Flynn didn’t realize the massive blunder he had made with his insensitive observation. I picked up the tiny detailing knife he had been using and carved a line through the smooshy clay.
“Don’t touch that,” Flynn said, grabbing the implement from my fingers, though I was aware of how he made sure not to touch me. So many things had changed for him, but some were fundamentally the same.
“Sorry. That was probably rude huh?” he asked and I blinked up at him in surprise. Was this Flynn being self-aware?
“Yeah it was,” I agreed.
“Sorry,” he said again and I found myself smiling again.
“You said that already.”
Flynn gave me a shy grin. “I always liked it when you smiled. You have really pretty teeth.”
I snorted and it came out as a cough.
“Uh thanks,” I stuttered, finding myself without a witty comeback. What could I say to something like that?
“They’re really straight and white. They fit your mouth really well,” Flynn went on as he peered at my teeth. I wondered if I should open my mouth and let him have a look inside.
“I don’t even know what to say to that, Flynn,” I told him honestly. Flynn laughed. It was stilted and strained but it was a laugh. And it made me smile with a rusty stretching of lips.
“Do you still want to learn how to do this?” Flynn asked and I frowned. What was he talking about? When had I told him I wanted to sculpt?
Flynn turned back to the table and started rolling the extra clay into a ball and then flattened it with his palm. He repeated the movement over and over again. He was methodical. Every pat, every roll, done in perfectly timed increments.
“You told me that day in school when you were wearing the blue shirt with the torn collar that you wished you could draw. You said you didn’t think you were talented enough. I offered to teach you,” Flynn said, surprising me with another accurate recollection of a conversation that had occurred almost seven years ago.
“You did offer. I never took you up on that,” I said, forcing my brain to think back to a time I had worked hard to forget. My mind stretched and strained as it sought to extract the event Flynn was talking about. I had worked hard to suppress so much of my past that trying to remember things I actually wanted to was difficult. One of the many therapists I had been forced to see over the years had told me that it was my defense mechanism. My mind shut down and shoved away the things that hurt.
It had served me well up until now. Up until I wished to remember specific elements of my past with the same clarity that Flynn did.
“You never asked me again. But if you want, I can show you now,” he said, his voice slow and unsure.
I slid across the bench until I was beside him. I still didn’t touch him. I knew he didn’t like that. I didn’t want that either. But I was close enough to smell the soap he had used in the shower and the sharp acridity of sweat drying on his skin from sitting in the warm room.
Flynn cleared his throat and looked at me from the side of his eyes, never meeting my gaze head on. It was amazing how his nuances and behaviors were familiar to me. Even after all this time and no matter how much my mind blocked out, there were still some things I couldn’t forget.
One was the awkward twist of his hands when he was nervous. Another was the slight tick in his jaw when he was worked up. He was doing both right now.
With what seemed to be a conscientious effort, he stopped rubbing his hands together and placed them back in the clay. He took the ball he had made and rolled it across the table until it sat in front of me.
“Knead it for a few minutes. Make it pliable. It will be easier to mold,” he told me in small, complete sentences.
I did as he said, enjoying the way it oozed between my fingers.
“Break off a small piece and roll into a cone, like this.” Flynn’s fingers formed his own piece of clay expertly. I fumbled as I tried to do the same. I held up my finished product with a wry grin.
“Like this?”
Flynn’s lips twitched. His smiles were rare things. He gave them sparingly and I found that I resented him for withholding them from me.
He plucked the clay out of my hand and pressed it together between his palms, flattening it before rolling it back into a ball. He put it down on the table.
“Try it again,” he instructed. I fought the urge to become oppositional and angry. I had never taken direction well. I balked at authority and had made it a mission while growing up to fight against the system in the only way that I could, with complete and total defiance.
But with Flynn, I knew he wasn’t trying to be bossy. It was just who he was. And I felt like I was trapped in an endless loop of déjà vu as I fought down my annoyance and attempted to accept this man for who he was.
It was becoming frighteningly easy to slip back into our old roles. I was slowly stepping back into the shoes of an Ellie McCallum that I had thought long gone. An Ellie that had existed only with Flynn.
