“See? I knew it. I’m sure your department will appreciate your sacrifice.”
“If anything, I think they would want me to do everything I can to protect the team’s investment.”
“I hoped you’d see it that way.”
When we get to our labeling station, there are chairs set up for two, and we get to work. Our arms bump into each other. Our thighs press against each other. We flirt and talk for the next three hours. Every once in a while, a worker rings a bell, signaling that another forty meals have been packaged. We cheer every time. The spirit in the warehouse is cheery and infectious, and Liesel is the happiest I’ve seen her since we met.
We’ve gotten to know each other well over the last few weeks of texting all night. Every new thing I learn deepens myfeelings for her. I like that she loves cheesy disaster movies and considersDie Harda Christmas movie. I love that she prefers the mountains to the beach (even if she’s wrong). And when she tells me she can’t fall asleep if her closet door is open, I feel an overwhelming urge to hold her.
“Let go,” she says with a laugh when I try.
“Shh.” I smooth her hairnet. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”
She shimmies out from around my arms and then adjusts her hairnet with a glare.
I love her glare. I want to pass it notes in class and ask if it will be my girlfriend.
Or Liesel could become my girlfriend. That works, too.
I peel a label from the sheet and put it on one of the sorting bags. “So is it a fear of the dark? Are we talkingMonsters, IncorDatelinelevel fear here?”
“It’s never been as defined as all that. It’s just one of the general fears I’ve always had.”
“One of them?” The tenor of the conversation is shifting, but I can handle the direction. “Do you have a lot of fears?” She wrinkles her nose. “Like what?”
“Oh, gosh. I hate sleeping with my feet exposed. I’m still afraid of what could be under my bed. I refuse to look at mirrors at night. You name it.”
“Falling? Collapsing while on an overpass?”
“No, not that kind of thing, oddly. More like the semi-irrational stuff.”
“Do you still have these?”
“Yeah, but I force myself to confront them sometimes.”
“To show you’re stronger than your fears?”
“More to show myself that they’re not real. Exposure therapy is the best treatment for anxiety.” She grabs a new sheet of labels and a new stack of bags. “It was bad when I was little. My brothers got to share a room their whole lives. They’d claimthey hated it, but I was in my own room across the hall. I kept my door open, and I could hear them talk every night. It made me lonely. I’m not saying lonelinesscausedmy fears, but I never felt secure. I was the only person in the house who didn’t share a room with someone, and it always felt like anything could happen to me and no one would even know.”
“That’s a heavy thought for a little kid.”
“I know. I’d grown past the worst of it, but when I was thirteen and my mom got diagnosed, all those fears and superstitions came right back. I started wishing on the first star I would see every night—and it was pretty much always an airplane, because it’s not like you can see the stars that well in the Chicago suburbs. I’d throw spilled salt over my shoulder, wouldn’t step on cracks or walk underneath ladders.”
Someone rings the bell, and we all stop and applaud for another forty meals.
A piece of her hair is peeking out of her hairnet, so I tuck it back under. “Little Liesel,” I say.
She returns her attention to the label sheet, but her mouth is turned down into a slight frown that makes me want to protect her from everything that’s ever scared her.
“How is it for you now?”
“Fine for the most part. But every once in a while, I’ll just have this irrational fear hit me, or I’ll spiral into anxiety, so I have to do some anxiety busting techniques.”
“Oh, yeah. Love those techniques. I’m a big fan of progressive muscle relaxation.”
“I can’t do that one to save my life! The second I get past the top of my head, I’ll realize my forehead is screwed up in concentration and I have to start over. It’s all about the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for me.”
“Grounding,” I say. “Classic coping skill.”
