Coming Back (8 page)

February 2014

Dean

My palms were sweating and my heart couldn’t have attempted to flutter its way up my throat any harder than if I had still been seventeen and I was picking Christie up to take her to the prom.  I closed my eyes for a moment to savor the feeling and it truly felt like going back in time, as if I was changing something that went wrong all those years ago.

Of course, my car was no limo and the restaurant in town was no prom, but it was still special.  For a start, this was the first time King wouldn’t be chaperoning us under the pretense of needing Christie to help exercise him.  It was just her and me tonight.

I took a deep breath and let it out with a puff, then opened my eyes and stepped out of my car, heading across the road and through the gate.  When I was halfway up the path, I saw that the front door was partially open and heard Christie’s little sister calling out from somewhere inside the house in an almost singsong voice.

“Have fun on your daaaaate, Christabelle!”

“It’s not a date!” Christie’s voice came from much closer, just behind the door.

“Then how come you’re all dolled-up like you’re putting out tonight?”

“I’m getting you a ball-gag for Christmas next year, Amber…”

I walked with intentionally heavy stomps and cleared my throat.  Christie pulled the door all the way open with a plainly worried look on her face.  Amber called back about what a great idea that was, and I heard the tone but not the words of Mrs. Jayne trying to rein her in.

“Oh, I saw your car pull up and I was just on my way out.  You didn’t… hear anything, did you?”

“Like what?” I lied.

“Nothing,” she said quickly and then called back inside that she was leaving.

Christie pushed the screen door open and pulled the main door shut behind her, and I saw her properly for the first time.  It was clear she was still having problems sleeping, but it looked like more and more of the Christie I knew was fighting her way to the surface.

My breath caught in my throat when she was done with the screen door and she turned those eyes on me.  She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, the most beautiful woman
anybody
could
ever
see.  It was all I could do not to explode into a cloud of confetti under her gaze.

“What are you so smiley about?” she asked.

“You.  You look amazing, Christie.”

Christie blushed lightly in the late afternoon sunlight and glanced down for a moment, pulling her jacket a little bit tighter around herself.  When she looked up again, it seemed my expression was
just
infectious enough to get to her, and I saw the corners of her mouth rise in the first real smile I’d seen her wear since she came back.

It lit up her face more than the sunshine and transformed her from simply exquisite by human standards to an almost otherworldly angel in my eyes.  For a second she was almost too beautiful to look at, like staring at the sun.

“You polish up pretty well yourself,” she said.

“I do, don’t I?” I said, smoothing down my shirt.

“So what’s the big secret?  It’s a little early for eating, isn’t it?”

“It is.  Come right this way and I’ll show you.”

I held out my hand as she came down the steps, every bit as thrilled as the first time when I felt her fingers slide over mine, and even more so when she didn’t let go.  I led her back to my car and opened the door for her, closing it carefully behind her after she swung her legs in.

After two minutes of driving, I parked the car and turned off the ignition.  Christie looked out her window at the empty car park and then at me with a raised eyebrow.

“There’s no game on, what are we doing here?”

“I was just thinking about you and this place and wanted to tell you something.  Figured it was a pretty good spot to say it.”

“Say what?”

“Not here.  Over there.”

I pointed at our high school’s football field, the scene of so much glory only a lifetime ago when the world had not yet dealt us any of the harsh cards and we learned that we, too, could be hurt.

Christie opened her door and stepped out before I could get there, but she accepted my hand when I offered it anyway and allowed me to lead her to the far side of the field, where I had her stand on the sideline as I looked from the yard markings to the stand and back again, trying to find the exact place.  Christie looked like she thought I might have gone a little crazy.

“What are you looking for?  Hoffa?”

“Nah, this is it.  You stand there.”  I pointed.

“Here?”

“A little to the right.”

“Here?  I don’t have my pompoms anymore.”

“That’s OK, I remember them,” I said.  “This spot ringing any bells for you yet?”

“We were here a lot, Dean.”

“Senior year, playing Newcrest High.  The old enemy.”

“Oh, that one.” Christie looked away with a wry smirk.

“Their quarterback, one Dumbass McGee, decides to take a detour before the game and do a little grab-assing of a Warfields cheerleader.  He bit off a little more than he could chew.”

“He tripped…”

“You turned around and
shoved
that dude clear off his feet, he landed on his ass right about there.”

I could
hear
the volcanic eruption of laughter from the local fans as surely as if they were all right here in their seats again.  I closed my eyes for a second and the cheering was all around me.

