This One's On Me

I hadn’t been expecting to see her so soon. Usually when people say they’ll be over in a minute, they mean half an hour or so, maybe more. But as soon as I got outside with the umbrella, Blake was stepping out of a crappy little car and beaming a smile at me. “Hey, kid!” she laughed and pulled her hood up over her head. “Nice to see ya!” Her smile was bright and genuine. I mean, she really looked happy to see me. And that made me feel kind of special.

In school, Blake seemed very unapproachable, which was something we didn’t know we had in common until I met her girlfriend. Jenny and I hit it off because she worked in the library at the university and we read a lot of the same books. It wasn’t long before Blake showed up and scared the bejesus out of me because I basically spent two hours a day flirting with her companion. But she didn’t deck me one like I had expected. She just gave Jenny a little squeeze and a kiss on the cheek, then took a seat at the table by the window and took out her sketchbook.

“I don’t think she likes me,” I whispered, trying not to stare.

Jenny laughed. “Nah, if she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t have walked away.”

“Yeah, cuz that makes sense.”

Problem was, as unapproachable as she looked, she was everywhere I went! We wound up taking the same art class in the last semester before graduation, and that was when us two unapproachables could finally approach each other and find out that we had way more in common than a little thing for redheads in libraries.

I couldn’t help smiling back at her, despite how miserable I was and how little sleep I had gotten in the past six days.

She stepped under my umbrella and hugged me, her backpack falling around and hitting me in the shoulder. Stepping back and looking me over, she tried to smile as she said, “You look awful!” But I knew she actually meant it.

“And you look awesome, as always.” She was practically glowing. Even in the dingy light coming through the mid-afternoon rain, I could see the gold streaks the sun had put in her long auburn hair over the summer. And the silver rings in her lip were perfectly polished and shining with her smile.

She rolled her eyes, “Oh, shut it.”

Just from standing outside for the short period we had been in the rain, the bottoms of her holey blue jeans were completely soaked. “Let’s get you inside.”

I showed her into the house and up the stairs to my room where she took off her jacket and boots, dropping her bag and flopping down onto my bed. “Please,” I shrugged, “make yourself at home.”

She laughed and sat up, running a hand through her shaggy hair. “Just messin.’ I’m here to make you feel better. I mentioned that, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, instead of packing clothes in that there bag,” she smiled and pointed down the bed, “I brought a bunch of stuff to do just that.”

“Gotcha,” I nodded again.

“So… why dontcha open it up and have a little peep inside, dollface?”

“Haha, oh…” I picked up the bag and unzipped it slowly, not knowing what to expect.

It was mostly movies and tarot cards, things to keep me distracted so I wouldn’t think about the remaining days in, so far, the shittiest week of my life. I had to admit that just having her there made me feel a little better, but I had no idea how long that would last.

We lucked out because we had so much catching up to do.

We talked about what we had been doing since graduation. It was surreal to think about school as part of the past, but I found it kind of refreshing to be able to say, “Remember when…”

I found myself just staring in a daze while she spoke. She hadn’t changed at all. I mean, it hadn’t been that long, but it was like she hadn’t even redone her makeup. Same blue jeans, same deep v-neck tee, same bracelets, same rings on her fingers, same smoky eyes lined in coal… pure consistency, really. Always was enchanting, always would be, I imagined. Which reminded me: “How is Jenny doing?”

Blake finally sighed and stopped smiling for a second. “You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?” I thought. “Oh my god, she’s dead!”

“I seriously didn’t tell you?” she scoffed.

I shook my head.

“Jenny left me, kid.”

I covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh, dude, I am so sorry.”

She shrugged and played with the ring on the left side of her lip. “No worries, really. I think both of us are better for it.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Like, by the time we were finished school, we were pretty much over, we just didn’t want to admit it to each other. And I’ve called her a couple times since and asked her to take me back, but she said no, of course. It’s kind of weird to think about.” She laid back on my bed and exhaled through her nose.

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have brought it up if I had known, and…”

“Oh, shush,” she waved her hand at me. “I’m tired of people tiptoeing around it.”

“Can I just ask one more question and then I’ll be done?”

She nodded.

I opened my mouth to ask her if she was seeing anyone else, but the words didn’t come out. I didn’t know why. I had always seen Blake as a forbidden fruit of sorts, but I was burning to know the answer. Instead, I just asked, “What kind of movies did you bring?”

