Heart on a Shoestring (7 page)

She fell asleep against me. Her chest expanding and hitting my arm. Eventually, after torturing myself with dreams of kissing her, I fell asleep too.

The slightest hint of daybreak and I could no longer sleep. So I watched Miranda until she woke up and without much time to think, she supported her head on her hand and said, “Do you believe in God?”

I shrugged. “Good morning to you too.”

“Oh, good morning. So do you?”

I put both hands behind my head. “Do you always wake up with profound questions on your mind?”

“It’s not profound. Just like asking if you believe in aliens or not. Yes or no?”

“It’s more complicated for me.”

“How? You either believe God exists or you don’t? Evolution? Big Bang? What do you believe?”

“Why do I get the feeling I’m being attacked before I’ve had a chance to open my eyes?”

She sat up, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned back. “I’m serious, Derek. I want to know.”

I sighed, then gulped. I didn’t know. Truth is, I didn’t want to know. If God existed then I’d go straight to hell anyway, so I preferred ignoring the question altogether.

“Well,” she said. “I believe in him and I realized on this little vacation that I miss him. The storm made me think of him.”

“How do you miss an invisible person?”

“Clearly you don’t know God.”

I sat up too. “Clearly. So there’s your answer. If I don’t know him, how can I believe in him?”

“Exactly.” She pat my shoulder. “You need to get to know him.”

“And how do you get to know invisible things?”

“First, you realize he’s not invisible and go on a quest to discover how he makes himself visible.”

I rubbed my temples. “I’m not a stupid guy. At least I don’t think I am, but it’s debatable. This is too much for me to think about though. I’d much rather talk about the weather.”

She unzipped the tent and stepped out. “Weather is nice. Damp ground. Sunny sky. From what I can see.”

I stepped out and she wrapped her hand around my forearm. Couldn’t help but notice the increase in her touches.

“You know,” she said. “You helped me get rid of a ton of stuff from my bag of burdens. I’m thankful for you, but I wish you’d release yours. Whatever you’re hiding. I can see it.”

“I’m hiding a past that’s darker and worse than anything you can imagine, and if your God is real he definitely hates me.”

“Doubt it.”

“I don’t.”

She let me have the last word. Thankfully. I made her breakfast as she watched me. Never took her eyes off. I felt like a piece of art hanging crooked on a wall. The kind people stare at for hours trying to make up abstract meanings for every stroke when really the guy just slapped some paint on a canvas to pay his rent.

“They say every cynical person is really just a discouraged idealist,” I said.

Miranda laughed. “Who told you that?”

“Ella told me once. In case you haven’t noticed she tends to be a little on the idealistic side. I always told her she hoped for things that would leave her hopeless. She insisted that I was idealistic too, except she said I gave up easily and turned my unfulfilled dreams into cynicism.”

“And you believed her or no?” She held up her hand. “Wait. I’m gonna guess no.”

“I’m a skeptical optimist.”

She smiled. “Or a hopeful pessimist?”

After breakfast under the magical wisteria heaven, I took my journal and went for a short walk alone. Derek hiked somewhere too. In the opposite direction. I asked him to stay close in case I got scared. He laughed, but I trusted him. 

I had so many guy friends throughout life that my closeness with Derek didn’t strike me as odd, but I was starting to feel like the platonic level had somehow vanished. Or perhaps never existed at all. When we looked at each other something was different. And I found myself wanting to say, “I love you,” during various moments, but I refrained. Not even sure I knew what love was.

It’s a fine word. 

Love.

A word I tossed around many times before. A word I never tried to understand before tainting it with guys who didn’t know how to live from their heart.

Derek scared me. Not because he was a bad guy. Or a mean person. He scared me because he had tucked his heart so far inside of him that I feared I would fall in love with him and he wouldn’t be able to return the favor. I know because I did it to so many other guys. I’ll never forget the night I broke up with Mark over the phone. He showed up at my door in tears. Kind of annoyed, I tried to get him to leave, but he insisted we talk about everything. So we sat in his car and he made me tell him why I thought it wouldn’t work between us. I gave him a few reasons and he rebutted them all with things like, “I can change. People change.” I finally walked away that night and felt horrible. Honestly. I didn’t like breaking hearts, but I guess that’s part of my own selfishness. My preference to protect myself at the cost of others. I stayed single for a while after Mark. Didn’t want to hurt anyone else and only dated people who obviously didn’t want anything serious. Somehow I managed to keep my wall up and prevent love from seeping through the cracks.

I didn’t blame him Derek. I understood. Whatever happened in his past had left its fangs in his flesh. 

But I wanted to know him.

I sat down against a tree by the lapping water and pressed my pen into the blank page. The only way I knew how to process my feelings was by story. So I began. 

June 11

The Adventures of Turtle and Lizzy

Never in a million years did Lizzy ever think she’d find a creature as intriguing as Turtle. He often retreated into his shell out of fear. Not sure what he feared, but Lizzy found herself sitting by him and waiting for him to embrace the world around him.

It seemed, however, that Lizzy spent most of her time stroking his back and waiting for something that would never happen. Had she not done that so many times before with various other creatures, perhaps she would have experienced a wee more hope.

