Landslide (40 page)

His lips lifted into a half-grin as he tipped his head back to rinse his hair under the running water, and said, “Touché.”

Shortly thereafter I invited myself to rewash his hair, so it would be extra clean for the messy garbage disposal job he had to get to, and just as he was teasingly mulling over the prospect, I got woozy and had to turn around and drop to my knees so I could throw up in the toilet instead of right there on the floor.

Turns out, what Cole and I both thought was wine-flu was actually the stomach flu. And unfortunately, Cole ended up with it too. Once he felt my forehead and took my temperature, we realized I was legitimately sick. He made the kind offer of letting me stay at his place until I got better, but as entertaining as the idea of once again temporarily playing house with him was, I really didn’t want to put him out. Or puke in front of him again. It’s one thing to tease one another about all the private places you’ve had your mouth on each other’s body, but it’s not so good for flirting when you think about the fact that the same mouth is now regurgitating everything you put in it. So, I went home after making a quick stop for popsicles and about four or so hours into my failing attempt to sleep through my misery, Cole called and told me he didn’t even make it all the way home from the job before he felt it coming on. It hit him so fast he had to stop on the side of the road to vomit the meatball sub he had for lunch.

We spent the rest of that day and all of the next two commiserating and spending time together over the phone and FaceTime. In between trips to the bathroom for nature calling and bouts of nausea of course. That we did without an audience of even just one. Everything else though was done together, so it was almost like playing house, just at separate houses. I grumbled about having to reschedule my second interview for the labor/delivery position I’ve been dying for, and Cole reassured me that I’d get it no problem while semi-worrying that the guys he’s on a Thursday night league bowling team with wouldn’t be able to find a replacement for him at the last minute. We watched every
Final Destination
movie that Netflix has available for live streaming and I don’t even know how many ancient episodes of
M*A*S*H
.

Thursday evening though, we opened up a little more to each other than we had the night before during dinner. Cole had fallen asleep in the middle of one of the
M*A*S*H
episodes and although I knew he had, I didn’t disconnect our FaceTime call. Something about being able to see him even if he wasn’t awake was comforting; it was the next best thing to having him in bed beside me where if I wanted to, I could snuggle up next to him and know I would have sweet dreams throughout the night. He woke with a start, his eyes wide and alert, as if he was listening.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him as he picked up his iPad and threw the covers back before standing up. “Did you hear something?”

“Are your doors and windows locked?” he questioned, walking straight into his closet and reaching high above his head to pull a revolver down off a shelf.

“You’re sorta scaring me. Is someone breaking in? Should I call 911?”

“Just…go check your doors and windows. Please,” he said, doing the same as what he’d asked me to do, “Take me with you though.”

“Can you tell me what—”

“Just do it, goddamnit!”

I blinked at his overly gruff command. However, I didn’t need to be told again.
 

I finished before he did, as my house is like a coat closet compared to his. “Okay, I’m locked up all tight, now what’s going on?”

He latched and re-latched his front door and sighed. “It’s one of the many delightful souvenirs I came home with. Every so often I experience this irrational need to stop whatever I’m doing, or wake up from a dead sleep like tonight, to make sure my surroundings are secure. If I don’t give in to it right away, I go berserk until I do.”

My mouth formed a silent O and I nodded my understanding. “You have PTSD.”

“Yep.”

“How bad?”

“Somewhere between not horrible and pretty mild. I get headaches. Can’t always recall numbers I’ve just read or been told like I used to be able to do, and I can’t sit with my back to doors or windows without getting jumpy. I also sorta get jittery if I’m hanging out in a public place and can’t sit in a corner facing outwards where I can see everything around me. I have buddies who are
way
worse off…they’ve found themselves taking cover under tables and shit during the Fourth of July, which, you know…I’ll be honest, the first Fourth was pretty fucking grueling for me, but… Some of those guys still can’t even hear a car backfire without losing it, and they still have nightmares. I do too occasionally, but I don’t wake up trigger happy or with my hands wrapped around the neck of the person in bed next to me like they do.”