She laughed at me again. “Damn, I thought you were gonna ask me to marry you, finally.”

We popped a movie into the DVD player and I sat down on the floor in front of my bed while she stretched out and propped herself up on her elbow. I couldn’t really pay attention to the movie. My head was swirling with little bits of conversations I had had in the last few days. Different phrases that stuck out in my brain. Even with Blake sitting behind me, emanating that aura of radiant joy that she was, I couldn’t push the stress out of my brain. Ridiculous.

“What’s on your mind now, kid?” her voice came through the slur between my ears. “You keep sighing. Are you forgetting to breathe?”

I shook my head to get out of the daze. “Hm? Nothing, nothing… sorry if I’m bothering you or anything.”

She laughed in disbelief. “What? Doll, I came over here to help you out and you think I’m not gonna be bothered by the fact that I’m obviously not helping?” her laugh came again, low and smooth and musical. I wanted to hear it again and again…

I laughed. “My bad. I don’t think there’s anything else you can do besides what you’re already doing. And believe me, having you here helps dramatically.”

“Stop apologizing,” she blurted. “Why don’t you come up here on the bed with me? I feel bad for making you sit on the floor.”

“You didn’t make me sit down here,” I smiled at her convincingly. “You just look so comfy up there that I didn’t want to make you sit up to make room for me. But I will scoot over a little bit so I’m not so far away from ya…”

We both got quiet and redirected our attention to the movie again. Blake started absentmindedly running her fingers into my hair, just playing around, wrapping curls around her long fingers. I bent my head into her hand and closed my eyes, sighing again.

“You like that?” she giggled.

I nodded. “Sadie used to play with my hair when I would get stressed and stuff, but it’s been a long time. This is… refreshing.”

“It releases a lot of endorphins, yeah?” As she spoke, I could feel this sharp un-pain at the base of my spine. I inhaled sharply and let my head fall back, closing my eyes. “I used to do it to Jenny all the time, too.”

“Yeah?” I was too distracted by the contact to hear what she was saying, but I felt devastated when her voice ceased. I just wanted to listen to her talk.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring her back up.”

“Hey,” I sighed. “What can you do? You guys were together for how long? And you think it’s weird that she pops into your brain on occasion? Psh…”

She laughed again continued stroking me, smoothing the hair back from my face. I sighed again and again. It felt so good. And when I thought it wouldn’t get any better, her hand started to wander down my neck and along my collar bone, lengthening each stroke as she came back up, curling them around my ear and making my spine try to fold in half backwards. I remember thinking, “Is she testing the waters to see how far I’ll let her hands go?” Then, no. She was just trying to help me relax.

I went even further to remind myself: Blake is off limits. Single or not.

The movie ended and my butt had gone numb from staying in the same position for so long. “I gotta move,” I groaned, torn between my comfort from the waist down and whatever it was she was giving me from the shoulders up. I sat forward and cracked my neck, trying to shake the feeling of those long fingers tracing little swirls into my skin.

She sat up, too, digging around in her bag. She pulled out a square, white envelope and put it in my hand. “I made this for you before I left the house. It’s a bunch of sounds that kinda remind me of you.”

I put it in the player excitedly, and when the first track started I could tell the mix was a masterpiece. “I feel for you in sooo many different ways,” Arthur Brown said in that low voice of his, all sad and full of dark heat. Quite the range for a skinny Limey. And then an electric organ rose with a taunting little series of notes and I smiled. “You know me too well,” I laughed, flipping to the next track. I danced around a little bit.

“I’m glad you like it.”

Old blues, new blues, a touch of Mod rock and some psychedelic stuff… I was impressed. “Songs like these drive me up a wall sometimes.”

“Why’s that” she asked curiously. “Come back here and sit down on a pillow. I like having you down there…”

“Sure you don’t wanna watch me dance some more?” I smirked. The music had made me giddy.

“Well…” she scratched her head and stared me down as I sauntered back over to the bed. “Maybe later. Come back on over here, doll. Teach why you like this music so much.”

Something in those rhythms and notes reached that primal, unrefined center in me. I sat back down and leaned into her again. I worked really hard to keep everything balanced and controlled, and the music helped me to release a little bit of that so I didn’t go insane. “These guys are the masters,” I mused. “They write the rawest, purest facts. If they want something, they’ll take it and they’ll make you thank them for it. Doesn’t matter what it is, they don’t beat around the bush. I love that! It’s all I want to hear.”