Nova (36 page)

I studied him carefully, actually shocked to he
ar him open up about anything
.
“Yeah?” was all I said.

He leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees, and turned to me with a slight smile. “Yeah.”

I decided not to ask questions and there was a brief pause again.

He looked ahead at Field Four
and
said, “Her name was Jill. She, uh, was
…” He kind of chuckled and said, “This is a little weird. I’ve uh…
I’ve
ne
ver talked to anyone about this. But anyways, s
he was
a ski instructor up at Bottineau. I met her about two-and-a-half years ago, but was too chicken to ask her out. That summer she came into the shop one day—with a couple of friends. They want
ed to do some rock climbing. So
long story short, I taught Jill and her friends how to climb, and then she and I started dating.” He shrugged. “I guess it was your classic head-over-heels type of
thing. I fell in love with her and
she broke my heart two years later. Game over.”

“Game over?”

He shrugged.

“You guys were together for two years
, though
? Sounds
like it was
pretty serious.”

“Well yeah, we were going to get married. A month before the wedding I find out she’s been seeing another guy. She kind of fell apart when I confronted her abou
t it
and
begged me to forgive her, insisting
that it was just a stupid fling. I fell for it at first
until I actually saw her with the guy
a week later
.
Then
I lost it.”

“
Because it wasn’t really over,” I stated.

“No,
because
she’d been sleeping around with my best friend.”

“Ooh, double ouch.”

“Yeah. And Duke and I owned the shop together.”

“Awkward.”

He chuckled but nodded his head. “Yeah, not only awkward, but we wanted to kill each other any time we were in the same room together. Didn’t make for the best business environment.”

“So what did you do? Sell your part of the business?”

“Pretty much. It was a little
messier
than that, but eventually I got some compensation out of it and finally got the hell out of there.”

I paused for a moment before saying,
“I know this is a cruel question, but are Jill and Duke still together?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “She dumped him
,
like
,
a few
days
before I left town. She even tried to get back together with me, but there was no way I’d ever be able to trust her after that. There was no way I’d respect
myself
if I let that happen,” he smiled.  

“Do you miss her at all?”

He shrugged. “Mm, maybe a little.
Maybe not
her
really, but more just the feeling of being in love, I guess.
I mean for the most part what we had was good, but then I think about how long I had been lied to and… She wasn’t the right girl for me. I see that now. It was just a live and learn type of thing, I guess.”

“And what have you learned?”

He laughed. “I have no idea. Maybe to be way more cautious of you vixen-ish women.”

“Hey, now.”

“I know; not all
of you are
that bad. I could think of a few more names to call her, but I won’t.”

“Well maybe
she
learned something from it all.”

“Meh, I doubt it
. I look back and see her personality a little clearer and I realize that she loved the game. She liked the attention she received from the guy, the fun of captivating them into submission, and then the glory of breaking them down.”

“Wow, a true player.”

“Exactly. Men get a bad ra
p for that, you know.”

“I see that now.”

“You’d be pretty good at it.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you actually knew how to manipulate people.”

I looked at him for a few seconds and said, “I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”

“It is,” he nodded.

“It’s kind of a weird compliment.”

He smiled and nodded his head again. “Okay, let me re-phrase it. You have all the qualities it takes to reel a guy in for good.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. I think I knew what he meant, but I’d never actually been told anything of the sort.

“Okay. Thanks?”

With a chuckle he said, “You want me to say it? Okay, fine. You’re beautiful and smart, and everything about you is pretty amazing. So don’t you ever accuse me of thinking you’re not good enough for someone. I don’t even care if it’s Gandhi.”

It made me laugh and I said, “He’s a little old for me.”

“Yeah, and he’s a little dead for you too, but you get my point, right?”

I slowly nodded, looking at Ben with a watchful eye. “Yeah, I get your point.”

We were both quiet again. I wasn’t sure if I should return some kind of compliment—it kind of felt natural to do such a thing at that moment—but I felt a little strange about it.

“Did I make you feel uncomfortable?” he finally asked. “I can tell you don’t know how to take a compliment.”

I sort of laughed. “Well,
maybe so. But I was just considering if I should say what I was thinking or not.”

“Since when have you
monitored what you say? You usually have a pretty quick tongue.”

“Well…”

“Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you were actually going to say something nice for once,” he smiled. He nudged me w
ith his elbow and said, “Uh-
oh, Nova Reynolds really does have a sweet side to her.”

“Pssh, that’s what you think.”

“Oh no, you can’t fool me. I knew it was there, I was just waiting for it to come out.”

“Well it’s not going to now.”

He scoffed. “Oh come on, Nova. Make my day. Please?”

With a smile I shook my head but replied, “Fine. I was just going to say that you’re a surprising guy, Ben. I kind of had this opinion about you—”

“
Ahem
, inaccurate opinion.”

“—Inaccurate opinion,” I smiled, “but I’m glad I was wrong.”

“So you’re saying…?” His hopeful smile was prompting me to say more.