“He really tripped a bit at just the right, or wrong, time,” said Christie, smiling that intoxicating smile at my reverie anyway.

“He lost his team the game with that error in judgement.  He never recovered from it.  Do you remember how much the crowd laughed every time he touched the ball?”

“Sort of.  I… I actually felt really bad for him in the end.”

“They had the better team overall that year, but he kept on screwing up and keeping us in the game.  I bet he still gets panic attacks every time he sees a cheerleader.  So it comes right down to the wire, one play to win it for Warfields, I end up right here, throw the ball out to Chuck and I get
clobbered
, just absolutely
creamed
right here.  I think my leg ended up over there somewhere.”

Christie’s eyes followed the imagined trajectory of my throw, remembering the moment as clearly as I did, from a different perspective.  I saw her hands bunch up, gripping the memory of those pompoms she had on the day, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best as she remembered the anticipation of waiting to see if the pass stuck.

“I heard what happened first, all that cheering.  It was so loud,” I said. “When my vision cleared and the Newcrest guys got off me, you were the first thing I saw.  The way you were looking at me, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  You were balancing on some of the other girls’ hands, up in the air with that big smile on your face, and I felt like we ruled the world.  You and I.”

I slowly walked over to Christie and I saw her shrink a little bit as she returned to the present.  When I stood right in front of her, she looked up at me like a deer in the headlights, totally unsure about what to do.  I saw that internal battle in her every move and tremble, the arms folding across her stomach defensively and the way she subtly licked her lips as if in preparation for a kiss.

With one last tiny step forward, I moved gently into her personal space.  I could smell that perfume of hers in the calm air and feel the heat of her, so close to me at last.

“You remember when I said I always loved how when you get pushed, you push back?” I asked.

Christie nodded tentatively.

“What I meant was, I have always loved you, Christie.  That day playing Newcrest was when I realized it for the first time, and you’ve been in my heart ever since.”

Christie looked down.  “I... that girl… is dead and buried.  I’m all that’s left.  I don’t think I can,” Christie paused on the ‘L’ word, “rule the world anymore,” she finished.

With a gentle finger under the chin, I raised her head until she was looking at me again.  “You’re alive, Christie.  I think you can.”

I moved my hand to her cheek, stroking it with my thumb as I looked into her eyes.  She was really here with me, unlike the phantom crowd in the grandstand.  Christabelle Jayne, the one that got away.  If I kissed her, would she kiss me back?

Christie

I remembered that day he spoke about, that triumphant feeling of youth when all my unknown adventures were in front of me.  Anything had been possible, the sky was the limit.

My heart soaked up everything he said like somebody who had found an oasis in the middle of the desert just as they were about to die from dehydration.  I wanted, no, I
needed
to hear that.

On the other hand, I seemed to have forgotten what had come so naturally earlier in life, what to do when somebody kissed you.  His hand was warm on my cheek, so calm and reassuring, so tender.

Frozen with shock as I was, for Dean it must have been like kissing a mannequin for a few seconds.  Those lips pressed against mine weren’t Nick’s, but they were undeniably full of love and desire.

Inch by inch I melted, my arms unfolding so I could move closer to him, press my body against his as I slipped my hands around him.  There had been times when I felt like I’d never feel anything good again, that I was nothing but an irrelevant and inconvenient relic of the past.  A burden.

Dean didn’t make me feel like a burden, he made me feel like I was being lifted up into the sky with wind rushing through my hair and the sun on my face.  The gentle way his hands touched me made me feel like I was something to be cherished.

I couldn’t be sure what that funny fluttery feeling in my stomach was, but it was
good
.  I kissed him back as best as I could, timidly but with honest affection, my body slowly remembering the steps of the dance.

Our lips parted and, for a moment, hovered so close you could barely slip a piece of paper between them, then I leaned my head against his chest.  I could hear his heart, it was beating at least as fast as mine was, though I never would have guessed it from looking at his face.

After a while I felt him lean back and I looked up to his face.  Dean placed his hands on the sides of my head, his fingertips buried in my hair, and just looked at me for a moment with unabashed adoration.  It was a look that was as gentle as a breeze but powerful as a hurricane, and I couldn’t help but blush.

“There you are,” he said.  “Did that work up an appetite?”

“I’m starving,” I replied, not just talking about food.

Dean smiled and slipped one arm over my shoulders, leading me back across the field where we’d once ruled the world.  I huddled close to him as we returned to his car and he drove to the only restaurant in town that had much indoor seating.

