Page 109 of The Way I Am Now
“Cheers,” I say, and we clink our glasses together. Josh would be so disappointed in me—more disappointed in me than he already is. Cigarettes, weed, alcohol, rando. Check, check, check, and check.This is you. It keeps playing in my head. This is me. It’s inevitable.
“So,” he says, passing the vape next. “Boyfriend taking you out later—the tall guy, right?” he asks, bringing his hand up above his head.
“Right,” I say, and take a couple of hits. “The tall guy.”
But the way he’s looking at me, grinning. He knows, somehow, it’s open season.
I lose track of the time while we sit there, lose track of what we were talking about. Don’t even notice when he goes inside. I clean the same table a hundred times, it seems. I sweep the floors, it feels like, forever. From the front window, I can see my building. I imagine my apartment with X-ray vision, like I could even see into my bedroom, my unmade bed waiting there for me, calling to me.
After we close for the night, I’m shaky. Champagne on an empty stomach, cigarettes on a broken heart, weed on a shattered mind. Not a good combination, but I feel mostly lucid again by the time we’re shutting off the lights and turning over theOPEN-CLOSEDsign on the door. Perry places his hand on my lower back and asks if I need help getting home. I hate that I know it would be so much easier to go along with it than to try to be strong and stand up for myself.
But as I look at him, this stranger, the expectant smile on his face as he moves closer to me, it suddenly doesn’t feel easy, like it used to. “No,” I say quietly. “Thanks.”
He keeps walking next to me anyway, though.
“What are you doing?” I ask him, stopping on the sidewalk, feeling my heart start pounding in that way that makes me afraid of what will happen next.
“I told you—I’m just making sure you get home okay.”
“I literally just said I didn’t need help.”
“Yeah, but I—”
“Listen, thank you for the glass and a half of old, flat, left-over champagne that you stole from the kitchen. And thank you for exactly eight hits off your vape and . . . oh, let’s see, thank you for telling me happy birthday,” I say, gaining steam. “Really, thank you. So very much, okay? But I don’t owe you anything.”
“Whoa, simmer down. You’ve got the wrong idea,” he tries to argue—he tries to laugh.
“No,” I say. “No,” I shout. “No!” I’m yelling in the street, louder and louder. “No,” I scream at the top of my lungs.
Finally, he holds his hands up and starts backing away.
I cross the street and run up the steps to my building, close the front door behind me, and try to catch my breath. My legs feel boneless and weak as I make my way up the two flights of stairs. And as if I wasn’t already about to collapse, there’s a glass vase over-flowing with yellow flowers in it, sitting next to the door. A card attached, my name in his handwriting.
JOSH
I’ve tried to talk to her a hundred times. She won’t come to the door. She’s blocking my calls. I even left flowers for her birthday, and they’re still sitting there a week later, all wilted and shriveled.
Every morning, when Dominic and I come down to leave for morning practice, he says the same thing as we approach the door. “Keep walking, just keep walking.”
I go to practice, go to class, come home. Every day, the same.
We had an away game this week, and I thought maybe when I got back she’d be willing to talk to me. I told my parents she’d said yes to Thanksgiving, because I thought for sure by then we would’ve figured it out.
Tonight’s practice goes as usual. Fifteen minutes warming up, stretching. Twenty minutes shooting, skill work, jump shots, rebounds. Coach walks around, watching us, keeps shouting, “Game speed, gentlemen!” Our assistant coach studies my shooting, takes some notes on his tablet.
One hour on defense drills. A half hour of offense, going over plays and sets. The assistant coach is watching me closely again, I can feel it, probably trying to catch me screwing up. The live section ends with a half-court scrimmage that seems to go so much more smoothly than usual. Everyone’s playing well, calling the plays, cooperating. It doesn’t feel like such a struggle just to make it through like it usually does. Coach is even in good spirits for a change, which helps.
“That was decent today, guys—good communication,” he says, clapping his hands a few times. “You actually looked like a team out there for a change!” And then, to my disbelief, he adds, in front of everyone, “Nice work, Miller.”
As practice winds down, we all do some more shooting. With only a few minutes left on the clock, everyone’s loosening up, talking, chilling. “Too much laughing means you must not be tired yet!” Coach warns, and blows the whistle, adds ten more minutes. But I don’t even notice it’s over until a couple of the other guys stop at my basket on their way to the locker room.
“Damn, Miller,” one of them says to me as they walk by.
“You’re a machine, man!” the other says.
I catch the ball and stop. “Huh?” I ask, breathing heavily as I wipe the sweat from my face. I look around, suddenly feeling off-balance without the rhythm of the ball to match my pulse. They were the last ones out here. Coach is standing to the side of me, watching.
“Like night and day,” he says, walking toward me, shaking his head. “Good to see you’re back.”