“I’m saying you’re a ni
ce guy. Kind of…a closed door, b
ut I see a little bit of you. I still think you’ve got a lot inside of you that you’re keeping very tucked away, but for the most part, I can tell you’ve turned out to be a pretty decent guy.”

“Hmm. Interesting assessment. And what if you’re wrong?”

“Then I guess I’m wrong. It’s only my perspective. Maybe you can
enlighten me.”

He chuckled but looked ahead at the horses again. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s hard to say what’s there these days.”

I took a while to think about that. I could understand how mistakes in my own life made me question who I was, and even when the tough challenges hit—like situations that had to do with my dad, or especially when my
mom
died—it really made me wonder what in the world I was even doing.

“I told you that my dad used to beat up on me and my mom, right?” I finally asked him.

He looked my way and nodded.

“Well as a kid I couldn’t really do anything about it. My mom stepped in every time, and she would pretty much take the brunt of his temper
—whether he was drunk or not
. He finally
left California when I was ten
and we didn’t have to deal with it anymore. But I always had that fear in me—that he was
going to come back, you know? —A
nd feeling that way made me really angry. I kept it all inside, though. I guess I really don’t know how
to own my emotions or whatever
.

“
When I got older, in my teens, I think I started to compare myself to everyone else around me, and I began thinking that I’d really been scre
wed over.
Maybe I started to feel sorry for myself, and I felt like I’d missed out on a lot
—a normal life
. I’d hear my grandpa say stuff to my mom about my dad, like if he ever came back he’d kill him, or that he belonged in jail for the rest of his life. I hadn’t really considered those ideas because I was just
confused about the whole thing
.
But that fear was always there.
I always worried
that he was going to come back
and I hated feeling that fear. I guess I kind of adopted my grandpa’s way of thinking because after awhile, when I let the hatred really settle in, I decided that it felt better than being so confused about it all.
The anger seemed to make things easier to accept.
I decided that I preferred my dad to be gone for good too.
Here I was, this kid that tried to save a fly in the house, and I wanted my dad to be dead.”

Ben smiled
sympathetically
.

“But it really messed me up,” I continued. “I wasn’t sure
if it was normal to
feel that way
or if there was something wrong with me. I mean after a while I realized that the issues with my dad was the only thing in my life that I had ill feelings about. I eventually decided that I was an okay person and I didn’t have to let that take over my life.”

“You can’t help what happens to you
sometimes. Some things are out of our hands
.”

“I know, but it took a while to realize that. Even after my mom died a few years ago. At that point I was really pissed, you know? I mean after all the crap
with my dad
I
had
to lose my mom
instead
? It didn’t make sense to me. Sometimes it still doesn’t make sense to me, and I pretty much quest
ion everything all over again. B
ut I have to constantly tell myself, almost every day, that I can only do my best
today
. There’s nothing I can do about the past, but I have a lot of say in what I can do about my future.”

Ben was quiet for a few seconds before he asked, “Is that why you’re
so driven? You get this idea—this goal—i
n your head, and you don’t stop until you accomplish it?”

With a smile I said,
“I guess I’m kind of an overachiever. And yeah it has to do with how I grew up. I used to hide in the corner of my closet when my dad would come home from work. When he started yelling I would cover my ears. I used to think, ‘Plea
se, please, please don’t hurt M
ommy…’ I don’t know how many times I said that plea as a kid. I had no idea who I was talking to,” I shrugged. “My mom always talked about God and how good He was, and that He would someday make things better for us if we just hung on a little bit longer. After every week I think I asked her, ‘How much longer?’ …
Now I realize i
t
probably hurt
her to hear me say that all the tim
e, but I suppose I didn’t know any better
.

“
But when I was older I started challenging myself a little more. I’d make these little bargains with myself like…‘Okay Nova, if you try a little harder, do a little better, maybe something good will happen.
’
I pushed myself and pushed myself, and yeah, occasionally something decent would happen and I’d think, ‘Did that deal really work out for once?’ But other times, when we were still broke, still struggling
, I’d get mad at…I don’t know—the world, God, myself—a
nd feel like no matter what I did, things were still going to be tough. Then I’d kind of kick myself and say,
‘You’re not trying hard enough,
’
and get back to the grind.
”

Ben was shaking his head slightly and said, “Wow, you really kicked your own ass over the years.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I
chuckled
. “But I still stick with that mentality… Hard work pays off, right? If we don’t make an effort, how can we expect to be rewarded?”

“Rewarded by who? The people around us that hardly notice, or God?”

“God. But through Him we can be blessed by the people around us.”

“So you believe in God? Even after all you’ve been through?”

“What do mean? You think my life hasn’t done me any good? It’s all been a waste?”

“Uh, well, no.
That’s not what I meant.”

I tucked a leg under me and faced him on the bench. “I did stop feeling sorry for myself at some point. I have an aunt and uncle that took me in, a pretty lively grandfather that I can’t do without, and I had a fantastic career plan that was somehow going to get me somewhere. And then…”