Dying to Forget (8 page)

I watch, unable to blink – even if I had the ability to do so, as he runs his hand through the soft, dark curls of his jet-black hair and they bounce gently down onto his forehead. He can’t be younger than me, so I assume he must be nineteen…the cap for my Assignment age limit.

As he brushes his teeth, too quickly, I think…I get glimpses of his chest and biceps. He’s not overly large, but is in obviously great shape. I guess he’s about six feet tall. My sordid past all but fades away as I visually absorb this man from head to toe. I guess my teenage hormones aren't forever broken after-all. No longer upset with the mix-up, I think to myself that I will have to thank the person who gave me this case…because despite the brick wall I've built around myself, I realize this man just might be perfect.

***

It takes him ridiculously long to get out of the tiny apartment he apparently lives in alone. Once we are outside, I drink in the fresh air –
I think I can actually smell it!
And when my Assignment hops onto a bike for a ride across town I revel in the feeling of the air on his skin. He didn’t wear a helmet though and I nag him over an entire city block for it. I hope he hears me.

We ride up and down some seriously hilly streets as I wonder where we are. It’s a place I’ve never been to, but it’s lovely. We pass block after block of tall Italianate and American Stick style row houses and I instantly fall in love with each neighborhood. The protruding bay windows are my favorite and I imagine some pretty great window seats inside the buildings.

We come to the top of a hill and the view on the other side takes my breath away. I’m looking at the Golden Gate Bridge not far off into the distance!

No way! I’m in San Francisco!

As the bike starts to fly dangerously fast down the other side of the massive hill, I remember this sensation…one of carelessness and feeling indestructible and I snap rather indecorously out of my architecture reverie to yell for the first time at my Assignment.

Slow down, or you’re going to kill yourself!

The bike continues at break-neck speed down the hill, dodging around the few vehicles on the narrow road. I suck in a deep breath and scream so loud I’m sure wherever my ears are, they are ringing in protest.

SLOW DOWN, NOW!

I feel the tug of gravity against us as the bike brakes are applied.

That’s better.

I wish I had my butt so I could collapse into a chair with relief. Instead, I see us cross over a set of trolley tracks and a man at a magazine stand whistles a hello in our direction. My Assignment releases the handlebars and waves an arm at him in response.

Keep both hands on the handlebars!

He ignores me and sets his free hand loosely on his thigh and somewhere my mouth pouts in unabashed aggravation. He is not making our first day easy on me.

***

When he finally stops and locks his bike up in front of a small but posh looking coffee shop, I will myself to relax. Surely we are safer with caffeine than his two wheeled horror-ride. He glides into the shop, and I say
glide
because his lithe and graceful body does just that, but instead of stopping at the counter to order, he pushes through the waist-high swing door and we disappear into the moderately small bowels of the shop.

As he reaches for a black apron with the name
Steam
scrawled across the front in simple white print, a woman with long brown hair in her twenties steps out of a narrow storage room. She has an armful of paper cups clutched to her chest and her expression softens when she sees my Assignment.

“Sloan. You’re on time for once.” She cocks an eyebrow at him before she sashays out of the room, returning to the front of the shop.

Sloan.
I like that name.

Sloan turns to watch her leave and I roll my imaginary eyeballs as he gazes at her round backside.
Men.
A flood of emotions move around me and for a second I’m not sure what I’m feeling…but then I get it…it’s
him
…feeling desire – for
her
.
Yuck.

Oh, get on with your job, already.

***

It’s amazing how many women come into
Steam
seemingly just to flirt with Sloan. By the end of his workday I’m ready for a mental bleach bath…at least a good spraying down with some sort of disinfectant spray. I lost count how many admirers he has after the umpteenth woman leaned her big, fake boobs across the serving counter and stroked his arm with her ridiculously gaudy manicured hand.

What is
most
surprising about the day was that Sloan seemed to hate the constant borage of female attention just as much as I did.
Am I wearing off on him already?
I doubt it…I want to snort…and roll my eyes…and cross my arms…and tap my foot, all while pouting tempestuously. Instead, I have to endure the dangerous ride on his bike again; first to the bank, so he can deposit his meager paycheck and then to the liquor store where he apparently has fans, because the owner doesn’t card him for his six-pack, before finally heading back to his tiny apartment.

Alone again…and on a Friday night? Interesting.

I can’t wait to dive into Sloan’s head to sort through his memories, to figure out what makes him tick, to discover what it is that has made him a potential threat to himself. But for that, I need him to sit still and be quiet for a bit so his mind has a chance to clear. So far, I haven’t discovered anything catastrophic that could lead to a downward spiral and my curiosity has me wanting to do mental cartwheels through his brain. So, I wait...rather impatiently.

I watch as he devours pizza and beer for dinner and chastise him about adding some fresh vegetables and fruits to his diet. I watch again, of course, as he showers…and that was…interesting, if not entertaining. And I watch some more as he sits on the couch, sprawled out in only gym shorts as he gets lost in the world of Reality Television. Not until I see the TV do I actually miss its escapism.

He starts to zone out and I know now is my chance…and with the training I’ve had ready to be of good use, I concentrate hard…opening up and letting his memories flood through me. When he passes out in the middle of an episode of
Punk’d
with his head on the back of the sofa and his hand casually tucked down the front of his shorts, I find it.

Holy crap.

I so badly want to forget what I’ve seen through Sloan’s memories. I want to cry for him, hug him and make it all disappear. I think of Mallory and wonder if this is how it was for her when she became my Volunteer. I want to shudder, hug my knees and rock back and forth on the ground like a scared toddler.

And I thought
I
had problems. Poor Sloan.

