Beast(30)

“I like you too,” she says. “You are a wonderfully horrible boy.”

She brings the camera down and our noses slowly creep closer.

The timer on her phone rings, splitting the air between us like a barb. The day I wished would last forever is done. I hobble and huff back to my chair. Jamie takes the handles and pushes me.

I let her.





THIRTEEN


I’m skeptical about luck.

Nothing dramatic, just real used to the fact that if I go to grab a lucky rabbit’s foot, the bunny will whip around and bite me. When I was a kid and things would go south, I’d ask my dad to please help me out. Please influence that kid to invite me to his birthday party, please give me all the right words before I try talking to that girl. Please let me know you can hear me.

If anything remotely good happens, it’s my dad pulling a few sky strings from above, because luck and I are not on speaking terms.

It doesn’t apply to school. As long as I do the work and study hard, my academic achievement is never touched by the chill finger of doom. It’s everything else that occasionally goes to shit. Whenever things start to go my way, I sit back and wait for a kick in the teeth.

Oh, I just get an actual shirt that fits, like with buttons and everything? Just kidding. The armpit rips open as I reach for a jar on the high shelf. Maybe that one happy day when I found twenty bucks on the street? Oh man, I immediately started planning all the food I was going to buy with that thing. I’m talking double cheeseburgers, extra bacon, and several bags of Doritos to wash it down. All the stuff my mom hates me eating. But wait! Some ranting woman charged up and started hollering that I stole it from her. There’s no way that was true, since she was at least twenty paces behind me when I found it, but that lady threw such a fit, people actually came out of their coffee shops to gawk, so I just gave it to her. When you look like the opposite of innocence, no wide eyes or cherubic cheek in sight, you end up sighing and shrugging a lot.

So when I asked Jamie if she wanted to meet up at Peninsula Park in the rose garden, I had my doubts things would continue being great. Just because.

I flag a bus and take a long, slow trip there because she said she would come. Doesn’t matter how happy she sounded when I called; I’m still worried. Maybe this will be the day when she gives me the friendly pat on the head and says, “Stop dreaming.”

But that’s it right there. I can’t stop dreaming.

In my mind’s eye we spend the day leisurely drifting in and out of straight rows exploding with flowers that surround the wide, circular fountain. Drops of water sparkle in the sunlight. Roses burst from their bushes in all colors and sizes. Tiny little white ones woven in between big lusty red ones. Thousands and thousands of roses blooming as one. Her feet treading across the weathered brick path, my wheels pushing along beside her. Perhaps we’ll lean in to smell the same rose at the same time, and my lips will brush her cheek. The sun will beam down with golden rays of warmth, surging through our very beings and carrying us forward with the endless time of days.

Oh my god, shut up.

I dent the window of the bus with my head. Everything outside is bleak. Gray with dripping clouds. A small touch of hope thinks the sun will shine over the park, just for us, but an increasingly large feeling of dread rises up—it’s the perfect backdrop for Jamie to sign off and go her way.

The bus slows to a stop. I’m right outside the park. There’s a sidewalk and a ramp on either side of the rose garden, so that’s nice. I’m even on time. Still, the dread grows. I want to cancel. Maybe stay on the bus and keep going.

Because what if Jamie is just humoring me?

The bus kneels and I get off. My stomach straightens out. I’m the one who called her, I remind myself. I want to see Jamie because maybe this is the one day my shirt won’t burst apart. My nerves shake with each push to our meeting place by the little bandstand. I don’t see her. I raced to get here as soon as the bell rang and I’m still covered in school. All loaded up with my book bag and wearing my uniform. I pause to take off the tie. I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying too hard.

When I get to the bandstand, Jamie’s not there. I check my phone for the time. I’m early and no messages from her. Maybe she’s somewhere else taking pictures. A massive meadow, brown and dusty from last summer’s relentless sun, lies surrounded by tall pine trees screaming up into the sky. She’s not taking pictures of the grass or the trees, so instead I look for what might be rusty or cracked and check to see if she’s crouched before it, working to find beauty in the forgotten and the grotesque.

“Boo!” Jamie’s breath hits my ear like a shot.

“You scared the crap out of me!” I jump and land with a big, dumb smile on my face.

She hops in front of me with a little kick of her heel. “I wanted to surprise you.” Some of her hair got trapped in her lip gloss and she pulls it free. One tug with her finger and the tendril flies back and blends with the rest of her hair, which is long and smooth today. I think I smell perfume, but it could be the flowers.

“That was the best surprise all week,” I say. “Want to see the roses?”

“The roses? Uh…” Jamie makes a face. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

Here it comes.

“Well, I mean, it was kind of inevitable, wasn’t it?” she says.