. Our carts bump together when I reach him and leaving it, I approach the man I love.
The man I live in my dreamland with.
“Hey, Mr. Edwards,” I greet him.
“Hey,” he rasps and yup, his eyes are dark.
Then he glances over to the girl I was talking to. “You okay?”
I tap the front of his sturdy left boot with my sneaker, playfully. “I am.”
He frowns slightly. “She bothering you?”
I shake my head, tapping his boot again. “No.”
He looks down and shakes his head at my playful gesture. “You sure?”
I smile at him.
He always thinks people are bothering me. In fact, he hates the stares more than I do. Because he knows how triggering they can be for me.
Two years ago when he came back for me and I chose to go to the cabin with him, I was in a really bad place. But Graham, along with my old therapist, Nelson, found me a new person I could go to: Kate.
She’s helped me a lot over the years but in the beginning, it was really hard. I’d get triggered so easily. I was afraid of everything in the Outside world. Going to restaurants, parks, movies, taking a walk, everything.
It’s been a long road and Graham has been with me every step of the way. So he knows.
He knows how freaked out I can get, and my man hates that.
He hates it so much that he glares at everyone who tries to look at me. He’s even gotten into fights with people a couple of times.
Which might happen in about five seconds if I don’t put his aggression to rest.
I step toward him, then.
I put my feet over his and wind my arms around his neck, kissing his beard. “Yeah, I’m sure. In fact, she said that my dress is pretty.”
His hands settle on my waist as he bows down to get our faces close together. “It’s not.”
“It’s not?”
He shakes his head slowly, his eyes all dark and beautiful. “You’re prettier.”
God.
My fingers fist in his shirt as something inside my belly flips and tightens. I still can’t believe that he finds me beautiful. That he finds me pretty and breathtaking and all the other things he murmurs when we’re in our own world like this and he’s being sweet to me.
I mean, I believe him but sometimes it’s hard.
I’ve always been insecure and shy and on top of that, I have a doomsday brain. So it’s hard to believe positive things about myself.
It’s hard to believe that I’m pretty and I’m loved and I’m accepted the way I am.
I try though.
I try because I’m brave and because I trust him with my whole heart.
“I told her you bought it for me,” I say, my one hand coming down to his chest and pressing over the spot where his heart is.
“You did?”
“Yup. I told her your favorite color is red but mine is pink, so you bought me a compromise.”
“What’d she say?”
“She asked me if you were my boyfriend.”
At this, he massages the flesh of my waist. He does it so forcefully and deliciously that I feel every inch of his hardness pushing into my body. “What’d you say?”
“I told her no.”
“You did, huh.”
I nod, kind of squirming against him. “Because you’re not my boyfriend anymore.”
“I’m not? So what do the kids call it these days?” he rumbles, all arrogant-like.
I roll my eyes at him. “I think it’s husband.”
His heart thunders under my palm. Not only that, his eyes flare and the hold he’s got on me tightens.
He’s actually gotten more possessive and protective ever since he stopped being my boyfriend and became my husband. You’d think that since I’m legally his now, he’d relax a little. But nope.
Marriage has had the opposite effect on my husband.
Even so, you can’t tell by the casual tone he uses. “Ah, okay. Husband it is, then.”
I narrow my eyes at him. He can be such an ass.
His smirk turns into a dark chuckle.
“Take me home, Mr. Edwards,” I order, raising my chin up.
Fuck grocery shopping. Fuck everything.
I need him.
Besides we’ve been driving for hours from Denver, trying to reach the cabin for the really big day tomorrow.
Oh yeah, we live in Denver now because I go to college.
I started in the spring of last year, when I was able to withstand crowds, and I’m actually liking it. I don’t have a ton of friends but I do have some, and all of them love Bukowski. We even have discussions about him.
Isn’t that awesome?
“Let’s go home,” I tell him again, going up on my tiptoes and kissing him on the lips.
Because I can’t wait.
Okay fine, marriage has had an opposite effect on me too. I’ve become greedier for him, hungrier. Maybe because I know he’s mine and I can have him whenever I want.
So I kiss him harder.
I know it’s a grocery store aisle and I know people are around but I’m feeling wild. I’m feeling like his beauty.
And I want my beast.
He comes for me. He does. The man who’s kissing me back becomes the beast for me. He shoves his tongue in my mouth and grabs the back of my neck. He presses our bodies together and I whimper, urging him on.
My husband has this thing about kissing me in public. He takes his cues from me.
When I have bad days and my anxiety is roaring in my ears, it’s hard for me to be his beauty. So he holds my hand and walks with me side by side, like my protector.
But on good days, like today, when I feel confident and happy and a little wild, he changes from my man to my beast. He gathers me in his arms and he kisses the fuck out of me.
Because I want him to.
When we come up for air, he rumbles, “Okay, Mrs. Edwards, I’ll take you home.”
And that’s what he does.
He takes me home. He takes me to the cabin that’s been my home ever since I came to find him there a little over two years ago.
In those years, it’s changed a lot, the cabin.
Even though we only spend a few weeks here, Graham has completely renovated it. Moreover, he’s done it with his own hands.
It took him two summers – the summer he sent me away before coming back for me, and the summ
er after that – to renovate the whole place.
But he did it.
He did it all by himself and I know why.
The night he came back for me in Connecticut, he told me he wanted to live in my world. He told me that he was tired of living in a lonely world and he wanted to live in a place where colors were brighter.
Later when he brought me back to the cabin, I told him something else.
I told him that my world had been lonely too. Sure, the colors were bright and dreams were abundant but they didn’t have any meaning. They weren’t complete. Not until him.
“We should make our own world,” I said, kissing him, tangled up in our sheets.
“Yeah?”
“Yup. We should make a place for ourselves. That belongs to just you and me.”
“Okay.”
I beamed. “And I want a reading nook in that. You have to build me a reading nook where I can read and write in my journal. Oh and also like, a way to get up to the roof so we can watch the moon together.”
He grazed his thumb on the corner of my mouth, mapping out my smile. “I’ll keep that in mind, Jailbait.”
“You do that, Strawberry Man.”
And like all his other promises, he kept that one too.
He made me a new world, our world.
This shiny, new cabin, in the middle of the woods, with a reading nook in our bedroom and a ladder that goes up to the roof.
But mostly, we have a huge rose garden, and that’s where I find him hours later.
After that kiss at the grocery store, he brought me back home in record time. By then, our desire was so palpable and strong that he fucked me in the truck. He told me to dance on his cock and I did. I writhed and rocked and kissed him, giving him a lap dance while he rode my pussy from below.
When we finally made it inside the cabin, he took my ass in the shower. It was slow and intense like all things with him. Once my beast is satiated for a bit, he goes all lazy and cuddly, and I can’t stop playing with his beard.
He fed me after that and ever since then, I’ve been sleeping. Until I woke up a minute ago to find that his side of the bed is empty and the moon is lit up in the sky like a light bulb.
A bulb that’s illuminating the contours of my husband’s bent body.
He’s got his usual t-shirt on – I stole his plaid shirt after the shower – and his plaid pajamas and he’s gathering roses from his garden.
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