I don’t even know how to begin processing the information I’ve collected from him, so I start at the beginning. When he was four his uncle began molesting him. It lasted until he was nine, when his mother remarried and the blended family moved from Cleveland to San Francisco.

Years of being the third caregiver for his mildly Autistic step-brother changed Sloan from an imaginative, creative yet often times shy boy into a nervous and quiet recluse. And then he turned sixteen, started learning how to drive a car and with the few bouts of freedom he was able to get, he had just started coming out of his shell before the accident happened.

On a rainy day, he came down the hill near their townhome too fast and the slick road caused the car to slide out of control. Playing in the tiny front yard, dressed in a yellow slicker with green frogs, was Mick, his younger step-brother. Sloan couldn’t stop and the front of the car catapulted over the driveway column and crashed down violently into the front yard…right on top of Mick, crushing him. Sloan’s mother saw it all happen from the kitchen window. It took Mick three very painful days to die in the hospital.

Less than a year later, his step-father left his mother and her drinking addiction passed down to Sloan. Three weeks ago his mother died of alcohol poisoning. Sloan didn’t go to the small funeral; he was drunk in a bar down the street from his apartment, making out with one of the big-busted servers. He’s had over twenty sexual partners in the last year but a few weeks ago he had an STD scare and thankfully he’s kept his pants on for the most part since then.

Crap. This is a lot for my first case. Can I do this?

As I push further into his thoughts, I find the purpose for me being here. It’s the loaded .45 that he keeps hidden in the shoebox at the top of his closet. He bought it the day before yesterday, off a street punk for $50.
That’s how he plans on doing it…shooting himself?
It seems graphic but I learned in my training that more men than women choose a gun for suicide…it’s more efficient.

Oh, Sloan. How do I bring you back from here?

He sighs in his sleep and I know he’s dreaming of Mick…and his goofy smile.

***

I urge Sloan awake as soon as I feel see the soft glow of the sun as it makes its sleepy appearance on the horizon behind his closed lids. I have an idea on how to start his day differently from yesterday's, but I’ll need his help.

Wake up, sleepy head. It’s time to start a new day!

When that doesn’t work, I tap the ghost of my foot impatiently and chew on my missing lip.
Hmm.
Perhaps something with a bit more volume is needed?

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! THERE’S A FIRE! GET UP!

Sloan’s eyes fly open and finally I’m let out of the darkness.

“What the hell?” Sloan scrambles to his feet, patting at his chest and spinning around the room wildly. “What's burning?”

I love the husky sound of his early-morning voice. And I laugh deliciously that my warning was heard, though I know it’s a rude way to wake someone up.

Go take your thirty minute pee break and throw on your workout clothes, you are going for a run.

At first I don’t think it will work, but since he’s obviously wide awake thanks to my
FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!
joke, he stumbles around the saggy sofa, through the bedroom and ends up in the bathroom.
Yes, for small victories!

I wait as patiently as I can while he does his morning duties in the bathroom and I praise him when he takes five extra seconds brushing his teeth. He grumbles when he stands in front of his dresser. I know he is seriously considering my plea to go for a run and I want to jump up and down like a caveman, but alas, I have no legs. So I do what any girl would do, I help him pick the right outfit.

Dressed in dark blue workout shorts, a tight white t-shirt that hugs his muscles perfectly and a 49ers ball cap, he stops in the kitchen long enough to gulp down an eight ounce cup of water…at my constant insistence.
I think I’m getting the hang of this!
He pops the ear buds of his iPod in as he jogs casually down the stairs and I squeal in delight as Foster the People’s
Pumped Up Kicks
blares loudly into his ears.
Oh, music, how I have missed you!

See, Sloan. I told you this was going to be a better day.

***

I feel invigorated when we return to his apartment an hour later. Sloan is hungry and very sweaty…which doesn’t bother me at all as I catch glimpses of his form stuck to his damp clothing. But as he peels out of his outfit to jump into the warm shower I almost wish I have hands to cover my eyes. Thankfully he spends most of the time with his head under the warm stream, which means his eyes are closed. I think of all the times I showered or bathed, after Ryan Burke and that Mallory was right there with me.
Ick.
It’s sort of pervy, when I really think about it. No amount of female hormones has me excited to be alone in a shower with a ridiculously good looking young man. Not yet.

After he wraps a large and frayed towel around his narrow hips, he saunters into the kitchen to open the fridge. There’s nothing inside except for a moldy piece of cheese, barely an ounce left on the bottom of a Sunny-D jug and a bowl of partially dehydrated Jell-O.

Oh good lord, get dressed and go to the grocery store.
He reaches for the cheese and actually sniffs it before I snap at him.

Grocery store, NOW!

He glides through his apartment and stands in front of his old and surprisingly cool distressed dresser again, rubbing the stubble on his chin.
And I thought girls had a hard time picking out clothes.
After helping him decide on a pair of jeans and a fashionably frayed
Coca-Cola
shirt, he pulls on his shoes and tugs on his 49ers cap again. I try to tell him that’s gross…considering he put the sweaty hat on top of clean hair, but he ignores me.

You’re going to have awful hat-hair, just watch.

To my dismay, instead of hailing a cab, he unchains his horror-on-wheels from the courtyard bike locker and we pedal smoothly out onto the San Francisco streets. Today is different though, I sense a change in his riding. He’s not rushed at all and seems to be enjoying taking his time biking through the neighborhood. This gives me a chance to leisurely look up at the Queen Anne row houses in his neck of the woods. How come I never visited this city? It’s not that far away from San Diego.
Maybe because you were only eighteen when you died?
Sadness washes over me quickly and thoughts of my Father and Bree flood my mind. Aware that I am violating one of the major Assignment rules, which is to ‘never, ever, make things about YOU’, I struggle to turn my thoughts away from my past and stare through his eyes at the day around him.