The Hard Truth About Sunshine(10)
After a few hours of driving, we decide to stop somewhere on the other side of St. Louis to eat lunch. I find a barbeque joint off I-44 that everyone agrees on, because why not enjoy something original and unique to the place? It's really kind of funny, but through all the shit I've been through … from the surgeries and rehab and total depression manifested in extremely rageful fits and the resulting melancholy from them, my appetite had never suffered. I'd eaten heartily before I'd gotten blown to bits, and I still do the same now. I'm lucky I'm tall and have good metabolism because I certainly don't work out the way I did when I was active duty. I'm fortunate that nothing has settled around my midsection yet.
In the Marine Corps, I was a buff dude. My friends and I spent a lot of time in the gym lifting, and Maria certainly made it clear she liked the six-pack abs and bicep guns I'd created from hard work. Since my injury, that muscle definition is long gone, but at least I'm not fat yet.
I'm sure that's coming though as evidenced by the fact I order ribs, brisket and pulled pork along with French fries, coleslaw, and banana pudding.
We eat quickly and head back to the car. It isn't long before Barb and Connor are sound asleep in the backseat, each of their heads resting against their respective passenger windows. We drove through a heavy rainfall after leaving the restaurant, and between the pattering on the roof and the swish of the wipers, it was enough to put anyone out.
It's since calmed to only a sprinkle, and the sky in front of us looks to be clearing of the gray clouds. I take a quick peek at Connor through the rearview mirror, noting he actually looks pretty good today. Maybe it's the excitement of going egging or something. Or maybe it's because the remainder of the poison from his last round of chemo has exited his body.
Jillian has assumed the role of the front passenger again. She's named herself the assistant navigator and uses a paper map to ensure we're getting off at the right exits, despite the fact I have the travel directions programmed into my phone and some female voice telling me when to turn.
Truth be told, I like Jillian's voice better. It's sweet, lilting, and light on the ears.
Right now, she's got her bare feet on my dashboard, legs slightly bent as she plays on her phone. I'd be dead not to notice how gorgeous those legs are. Tan and perfect in every way. Even her feet are fucking pretty. She's got on a pair of white shorts that come to mid-thigh and a Carolina Tarheels t-shirt. Her long, wavy hair is pulled into some kind of messy concoction on top of her head, and she's just fucking stunning.
"How much of a dork do I look in these?" she asks out of the blue, and I turn my head to look at her briefly before giving my attention to the road again.
"Dork?" I ask in confusion. I notice the rain has completely stopped, so I turn my wipers off.
"Yeah, these glasses," she explains.
I give another quick look and can't help but chuckle. She looks like a complete dork wearing black plastic frames with lenses as thick as Coke bottles to help her failing eyes, which are hugely magnified when she looks at me. In the Marine Corps, we called those "beat me, fuck me" glasses.
"I look like a dork, right?" she asks with a smile.
Turning my gaze back to the road., I have to admit, "Yeah … a bit of a dork. But those thick lenses really make the blue of your eyes stand out."
She doesn't say anything for a moment, and then her sweet voice floats across the cab to my ears, "Christopher Barlow … that's the absolute nicest thing I've ever heard you say."
The skin around the left side of my mouth pinches, indicating an involuntary smile has come to my mouth as it's pulling at the scar there. Still, I tell her, "Well, don't expect it too often. Haven't you figured out I'm an asshole?"
I reach into the center console and grab my Marlboro Reds in an easy pinch between my thumb and the two remaining fingers I have of my right hand. Such an easy task now, but fuck if it didn't take me weeks to learn how to pick shit up with a hand that was missing the ring and pinky finger. I tap the pack opening against my left hand as it rests on the top of the steering wheel, my eyes dropping to my right arm for a moment.
