Authors: Quinn Loftis,M Bagley Designs
“Any question?” I ask as I let my voice drop suggestively.
She shrugs and looks up at me from under her lashes as she deals out the deck. “Scared?” she asks.
“You should be,” I wink at her and enjoy the effect as she pauses in her dealing.
I can see now that I could use sex appeal to my advantage in this game, it seems she is every bit as attracted to me as I am to her. Would that be unfair of me? Yes. Is that going to stop me? Absolutely not.
“Okay here’s your stack,” she hands me half the deck. “The rules are simple. We flip over cards from our deck and lay them face up in the center between us. If a jack comes up then the first person to slam their hand on it wins that pile and a question.”
“Simple enough.” I agree.
“Maybe, but are you fast enough,” she says with a wink of her own.
The game begins. Back and forth, we go and it seems like forever until a jack finally is laid down.
“Got it!” She smiles as her hand rest triumphantly on the jack, under mine. It’s infectious and I find myself grinning even though I’m the loser. We pull our hands back from the center and she gathers all the cards up into a neat pile. That’s when I notice that she is wearing bracelets at the end of her sleeves so they won’t move up while she plays. Leave it alone Trey, I tell myself not for the first time.
I look back up at her face and see that her head is tilted sideways and her eyes are shifted up, thinking I presume.
“Surely there is something you want to know.”
She holds her finger up at me and I use my hand to make a zipping motion across my lips. And there’s the smile. I’ve decided that if I die today, it would be alright because I’ve seen her smile.
“Okay, we’ve pretty much asked all the typical, get to know you questions, so I had to really think about it. I’m going with, what’s hanging on the walls of your bedroom right now?”
I simply stare at her, not moving my imaginary zipped lips. When she picks up on what I’m doing she rolls her eyes and reaches across the make shift table. I hold perfectly still not wanting to scare her away and as her finger glide across my lips, as if to unzip them, I fight the urge to playfully bite her. I see the moment she realizes what she has done as her eyes widen and she jerks her hand back.
“Are my lips that revolting?” I ask calmly.
She shakes her head, “No, I, it’s,”
I let her stumble for a minute before saving her. “I have a dream catcher that my grandmother made for me.”
“That’s all?” she asks, her embarrassment obviously forgotten.
“Too many things on the wall make me feel closed in. I would rather be outside anyways.”
“Oh,” she seems to consider that, then nods, “I guess I can understand that.”
Without another word she begins laying cards down again. This time only four sets are laid out before a jack comes up. I win.
I give no reaction to my victory as I pull my winnings back and join them with the stack in my hand. I’m learning things about Tally without her even having to tell me. Like, when I do not respond at what most would think at the appropriate time, instead of being uncomfortable like most are, she just waits. Unless I’m staring at her, then she fidgets. Like her, I have to think about what to ask, I know the everyday things. The things I want to know we haven’t reached that point in our relationship for.
“How much do you like me?” I ask more out of curiosity of what she will say, than wanting to know if she likes me at all.
To my surprise she laughs. I was expecting blushing and squirming and maybe some stuttering, not laughing.
“I’m not sure I understand what’s funny about my question.”
“Ahh,” she lets out a final sigh and her eyes are dancing with delight. I take a snapshot in my mind of this time and place, of that look, so I can see it again in dark times.
“What’s funny Swift, is you presume that I like you at all,” one side of her mouth is quirked up in a crooked smile and they are pursed just a tad, her expression has challenge written all over it.
“Swift?” I ask.
“Well it’s better than teepee boy, or totem pole―both of which are nicknames from Candy,” she points out quickly.
“Agreed,” I lean back against the bench and cross my legs. “Are you going to find another way to avoid the question Baker, or are you scared?” I throw her words back at her and find that I like the easy teasing that comes between us.
“I like you enough.”
I turn my head to look her in the eyes and see the blue-gray storm swirling in them. She’s scared. Of me? Of her emotions? I don’t know of what, but I see it there.
“That’s enough for me.” I tell her gently.
Our time is over for the day and she says good bye so that she can go do therapy with her aunt. I stand there, just like yesterday and watch her walk away.
“For now, Baker, that’s enough for me now.” I say to her retreating figure.
~
Tally
I watch from the bench as Trey walks towards me.
It’s been two days since he apologized to me and I’ve almost forgotten the pain we caused each other. I decide that it should be a sin to look that good. He’s wearing a t-shirt for goodness sakes, but man he is wearing the hell out of it. He has his hands in the pockets of his jeans and has on a pair of brown work boots. I don’t think many guys could make a girl drool in something so plain. His hair is pulled back so I imagine he must have braided it today, bummer, it’s easier to fantasize about running my fingers through it when it’s down.
I barely have time to close my mouth when he raises his head and looks at me. A small smile plays on his lips. He knows I was staring. Well it’s his own fault, he shouldn’t look so edible.
“Hey,” I say, attempting to play off the fact that I was getting hot and bothered just because he was walking, seriously Tally, who does that.
“You look lovely,” his voice is deep and I would die if he knew that with everything
he says, I hear ‘have your way with me Trey.’ Kind of like how Patty on Charlie Brown only hears the teacher say ‘Whawhawha.’ I’ll just keep that as my little secret.
“Thank you. I dressed up for
you; I wore a black long sleeve shirt, instead of my usual black long sleeve shirt.” This gets a laugh from him and I try not to close my eyes and enjoy the deep rumble. He sits down next to me, giving me my usual few inches that he seems to notice I like. I’m not sure how to correct this because truth be told, that rule never applied to him. But I guess I can’t very well pat my lap with a goofy grin and say ‘come here boy.’