“Oh my God…that’s gotta be so awful. For them
and
their families.”

“Yeah, and you know, sometimes it’s the littlest, stupidest shit that can bring on a flashback, like, the sound of a cricket incessantly chirping, or…a smell.”

A moment’s consideration was all it took; he’d let me in so I shared with him something I’d never told anyone…
 

“Yeah, that I get. On rare occasions the sight or smell of fire even just from a lit match will make me cry and sick to my stomach.”

“Well, of course. That was traum—”

“Not because of the fire, though, Cole. It’s because I, um…very seriously considered ending my life after it.”

I was afraid to look at him. I made myself though. He’d gone still and was staring at me with what suspiciously looked like tears building in his eyes. “I am
so
glad you didn’t,” he whispered and didn’t try to hide the wiping away of the single drop that had fallen from one eye to the cheek below.

“Me too.”

He cleared his throat then and asked, “What made you decide to stick around?”

“I was so despondent…I couldn’t stop feeling as though having to start my life over with practically nothing meant that I’d somehow failed at living it in the first place. Then somehow, I found myself wandering around a park on a clear spring day. People were out jogging, kids were everywhere, laughing and playing, and all the birds were twitterpated and sweet talking to each other, and I realized there’s more to life…and if I were to quit living, that fire would’ve taken absolutely everything. It would’ve beaten me. And my life has more worth than a houseful of things and memories.”
 

Smiling softly and nodding his head, he mumbled, “That’s my Winnie the Pooh girl…”

My forehead crinkled. “What?”

Shaking his head dismissively, he spoke up louder when he replied with, “Never mind… I’m just relieved you figured it out.”

We changed the subject after that and both of us ended up falling asleep about fifteen minutes later, with our FaceTime chat going until the sun came up so we woke up virtually face to face.

Friday morning we took turns reading portions of the online news to each other and afterwards, Cole wrapped himself in a blanket and wandered over to a bookcase to pull out his tattered copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Great Gatsby
and silently began what I think is his fourth read-through of it, while I muttered to myself every so often about the interesting tidbits I was finding flipping through a few back issues of the “Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing,” and I also took fifteen minutes or so to brush up on some birthing statistics in a nursing article that was emailed to me. And by Friday evening, we were both able to keep down some soup; Cole was brave taking on a bowl of chunky chicken corn chowder with a piece of sourdough bread, and I ultimately wimped out by going with vegetable beef and saltines after deciding the milk based bean with bacon was still too risky for me.

As was going down the hill to visit my grandma on Saturday like I’d been planning. Cole invited himself to go with me on Sunday, though, and I was really looking forward to not only seeing my grandma but also spending some actual live, in person time with him, as he sounded to be in return. However, right at the last minute when he was getting in his truck to pick me up, he got an emergency call to fix an elderly woman’s busted water heater that I guess had already started flooding her basement while she was at church that morning. So, I went by myself and was reassured that everything in the nursing home was exactly as it was when I’d left. My grandma still has no clue who she is let alone who I am. Just the same, I braided her hair for her and stayed right up until they were about to serve dinner. Although by the time I was headed home, it had started snowing in the mountains again, really hard, and I ended up having to turn around part way up. I didn’t have chains on the Grenada’s tires and the highway patrol wouldn’t let anyone pass without them, and I couldn’t get enough reception to call Cole and have him come rescue me either.

I was just sitting down at the bar of an Applebee’s when a pair of male hands suddenly covered my eyes from behind and Greg’s voice jovially asked, “Guess who?!” We ended up having a relaxed dinner together filled mostly with small talk, but there were definitely no sparks on my end, which was why I genuinely thanked him for offering to let me stay at his place for the night before I declined. He insisted though and promised there wouldn’t be any talk of wanting to get back together…he seemed to be kind of irritated but said he was simply being a decent guy and felt it foolish to waste money on a motel when he has a perfectly empty guest room. I was still hesitant because it really felt like a slippery slope and I didn’t want to mislead him in any way. He backed his promise up though by calling his new girlfriend, whom he hadn’t mentioned prior, and asked her if she would be okay with me staying the night under the circumstances. She was evidently of the same mindset as Greg was so I reluctantly agreed.
 