Even after almost eighteen months, the damage to my arm sickens me. I have no clue what did it, but I assume a piece of sheered metal, possibly the floorboard or something blowing upward. Almost the entire muscle from elbow to wrist on the top of my forearm shredded so badly that most of it couldn't be salvaged. They were able to repair and connect the remaining thin shreds of tendon and muscle with thousands of micro-sutures, and then they grafted skin from my left hip over the top. It's grotesque. It looks as if there's a long concavity running down my forearm with my radius and ulna bones standing out in stark relief. The transplanted skin is shiny with some puckering around the edges, but the missing muscle is what makes it look so hideous. I'm self-conscious about it, no doubt, but not enough to wear long sleeves. It's high summer and hot as fuck outside. Besides … no one here I'm trying to impress.
Not really.
"Must you do that?" Jillian drawls out in a dramatic voice.
"Do what?" I ask as I pull a cigarette out and put it between my lips.
"Smoke in the car," she says.
I already knew what she meant, but I like playing dense at times because I know it irritates her and, for some reason, I like to irritate her.
"I'll roll the window down," I tell her, the cigarette bobbing in my mouth.
"I can still smell it."
"Roll your window down too," I suggest.
"It sticks to your clothes, and you smell like smoke all the time," she says.
When I turn my head to look at her, I'm surprised her facial muscles are strong enough to maneuver a cocked eyebrow at me. Those muscles aren't overly bothered by her disease because it arches quite high.
"It's not attractive at all," she sniffs.
Turning my head so I can take a quick peek at the road, I ensure I'm straight and then look back to her. "Not attractive?"
As the cigarette bobs in my mouth, I feel utterly ridiculous. I'm a grown-ass man, and I'm talking to this beautiful creature with a nasty cigarette hanging from my lips.
I turn to look at the road, but with my right hand, I take the cigarette out of my mouth. With a sigh, I throw it down into the center console and ask with irritation, "Are you happy?"
"Extremely," she says. "You should just quit, you know."
"Don't want to," I mutter.
"Bet you can't," she says with challenge. "I think it's an easy crutch for you."
"It's an addiction," I contradict her.
"But one that can be beaten, no doubt," she says. "With the right willpower. And Christopher, I look at all you've overcome and I think you have amazing willpower."
I don't dare look at her, with those coke-bottle-magnified eyes looking at me sexily earnestly. What could she possibly know about what it's taken to get me where I am today?
Still, I haven't forgotten she said smoking wasn't attractive, and that sort of implies that I could possibly be attractive if I didn't smoke.
That's an interesting thought, because I haven't given two seconds to ponder how women view me in a very long time. After Maria dumped me because she couldn't accept I wasn't a full man anymore, I had no intentions of ever getting involved with someone again. One-night stands, hookups, prostitutes … that is all I'll ever do, because I can't worry about how a woman truly thinks I look.
I know I'm a good-looking guy in the face-that's not ego talking. And Maria was smoking hot. But my face is scarred now, my arm is mangled, and my leg … well, it's gone. How could any of that be attractive?
"Let's make a bet that you can't go the entire trip without smoking," Jillian says, and my head snaps her way briefly.
I roll my eyes and look back to the road, wanting that cigarette I just threw into the console now more than ever. "Like what kind of bet?"
"I don't know," she responds flippantly. "We'll come up with something good."
I think about it a moment, wondering if I should I take her bait. She's challenging me to do something hard. I've been smoking for over a year now, starting shortly after I entered rehab. It was something to do to pass the time. I don't want to quit because I don't give a shit about my health, and yeah … she's right … it's a bit of a crutch.
But I can't let go of what she said about willpower, and that has more of an effect on me than anything. "Let me clarify something," I say to her. "The bet would just be smoking cigarettes. Not pot, right?"
"Right," she says, and I find it hilarious she's not turned off by me smoking dope. Maybe the goody two-shoes isn't so goody after all.
"Okay," I say resoundingly. "I won't smoke the rest of the trip."
"And what do you want if you win?" she asks.
"Nothing," I tell her. "I don't need any incentive. If I say I'll do something, I'll do it."
She beams a smile at me. "Willpower."
"Willpower," I agree. I fucking have it in spades, and it's the only thing that got me through months of grueling agony during my recovery. Granted, it's wavered here and there, but it has held mostly strong.