Finally, Forever (8 page)

“Are
you having your deep thought for the day?” he asks me.

“
Today I’ve had too many to count,” I admit. I wish I could share my spatial proximity data analysis with him. I know he’d appreciate it.

“Since when is your hair wavy?” he asks
, studying me.

“When I cut it short, it just
got wavy. I guess when it’s longer it straightens out.” I smile. “Even my hair can’t make up its mind.”

Gray
keeps his eyes on mine.

“Snicker bar’s probably worried about you,” he says.

So, that’s what he’s thinking about. No, Nick isn’t worried about me. He would be ecstatic to hear about my current situation, and enraged that I’m not taking full advantage of it. 

“Probably,” I say
and try to tussle the knots out of my hair with my fingers.

“Sorry if I was
being a jerk earlier today,” Gray says. I meet his eyes, surprised by the apology. “I was a little shocked to see you and then meet your boyfriend,” he admits. “It was a lot to take in.”

I open my mouth to cut him off. I can’t lie to him about Nick. It’s time to come clean.

“Gray—”

“But, he’s good for you,”
Gray says with a satisfied nod as if this is a theory he’s recently comes to terms with.

I look down at the floor and feel my forehead crease with confusion.
What? He’s condoning our relationship? That doesn’t make sense. Sue Anne is no longer a messenger of Fate. She is a messenger of Bullshit. 

I look back at him.
“Why do you think that?” I ask.

“I don’t know,”
Gray says.

His unresponsive response annoys me.

“Yes, you do,” I say. “You brought it up. You have a hundred opinions about everything.”

“True,” he says. He breathes out a
long, thoughtful breath and his chest rises and falls. He’s too relaxed. Too okay with my fictional boyfriend.  

“He seems more like you. Upbeat, optimistic, light
-hearted. Loves dogs and appreciates shitty cars.” He smiles. It makes me frown. I realize what he’s saying.

I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. “You think that’s what makes a relationship work? For two people to be alike?”

“Maybe,” he says. “That’s one thing that always bothered me when we were dating. I always felt like I wasn’t positive enough for you,” he admits.

I think about the absurdity of
his words. I love his deep thoughts. I love his theories; they’re fascinating because they’re the opposite of mine. It’s like I’m upside-down when I’m around him, seeing things from an entirely different perspective. Gray challenges me—it’s what I love most about him.

“Do you think it ever bothered me?” I ask him.

“No, but it bothered me,” he says. “I don’t want to feel like I’m stealing from you. I don’t want to drain all your happy juice.”

This is his most ridiculous theory to date.

“Did it ever occur to you that I was happy because of
you
?” I ask him. “That you helped bring out that side out of me? That you were the main ingredient of my ‘happy juice?’”

“No,” he says simply.
He sits back in the chair and stretches out his legs. His feet are a few inches away from mine. “I’m never going to be like you, Dylan.”

“How are we so different?”

He laughs. “How are we not different? You love everyone, and I immensely dislike most people. You love everything and pretty much everything annoys me to some level. I have to work to see things positively. You just have to open your eyes.”

“I do hate things,” I say. “I hate Super Bowl parties. Parades.
Dresses. Zoos. The circus.”

“When have you seen a circus?” he asks, doubting my sincerity.

“I haven’t and I don’t intend to. It’s basically a traveling zoo. And I have an unexplained fear of clowns.”

Gray
smiles and it charges me with energy. It’s suddenly hard to stay seated. His smile is like fuel.

“Besides, you
love all the right things,” I continue. “You love your friends. You love your family, you love good music and good food and you love me more than anyone I’ve ever met.” He winces when I say this, and I catch myself. “I mean, you used to. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know. You just don’t see it. But I think you’re a better person than I am,” I admit.

“That’s insane,” he tells me.
My heartbeat picks up when I hear the word come out of his mouth. I remind myself, he didn’t say
I
was insane. But it’s still promising. 

“
You always put people first,” I say. “And I don’t. I put myself first. I have for years. That’s one of the reasons why I dropped everything to go after Serena. If I hadn’t met you, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But if something like that had ever happened to your sister, you would have left everything to go after Amanda.”

Gray
nods because he knows I’m right. Maybe being alike isn’t what’s best. It’s bringing out the best in each other that matters.

I open my backpack and throw a few things on the bed, looking for my overnight clothes and
the toiletries shoved in the bottom. Gray surprises me and sits down on the bed next to me. It squeaks under the additional weight. My internal radar informs me Gray has entered PRZ. I sit on my hands and cross my legs. I try to ignore all my heightened nerve endings.

He reaches for a square CD case next to me. He recognizes it. He opens it and flips through the discs
and my cheeks feel hotter than a sunburn. There are ten CD's inside, all mixes he made for me three summers ago.

He looks at me and I suddenly feel naked under his eyes.

“It’s great road trip music,” I say, trying to keep it light.

“These are three years old,” he says. “Aren’t you getting sick of them?”

Never.

“Maybe a
little. You should make me some new ones,” I say and he just looks away. I zip my backpack shut before he notices anything else inside. He leans back on his hands and his eyes trail around the room for a couple of seconds. I watch his chest rise and fall when he breathes. He looks so calm and relaxed while I feel like my blood’s on fire.

“Tell me your bedroom never looked like this,” he says.

I shake my head. “I never really liked pink. I think it even makes flowers look fake.”

