Beyond Repair (5 page)

“I still really need the bathroom!” she said, then wished
she hadn’t gone with that exclamation point on the end. The words themselves
sounded bad enough, but with the panic placed on top…it was no wonder he somehow
ended up halfway across the room. He probably thought she was going to pee on
him.

Though that wasn’t really what his expression seemed to say.
It was less disgusted and more sort of hurt—as if she’d cringed away from a
slap he was never going to give or maybe balked over his disgusting advances.
Of course, both those things were completely ridiculous. She was certain that
no one like him could ever think like that.

But either way she felt the need to draw a line through
them.

“Actually, you know…I’m all right. Maybe you should come
back.”

“I should come back?”

“Yeah, come over,” she said, and was proud of herself for
doing it. It put her out on a limb and it kind of made her throat catch, but
she felt she covered her fear admirably.

Though like always, she was proven wrong shortly afterward.

“Even if you kind of sound like you’d rather I stayed over
here?”

“Just ignore my voice. There’s a frightened nun living in my
throat.”

He went to answer and had to stop to make room for the most
awesome laugh. It was all surprised and full of joy, and it followed through
into his words.

“Who are you? I must be dreaming you. Did I die, and this is
my reward?”

“If your idea of being rewarded after death is a five-foot-five-inch
hermit who makes you run right off a bed, you probably need to rethink your
priorities.”

“You’re five foot five? Seriously? I thought you were
smaller.”

It’s just because I hunch, and now have one leg shorter
than the other.

“It’s just because you’re enormous. You’d probably think
King Kong was kind of petite if you ever got the chance to meet him.”

“How would I ever get the chance to meet King Kong?”

“If there was a nuclear disaster and all the animals mutated
into giant versions of themselves. In which case you’d just be like, hey,
everything is now normal sized.”

“That’s completely not fair. I’m only six-four.”

“Do you really think saying six-four makes you seem less
enormous? That’s the tallest I’ve ever known anyone be. I almost searched your
shoes last night for lifts.”

“You did, huh?” he asked, and as he spoke she could see he
was starting to creep back toward her. By the time his next words were out he
was almost at the bed again, because apparently their words were a doorway.
They let all kinds of things back in before either of them had even had the
chance to think about it. “Well, I hate to disappoint you—but it’s all me.”

“No apple boxes, then?”

“Nope.”

“They don’t CGI you an extra couple of inches?”

“Feel me and see.”

He was close enough to do it now, but she couldn’t quite
bring herself to. She did work up the courage, however, to pat the bed beside
her. And she was more than glad when he took the invitation—despite his
addendum.

“Okay, I’m gonna lie down next to you. But we’ll just take
this pillow here and put it between us, so there’s no cause for alarm.”

It was her turn to laugh, this time.

“Because we’ve suddenly transported back to the eleventh
century?”

“Yeah. This is, like, courtly love.”

“I see.”

“It’s pure and chaste and most importantly, unthreatening.”

“I don’t think you’re threatening, Bernie,” she said, then
immediately wanted to take it back. She hadn’t even meant to say it—the word just
popped out of her, as though they were close enough to give out cute epithets.
He probably didn’t even remember her calling him Bernard, and for one horrid moment
she hung suspended over a pit of complete embarrassment.

But he pulled it back.

“I’ve always wanted a goofy nickname,” he said, and as he
did his eyes closed in the same way they had the night before. They drifted
shut all slow and sweet, as though he was savoring the very thought of being in
that place with someone—a place of safety and warmth and weird desires.

It made her think she might be going mad. That she was just
imagining the connection she could feel slowly blooming between them. No one
connected that fast, and she was going to prove it. She was going to unearth
all the rest of the people he formed immediate bonds with, with a well-timed
comment.

“People must have called you cute things before,” she tried.

Then watched as the whole plan nosedived.

“People call me Stark. Like a 1930s newspaper reporter.”

“Well, what about when you were a kid?”

