All these excuses, instead of just saying,I was too scared to ask for what I needed.
“No. It’s not. Just say, ‘Ouch, please no more lava rocks on my skin.’ Boom, easy,” I explained.
Her ears turned red, and she looked side to side again. “Yeah, well. If any of that were easy for me, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.” Her jaw twitched from where she was grinding it. She hiked her bag up again; she was definitely leaning to the side. What all was in there?
Her mood was shifting, and I couldn’t understand why. I thought things had gone well, but a panic rose in me, like when I saw Levi going offline at the end of a hangout session. Why couldn’t I make them stay? What about me was so exhausting?
“You have to speak up for yourself, nobody else is going to.” I thought maybe if I could offer her coping strategies, then she wouldn’t want to leave. I didn’t want her to go yet.
She took a deep breath in and out, and I got the sense she was fighting back something she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “Thank you for what you did in there. I know you did all that to make sure there was no attention on me.” She looked up, collecting herself, but moisture gathered in her eyes. “I appreciate you playing the fool.”
The words cut through me. Like a sneaky little jab just under my ribs.
“I wasn’t playin’,” I mumbled. I wasn’t trying to do anything, but I had been embarrassed about wearing the jeans and boots. And then she’d been so rigid with fear, my mouth just opened, and all the schmooze came out. “That’s been my life. I don’t know how to turn it off,” I said lightly.
She looked at me closely. “Must be nice,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. Being the resident ass was a blast.
The air shifted. The mood had flipped, and I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I was getting defensive. I wanted to do everything right for her, but I kept misstepping.
I wish she’d just talk to me. Tell me what she needed. My palms itched, and it was like all those months of trying to talk to Levi ...
I couldn’t think about that. I didn’t want to remember that failure. I had to help her here and now.
“Here’s the thing about life. Sometimes—a lot of time—you just have to be uncomfortable to get comfortable. You have to do the wrong things. Say the wrong thing in order to learn what feels right. And then you might still be wrong. Life can be awkward and weird, and you can’t take it too seriously.” I shook my head once. “Don’t worry so much. I don’t know what the right balance is, but I know I feel better when I just let myself be embarrassed and a little cringy,” I said. That was pretty good; a couple of those lines could be inspirational quotes on the internet.
I didn’t understand why she shifted restlessly from foot to foot. Her features darkened as I spoke, and I knew it had been the opposite of what she needed.
“Just that?” she asked sarcastically.
“Just that. It’s easy. I find life works best when I’m not thinking.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said. “I wish every day that I could just turn off my brain. I wish every day there was a switch I could flip to slow things down. So that only one tab was open at a time.” Her voice was tight. Her hackles raised. There was something I wasn’t understanding. Probably better to move forward and change the subject.
“What’s next?” I asked.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“On the list,” I said. I felt the back of my neck burn. This wasn’t going how I meant for it to. Everything I said was being taken the wrong way. “What do you want to do next?”
Her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head like I’d missed something obvious. “I told you, Pace, this is it for me today. I really do need to go home now.” Her words grew tight as she spoke.
“We can’t be done. We literally just started. If we keep at it, we’ll finish with the list before Halloween. Wouldn’t that be even better?” I felt frantic with the need to keep her here.
Instead of looking excited about the prospect, her shoulders lifted higher and higher as she retreated into that cocoon of her own making. She shook her head again.
“Christmas felt doable. Halloween is too much pressure.” Her breaths quickened, and her gaze wouldn’t come near me. “Pace, today was a lot for me. I’m exhausted.”
I couldn’t help it. I felt stupid for the “distraction” at the nail salon. I felt like I wasn’t understanding what her needs were. And I hated how upset she was. I was doing that to her. It was a sort of torture to see that I was causing her pain, but to not understand what I did wrong. Why was it so easy to see what everybody else needed but not her?
Around us, several people were watching curiously. Were they thinking that this was what I did? Drop the ball, like I had for Levi? For Kaylee? I never seemed to understand what people needed to keep them around.
I lashed out, desperate.
There had to be some reason that she couldn’t handle any of this. This wasn’t just normal shyness.
“I just want to be your friend and help you,” I said.