Turtle helped Lizzy. Now Lizzy wanted to help Turtle. Not because she felt bad and wanted to repay him. Not at all. She just wanted Turtle to be happy. Maybe she had already fallen in love with him. Crazy how love can sneak up on you when you’re not paying attention. Like a basketball left on a staircase. Step on it when your joyfully skipping down the steps and you fall. Head first. And love catches you. Like a safety net you never knew existed.

That’s something Lizzy enjoyed. Most creatures took baby steps down the canyon, across the canyon, and back up the canyon. Even the birds feared their wings and walked with the other animals. Not Lizzy. She took one look at the other side and knew she’d rather die leaping than spend her life walking to the other side and possibly never make it.

So when Turtle stood at the edge of the cliff, peering over and wondering how a reptile could make it to the other side without falling thousands of feet to its death, Lizzy pat his back and said, “Faith is hoping for things you can’t see. If you believe, anything is possible.”

But Turtle didn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand. Lizzy didn’t expect him to. Not yet. Sometimes you have to completely lose faith in yourself in order to trust something else, and he obviously believed in himself more than the wind that would carry him safely to the other side.

Perhaps, Lizzy thought, if she jumped first maybe Turtle would follow. 

So, she did.

But he didn’t follow. 

I didn’t remember falling asleep, so when I woke up alone on the rocky shore I jumped up and looked around. Completely forgot where I was. After collecting my thoughts and calming down, I noticed Derek tossing rocks into the water a few yards away. He hadn’t left me alone. With the spiders. And snakes.

Very kind of him. Very kind indeed. 

I opened my journal and the scratchy handwriting after mine confused me for a second, until I realized Derek must’ve read my entry and added more himself. I looked at him, but he pretended not to notice me. How embarrassing that he read my journal. I’m normally an open book, but only when I choose to be.

I focused on his handwriting and read. 

Lizzy thinks she’s jumped to the other side of the canyon but it’s an optical illusion…. She feels like she has rid her past and ripped every arrow from her heart, but that doesn’t happen in two days on a camping trip….. They say it takes twice as long to heal a wound as it did to make it…. Not sure how true that is, but either way Lizzy and Turtle both have a choice to make every day…. To try to be better, happier, nice and kind, and possibly find a way to love, or to dwell in the pain and live in an emotional prison…. Yeah, so, Lizzy seems to be making the right steps toward a happy, better person. 

Where does that leave ole Turtle? Old. That’s where. Old and tortured by nightmares that are so vivid he can barely sleep 5 hours a night without wanting to die….. and Turtle doesn’t fabricate, if anything he withholds. 

But I guess there’s one good thing. He found a lizard who is really sweet and pretty and she sometimes wonders if she loves him. He sometimes wonders the same. 

And although it may not be reality, the wondering makes him want to live again
. 

Well, certainly an array of grammatical errors. Ever heard of a period? You know, the thing that ends a sentence.Writing is not his speciality, but that’s okay.
Stop ignoring his words
, the one side of myself said to the other side of myself.
I need to ignore those words
, the other side said to the one side.
You are falling in love with him and you like it
. Not sure which side of me said that to which side, but I ignored her. Or me.

I shook my head. Am I the only person who has conversations with various sides of myself? Internal wars on the field of my heart. My heart is a battlefield. Cue the eighties dance moves. Yes. Okay. 

Right. 

Derek finally walked toward me. I stood and followed him back up the hill, in silence, ignoring him trying to ignore me. And the growing, sweltering, give-me-a-fan-so-I-can-calm-down tension between us.

Growing up, my brothers always told me I wanted things I couldn’t have or things I wanted to fix. And once I got the prize or realized the person wasn’t fixable, I left, looking for a new challenge or project. As much as I hate to admit, perhaps everyone had been more right about me than my very self. Derek was a challenge. And a project, at least it seemed so. Yet, I didn’t find myself drawn to him in the same way. I didn’t feel like a heroine. He didn’t feel like a hero. We felt like . . . Turtle and Lizzy. Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.

I hummed the melody and waited for Derek to recognize it. When he didn’t say anything I asked him to name the tune.

“Not sure,” he said, out of breath as he pulled the wisteria vines and walked through the entrance.

“You don’t know Pink Floyd?” I said.

“I’ve heard them.”

“Not a fan?”

“I’m more of a Charles Mingus kinda guy.”

“Who’s that?”

He grabbed his bag and handed me crackers and cheese.

I took a handful and said, “So, can you tell me what happened in your past that’s so bad?”

He closed his eyes, then looked behind me, reflecting. “You’re the only person I’ve wanted to spill my heart to.”

I smiled inside. Maybe my face did too.

“Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

We walked through thorn bushes, over fallen branches, and under the beams of sunlight sword fighting in the trees.

Something bit my foot. I looked down and screamed. Derek poked a stick into the grass and laughed.

“Something just bit me.” I held my ankle as it tingled with pain. “I think I’m poisoned.”

“You’re not poisoned.” He laughed again.

“My entire foot is in pain. Like all hot and tingly.” I winced. “We have to go. Now.”

He held my shoulder. “It’s burn hazel, Lizzy. Just a plant. When you touch it your skin feels burned.”

I knelt and looked at my foot. “It really hurts.”

“Let’s walk a few steps further. We’re almost there and I know of something that may help.”