“And what do you propose I do with this gift?” I’m teasing. I know full well that each and every thing in that magical box will be utilized for the greater good of Kennedy’s charity. But I’m loving the attention this beautiful man has given me, and now I need more of it like a choice drug. Anything, a word, a gesture, a simple smile that sets those dimples of his detonating like bombs. In a strange way, I realize that I need him. And this realization alone makes me suddenly despise him just enough. Needing someone has always been the root of all evil in my life. Needing someone is the poison at the bottom of the well. There is no recovering from that kind of desperation. Not a drop of alcohol will help you forget how low you’ve fallen. I should know.
“Paint, draw, unleash your imagination, and let loose.” He scoots my way and pats the space between us as if asking me to fill it, and I do. “Whatever your heart desires. This is your life, Zoey. I hate the cliché that this isn’t some dress rehearsal, but they’re right. You’re young, beautiful, and gifted. Don’t let old ghosts, past mistakes, bind you up and steal your joy, steal your future.” His head hitches back toward the sun, and his mouth opens as if he’s just had an epiphany of his own.
“How does the medicine taste going down, Dr. McCarthy?” Not only had Abel morphed into a greeting card, but once he read the words for himself, he realized they were bullshit.
“Not good.” The muscles in his jaw pop as if he were readying for a fight.
“You know, we’re all born terminal with this human condition. You’re right about the past stealing my joy. I can tell you’re in the same boat.” A long spate of silence goes by as his eyes remain trained on the horizon.
“It’s beautiful here,” he says as an afterthought.
“Peaceful,” I counter. “But it’s too damn hot in the summer. Too damn cold in the winter.”
“Where’s the happy medium?”
“You have to find that in your heart.” I glance over to him, his lips pursed as if he didn’t care for my answer.
“What are you running from?”
“I’m not running from anything. I grew up here. Loveless is home. What are you running from?”
“Myself.”
“Sounds hard to do.”
“It’s impossible,” he whispers. His shoulder bumps playfully against mine. “Back to the box. You can paint all the sunsets you like now.” His gaze is still set ahead as the sun melts her glory over his glowing face. He’s still pissed at the realization that his words were nothing but a waste of his vocal cords. Yes, this isn’t a dress rehearsal, we all need to find a happy medium in our hearts—both true in theory, but life isn’t tied to a string of simple platitudes. When you’re in the shitter, everything smells around you, even the words of a gorgeous, kind man.
“One of my favorite things to do is sketch people.” I tap his foot with mine. “You forgot one thing in that box of plenty. I need a model with the face of an angel.” I groan a moment. “Okay. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. I’ve never sketched a single person’s face, never used a model, or so much as a prop. I sketch nameless, faceless crowds. Ballgames, and shopping malls, overpopulated beaches where a person would never want to be. Somewhere in that chaos of bodies I find relief. Maybe it’s the relief of knowing I’m not there swimming in a mass of humanity. That’s why I love the lake. That’s why I came back.” Wow. A moment of thick silence slogs by, and the sun reddens as if embarrassed by my bizarre confessional.
I find relief? Abel is going to think I have a hatred for all of humanity, and at this point in my life I’m not too sure he’d be wrong.
“What are you running away from?” Abel scoots in until our knees bump. It felt like a friendly tap.
Everything about Abel feels friendly, and I’m not used to being friends with the opposite gender. For as far back as I can remember, men have either wanted me physically or have been emotionally cold. I know there are several girls who claim to get along better with boys than they do girls, but I never really believed them. I always understood that their penis would eventually get in the way. If you didn’t want to sleep with them, why waste your time? On second thought, maybe I was the problem. I usually am.
A quiet laugh bounces from him. “You’re not going to answer me, are you?”
“Are you kidding?” I balk at the idea. “I’m not even thinking about it. I tend to stay away from loaded guns.” Truth.
The sun relinquishes her stronghold on the day and starts in on a dramatic descent.
“There she goes,” he whispers. “Three, two, one—make a wish.”
“I wish I had the ability to disappear.” I’m not sure why I said it. I mean it, though. The past comes back to me and all of its heartache, and suddenly I’m wishing other people would disappear instead. Some of them already have.
“Is that what you’re doing in Loveless?” Abel extends his legs. His blue jeans glow cobalt in this ethereal light.
“Isn’t that whatyou’redoing in Loveless?” I’ve got him there.
Abel’s lips pinch into a dry smile. “I think we’ve established the fact we’ve both been burned. Let me ask you something, Zoey. How many serious relationships have you had in your life?”
I examine him for a moment, this deity with thick black hair that looks delicious enough for me to want to run my fingers through—to knot my hands in and rain down kisses over. But it’s that three-day five o’clock shadow—the seventy-two hour shadow—that has every cell in my body begging for just one kiss. I don’t ever remember craving Warren that way. Maybe because Warren was all too willing to give me what I wanted.
“One.” There. I may not have given his question any thought, but I sure as hell answered it. “Why?” Gone is any sweetness from my tone. My body tenses, and suddenly all of those cells that were telling me to kiss him are now shouting for me to run.
“I get that it hurts.” He looks to the lake, to the darkest corner of the water when he says it as if reliving his own pain. “But you’re too young. Too beautiful and sweet to hole up in a boathouse. Gavin says you’ve been here over a year.”
“It’s my life.”
