Page 13 of True Abandon

In sleep, he looks so peaceful. The feeling I get from looking at him reminds me how I felt the day I saw him. He was the teenage boy who took my breath away as I watched him from afar when he got out of his parents’ car. He was wearing mesh shorts, a Wyndham Lacrosse t-shirt, and the sweetest grin I’d ever seen. The Senator had just won his seat and relocated his family to Wyndham. I was twelve years old and way too young for a relationship, let alone one with an older boy. Still, it never stopped me from doodling his name in my diary.

For four years, I pined over him, going to all his games and helping him pass out flyers when he ran for Student Body President and gave him extra coverage in the school newspaper on his lacrosse wins. I remember this one time, I was visiting his sister, when I walked into his kitchen and found him at the table with his thumb and forefinger formed in a circle as he waved them wildly in the air.

“Did you glue your fingers together?” I asked as I approached him.

He stopped shaking his hand at the sound of my voice. With a self-deprecating smile, he grinned, “This is so embarrassing. I’m as useful as a trained monkey.”

I swayed from side to side. “Actually, I think trained monkeys would know how to glue.” I approached the table as he laughed, lightly, with his head down. “What are you doing?”

“He pushed his hair off his face as he answer, “Trying to glue the aortic valve onto a piece of metal wire.”

On the table was a large 3D model of the human heart with tubing going through it to depict the vena cava. “Did you make this yourself?”

A smile that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be bashful or cocky crept along his face. “Yeah. I made it from newspaper and duct tape. See the vena cava,” he pointed to the tubing that was running through the heart in multiple directions. “That shows blood flow. I cut these windows in the tubes to show where the valves are that control the blood flow. Except, I just glued my fingers together.”

I covered my mouth to cover a laugh. “Go run your fingers under cold water or you’ll blister. I’ll help.” I took a seat a the table.

There were four round makeup sponges on the table, cut in the enter, lying next to metal wire. I held a sponge in the air, “Is this from your personal stash?”

He turned around from his spot by the sink. When he saw the sponge in my hand and the look on my face, he burst out laughing.

“Now you know my secret,” he winked and for the first time in my life my stomach whooshed.

Turning back to the project, I lifted the gun to the sponge and added some glue alongthe top. “Like this?”

He nodded and took a seat next to me. “Perfect. I’m going to wrap the metal around the tube.”

My brain wasn’t registering his words. Just the way he was seated so close and smelt so good, like warm honey. I never cared for the stuff but sitting next to him made me crave a cup of tea with honey like I was sick and in need of a cure.

I shook my head at how ridiculous I was sounding, even in my own head.

I gave myself a shake. “What’s this for?”

He took a second to long as if lost in his own thought as well. “Anatomy. We got to pick any organ in the body.”

“Why the heart?” I asked. It was a simple question, but the answer I got stayed with me forever.

“Because it’s what controls our emotion, courage and wisdom.”

I furrowed my brow and shook my head slowly. “No. That's the brain.”

His finger tapped his head. “The brain tells us know. The heart stresses when we’re mad or sad, and it beats steady and true when we’re happy and content. The heart influences processing, perceptions, and emotions. It tells the brain how we feel about the information in our heads but what it’s feeling right here.” He placed his hand over my heart and I nearly died. I also wound up burning myself with the glue gun.

I never told Ella I had a crush on her brother for fear she’d think I was her friend for the wrong reason. But I was secretly in love with him. Secretly, until that fateful day in March of my Junior year when he asked me out. I wanted to say “Yes,” but couldn’t. I was too young to date.

“Technically, I didn’t ask you out.” He placed his hands in his pockets and looked up at me with a devilish grin.

Fighting the embarrassment that was creeping up my cheeks, I tried to backtrack. “Obviously. I mean, yeah, when you said let’s go out you really meant—”

He took a step closer. “You see, if you were able to date, I’d ask you out and we’d date.”

I could feel my jaw drop. “We would?”

With a nod, he inched just a tiny bit closer. “I’d pick you up at your house and drive you to play mini-golf because you love it, and I’d let you have the neon orange ball because it’s your favorite color. Then we’d go out for burgers and end the night at the drive-in to watch that new movie that’s out where the news reporter solves the murder.” He closed the gap between us as his hands remained in his pockets. “And then I’d take you home, walk you to your door and kiss you so good you wouldn’t be able to deny a second date.”

“You w-would?” I was mumbling.

“I would.”