CHAPTER 7 My head hurt. Wait. That’s not quite right. Everything hurt A LOT. I slowly opened my eyes to find myself in the Bruns living room. I was here for Lisa’s high school graduation party; it hadn’t changed much since then. I was in her Dad’s recliner. Still in. Ok, I remember being in the recliner. What else do I remember? Saw Lisa drive up, bike through me, had to ask for help before… Where’s Lisa? My heart stopped and I sat up, a bit too quickly. The world gave a little spin to the right before it stabilized. Where was… oh. There. Lisa was asleep on the couch, next to me. She hadn’t left since she swapped out the ice pack. Or, at least that was what I figured by the melted ice pack which occupied the floor just below her hand. “Lisa?” I called softly. “Leeeesaaaah.” I’d heard her mom call her that. I thought it was cute. But she didn’t stir. I needed to talk to her before…. Wait. What time was it? I looked around quickly. There were no clocks on the walls. Maybe in the kitchen? I tried to sit up once I found the recliner lever to release the leg rest and was greeted with a wave of nausea. “Steady, steady,” I softly moaned to myself. I eventually got to my feet. The pain was everywhere. But it was a good pain: it helped me focus. I needed to focus. I slowly shuffled my way to the kitchen, occasionally reaching out the yellow-painted stucco walls for balance. There was the kitchen clock, on the wall next to the stove. 7:30? I squinted, hoping the time would change. It didn’t. Could that be right? If so, I’d slept away the precious few hours I had left. To top it off? I was late for work. I laughed once softly and shrugged when I realized: being fired from the cover job was the least of my worries now, wasn’t it? The pillow under the kitchen table growled. I pondered why someone would leave a pillow in a kitchen. But pillows dont growl. Maybe it was my stomach – I hadn’t eaten yet today. I turned in the doorway and looked back at the still sleeping Lisa on the couch. Here she was, finally. What was I going to tell her, exactly? Tell her about how I had planned to use her as leverage against her father? Or maybe how I wasn’t who I said I was and everything she thought she knew about me was a lie? The pillow growled and this time, snapped at me. I was rethinking: If Lisa did, by some miracle, agree to help me, what would she do? Once she was told what was going on – once she was inside the loop – she’d be in danger too. Why I didn’t think of that before, I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Something was clouding my judgement. It was… It was… love. And that explained it. And I smiled. I think I would have stood there, happily, had it I not caught some motion out of the corner of my eye. It was the pillow. I wasn’t imagining it – something was in there. Was there… a dog in the pillowcase? I softly pushed my foot into the pillow and nudging the occupant, whispered, “Who’s in there?” Big mistake. The pillowcase came alive as the demon inside frantically tried to get out to attack. Man, that was one angry critter! I started backing up out of the kitchen the way I’d come. It was just then that the dog – Fritz? Fritzie? - found the open end of the pillowcase. He was barely 9” tall. A tiny toy dog! Despite his size, he still sounded like a rapid doberman. I started moving a little faster towards the front door while his little doggie feet scratched frantically for traction on the slippery linoleum floor. He was after me! I made it about three more feet before his paws finally found the traction they needed in the carpet of the living room. He was on me fast, trying to tear my leg off at the ankle. Unsuccessfully. It was kinda scary and kinda funny at the same time. I lifted my ankle slowly to see how long hed hang on. “FRITZ!” Lisa was awake, no doubt rustled from sleep from her manic dog’s attack. She stood in front of the couch. her sharp call demandeding attention - which she got, from the dog as well as me. Fritzie and I both stopped and looked at her, silently waiting for her next command. “GO LIE DOWN!” Lisa sternly ordered, her hand and finger becoming a pointer to show the direction of travel one should follow to go lie down. For a second, I wasn’t sure she meant the dog or me. But she was pointing to the kitchen, not the recliner, so I looked down at the dog and nodded like “She means you.” Fritz snarled, unwilling to leave my ankle alone. It was his, he caught it, fair and square. “GO!” Lisa commanded and pointed again, for emphasis. Fritz finally turned and sulked off to the kitchen, presumably back to his pillow case. Ha ha, Fritz. She told you! I don’t know why, but I felt kinda smug. “And where do you think you’re going?” The smug feeling left me just as quickly as it had arrived. She was looking at me, now. She looked – frustrated? Mad? Annoyed? Preturbed? Angry? Concerned? I nodded my head in the direction of the french doors which separated the porch from the living room. Beyond the porch were the steps where I first asked her how she was. “Out?” I offered. “Then where?” she pressed, but with a softer voice. She was walking towards me now. I suppose I could have told her ‘to get killed, fired, locked up, locked down, some, part or all the above’, but then she’d ask me to explain. And that would put her in the loop. And that would put her in danger. “Um, work, I suppose. I’m... late.” She walked right up to me, looking at me intently. I am a bit taller than her, so when she finally stopped, she was looking up at me and I was looking down at her. She had crossed right over that whole personal-space boundary. I felt a little dizzy when I caught scent of her light, flowery perfume. She shook her head ‘no’ slowly. I shook my head yes, slowly. She shook her head no again, this time with greater movement. I nodded my head yes, echoing her escalation in motion. Her eyes started to glisten. Was she having a staring contest with me? Or was she getting ready to cry? She sniffed, and that mystery was solved. Suddenly, she grabbed me and hugged me tight. I returned the hug and gritted through the pain the embrace was causing. “Please don’t hate me,” she said as she fought back tears. Hate her? What was she thinking? Hate was about the furthest thing from my mind. “I... don’t hate you.” I responded, still trying to figure out what was going on. She gripped me tighter. My head swam a bit with the increase in pain I was fighting. “Dad can be so blunt sometimes. I’m sorry he asked you if you were dating me. I’m so mad at him!” Ohhh, so that’s what this was about. She had experienced that Sunday at the restaurant differently than I had. Thinking about it, I could see her point of view. But why didn’t she talk to me about it sooner? I had tried to find her for days. I gently loosened her bear hug; it was that or stop breathing. I lifted her face up at the chin so I could see it. “Where have you been since Sunday?” “The lake... With mom... I was just so… mortified! I had to get away to think.” She was composing herself, the sniffling became less and less. “So when I came back to find out if you still like me, you crashed and you were talking crazy and I thought you were going to die in dad’s chair and I didn’t know what to do…” Pulling her back to me, I didn’t let her finish. It was my turn to hold her tight. “I still like you.” I told her. “In fact…” I continued, as she looked up at me expectantly. The moment had come. I was ready to tell her, and she was ready to hear it. I took a deep breath to steady myself. Here goes: “It wasn’t crazy talk.”
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 14:30:57 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015