Kyle whips his head around. “Jodi!”
For someone who works in a tattoo shop and exudes edginess, Kyle is surprisingly reserved about this kind of thing. Last week he overheard Jodi telling me the details of their sexcapades and he looked ready to pass out. His face was redder than a tomato.
Confusion loosens Jodi’s features. “What? It’s the truth.”
Kyle groans and slaps his forehead. “That’s private. You’re not supposed to tell people about our sex life.”
Undeterred, Jodi shrugs. “Kyle, what are you talking about? Aimee isn’t ‘people,’ she’s my best friend. Private isn’t part of the equation.”
Two words.
Best friend.
In the early days of my therapy, Dr. Galindo was always asking: How does that make you feel?
The moment that I think of the answer to that question, I feel myself flush. Because I feel fine. I feel better than fine… I’m freaking happy. And I shouldn’t be happy, right? I shouldn’t be thinking happy thoughts and painting apartments to music and falling for a guy and making new best friends. Not when Jilly is decaying under the ground all by herself.
Cole
The transition from I to we isn’t a conscious decision. It slips in out of nowhere like a freak storm that springs up in the middle of a nice afternoon. One minute you’re thinking: that movie that I want to see is coming out on Friday. And the next minute you’re telling yourself: we should get pizza tonight, or I wonder what we’re doing for Flag Day two years from now.
Maybe you get to a point where you’re so invested and wound up in another person that your brain really has no other option other than to consider them.
For me, the realization happens on one of those postcard-worthy Florida days that makes you want to fall back and close your eyes and catch the clean air on your tongue. There’s a blue sky that stretches for miles above a thin roof of palm trees. Everything is perfect. To steal one from Goldilocks: It’s not too hot. It’s not too cold. It’s just right.
Aimee and I both have a break between our classes and she wants to use the time to catch up on a reading assignment. I want to use the time to catch up on her.
We’ve both been busy over the past week. Her classes are getting tougher and I had to be at an out of town clinic last weekend so it seems like we’ve barely had any time together. We don’t have classes this Friday and I plan to surprise her with another beach trip. I want to erase the bad memories from her head and make new ones. Maybe I’ll pack a blanket and we’ll stay past dark, lying in the back of the truck staring up at the stars.
Smiling to myself, I drop my eyes. Right now her head is resting in my lap and I’ve got my fingers threaded through the dark strands of her hair.
My phone buzzes and I grudgingly pull my hand away. It’s a text from Nate asking me if I’m down with poker Thursday night.
Without thinking much about it, I ask her, “Hey. What are we doing this Thursday?”
Aimee breaks her concentration to glance up at me. “No plans. Why?”
“I think I’ll play poker with the guys.”
“Hmm.” She’s already back to reading. I watch her finger make a vertical path down the page.
What are we doing Thursday?
The thought had been as natural to me as taking my next breath. For the briefest instant, I struggle, wondering if this is how things went down with my dad and the rest of the schmucks who’ve had their hearts plucked out of their chests and eaten by a woman.
Is that what’s happening to me?
The spinning in my head ceases when Aimee shifts her attention to me. “You’re making me nervous,” she says, lightly touching my jaw.
I grin slowly, hypnotized by the blue of her eyes through the screen of dark lashes. I am not my dad. “How am I making you nervous?”
Her mouth twitches. “You’re staring at me. It’s getting weird.”
I touch the gleaming freckle on her cheek and lean closer. “I can’t help it that you’re so fucking nice to look at.”
“Watch you language.” She laughs, turns her head to the side and presses her lips against the inside of my thigh. The movement is so intimate that a jolt of awareness stabs between my shoulder blades. I brush my thumb over the jagged ridge of her scar.
“Will you tell me about it?”
Aimee knows what I’m asking. She places the book facedown on the slope of her stomach and looks up. Her bottom lip is caught in her teeth. “Anything that I tell you will be sad and depressing. You don’t want that in your head, Cole.”
“How do you know what I want in my head? I want you in my head…” My breath snags in my chest. This conversation suddenly feels too serious for the sunny day and the bright blue sky. “And that scar and the story behind it is all a part of you.”