Watch Over Me (8 page)

After just a few weeks, I'm used to seeing his familiar scribble on napkins, and I
almost expect it and anticipate it so it isn't much of a shock anymore. When he gets
up from his corner table and walks out the front door with a wave, I hold my breath
and scream at the butterflies in my stomach to pipe down as I head over to the table
to clear it and grab the note I know will be waiting for me. What I don't expect to
see in my lap is something so reminiscent of my mother that it takes my breath away.

"Mom, I'm seventeen years old. You don't have to pack my lunch for school," I tell
her with a roll of my eyes as she pulls a napkin out of the holder on the table and
grabs a pen from the junk drawer.

"Nonsense. If I don't pack your lunch, you won't eat. You're skinny enough as it is.
Plus, if I didn't pack it, I wouldn't be able to leave you notes," she says with a
smile as she draws her usual stick figure on the napkin with its arms open wide and
the words "I love you thiiiiiiiiiiis much" written underneath.

"There. Perfect." She folds the napkin in half and sticks it in the brown paper bag.
"Now you can go off into the big bad world of high school and tell all of your friends
that your mother still writes you love notes and puts them in your lunch."

I shake my head at her, and with a sigh, grab the bag out of her hands and walk toward
the door.

"It's a good thing my friends know you, otherwise this would be really embarrassing,"
I shout to her over my shoulder as I head out to the driveway.

I used to always pretend like it embarrassed me when she did things like that, but
honestly, it never did. It made me smile and it made me feel loved. For as long as
I could remember, she left those notes in my lunch, around the house, or in my car.
For Valentine's Day every year she would buy me a stuffed animal that either held
a heart in its arms with the words "I love you thiiiiiiiiis much" on it, or it would
speak those words out loud when you pulled its arms apart.

My heart beats erratically in my chest and the words on the napkin in my lap grow
blurry as I feel my eyes fill with tears. I will NOT cry. I refuse to cry. If I start,
I'll never stop. If I think about her, I'll never stop. It will be a never-ending
influx of memories and conversations that will just NEVER STOP.

"Stop, stop, stop, please stop," I whisper to myself over and over as I squeeze my
eyes closed and mentally calculate how many dozen cupcakes I need to make to fill
next week's order for the Father Daughter dance at the elementary school and how many
pounds of sugar, flour, and butter I need to remember to order when the delivery company
shows up this week.

I should never have thought about that memory. As soon as I saw those words and the
stick figure, I should have crumpled up the napkin and thrown it into the street before
my mind opened itself up. I've taught myself to shut everything off in the last year
and a half. No memories, no emotions, just keep moving forward and pretend like she
never existed. If I pretend like she never existed, I can breathe. If I pretend like
she was never real, I can wake up each morning and not feel like my heart is being
ripped out of my chest.

"Hey, are you okay? Addison, open your eyes."

I hear his voice right next to me, but I can't open my eyes to look at him. I'm afraid
to open them. If I open them, it will all be real. I'll feel the heat of the sun on
my skin and the brush of the wind across my face, and I'll know I'm not sleeping.
I'll know that I'm awake and alone. I'll know that I haven't been dreaming all this
time; that she's really gone and never coming back.

"Addison, come on, open your eyes. Whatever it is, it's okay. It's okay."

I feel his arms around my shoulders, pulling my body up against his on the bench,
and I want to relax into him and take the comfort he is offering, but I can't let
go of the stiffness in my body. I'm not used to leaning on someone, figuratively OR
literally. I smell his cologne and it reminds me of our interaction in the elevator.
It reminds me of just how adept he is at making me forget about my problems, and I
instantly feel like I can breathe again. I can breathe as long as I can breathe
him
in. I can function because he makes me forget. I just want to forget. I slowly open
my eyes, and I'm staring straight into his pale blue ones focusing on me with such
concern and worry.

"How did you know I was out here?" I whisper.

He chuckles and then lets out a deep sigh, tightening his arm around my shoulder.

"I went inside for my coffee, and when I didn't see you there, I asked the girl at
the counter. Meg, I think she said her name was? Is she a tad bit crazy? I thought
she was going to climb over the counter and jump on my back or something when I asked
where you were. I saw you sitting out here with your eyes closed so I snuck the napkin
on your lap."