“What does your bedroom look like?” he asks me.

I meet his eyes. “My bedroom?” I ask.

“Back at home,” he says. “In Wisconsin,” he clarifies in case I forgot where I’m from. 

“Why do you want to know?” I ask.

He shrugs and looks around the room. “It’s just something I never asked you about,” he says. “And I always wondered. Probably because you never settle down, so I was always trying to imagine what a ‘settled down
Dylan’ looks like.”

I think back to my parent’s ranch-style house in central Wisconsin.

“It’s a sewing room now,” I say.

“Tell me one random thing you had in it,”
Gray says.

“A sex swing,” I say and he raises his eyebrows.

I laugh and he smiles back. I think about the things my mom agreed to stow away in the attic. “You’d probably appreciate my Jack Black box,” I say.

“
Your what?”

“
It’s a big, black filing box I kept in my room.” I explain that I named it after Jack Black because, A) he’s a brilliant actor and musician, 2) he’s hilarious, and D) he doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him. His self-esteem has a black belt in jujitsu.

“Okay,”
Gray says with a nod. “I’ve listened to enough Tenacious D to agree with his musical talent.” 

“And his acting?” I ask.

“I’ve seen
High Fidelity
,” Gray says. “And
Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.
Point made.”

“Well, I was thinking
of
Nacho Libre
and
School of Rock
, but whatever,” I say. “So, starting in middle school, if I was upset or insecure about something, or having a bad day, I wrote down my problem on a piece of paper, folded it up and put it in my Jack Black box. Then I latched the box closed and stopped thinking about it. Problem solved. Jack took care of it for me.”

“Do you still have it?”
Gray asks.

I nod. “
I wouldn’t let my mom throw it away. That one was a keeper.”

The rain
picks up outside. It hits and slams against the window, but I think it sounds like music—a light mix of tambourine and cymbals. The wind sounds like a guitar, all low, melancholy notes. Thunder takes the drums. I’m quiet as I listen to the song.

“Posters?” he asks.

“None.”

“Really? I took you for a poster kind of girl.”

I shake my head. “No, I was more into clothes pins.”

“What?”
he asks and waits for more.

“Clothes pins,” I say, like it’s a normal decorating feature. “I had strings
strung along all four walls of my room and I used clothes pins to hang stuff. Magazine cut outs, drawings, photographs. One fall I had an entire room full of leaves. That one got messy. I had to promise my mom never to hang organic material again.” I look over at Gray and he’s suddenly too close. He’s dangerously entering my KZ— his face and lips are close enough to reach out and touch. He must be trying to torture me. I try to focus on the conversation. “One wall was dedicated to missing pieces. Just random things I found—torn paper, ripped notes, receipts, bags.”

“You mean garbage? You hung garbage on your walls?”

“They weren’t garbage,” I argue. “They were the lost remnants of a larger story.” I throw up my hands. “I’m not saying interior decorating was ever my calling, Gray.”

He smiles and I smile. I could step inside his smile and live there because it’s one of the most familiar places I know. I could easily lean forward into him. I’m starting to, I feel
our faces inching closer when suddenly the door knocks open. Gray and I turn to see Sue Anne walk inside. When she sees us sitting on the bed, her face brightens.

“
Are you two cozy in here?”

“Very cozy, thanks, Sue Anne,” I say.  

“This is my daughter’s old room,” she says and looks around with nostalgia. “She loved pink. I haven’t had the heart to redecorate.”

“It’s perfect,” I say.

“Well, alright. Sweet dreams. And if you hear any sirens, you can head down to the basement if you want. It’s the last door at the end of the hall.” She closes the door and I hear it click shut.

Gray
stands up and suddenly it’s easier to breath. He stretches his arms over his head. “I’m going to grab my bag from the car,” he says. “You need anything?” I shake my head. I have a toothbrush in my backpack, and a t-shirt and shorts.

When
Gray leaves, I open my backpack and take out
The Giving Tree
, a book that he gave me when we first met. It’s the book I didn’t want him to see. I’ve been writing in it since he gave it to me, using it as a type of journal. It’s where I keep my un-want list.

I try to un-want things. It’s my latest challenge. And I’m continually broke, so it works out. Every day people make lists of the things they want, or the things they need. Shopping lists, to-do lists, grocery lists. I make it a challenge to un-want things. To see what I can do without. I un-want new shoes and make do with my dirty, worn out ones. I glue the soles together and sew holes.
I un-want a new backpack and sew a patch on the one I have. Casting something away it easy, but just because it frays, just because it shows signs of age doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It’s amazing how well things hold up if you give them extra love.

I un-wanted
getting a haircut and let it grow wild until I cut it myself. I un-want makeup and let my freckles stand out. And strangely, in all the unneeding, I seem to gain more.

I look up at the door
Gray just walked out of. No matter how hard I try, I can’t un-want you. I can’t un-need you. Sometimes we don’t know what we need until we’re shown what we need. Up until then, we’re only making blind guesses. Sometimes, even when we think we’re roaming, we’re just traveling in a long circle that eventually leads us home.

Gray

I walk into the bedroom and sit down on the bed. Dylan isn’t here; it gives me a chance for a mental pep talk. I run my hands through my hair. I have to mentally rise above this situation. I can’t let myself remember. I can’t let myself want her. She is the one thing I can never have.