8
So, here’s the thing: as I mentioned before probably a hundred times, when you basically grew up in an ICU, where you’re woken up two or three days a week by the wailing of parents whose kid had just died, you learn to see the world for what it was, not for what you wanted it to be, or what you hoped it would become. This had served me quite well so far. I was logical. I was levelheaded. I could tell you everything there was to know about bedpans and IV drips and how to dress a stomach bandage.
Unfortunately this life had taught me nothing about how to text tall cute boys with messy hair and goofy smiles and muscular forearms and improbably good taste in music.
After I regained the ability to breathe, I huddled on the couch and wrote (and then rewrote) about ten different messages to Cooper with trembling fingers, scared shitless of what he knew, and how. What I was doing terrified me, sure, but I was sick of being scared – I felt like a coward or a weakling or a shut-in or a closeted Evangelical or anyone else who was ruled by fear. Autumn’s words – you deserve someone – had been ringing through my head for an hour, and I wanted to agree with her.
You do? I finally asked, and by this point the sun was setting.
Indeed I do, he said, and for a moment it felt like all the oxygen in the world had evaporated yet again.
You’ve been driving yourself crazy because you can’t stop thinking of me, and all you want is to see me again.
My relieved sigh was audible even to Socks, who glared at me for making a ruckus and then sneered his way off to find somewhere quieter.
Am I right? he asked after I didn’t respond.
You may be right. You may be wrong. Some things are just better left unshared.
Meet me at the Ritz tonight, and tell me in person, then, he said immediately, which was one of the nicer bars in town.
Why? I asked as my whole body vibrated with something between panic and excitement.
Because it’s a beautiful night and I’m alive and I would like to be standing in a chilly bar next to you?
For a while I just sort of stared at the screen. I felt warm and funny and a little dizzy, like I’d just jumped off a roof and was falling through warm air. I really had to train myself to stop acting like such a moron with him, I told myself silently.
Too much? he asked a moment later.
Oh, no, no, I typed after I’d snapped out of it. I was just caught off guard.
I’d love to, I said, the word unclimbable ringing in my head as I typed, but right now I’m busy :/
Sorry
Can we at least text then? he responded.
Why? I asked.
…Because I like talking to you?
Well, then. Suddenly I remembered that my face was covered in tiny little hairs, because they all stood on end at the same time, giving me this weird feeling like I’d been kissed by a cold phantom wind.
“Who are you texting?” Shelly asked as she breezed into the kitchen, a bag of groceries in hand. “And what is that look on your face about?”
“Nothing,” I said after a pause that was a bit too long. “Autumn wants info on a guy who lives down the street. What’s for dinner?!”
So Cooper and I texted. And texted. And texted. We didn’t talk about much, just the usual stuff you have to get out of the way with someone you don’t really know: siblings, interests, how horrifically awkward it was that you’d met online, etc. Of course I would’ve already known all this if he’d had a Facebook to stalk, which he didn’t, which I kind of loved. His distance from the rest of my generation just made him even more attractive. He was twenty-five, had no siblings, and was still sort of vague on a lot of other things, just like he’d been on the first night. But I didn’t care. We mostly talked about me, actually, which was, like, really unusual and cool for some reason. I’d never had anyone besides hospital administrators ask me so many questions about myself, and I kinda loved it.
Wait, I said half an hour into a conversation about the best bars in Jacksonville Beach (or Jax Beach, as the collection of local beach communities was called), not that I had much insight into the matter. It’s one in the morning. How had time gone by so quickly? I have work at nine. I need to crash soon.
But I’d rather keep you up, Cooper responded, making my whole body jump.
Enticing, but I’d rather not fall asleep at my desk tomorrow, I said, trying to keep it cool.
Fine, he typed. If I must, let me bid you adieu. Goodnight, Summer.
Goodnight, Cooper.
I’m kinda glad I downloaded Spark, he said next, and I smiled with everything in me and then threw my phone across my bed so I wouldn’t say anything else and betray my feelings, cutting him off before I could cut myself off. (After all, who would I be if I didn’t run from what drew me in?) I didn’t want to go to sleep – that meant there would be eight more hours until I could talk to him again – but I knew I had to, and so I put on one of Saviour’s more upbeat tracks (if that is even possible), called Blood on the Dance Floor, and hoped to quell the happy chaos in my head long enough to let Saviour’s crystal voice carry me into the oblivion:
I hate all these assholes and the feathers in their hair
Liquor in plastic cups, disco ball sparkles, but idiots are everywhere
Why does it seem like all I got to offer is this vacant stare
Ugh, I just can’t take me anywhere
But tonight I’m gonna dance ‘til there’s blood on the dance floor
Until I believe you don’t mean a thing to me anymore
And tonight I’m gonna dance ‘til there’s blood on the dance floor
Until I don’t hate you and me and my friends anymore
My father tells me tomorrow’s no guarantee
Be young and wild, baby, run free
But if this is all I have, this one ride
Then why’s it feel like my heart’s on ice?
So tonight I’m gonna dance ‘til there’s blood on the dance floor
Until I forget that you’re the one my pulse beats for
And tonight I’m gonna dance ‘til there’s blood on the dance floor
Cut me open, baby, I’m yours, don’t push me away anymore
(Blood on the dance floor)
~
Cooper texted me first the next morning, which was a huge relief, since I obviously didn’t want to do it myself and come off like some overeager psycho. I was distracted at work all afternoon, and he was deliciously to blame. I screen-shotted (is that even a word? Or is it screen-shat? Oh well) some Facebook pictures to him and we made fun of Oak Tree of Love girl, whom we’d both worked with in the past, and soon we agreed that her Public Displays of Matrimony were both unnecessary and embarrassing. After I got home and made some pork chops for Shelly and Chase, I retreated to my room and got deep into a very serious text war with Cooper over the merits of regular coffee vs. decaf (of course decaf had no merits, but he said regular made him too jumpy, so I indulged him in the debate) when suddenly the convo changed course:
Can I call you? he asked.
