Sadie's Mountain (12 page)

Embarrassment starts to really settle in as we’re outside and Dillon’s proximity isn’t such a drug anymore. I walk with my head down and start twisting my fingers together in knots like how my stomach feels.

“Please, don’t do this, Sadie,” Dillon says, with pain visible on his beautiful face.

“Do what?”

“Turn this into something bad or wrong,” he says, as I shrug my shoulders, lean against his car and put my head down. He walks toward me until I see his TOMS right in front of my teal espadrilles. He puts his fingers under my chin and eases me up to his gaze. “That was beautiful, Sadie. It wasn’t wrong. Not for us. Don’t feel guilty, please.”

I wiggle free from his hand under my chin and he steps back to give me space.

“I can’t do this,” I say.

Dillon’s knees buckle under him and he puts his hands to his head.

“Don’t, don’t say this. Please. It won’t happen again. I’ll, I’ll stay ten feet away from you at all times. I’ll do anything. Please. Don’t shut me out!”

“I have no control over myself right now, Dillon. This is just exactly the type of erratic behavior I try to avoid. My life is normally very controlled. I plan everything, every decision, every action. For the past two days I’ve been on some other planet being controlled by the moon or something.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“We had rules this morning and I’m the one breaking them. I’m not used to this. I’m all over the place emotionally. Happy one moment, crying the next, angry, hysterical with laughing fits, and then this, kissing you. If we’d been alone who knows,” I say, looking around bewildered.

“Would that be so wrong? It’s not like we’re strangers. This is what happens between two people who have feelings for one another, who have history like we do. It was nice, right?” his voice is sweet like candied yams.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know you’re scared, confused. I don’t want to cause you pain. We don’t have to decide anything right now, Sadie. Look, let me just get you some dinner and then we can head over to the meeting. I promise no more fireworks. I’ll stay clear. Give you space.” He makes the little bubble around himself like I did last night.

“Okay,” I say, opening the car door for myself so he can’t get too close. This isn’t going like I planned. Well, I’d planned on none of this—so no surprise I guess.

“Where are we going?” I ask as he slides into the seat next to me.

“It’s a cool place in Fayetteville called the Cathedral Café.”

“Cathedral?”

“Yeah, it used to be an old Methodist church. It’s beautiful. Stained glass windows, original old floor and everything.”

He must know about my antique collections
.

“They don’t have dinner every night but the owner is a friend of mine. She’s going to make something special for you.”

“Am I missing something?”

“Vegetarians are a bit hard to feed around here.” He utilizes that knee-weakening smile.

“What’s my meal to be then?”

“Can I surprise you?” I feign a pout and smirk at him. He smiles again. He can really keep up with my mood. And I’ve been wretched today.

Chapter Ten—Beautiful flaws

We pull up to the Cathedral Café and it really is an old church. “It’s beautiful with its flaws, isn’t it,” I say as I get out of the car and look up at the brown stone building, very old with a stone column branded with two white crosses leading up to a steepled tower. That’s why I like antiques. They have a past. They aren’t perfect. But I love them because of their flaws, because of the history of the piece, or maybe because of a funny story about how I found it. This building feels full—not empty and unimportant like most contemporary buildings.

One whole side of the church is a living wall covered in ivy. The sign that hangs near the door looks like the band Sublime’s album with the sun on it—kind of hippyish.
That’s it. Dillon is a new hippie.
The kind that eats at old Methodist churches, wears TOMS, and drives a Prius.

“What are you smiling about?” he asks me.

“You.” He raises an eyebrow at me.

“You’re a hippie!” I say, trying to keep a straight face.

“Well, I hadn’t thought about myself that way. But I guess you’re right,” he says, and smiles his crooked shy smile. As he gets to the steps he motions with his left arm and lets me go first. It’s obvious he’s being overly mindful of my personal bubble.

On the landing he comes up behind me; his warmth and his scent linger for a moment as he reaches the door, opening it for me. A perfect gentleman. This place smells amazing, like onions and garlic, hearty soup, or pizza baking. I’m suddenly famished and I lick my lips. There’s soft instrumental music playing over some hidden speakers. It’s very calm in here.