Due to the early start, the restaurant was relatively empty when we sat down to eat.  The waitress knew both of us, and my friend Ella did a double take as she walked past the window and caught sight of us just as Dean was paying the check.

She jumped up and down, smiling, and then mimed the zipping of her lips.  Dean, noticing I was distracted, followed my line of sight, but she was gone by the time he looked.  That was the joy of living in a small town.

“What was that?” Dean asked.

“Ella saw us,” I said.

“Oh.  Is that a bad thing?”

I reached out and held his hand on top of the table.  “No.  It’s just… strange.  You know?”

“I can only imagine.  So, it’s still early.  Would you like to come back to my place for a movie?  Get out of the public eye?”

“And… and take me home after the movie?”

I blushed, thinking about what Amber had said just before Dean arrived.  Looking back at how much time I’d taken to get ready for this date, which was undoubtedly what it was despite all denials, I realized she was right in a way.

After everything he’d done, how sweet he’d been, I’d wanted to look nice for him, to be somebody he was proud to be seen with.  What he’d reminded me of on the football field would have made me jump him right then and there in a perfect world.  He’d only gotten better looking since school too, if that was possible, but, when it came right down to it, I couldn’t go all the way with him.  This was no perfect world and I wasn’t there yet.

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Well.  OK, then.”

In no time at all we were back at Dean’s house and King was nuzzling both of our hands within a few seconds of Dean opening the front door and turning on the lights.  Having gone through the pleasantries, King headed in the direction of what looked like the kitchen and we soon heard the sound of a dog bowl being nudged on the hard floor.

“Living room’s through there,” Dean pointed.  “Have a look through the movies on the shelf, pick anything you like the look of.  I’ve just got to take care of poor old King’s water dish.”

“OK.”

I wandered into the living room while listening to Dean make small talk with King as he retrieved the dish.  The buddy-cop camaraderie they had really tickled me.

Dean’s décor made me smirk a little too, it was
so
simple and very ‘bachelor.’  There was no art or pictures on the wall, unless you were very lenient in your definitions and counted the wallpaper, and the furniture was purely functional with a coffee table flanked on two adjacent sides by a couch and a comfortable-looking chair.

The one exception to the rule was situated against one wall, where a huge TV was mounted.  It was accompanied on the right-hand side by a proudly-displayed collection of movies in their cases that were, by the looks of things, in alphabetical order.

“You want anything to drink?  I’ve got wine.”  Dean called from the kitchen.

I tilted my head to the side as I started to read the titles and considered being daring, but thought better of it.

“No, thank you.  I’m not supposed to mix alcohol with my pills, it’ll make me crazy… er.  I’ll just have what King’s having.  In a glass, not a bowl.”

“OK.”

I pulled a case off the shelf and flipped it over to look at the back cover.  “Hey, they made a Dark Fox movie?  What about this one?”

“No!  Hell no,” Dean said, returning with a couple of glasses of water.

“Not a good one?”

“Just… I really don’t want to watch that tonight.”

“OK, some other time maybe.” I slotted it back on the shelf and continued browsing, eventually settling on a classic drama that Dean didn’t vehemently object to.

I sat on the couch as Dean loaded the disc into the player, sitting right on the edge so as to be able to reach the coffee table where my water was.  Dean dimmed the lights as the studio and production company promo clips rolled and settled in next to me, leaning comfortably against the backrest in contrast with my nervous posture.

After that moment on the football field, that kiss, and dinner, I was saddened at how awkward I felt again.  I’d remembered some steps to this dance earlier, but there were a lot still missing.  I could smell his cologne now that we were inside again.  He smelled criminally good.  I could see his leg, just to the left of mine, but not quite touching.

I wanted to feel him, to wrap myself in that affection and give him the same, leaving him in no doubt that I had feelings for him, but how was I supposed to open up?  If I managed
that
, then how was I supposed to stop myself from moving too fast and sending myself into a nervous breakdown?

He was near enough to make it easy for me to close the last little bit of distance, but far enough to respect my unknown boundaries.  I took a sip of my water and set it down on the table again, gulping embarrassingly loudly to my ears.

Why couldn’t this be easy?  Why couldn’t anything be easy?  I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and was hit by his wonderful smell again.

No less anxious than the first time I ever played seven-minutes-in-heaven, I self-consciously shuffled backwards, pulled my feet up under me, leaned up to Dean, and gave him a soft kiss that grew more intense for a few seconds before the opening credits of the movie started.  I cuddled up next to him and he put his arm over my shoulders, pulling me close.

