Wicked Sense (11 page)

Still broken inside, I wipe
my tears on my long sleeves
.
I stand
up slowly
and move to the front door
.
I take a deep breath before opening
it
.

On the other side
,
I find
D
rake and his ugly car.

Somehow his sweetness make
s
me even sadder, and the flow of tears
return
, now unchecked.

He sees my breakdown
, gets out
of the car
, and hurries
in my direction
. He stands in front of me, unsure if he should hug me, or hold my hands, or just leave me be. I make the decision for
Drake
and embrace him.

I squeeze him
tight
, but he
just
touches me softly.

We stay on the porch for a few minutes, hus
hed, motionless. I sob quietly, my
tears and
runny nose
smearing
h
is shirt, my arms squashing him, but he doesn’t move
. His breathing is steady,
relaxed
.
And relaxing.

I’m so grateful he’s been
quiet the
whole time. Not only
does he know
what to say at all times, but he knows when to keep silent.
I love how he does nothing, says nothing to spoil the moment. He says
nothing better than anybody
else
.

After
I finally
release
my death grip
on him
, Drake takes me by the hand to his car, and helps me
i
nto
the passenger seat. He closes my door gently
, walks over in front of the car, his eyes never leaving me, and
joins me
in
side.
H
e
gets
a Kleenex box from the backseat and hands it to me.

He looks
s
traight ahead, his hands on the steering wheel, and I understand he’s giving me some privacy. I blow my nose infinite times, dab my eyes and cheeks.
T
he mirror
tells me
I
don’t
look
good
.
N
o amount of Allure can erase
severe
allergy aftereffects compounded with a
massive
crying session.

Drake’
s still respecting my right to be a wreck
. I grab another Kleenex and wipe the mess I made on his shirt. It
startles
him, and he turns. He looks at me, inside me, through me, beyond the Allure, the puffy face, maybe beyond the Veil.

I lean in and our lips touch. It takes
him
a while to respond, but when he does, it’s magic.

Drake lives up to his reputation.

When I decided to
stalk her a little bit
th
is morning, I never expected it woul
d end like this.

She pulls away from our
brief
kiss.

I
t
feel
s
as if days have
passed. It’s a weird
sensation,
like I’m
disconnected from reality, floating in space. The car, the houses outside, even Skye, they all seem unreal.

She still has her hand on my shoulder, the Kleenex squeezed
against
my shirt. She looks at it, tries to pull the tissue back, but it’s stuck. “Oh,” she says.

And just like that, the
spell is broken
. She grabs a hand
ful of new tissues from the box
and begin
s
to clean
my shirt in earnest. I stay still, searching furiously for something smart to say. Actually, forget smart
—
anything
will do.

Skye has
n’t smiled yet, and that worries me. She looks around quickly inside the car,
and
then shoves all the sticky tissues into her
jeans’
pocket.

She stares outside, at nothing in particular. “Let’s go someplace,” she says.

I guess she means not school. My inner
responsible self
twitches
, but I calm him down
by
saying
that
the school will surely cut
us, recent accident victims, some slack. I turn the key in the ignition and the Volvo purrs, obliging.

I’m still stunned
,
but I do a little happy dance inside my head.

***

We drive in silence
. S
he doesn’t even ask where we’re going. It’s not
a long way
to
Green Lake.
I expected a deserted lot,
e
specially in this crummy weather, but it takes me a while to find a parking spot.
After w
e leave the car, she reaches for my hand
. W
e avoid the
noise coming from the kid
s
’
play area and
stroll toward the lake.

We stop by the kayak rental kiosk
, but it’s
closed
in October
.
Behind the kiosk, people wearing jeans and winter jackets play tennis on the court.
A
thletic and not-so-
athletic m
orning joggers follow the trail, focused, lost in their own private worlds.
Dogs are almost as prevalent as ducks and people.

In a simultaneous impulse, we both move to follow the trail.
I
embrace
her
shoulders,
and her arm goes around my waist
.
It
’s not only a protection against the chilly wind. It
feels natural.

I don’t remember being this close to anyone.