“When I was a kid I spent so much time around important
industry people I started to think my first name was ‘you’. ‘Hey, you, stand
there.’ ‘Hey, you, you’re blocking the shot.’ ‘Hey, you, get out of the way.’
Even my mom started doing it after a while, which is probably why we don’t talk
much anymore.”

She wanted to stop there, she really did. The mom story was
bad enough on its own, without adding even more terrible things to the pile.
Yet somehow she found herself trying one more time. There had to have been
someone else he’d invented names and shared silly jokes with, and all of that
stuff.

There had to be.

“But you must have girlfriends who—”

“Girlfriends who what—want me to be a Bernard? Good God, no,
that’s never happened before. I had one who thought it was cool to call me
Captain Amazing, but I really don’t think that’s the same thing. No, no, people
I hang around with would never dream of turning me into some ordinary nerd. I
don’t think they’d even understand what makes me so happy when you do.”

“It’s pretty obvious.”

“To
you
.”

She fell silent then and filled it with plucking at a thread
that had come loose from the pillow between them. It made her look as if she were
idly passing the time, rather than what she was really doing—debating whether
or not to go a little deeper. He might not like it if she did. She certainly
wouldn’t have.

But in the end she had to try. It was practically a
compulsion. It made her gums ache and her palms sweat, though she knew why she
couldn’t fight it. It would have been easier to wrestle with the waves on the
ocean. It would have been easier to pluck people falling from a crashing plane
out of the sky.

“Is that why you did what you did?”

She heard him sigh, but forced herself not to look. If she
looked, she might get scared and try to run away from this conversation. And
then the next she knew he’d be on the news in a coffin, being carried by people
who turned him into a 1930s news reporter or thought his name was “you”.

“Are we there already?”

“We probably should have been last night. I should have
called a doctor, and you should be in hospital now discussing this with someone
who knows how to help you.”

It was true, but it sounded grimmer than she’d intended. He
wasn’t dead, yet every bit of lightness and humor in their conversation
suddenly was.

“I don’t think anyone knows how to help me.”

“I’m sure there must be someone who—”

“Though I’m starting to think you might.”

That jolted her. It jolted her so hard she almost turned to
see if he was joking, but managed to save herself at the last minute. She
focused on the thread instead—the one that she was now winding around her
finger.
Tighter
, she thought,
tighter
, until there wasn’t a
single drop of blood left inside it.

“You don’t even know me,” she said, and wasn’t that true? He
didn’t even know her real name. He didn’t even know she wasn’t American.

“I know you saved my life. I know you trusted me when I
shouldn’t have been trusted. I know you hugged me when I didn’t know I wanted
to be hugged.” He paused just long enough for her to realize she wasn’t
breathing. “You did it because you were glad I was alive, right?”

She couldn’t give the answer she wanted to—
Yes, yes, a
thousand times yes
. It sounded stupid enough in her head and besides… She
knew she would choke up if she said it. She couldn’t possibly choke up over
someone she’d met yesterday. So she went with something simple and guarded,
instead.

“Maybe I did. Maybe I did.”

“You know how good that feels? To know someone’s glad I’m
alive?”

Not even a little bit. Not anymore.

“I think a lot of people feel that way about you, Holden.
You should visit this place called Tumblr, sometime.”

He made a sound, caught midway between a laugh and a snort
of frustration.

“It’s not the same. You didn’t do it because I’m a movie
star.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because you don’t like that I’m a movie star.”

She couldn’t help the rueful smile that spread over her
face, to hear that. Of course he was right—but wasn’t it brilliant that he was?
Maybe it wasn’t so strange that they were connecting so fast, if he already
knew her so well. He kept guessing all the things and she in turn found she
could read him, so really where else could they be?

In a good friendship
, she thought, frantically.

We’re just really, really good friends and that’s all.

“Very perceptive of you.”

“Thanks, but I can’t take any credit. It’s so obvious I kind
of want to pretend I’m Bernard just so you don’t shy away so often, or look at
everything but me.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m gawking, like an idiot.”