We sit
there in our usual comfortable silence, well comfortable as long as he isn’t staring at me.
“Tally,” his voice is soft and I realize he is leaning on his arm that is draped on the back of the bench. “What is it you dream of?”
I’m caught off guard by the question. “Do you mean like a literal dream while sleeping, or do you mean a vision of what I want to happen?”
“Is it ever both?” he asks.
“Well maybe sometimes but it seems like what we dream, or at least what I dream is more fantastical than real life could ever be.”
“Do you want your life to be fantastical?”
Okay he is getting deep today, I wonder if I should be worried. I’ll just go with it for now but at the first sign of entering the danger zone, I will panic, I repeat I- will- panic.
“I want my life to mean something,”
He interrupts before I can finish. “Your life does mean something Tally.”
I look down at my hands, I think about what is under those sleeves, and I want to cry. I want to break down right there, crawl into Trey’s big, safe arms, and ask for my life to mean something to him.
“I want my life to mean something to someone else,” I finish.
His eyes widen just a little at my admission. In that moment, I see the protectiveness that seems to live and breathe inside of him rise up and choose me as one he would shelter. I don’t know how long we stare at one another, silent words being sent between us; it is more intimate a time than I have ever shared with another human being.
He clears his throat and the moment is broken, but the connection is still there. “You never answered my question.”
“I dream of living, of being whole, happy, and bold.” He’s quiet and I wonder what he thinks about my answer. I won’t ask, I’m not wondering that hard. “What about you Swift, what do you dream?”
Something in the way he looks away from me tells me that he isn’t going to tell me the truth, or at least not the whole truth.
“I dream of a life that is real, full of all its joys and all its darkness. I dream of being complete.”
Aaand that concludes our time today boys and girls, please don’t stomp each other when you run for the exit. He sees that I have checked out, that my mind is in
find a hole and dig it deeper
mode.
“Tally,” his voice is stern and confident. He isn’t worried about hurting my feelings. He is simply gaining control of a situation where I feel out of control.
My eyes come back into focus and I’m looking into big dark brown eyes. Some of his hair has come loose from his braid and is blowing around him making him look wild and untamed. His eyes are focused and alert, but he doesn’t look panicked.
“We good?” He finally asks.
I nod.
And just like that, we move on
“Good because I have a game I want to play.” He smiles and there is rare, boyish quality to it.
“Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to turn out good for me?”
He simply smiles in response and pulls a black case from his pocket. As he opens the case, my eyes widen at what’s inside. I can’t help it; I’m laughing so hard my side hurts. This stoic, over six feet tall, stern looking guy brought me
Pass the Pigs
to play.
“What?” He asks innocently.
I finally pull myself together and shake my head, “Nothing, I’m good.”
“You’re ready to listen now?”
I nod.
“You’re sure you’re going to behave?”
Eye roll.
“We are going to play it a little differently than the conventional rules. During your roll, for every pig that lands on its feet you will have to write down something about yourself,”
“Wh,” I start to interrupt not liking the sound of this at all.
“At the end of the game, you will write down your secrets and then give them to your opponent in your own time.” He watches me, quietly waiting for my answer.
I know I shouldn’t agree to it because I will not be able to uphold my end. Once I am released from MPF, I won’t see Trey again. My body seems to ignore what my brain is telling me and I nod.
I feel like the beginning of a relationship has a lot of potential if pig throwing is a common interest.
“There’s this feeling that happens when a relationship is so new that it’s even questionable that it is a relationship. This feeling of constant ache when
you are apart, and then breath–stealing joy when you are together again. It’s exciting and exhausting at the same time.” ~Tally
It’s been two day
s since I essentially issued a challenge to Trey to make a kiss from him so good that I lose all inhibition and throw the game. Don’t ask me why I’m sticking with baseball analogies. Right now, I can barely keep up with what is happening and why I’m letting it happen. I’m still hurt over the fact that he avoided me for three days. I haven’t told him how much it affected me. The wondering, the speculating, finally telling myself that there was no way I was good enough for him. Then out of nowhere, he was back, and he came every day to just sit and talk while Candy helped us evade the staff. It has been the best two days, well, three days counting today, of my life, and undeniably the worst as well.
I throw myself down into one of the chairs of Dr. Stacey’s office. At this point I’m tied up in knots, fluctuating from needing to throw up to asking for a conjugal visit. Doc is already seated across from me; cool, composed, and she has a file in her lap. I wonder just how composed she would be if I told her of my two dilemmas, though I have an idea of how she would react to the visit.
“How are you today, Tally?” Her voice is calm as usual.
I look up at her, meeting her eyes and doing something that I have never done. I open up and let her in. “I’m confused, frustrated, angry, elated, excited, and scared.”
Her eyebrows raise and she clears her throat before she speaks.
“That’s a myriad of feelings.”
I’m not in the mood to deal with her open ended statements that are really disguised questions. My eyes dart around the room and my legs begin to bounce up and down. I know this feeling. I dread this feeling.
“Could you please, for once, just drop the psychobabble? I need to talk to someone who isn’t going to make sexual jokes or dream up my future and how many kids I’m going to have. So please, can you be that person?” I’m hovering on the edge of a panic attack but I’m clawing at the ledge trying not to fall.