 Behind the long counter a young woman wearing an apron waves at Dillon. She’s pretty, with dark curly hair piled on her head, delicate features. She looks at me and stretches her arm out to shake hands.

“Sadie, this is my friend, Liz. Liz, Sadie,” he says.

“So nice to finally meet you,” she says, with a little gleam in her eye.

 I wonder what she means about ‘finally.’

“I’ve made you something special. Dillon says you’re a vegetarian and I love a challenge.” She motions to take a table. There is no one else here so Dillon picks the one in between the two huge stained glass windows.

“Great! What did you make me?” I ask as Dillon pulls my chair out for me.

“Roasted veggie raviolis with garlicky Alfredo and grilled shrimp—minus the shrimp for you, of course,” she says, as I sit and Dillon pushes in my chair.

“That sounds sinfully good.”
Fattening, but sinfully good.

“Good thing you’re in a church so you can repent in advance,” she says, with a chuckle. “Wine?” she asks.

I look at Dillon. “White wine for me,” he says as he sits down. “Sulfite free if you have any.”

“I’ll have the same,” I say.
Sulfite free?
I giggle again.

Liz comes back with some bread and raw veggies, hummus, and olive oil with vinegar. “Thanks,” Dillon says as he watches my expression.
This looks good! Definitely my kind of spread.

As I pick up a long zucchini stick and dip it in the hummus I take a look around. It’s lit with several hanging chandeliers, but it’s actually dim inside making the blue slatted walls look darker than I think they really are. The ceiling is high and steep, covered in old white tin tiles. The floor is old and imperfect, making it perfect in my opinion. There are walls of books and local art, almost like a library or an art gallery got mixed together.

 I saw them when we first walked in but, the two stained glass windows are as tall as the wall, like long rectangles with slightly pointy tops enhanced with beige wood. In the middle, the dominant colors of yellow and a deep red diamond pattern are absolutely dazzling to the eye. It’s both calming and exciting at the same time—kind of like Dillon.

“It’s beautiful in here,” I say. “For a church,” I qualify as I feign an eye roll.

“For a church?” he asks, his voice deeper than normal.

“I’m an agnostic. I haven’t been to church since I was fifteen.” He nods, slightly surprised it seems with the way he’s pursing his lips.

He was there. He knows what my dad said about me that night. How he blamed me for getting raped. Said it was my fault. That I’d tempted the dirt bag. That it was my sinful thoughts that lead to it. The sickest part is that I believed him for so long.

“You don’t have to explain, but, please, Sadie, don’t be so sad. This is a nice place and I want you to be able to enjoy it.”

“I kind of want to explain,” I say, looking at him to see if he can take it. If I can be honest with him. I’d always told him everything when we were kids. He was the best friend I’ve ever had.

“If that will make you feel better,” he says and motions toward me to say it’s my turn. I look at the window before I start to talk again.

“I guess you could say religion got tied up with
my attack
on a very deep, unconscious level,” I explain. “So, I started hating myself. Blaming myself. I went into such a deep depression thinking that God punished me, that he let that happen to me on purpose to teach me not to have certain thoughts about you.” I look up at him.

He fidgets in his chair. His mouth is in a thin line and then he puts his fisted hand up to his mouth. His chest is tight like he’s holding something in. His eyes look like someone’s set fire to his feet.

Liz pours the wine. It startles him. But he recovers and takes a sip. “It’s great. Thank you,” he says with a tight smile. She trots back to the kitchen. He looks back to me, pained.

“I never left my house at all—but I’m sure you know that. What you don’t know is that Daddy would come in and preach, sometimes. A lot of times, he whipped me.” Dillon winces and looks away from me. I start playing with a knot mark on the table top.

“I couldn’t really hear his voice when he preached at me, pounding his fist in his Bible. Momma’d try and talk me into going to school or ask me to go ride Monty. But I’d just lie there on my bed looking out the window. Or sometimes I’d sit in the chair and look out the window. I didn’t really eat or sleep. I just laid there until summer turned to fall.” Dillon’s face is surely proof that he’s imagining me in that state. He looks miserable.