King padded in from the kitchen and plonked himself unceremoniously down on the floor in front of the TV, though he wasn’t facing it when he rested his head on his paws.  Even like that, the big dog looked alert.

Held lovingly like that, so tight and yet so carefully, and with King around for support, it felt like for the first time in forever I had somebody guarding my back.  As I vaguely watched the movie, I felt my muscles unclenching slowly, relieving pain I’d lived with for so long it had become silent background noise.

Oh my gosh, this feels good.

A wave of exhaustion slowly rolled in and attached little lead weights to my eyelids, and the voices of the actors on screen turned into a blur that I couldn’t follow.  I mumbled something.

“Hmmm?” asked Dean.

“I need to sleep.”

“Oh, you need me to take you home now?”

The thought of walking to the car, let alone going all the way home and walking all the way to my room as well, was daunting, especially with limbs and eyelids that weighed as much as mine did.  The last thing I wanted to do was leave this feeling of safety when I’d just found it.

“Could I… stay?  I just need to sleep.”

“Sure you can.” Dean paused and thought for a second.  “You can have my bed, I’ll take the couch.”

I pulled away to let him lean forward and juggle a couple remotes to stop the movie before he stood up and offered his hand to help me to my feet.  I accepted it and let him lead me to his bedroom.

His bed wasn’t huge or expensive looking, but to my desperately tired eyes, it seemed like something fit for a queen.  I stumbled towards it in a haze, turning to sit on the edge and fighting what felt like an unwinnable battle to stay awake long enough to text my parents and let them know I was safe.

Dean saw me fumbling with my phone.  “You want me to call your parents?”

I nodded with my eyes closed and found it very difficult to open them again, but eventually I managed it.  “Do you have something… like an old shirt I can wear?”

Dean took my phone and headed over to a set of drawers, rummaging around in one of them for a while before pulling out a t-shirt that would almost come down to my knees.  He handed it over and I held it up to have a look at the faded logo of an old rock band.

“Thank you, Dean.  I had such a good day.  I felt,” I struggled for a few moments to try and sum up how different the world looked when I was with him, how far away the terror seemed to get, how he made me feel like I was somebody special again, but the words were beyond me.  “Alive,” I finished.

“So did I, Christie.  Sleep well, I’ll make sure your parents know you’re OK.” He held up my phone and gave it a little shake before leaning down and giving me a sweet kiss on the lips.

“Night,” I said as he closed the door behind him.

The task of getting changed out of my clothes and into my makeshift nightshirt delayed my getting into bed long enough that I almost cried.  I slid under the covers and reached out to the bedside light as I heard the tones of Dean talking to my mom or dad on the phone.

When I flicked the switch, instead of dropping immediately off to sleep, I snatched my hand back under the blankets straight away, as if something was going to grab me in the darkness.  The only light that came into the room flowed in from the crack under the door, and it wasn’t enough.

Dean finished the call with my parents, and it was only then that I realized it had started to rain at some point while we were watching the movie.  Big fat drops drummed like fingertips on the window and sent a shiver down my spine.  Anything could be out there.

I felt myself slipping back into the same old routine of fighting off sleep, all that sensation of safety slipping away so much easier than it had come.  With the covers pulled up to my chin, I stared in the direction of the window, which I could barely make out in the darkness.

When I heard Dean rummaging around in the hallway cupboard, presumably for some bedding to fix up the sofa for himself, I called out to him.  Sitting up in the bed, I saw the door open and Dean outlined there, silhouetted by the light behind him.

For a second I was transported back to that house in the forest.  How many times had I prayed, wished, dreamed of hearing something from the other side of the door before somebody like Dean opened it, saving me from that hell.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

“Just… could you… stay?  With me?”

“In here?”

I looked down at my hands, gripping the covers like a terrified little girl, because I couldn’t look at him.  Dean had this idea about me, he’d shown it ever since I came back, that I was unbreakable.  He was wrong, but when I saw him look at me like that, I wished more than anything I could be that girl for him.

“Not for… anything.  Just, stay with me?  Don’t leave me alone?”

There was no doubt that Dean heard the unspoken ‘because I’m scared,’ but he didn’t say anything about it.  Lit from the back as he was, it was hard to read his expression when he answered.

“Yes.  OK, yes.  Just let me turn everything off.”

In a few minutes every light in the house was off, but I could hear Dean come back into the room with soft footsteps and the rustling of clothing.  The mattress shifted under me on my right as Dean pulled the covers back and slid into bed.