His face falls as I suddenly shrug out from under his arm and move a few inches away
from him on the bench. Not because I want to, but because I have to. I don't understand
why a stranger would want to do something like this for me, and my distrust of people
makes me question his motives, but at the same time, his confidence and the familiarity
with which he interacts with me makes me want to let my guard down. My brain and my
heart are at war with one another, and I can already tell it's going to be a vicious
battle. One look into his eyes, and I want to unburden myself of everything. No one
has looked at me like that in a long time—like they're concerned for me and just want
to make things easier on me. No one wants to help me or cares if I'm okay. They just
assume I'm strong and independent because I don't wear my emotions on my sleeve, but
they have no idea. Zander barely knows me and he instantly knows I need comfort, even
if he doesn't know why. I want to tell him to run as fast as he can because I'm broken.
Funny thing though, I don't want him to go. I don't want to do anything that will
make him leave because I don't want to be strong anymore. I'm so tired of being strong.

Zander reaches over and pulls the napkin off of my lap, just as quickly as I forgot
it was there. That one little piece of paper that had the power to do so much damage
and I forgot all about it because he was so focused on me and how he could help me
instead of the other way around like everyone else in my life.

I look away from his eyes and focus on his hands while he begins ripping the napkin
to shreds in his own lap.

"Why are you doing that?" I ask him softly, watching the stick figure get beheaded
and then lose all of his limbs as the torn pieces land in piles on top of his thighs.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done this," he tells me quietly.

I start to feel uncomfortable that he somehow knows why it upset me. He knows that
I'm messed up and almost had a panic attack over a stupid napkin drawing. He knows
that I have entirely too many issues, and he should just get up and walk away right
now.

"Obviously I need to work on my artistic skills. This stick figure was atrocious.
If someone handed that to me I would have gotten upset too. His head was too big and
he had googly eyes."

He says it so seriously that it strikes me as the funniest thing I've ever heard,
and I want to laugh out loud, but that feeling is foreign to me. I haven't laughed
out loud in a long time. I bite my lip to hold back my smile as he scoops up the pile
of ripped apart napkin and crumples the pieces in his fist, holding it up in the air.

"As God is my witness, I shall never draw stick figures again!" he shouts loudly.

The fierce look on his face and the handful of strangers walking by, who jump and
take off walking in the opposite direction as fast as they can, push me over the edge.
The laughter bubbles out of my throat before I can stop it. The sound is so strange
to me that I immediately clamp my hand over my mouth to contain it, but it's no use.

"Don't run from your fears! Bad stick figure drawing is serious, people!" he yells.

"Oh my God, stop!" I laugh at him.

He lowers his hand and studies my face with a smile, cocking his head to the side.

"Only if you promise to never hold that laugh in again," he tells me softly.

I swallow roughly at the sweetness of his words, trying to ignore the pull I feel
toward him by attempting to keep things light and not so intense.

"Are you going to say something cheesy again like 'you're beautiful when you laugh?'"
I ask him with a smile, unable to believe that this guy can make me go from completely
panicked one minute to laughing hysterically the next. The power he has over me should
scare me, but for some reason it doesn't. He reminds me what it's like to forget about
my problems and just laugh like no one is watching. He makes me feel alive again.

"I might. I've been known to throw out a little cheese now and again."

I shake my head at him and glance down at my watch, realizing I have thirty seconds
to get inside and remove the muffins from the oven.

"I have to go. Thanks for…well, just…thanks," I tell him sheepishly as I get up from
the bench and hurry to the door of the bakery before I make a fool of myself.

"YOU'RE STUNNING WHEN YOU SMILE AND LAUGH, ADDISON!" he yells to me. I let out an
embarrassed laugh as I open the door and walk inside. I catch my reflection in the
mirror right inside the store, but all I see is an average girl. I'm 5'4 with boring,
brown, wavy hair that hangs past my shoulders, unless it's in my usual messy ponytail.
I have a dusting of freckles on my nose and my mother's gray eyes, which I've always
thought were my only redeeming quality. But Zander thinks I'm stunning. He sees something
that I've never seen.

I may not have figured out how to shut off my mind to take some time for myself and
do some writing, but right now, it doesn't seem to bother me very much.

"
I can't tell you whether or not what your feeling is right or wrong, Addison. I can
only give you the tools you need to make that decision for yourself."

Dr. Thompson's cryptic response to my question about the strange connection I feel
towards Zander so soon doesn't help me in the least. I want her to tell me that it's
crazy how comfortable I feel with him and it's pointless to waste time I don't even
have thinking about him.

"Do you feel like he's someone you could eventually trust and confide in?" she asks.