I pulled out my phone and started the clock. This time, he didn’t start the maze with cockiness. He took his time weaving the pencil through the walls. I watched his face closely as he tried to work out the path. He cursed under his breath a few times. This one took him longer. When he tapped the pencil’s eraser on the top of the car, I thought he would give up. But, after a minute of simply staring, he replaced the pencil on the page, marking his way through.
“Good work,” I complimented while stopping the timer. “Six minutes, thirty-eight seconds.”
He twisted his mouth, not satisfied. “You do this a lot? Design mazes.
I shrugged. “I design a lot of things. Haven’t made a maze since I was in high school.”
David tilted his head to the side, studying me. After a beat he said, “You’re not just some bleeding-heart jersey chaser, are you?”
I frowned. “Jersey chaser?” Is that what people see when I am with Weston?
“At first you seem completely unaware,” David continued. “But, no. You’re the furthest things from being unaware. You pushed Dakota to talk because either you’ve seen someone abused or…”
A sigh escaped my lips. I turned to the next page of the sketchbook and made nonsensical lines. I hoped if I looked bored with the conversation, David would become the same. I didn’t want to be read by him because in my experience, people like him were the best sort of readers.
David’s aggression wasn’t just for football or because he was a jerk. His aggression kept him safe in a world constantly threatening him. To be that safe, one needed to learn how to assess any and everything. When he looked at people, he wasn’t only looking for buttons to push. He looked for strings to undo. He looked for ways to protect himself by using their weakness.
“Want to talk about it?” he offered. Words I’d never thought I’d hear from someone like him.
I studied him. His brown eyes peered back, challenging me to speak.
“Not with you, no,” I told him after a brief stare down.
He looked annoyed at my response. “So, people around you have to be willing to speak, but you’re exempt from that rule? Is that it?”
I let out a breath that was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like me being strangled. “Maybe I should have waited to ask Dakota. Given him time to process. But, when I… when something happened to me, I desperately wanted a hand to reach out. No one came for a long time. I wanted Dakota’s hand to be instant.”
David chewed on his lip. “Well, the world doesn’t work like that.”
“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that. I thought maybe I could change it,” I continued to scribble. “But, apparently, I can’t. He doesn’t want my help. Neither does Weston. I’m…useless.”
We were both quiet for a minute. It surprised me David still stood outside when he could easily escape an awkward conversation for music and company, he much preferred. His eyes weren’t on me anymore but trained on the ground.
“Want to know why I’m good at mazes?” I asked after a while.
“‘Cause you always turn right?” David joked.
I smiled. “No.”
I turned the sketchbook to a fresh page to draw one more puzzle. David braced his hands on the truck, leaning over to watch my hand.
“I’m good as mazes because I grew up playing one,” I told him with my eyes still on the page. “I think you have too. So has Weston. And now, Dakota.”
David said nothing. He made a small grunt in agreement.
“Trick is,” I continued. “IknewI was in one. And I knew who constructed it and what they wanted from me. I knew the walls would change every few weeks. I knew there were pitfalls. I knew how to anticipate a change within a heartbeat.”
“What happened to you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said as I pushed back memories of home. David wasn’t the person who would get my secrets. “All that matters is I got out of my maze.”
“How?”
“The more you run through someone else’s puzzle, the more you learn about them.” I held up the sketchbook so he could see my final piece. “If you do enough of the ones I design, you’ll learn my quirks. Pay attention and you might know some things about me I’m not even consciously aware of.”
David nodded as he studied the page. “You’re not focused on the walls when you’re going through one of these, are you?”
I smiled. He understood. “No. To survive, you can’t think about winning.”