Sure, I typed with a feeling I’d only previously gotten after injecting champagne into my stomach tube last New Year’s Eve and feeling the little golden bubbles rise up into my broken esophagus. Call away.
I smiled for the millionth time that day. Calling someone was creepy unless you scheduled it out beforehand; I knew that from work, and just from, like, being alive in the 21st century. But it was cute that he actually played by the rules. I liked following the rules sometimes, even if “the rules” themselves were kind of stupid and weird and archaic.
“Hello there,” he said when I answered. “How goes it?”
“Hmm. It’s going.”
“I would like to hear more about these goings-on, but in person, perhaps?”
I paused. “Are you asking me to hang out?”
“Oh, come on, did you really think I’d be content talking to you on the phone forever?” he asked. “I am, indeed, asking you to meet up. Or not so much asking as telling, actually. Come to the Ritz with me tonight, Summer.”
I got this happy/panicky feeling as soon as he said my name. As I picked at my cuticle I wondered when this butterfly-ish stuff would go away, and then I wondered if I wanted it to.
“That sounds quite demanding,” I said.
“I am nothing if not a demanding tyrant. Couldn’t you tell? No, seriously, come. I was meeting some friends, but they bailed on me.”
“So that’s it?” I asked, laughing. “I’m just a replacement hangout partner?”
He paused. I could hear that he was nervous. “It’s not just that. I don’t know, I kind of, like, enjoy talking to you, and I’d like to do it some more, I guess.”
I gave myself a chance to back out, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to: my whole chest suddenly filled up with this cool, breezy, giddy sensation that felt like letting go of something. “Okay. Why Ritz?” I asked, trying to hide the smile in my voice.
“…Because we live in a beach town in Florida and it’s almost summer and there’s nothing else to do?”
“Touché. I’m sorta busy now,” I said as I looked around my empty room, “but I can meet you there at, like, ten. Is that good?”
“My mind has been read. Can’t wait. But first, let’s make some ground rules.”
“Ground rules?”
“Yep. Did you not hear me say I was a tyrant? Let’s start with number one: no storming off this time. Sound like a plan?”
I laughed from the bottom of my stomach. “Okay. Tonight will be a storm-off-free zone. I promise. Unless you turn out to be a psycho criminal, or something.”
“Point taken. And number two: you must promise to actually let me in, instead of shutting me out again.”
I hesitated a little. Why did he even care? “That’s one’s negotiable,” I said. Although I had a PHD in Pushing People Away with a minor in Putting Walls Up, I told myself to think about it. “And besides,” I went on, “we’re just friends, so none of that matters. Any more diva demands?”
“Yes. When you forget about this ridiculous ‘just friends’ bullshit and inevitably become overwhelmed with physical desire for me and attempt to sexually molest me, I hereby vow not to tell your friends about it and embarrass you.”
“Okay, I’m hanging up now,” I said, even though I didn’t want to hang up at all. “See you soon, you diva.”
“Oh, and speaking of that, I actually have one other demand: wear a bathing suit under your clothes.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Just do it, please?”
“Fine,” I said. “I usually do that anyway in the summer, but not to go out. But whatever, Mr. Prima Donna. Only for you.”
When I got into the car a few minutes later I stopped to feed myself some milk. As I maneuvered around in the dark car, some of the liquid squirted all over my stomach (PS: “squirt” is such a gross word), and I had to find some wipes and clean myself, cursing under my breath all the while. I couldn’t hide the stomach tube forever – how was I going to tell Cooper about all this stuff without revealing the news about the big surgery? I mean, sure, my scar had told him that something had obviously gone wrong in Summer World, but how did I tell him about the rest? Everyone had baggage they inevitably had to lay out after a few dates: their parents were divorced, they’d gotten arrested for underage drinking at the beach when they were seventeen, they made a really weird sound whenever they yawned, etcetera. But my baggage was on another level. How did you say, “Hey, Date. I was born without a working throat, and I have a tube sticking out of me, and I have a life-threatening surgery scheduled for the end of the summer?”
And why did I even care in the first place? Usually I tried not to worry too much about my health, as I found worry to be a dreadfully useless emotion, the equivalent of drowning in a kiddie pool on a clear day. Either fix a situation, or accept the unfixable – that was my viewpoint. And I’d mostly accepted mine. Some girls got married, and I just got milk farts. And that was okay! Or it had been, at least, until this mental break of the past few days.
I gripped the wheel with both hands, closed my eyes, and gave myself a silent pep talk. Despite the odds, I’d found a beautiful, funny, kind boy who was not grotesque in any way and who came from a sick mother and was therefore somewhat able to look past my health issues, and I did not want to fuck it up now. I literally couldn’t afford to.
Stop fucking second-guessing yourself, Summer. Your situation does not make you inferior to this boy. You are worthy of love. This hot guy totally wants to hangout with you tonight, as crazy as that sounds. Wait – d’oh! That’s not crazy! Worthy of love! Worthy of love!
I took a breath, threw my car into gear, and headed for whatever was waiting for me.