I don’t know why I omitted where I slept when I talked to Cole once I finally got home on Monday, or even when we had lunch after taking care of getting chains on the Ford on Tuesday before my second interview. Maybe it was because he didn’t ask, or maybe it was because I was trying to avoid feeling slutty, even though nothing in the least happened. Or maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I just plain felt guilty. Which, if I think about it, feeling that way is totally unjustified.

Cole and I are really only friends. Friends who are just more comfortable being in varying states of undress around one another than most friends typically are. And so what if I’ve been walking around with perma-grin all week? None of that means we’re an item, and it really doesn’t mean that either of us has to tell the other where we’ll be every second of the day and night if we’re not together. Suffice it to say, we don’t live in each other’s pocket, and we haven’t put a label on our…um, new relationship, for lack of a better description; because we haven’t defined what we’re doing. Like, at all. And, I don’t know what this means but, he hasn’t kissed me in public. We’ve played footsies under the table and held hands at the movies, but, no kissing.
 

It’s almost like how we were after Holden died, except we’re not playing a public game of charades by pretending to be brother and sister, and I’m not a heartbroken basket case practically using her best friend who’s taken it upon himself to kiss the hurt away. We’re simply enjoying each other’s company and acting on the undeniable physical chemistry we both now recognize that we have together. Well, sort of acting on it. We kiss, and sometimes for so long that it would be more practical to find a place to sit or lie down while we do it so that our legs don’t get tired from standing, but that’s been it so far. However, it’s still kind of been a daily thing, because if you count FaceTime, we’ve actually managed to see each other every day since Wednesday of last week aside from Sunday when I was visiting my grandma.
 

Whether it was being sickies together, meeting him for a quick donut and cup of coffee somewhere before he headed out for the day, or even him coming over to help me figure out what to wear for my interview, we’ve spent a lot of time together since I found out he isn’t actually gay. And even though I’m still fairly certain I wouldn’t have had any regrets about having a one-night stand with him that night, I’m kind of glad he stopped us. Doing so when he did may have initially pricked my pride a smidge, although that wound healed rapidly when he made it pretty clear that while he finds me more than worthy of having sex with, he thinks even more of me as a person. Plus, not jumping right into bed that first night makes for a little bit of a thrill in wondering if we’ll ever actually do it or not, and if we do, when, and all of the possibilities and details of how it could go down.

And I’m sort of getting the impression he wants to but at the same time, for one reason or another, he doesn’t; when we were kissing on the porch after seeing a movie at the theater last night, I invited him inside and let him know he could stay if he wanted to. It took him a minute filled with some eye narrowing and side to side head rocking before he blew out a breath and told me he better not. Then he framed my face with both his hands and kissed me witless. I think I stood there in a daze for like three minutes until the wind picked up and sent a flock of downy snowflakes and bone chilling goose bumps ice-skating over my whole body.

In any event, I’m just honestly loving being a part of each other’s lives again. I’ve been coming to realize that I’ve missed him so unbelievably much. I wasn’t even aware of just how much I did until we were brought back together again. That being the case, the first thing I do after ending the call with human resources at the hospital is dial Cole…

36
 

“Simple Man”

—Erica—

“I got the job!” I squeal before Cole even gets a word of hello out. “That’s fantastic, sweetheart, I told you that you would. When do you start?”

“Not until the first of the year.” I think about what that means to my bank account. Although my rent and bills are paid through December, I won’t have any money coming in for a while longer and I’ll more than likely need to dip into my grandmother’s funds once more, and I really hate the idea of doing that. It can’t really be helped though, so I’ll just add it in to the total of what I’m already planning on reimbursing her. “Let’s go out and celebrate! My treat.”