“One day, Daddy came bursting in the room with his belt. He was screaming about the devil of silence. How it was a demon keeping me from talking. He started whipping me again—my arms, my stomach, the tops of my thighs.” Dillon’s other hand moves to the side of the table like he’s holding on during a scary ride.

“It’d seemed like the whip marks had just healed up from the last time he’d done it. It didn’t even hurt, though. It felt like it was just a husk he was hitting, not me. Momma came in the room and she pushed him away from me. I wasn’t even fighting back. I was just lying there. I must have looked so pathetic to her—maybe she thought I was dead. In a way I was.”  Dillon fidgets in his chair again. He squeezes the table so hard I think he could crack the wood.

 “So, she packed my bag. Daddy was screaming about my soul and the demons in me.  She told him that he needed to let me go. She said Aunt Lotty could help me more. If it was a demon it probably wouldn’t follow me all the way to California. That seemed to make sense to him so he agreed. It wasn’t until I got there that she helped me see that it wasn’t my fault. That I didn’t deserve it. That took years, actually. She even took me to church but I just felt like I was being judged in there. But never with Aunt Lotty. In her house I flourished. I started writing then. She brought me back. She’s a wonderful woman. Really, truly is. I think she saved my life.”

“I’m glad you went then,” he says. His voice is shaky and he’s still holding onto the side of the table. His chest is still tight. He can’t look at me. “I’m thankful that she helped you, even though I lost you because of it.” I look down.

“I have to tell you,” he says, “sometimes I hate your daddy for what he did to you.” He’s watching my hand as I rub my finger over the knot in the wood. “When I found you in the creek I should have brought you to my house or took you somewhere.”

Taking me to his house would have been worse—deadly.

“I have a lot of guilt for touching you, and then for not finding you when you needed me. I was running around looking for you when you were getting...” his voice hitches and can’t finish. He squeezes the table even harder.

 “You have nothing to be guilty for,” I explain. He looks at me and then looks away.

“The images in my head from that night,” he stops to swallow the emotions stuck in his throat, “they’ve haunted me all these years.” I wince thinking of what he saw.

“Tell me,” I whisper. He looks at me for a moment as if to see if I’m serious. I square my shoulders and look him in the eye like I’m on a job interview. “It’s just that there are pieces missing and it might help me to put it all together. It helps me feel in control, like I’m not some victim anymore.” He nods his head yes as if he’s building up the courage to speak the memory.  Liz pops out of the kitchen to bring our plates.

“Everything okay with the hummus and veggies?” she asks.

“Oh, sorry. We’ve just been catching up. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” Dillon explains. That makes her feel better. “Can I box it up for you?”

“Oh, yes, please!” I say. “I love hummus.” She smiles.

“It’s fresh. I made it about an hour ago.” I smile at her.

When she leaves, Dillon says, “I’ll tell you, Sadie, but under one condition—actually two.”

“Okay?

“First, you have to eat while I’m talking. I don’t want you starving when you go to this meeting tonight and second, I want you to promise me that you will stop me if anything I say is too much for you.”

“Okay.”

“Like, maybe you can think of a safe word. When you say it I’ll stop.”

“How ‘bout ‘stop’”

“I’m serious. I don’t want you to be sitting here enduring it if it’s not helping you in some way like you said it will.”

“Is it that bad?” I ask.

He bites his lip, his chest even tighter, puts his hand into a fist on top of the table. “Yes,” he says, his voice deep and indignant.

“Okay, I’ll tell you to stop.” He waits. I’m waiting. He looks at my plate.
Oh, he wants me to follow rule one.
So I cut one of the raviolis with my fork and put it in my mouth. It tastes of cream, artichokes, spinach, carrots, oregano, fresh basil, sundried tomatoes. It’s like a foodgasm. I groan, and with my mouth full I say, “It’s so good.”

He smiles fervently and his eyes squint and sparkle. He relaxes his chest and his fist turns back into a hand. That pleases him—seeing me happy, I think.

“Can we do this later?” he asks, suddenly buoyant. “I’d love nothing more than to just enjoy our meal together.”

“Of course,” I agree.

We sip wine and smile once in a while between bites. We don’t talk. We just enjoy our food and the music. I think that’s the beauty of a friendship like ours. We aren’t afraid to be quiet sometimes.