Page 14 of Until Next Time
“Anything.” He offers up, eyes stayed on the road.
“How did you know Big Fish was one of my favorite movies?”
I decided back at the house that I cannot live without knowing the answer to this, so if I wanted to see tomorrow, I had to find out.
Dawsen brings his hand to the stubble on his face and shifts a bit in his seat.
“Ahh, I remember being over at your house. You, me, Riv, all watched it together in your basement. Riv hated it, and you tried to convince him not to, and you said ‘That movie is easily in my top five.’” There’s hesitation in his voice as he recalls thememory. “You get annoyed when people don’t like what you like, so it turned into you trying to get him to change his mind about it for the rest of the night.” He adds.
He’s right. I can’t help but feel a warmth rising up in my belly any time Dawsen recounts stories of us like this. I’m feeling altogether too vulnerable in this moment suddenly. Like at any point I may say too much, taking advantage of the softness existing in this moment.
I force out a chuckle, hoping to steer this conversation elsewhere, “That was a fun night. Remember you burnt your mouth on those pizza bites that River was obsessed with? Then he got you a glass of milk because he thought that would help.”
“Yeah, we had to tell him that trick only works for spicy food.” We are both laughing, and I lose my balance a bit and I bump into him a little harder as we turn into my neighborhood. I stiffen quickly and put some space between us, “Shit, sorry.” Is all I can say.
There’s a few brief moments of silence, the kind that comes naturally after a moment like this. Not awkward or tense, just a moment to breathe.
“I thought you were trying to cuss less.” He says with a sly smirk on his face, as he nudges my shoulder with his. I just give him a tight lipped smile and give his arm a punch, loving how it feels to be teased by him again.
We pull up to my house, and I unfasten the seat belt and slide across the seat away from Dawsen and open the passenger side door. Before I jump down I look across the cab, “Thanks for the ride. I appreciated it. The ride—and the walk down memory lane.”
I turn and hop out and before I can shut the door, Dawsen says, “Is You’ve Got Mail still your favorite?”
“Always.” I smile at him and shut the door.
14
Dawsen
It’s been a week since I’ve dropped Birdie off after the wine fest. It’s been a week of me replaying that night in my head over and over again. The whole drive back to my place, I was overthinking every single thing that came out of my mouth. Was I too creepy? Knowing all that shit about her favorite movies? There’s a fine line of having a vague memory about something and on the other side of that line there’s me, hanging on to every detail of every memory that’s humanly possible.
I ended my night with a three finger pour of bourbon and a cold shower.
* * *
It’s Saturday morning and I’m laying in my bed staring up at thepitched, open ceilings in my apartment. I reach across the bed to grab my phone off my bedside table to check the time and see if anyone’s trying to get ahold of me. I pull open a text from River that came in last night.
River:Breakfast at my folks. 9:00. Biscuits, gravy, eggs, and bacon.
*Eight hours later*
Me:*thumbs up emoji*
I groan and pull the blanket over my face when I realize it’s only 6:00 am. It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to actually get any decent sleep. I’m usually awake until the early morning hours, unable to fall asleep, or up at the crack of dawn. And any sleep I do manage, I’m usually up multiple times in the night, just wide awake out of nowhere. There’s got to be a reason for it, but it’s just something I’ve learned to live with. Probably a result of unresolved trauma—something I read about online during one of my episodes of insomnia, no doubt.
I roll to the side of my bed, and slowly make my way to the bathroom. I turn the knob on the sink, waiting for the water to warm and splash some on my face. I rub my hand across the stubble that’s due for a shave as I stare at myself in the mirror. I decide I’m going to leave it. I kind of like it, and I could use a little change for a bit.
I brush my teeth and decide that I’m going to head down to Mel’s Diner and grab a coffee, and then indulge myself with my favorite unhealthy hobby—finding out all of Birdie’s secrets.
I used to hang out at River’s house a lot as a kid growing up. We’d go back and forth between his house and mine, buthe had a basement that his parents set up for them to have a separate hangout spot for friends. They had a ping pong table, a play station, and a couple couches and bean bags. It kind of just became the place we all gathered after school, on weekends—and Mrs. Banks would always come down with a tray of snacks and drinks for whoever was over that day.
The good ol’ days.
River and Bird’s dad, Jack, worked for the local postal service here in town and he started telling us about this art project that was taking off across the country that was created by one of Saddlebrooke’s own. People would send their anonymous secrets to this guy who would later post them anonymously on his personal blog every Friday. Some of the secrets were sad, some were funny, and some were even disturbing. It was like a social experiment that had went viral.
I remember one Friday after school, we were in the basement, Birdie was on their family computer, and Riv and I were on the couch just behind her playing a mission on Grand Theft Auto. I remember turning around when I heard soft whimpers coming from where she was sitting. It got both of our attention and asked her what the hell she was looking at. With tears in her eyes, She called us over to read the blog full of that Friday’s secrets.
Every Friday after that, she would rush down to the basement after school and read the latest thread of published secrets. She would laugh, sometimes cry, and a lot times, she’d gasp in absolutely disbelief and shock. I was awestruck at how she could experience such a wide variety of human emotion in such a short amount of time. Being able to experience her like this made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