“Honey, you do the opposite of gawking. You actively refuse
to look.”

She swallowed thickly, before responding. “Sorry. That
sounds awful.”

“It’s not. But it does make me wish for the first time in
forever that someone wanted to look at me more, rather than less. You’re not
even looking at me now.”

She’d kind of thought she was, then realized elbows probably
didn’t count. She had to raise her eyes to his face and hold his lovely gaze
and not worry that he’d be bothered—because he wasn’t. He actually wanted her
to look, and judging by his expression he wanted it very badly.

“Is that better?”

“Well, it’s kind of making my heart beat faster. Does that
count?”

She nodded, not sure she could speak. Was he for real with
this? Hadn’t he heard her desperate attempts at making them just friends with
her thoughts? Friends did not let their hearts beat faster when they looked at
each other’s faces. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Yet somehow they were going there anyway.

Her own heart felt as if it were trying to run right out of
her body. Her eyes kept trying to swallow him whole, and she was pretty sure
his were doing the same thing to her. Something had to be dragging her closer,
at the very least. It certainly wasn’t her will. Her will wanted her to ask him
again why he’d done it.

And it won by a hairsbreadth.

“Stop changing the subject.”

“How am I changing the subject?”

By looking like you want to kiss me
, she thought,
even though that was crazy.

She went with a much saner option for her real words.

“I don’t know but you’re doing it.”

“And if I stop, what then? Do you really want to hear about
my ridiculous movie-star problems? Oh woe is me, my diamond tiara is too tight.
No one wants to hear that, Alice,” he said, though it was his tone that really
got her. He sounded so sneering, so dismissive of himself. It beggared belief,
when she thought of all the things he’d told her with his words and actions and
gestures.

She had to point them out to him.

“You just told me that your mom changed your name to
you
.
When you hugged me, it felt as though you were a robot just learning what
affection was. I almost took out an oil can to lubricate your hugging joints,
for God’s sake. It’s understandable that you might want to…you know…maybe hurt
yourself.”

“I didn’t really try to hurt myself. Well, maybe I tried to
hurt myself a little. But I was just drunk and stupid and right in that moment
it seemed like a good idea.” He swallowed thickly, once, twice, before
continuing. “Though I want you to know, I don’t think it was a good idea now. I
realize how lucky I am to have the things I do—to be healthy and alive and
successful.”

“Sometimes it’s not enough to be those things, Bernie.
Sometimes we need more than that. We need to feel like we’re
understood
.”

“And you think you can understand me?”

“I know that I’m willing to try. I’m here, if you want to
try.”

There was a long, long silence after that. His head dropped
back against the bed, and he seemed to breathe in this shaky sort of way for a
while. But when she finally worked up the courage to put a little finger out,
and just rub it against his crooked arm…

It came out of him in a rush.

“I just don’t deal well with pressure, that’s the thing.
It’s always been the thing, but lately it’s like a fucking nightmare. Sometimes
I’m so afraid of making the wrong choice that I just don’t make any choice at
all. And the bigger I get the worse it is because suddenly the wrong thing is
watched by half the world and inside I’m so tiny. I’m so fucking tiny, but I
just don’t know how to explain that to anyone. I’ve never dared to say any of
this to a single living soul.”

He cursed under his breath, which prepared her somewhat for
the last little kicker.

Not enough, however. Oh God, not enough at all.

“And that’s so fucking lonely I could die.”

It was as if he’d spoken with her voice, though she didn’t
know how to tell him that. She was too busy suddenly and silently leaking out
of her eyes. Something wet streaked down one cheek and she was so embarrassed
she went to sit up, so he wouldn’t see.

It was too late though.

“What are you crying about?” he asked, and despite the fact
that he did it in the best kind of way—with warmth and surprise, rather than
laughter—she couldn’t explain in any manner that made sense. She just blundered
words out like a child, unable to articulate her plain dumb feelings.