Chapter Twenty-One
There will never be anything as exhilarating or as pleasing as the tentativeness that comes with the first kiss you have with another individual. The gentleness that pairs with hesitance is like white wine and an exceptionally buttery fish dish, sinful and wholesome all at the same time. Jerry’s fingertips grazed my smooth, sensitive face, starting at my chin, moving up my jawline and faintly brushing my supple cheeks.
I shuddered at the sensation. Jerry pulled away.
“I’m sorry! I…” he began.
“No,” I said. “It was a good shiver.”
“So?”
“So, I liked it, but…”
“But?”
I am not a person who feels guilt very often. If I had been speaking to myself as a person outside of the situation, I would advise myself not to feel guilty.
All the same, a look of hurt filled Jerry’s eyes. I simply couldn’t turn him down. It wasn’t just a matter of feeling guilty, I didn’t want to turn him down! I wanted to go with him to the deepest, darkest, depths of what was ethically possible with another human being. If possible, I would be compelled to say a curse word for him if he wished me to do so!
“Things are really strange for me right now,” I said.
I cringed at myself. What a cop out! That wasn’t a satisfying answer at all! I wouldn’t be surprised if Jerry thought I was the biggest turd on the face of the planet! I certainly thought it of myself. It was like the cliché customer service answer for saying why a person was acting like a complete and utter weirdo!
“What?” Jerry asked. “Is it because there’s someone else? Back in California, I mean?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “It’s not that! It’s not that at all! And it’s nothing to do with you. Really! It’s just…”
I faltered. It felt ridiculous to struggle over my words so much. In my line of work, all I ever have to do is use some variation on phrases I had said hundreds of times before. This, however, was wild territory and the terrain was rough. How could I explain what was going on to Jerry when I could barely grasp it myself?
“What?” Jerry asked.
Bless his soul, there wasn’t an ounce of impatience in his tone. I glanced to the side Something sped across the path in a straight line. At first, I thought it was a rat. However, upon further observation, it turned out to be one of the black plastic bags, favored by bodegas and independently run drugs stores. It had that animalistic way of moving that only those types of black bags did.
My relief at the fact that it was a mere black bag wasn’t long lived, however, as just as it appeared to stop being pushed around by the wind, the biggest rat I had ever seen skittered out of it. It had been pushing the plastic bag all around rather than the wind the whole time. A lot in my life was like that: reassurance that things weren’t as bad as I thought, only to have things be exactly as bad as I thought or worse. What if things turned out that way with Jerry? He was here, in this terrible city I had come to hate, after all. At a certain point, you have to start holding people accountable for the places they live.
“I’m a mess,” I said.
It was the truth. I ran a rigid hand through my hair. It was getting long; I would have to cut it soon. Back home, I had a regular place that I went to on a biweekly basis to get the same hair cut that I got every time. My girl knew exactly how I liked it. However, everything had been so crazy since I arrived in Wisconsin, I had neglected the inevitability of my hair growing and I was apprehensive to get it cut by somebody who didn’t know me in the first place.
Trouble was brewing in Jerry’s eyes and it broke my heart.
No, don’t fall for that now, I instructed myself. If it’s hard now, just think of how hard it will be when you eventually have to leave this city forever.
And forever I truly intended it to be. Late at night, when I finally let myself lie down and have the trials and tribulations of the day wash over me, the only thing that would relax me enough so that I could fall asleep was thinking that perhaps I would wake up in a different life. I promised myself that I would enjoy every moment to the fullest when I returned to California. The thought of the sun, the sand and the decent juice bars would be my reward for braving things out. It no longer even mattered if I was promoted or not; I just wanted to be out of the Midwest.
“Jerry,” I tried to explain. “I really like you…like, a lot. I’m not going to be here for very long, though and I’m not the sort of person who can start something up and just stop it.”
“I don’t know,” said Jerry. “Maybe you could surprise yourself.”
“I rarely ever do,” I said.
Jerry cast his gaze to the sky, as if appealing to the heavens themselves for the answer to this quandary. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair, which was loosely tied back in the ponytail at the nape of his neck. Some strands of hair had gotten loose and swirled with the wind at the top of his head, but he still managed to pull it off. He had that effortless sort of ease they try to emulate for photographs of models wearing clothing from one of those stores that blasts the music way too loud.
Luckily, a bit of humor eased across his lips. Some semblance of relief loosened the vice-like grip around my chest. This was more like the Jerry I had become accustomed to.
Good job asserting yourself, I congratulated myself. You outlined the issue and he was understanding. See? Not everything is as dramatic as you make it out to be.
All of the sudden, Jerry’s smile turned roguish.
“We’ll just have to see about that,” he said like he was some sort of cowboy or dashing scallywag in an old timey film.
Wait. What?
Just at that moment, the rat who had been in the black plastic bag ran directly across my shoe. In my mind’s eye, I knew that rats left a trail of urine where ever they went because of the way their genitals dragged across the ground. So, it would stand to reason that a stripe of invisible urine had been dragged across my shoe.
The mere thought of it made me cringe. Everything going on in my life made me cringe. It was always one step forward, two steps back. My troubles were far from over.