We amble like that for a long time
.
Sometimes we hear
the regional “on your left”
warning
from
cyclists
coming
up
behind us
.
It’s unnecessary here, because the paths are separate for bikers and
joggers, but Seattle’s people are
too polite.

Eventually, a
n abandoned
bench
beckons
. W
e sit
, still embracing
, and
stare
at the lake.
The water
’s
color matches the darkening sky. Green Lake should be renamed Gray Lake for today.

After a
few
minutes, she says, “So, Drake…” Uh-oh. Here it comes: the dreadful
talk
.

“Yes
?”
My voice is low, afraid
.

“I’m glad we did this,” she says, still not moving.

“Did what?” I
ask
.

She takes a while, but turns to me
. She
puts her hand behind my neck, pulling me to her,
and we kiss
. J
ust one long
,
tender
kiss.

“
Oh, this
,” I say.
“
Wait.
Are you flirting with me?”

Still no smile. Wow. I’m out of ammo. Well, I guess I don’t
need
to
say
much
.
And if that
i
s the talk, it couldn’t be less painful.

I’m ready for more making out, but I’m not
expecting
more
.
Skye
seems
fine too
.

We
just
watch the people. A jolly trio of seventy-year-old men on their morning walk,
their feet making a crushing sound
on the gravel path.
A kid on a bi
ke with training wheels laughs
manically as she accelerates.
Two
shirtless
guys
, being either brave or showy, flirt with a girl wearing a
sweater
and knitted gloves
.

Skye tells me she’s hungry
,
and w
e leave the bench in search
of
food. I guide her to a taco
and
burrito street truck on the edge of the park, close to Aurora
Avenue. It’s opening for lunch. W
hen we
o
rder, I learn she’s a vegetarian. There’s so much I don’t know about her.

The road noise so close to us annoys her.
After we get our orders,
w
e
go
back to the
park.
I find an empty picnic table and we have an impromptu—and completely unhealthy—brunch.
The messy meal
c
ould
n’t be more unromantic, but
she’s fine with it,
not grossed out
by my food. Good, because
I eat a lot of crap
.

We talk about innocuous things: Seattle and
London
most
ly. Nothing about our past and
,
maybe
most important
of all,
nothing about our future.

I love listening to her voice. Her accent comes and goes.
E
very time she slips into British, she forces herself back to American.
She talks to me
,
but her mind
is
somewhere else.
Still no smiles
.

We resume our
walk, but soon we
stop
at the Bathhouse Theater
. She inspects the old building
while I watch her from under a poplar tree. She stares at the announcement
s with
uninterested
eyes
. Across the trail from me, an elderly couple tend to a small flower garden.
Their deliberation is soothing.
I can easily see their love for gard
ening,
and for each other.

She catches me watching them, and
she
finally gives me a hint of a smile
, the faintest curving
of the lips. She walks to
ward
me, grabs my hand, and drags me back to the trail.

When we reach a bend with easy access to the lake, she tests the water temperature. Even for me, used to unheated pools, it looks insane. The fre
ezing water shocks her at first,
which might have been her intention anyway. But whatever it is she is doing,
it works. Skye walks barefoot i
n the shallow part for a few minutes, and she comes back from her personal tiny Antarctica with a relaxed smile.

She puts her sneakers back on, and we get back to the path. Right then,
I see someone who might put her mood over the top. I approach a
skinny
woman sporting short-cropped blond hair and a “Free Hugs For Everyone” t-shirt.

Skye takes advantage of the
woman’s written
offer (in other words, I force her to hug a stranger). But it works. Skye lets go of the embrace with a giggle. A
giggle
!

With
Skye temporarily
healed, we circle
back to the parking lot.

***

After
spend
ing
a pleasant morning
in the park, we
stop by
an ice-cream parlor. It’s great being free
o
n a weekday, no times to meet, no places to go. The city
is
ours.

I drive her
back
to her house, dre
ading the end of our day
.

“Do you want to go out sometime?” I blurt out.

“What, like a date?”
s
he asks, in a not-
too
-promising tone.