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Everest
SeeingWaltfindhis family makes me sad. Not sad because I don’t have a family, but sad because I have family and they wouldn’t do that for me. They don’t even know I left. They don’t like me very much anymore and it’s a hard pill to swallow when I see other families.
Tucker looks at me, and I look at him. “Are you okay? Is this too much?”
I nod. “I need to get out of here,” I whisper. I wipe my tears away.
“Okay, Walt, we’ll be right back,” Tucker says. “I just need to introduce some things to Everest while we’re outside. We’re going to take a walk around the block and then we’ll be back.” Walt looks at Tucker for a moment, then nods. He looks at me. I know he’s looking at me but I don’t want to look at him, so I avoid his eyes. Tucker ushers me out of the house.
As we walk around without Coco, I look up at Tucker. “I know what you’re trying to do,” I say to him with a smile on my face.
“What am I doing?”nTucker asks.
“Well, I know you’re making me walk around this block because you want me to not cry. I wasn’t crying because it was bad. It was just overwhelming seeing how much they wanted Wal–,” I shake my head. “Sounds weird to say his name. I’ll just call him Disney or something like that. What do you think?”
Tucker chuckles. “I think that you’ve managed to walk with me without trying to spot other people around you, and that’s a really good thing.”
Clearing my throat, changing the subject. “You think that he’ll get his memory back or something? What happened to him?”
“One of the locals, found him and a female at Lake Tahoe our side and brought them to the hospital. He didn’t wake up, and we didn’t find the woman he was with. The local didn’t get any names, so it’s not like I could track her.”
“Maybe she knows something,” I say. “Or she’s the one that whacked him over the head since he doesn’t remember anything. I mean, his name is Walt Disney, and he stares. Like really stares at you like he wants to strip you bare.”
Tucker laughs, throwing his head back. “You just can’t say Walt by itself?” He asks.
Even his laughter is something else. I really have to stop crushing on my therapist. This can’t be good, especially because he no longer charges me. When I first came to Tucker, I felt like I was losing my mind with the meds that I was prescribed, by my last doctor. I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t perform, sing or sleep. It got so bad that I had to develop a method of how to lull myself to sleep.
“No,” I finally answer, getting out of my thoughts. “I can’t call him just his first name. Disney just seems to roll off my tongue like it’s meant to be there.” I say with a shrug. I don’t know why I said that, but being alone in the same space as Tucker drives me to say things I don’t need to say.
Being around them for a little under four years, I’ve learned that his wife won’t beat my ass for staring too long at her husband because she knows I like and respect her. Now, Tennesse or how he’s allowed me to call him, Ten, I find him sweet while others cower at his presence. He’s not only tall and muscular like Tucker, but he’s very upfront. He reminds me of a wild beast who can only be tamed by two people; his wife, Tini, and her husband, Tucker. The same Tucker that makes his presence known in my dreams and right before I go to sleep. Not all my thoughts are as pure, but I’m trying to remain professional. Transition my thoughts to someone else, anyone else, well, not just anyone.
Other times, it starts off with Tucker, but it doesn’t end with him because the eyes aren’t the same. Neither is the build. It’s like I know him, but I don’t know him. A mysterious guy in my dreams always comes to me and shields me from every single thing that has ever hurt me. He looks at me while he’s in pain, but at the same time; he gives me such a wicked smile. One that has me waking up wetter than ever. Each night, it gets stronger and stronger, but lately, I’ve had no dreams. None whatsoever.
After my attack, I haven’t been able to sleep well or even move freely without someone feeling like they’re going to put a bag over my head and drag me somewhere like… like…
“Everest, come back to me,” Tucker says, calling me from wherever I was going in my mind. “Stay in this moment. Whatever you’re about to access is not worth this moment right now. Okay?”
“I…” I clear my throat and take a moment. “I’m here, I am.”
Tucker doesn’t comment, but he looks at me like he knows where my mind went, but he doesn’t push me to talk about it. We have an agreement with things changing. Tucker doesn’t charge me as long as I trust him with his unorthodox approach. In a little under four years, Tucker has taught me to fight my confusion and anxiety out when it becomes too much. It works, but it didn’t work when they took me and beat me up two weeks ago. I couldn’t even call tucker because I was afraid to leave my apartment, but he came with Tennesse to see why I missed two sessions and ever since then, Tucker hasn’t let me stay anywhere where he doesn’t know how I am.
“Is Günter going to keep following us?” I ask. Günter is Tucker’s right-hand man. He doesn’t have to tell you he’s dangerous because that diagonal scar over his face is proof enough. It looks like it hurt when it happened, but I’ve never asked him about it.
Tucker looks back and Günter shrugs. Tucker rolls his eyes. “You’d be shocked to know that Günter barely lets me pee alone in a public bathroom. You should be used to him by now.”
“I am.”
“Good, now let’s go over your audition and tell me why you thought you would only audition for the minor roles when you went to the best theatre school money can buy?”
As we walk and I try to explain to Tucker, a thought occurs… If he’s gone, do I have to stop calling him for help in the middle of the night?
When Tucker and I walk back into the house, the men seem to be in the middle of a conversation. All three along with the son, Rowe, who looks like a spitting image of both with white hair. I narrow my eyes at them because all three of them have called me a child in less than an hour. I don’t look that much like a child when I’m dressed up on stage. It’s just when I dress down. I want to tell them that, but that doesn’t really matter since I won’t be seeing them much. I think.
“Tucker, can you ask them where the best hotel that money can buy is?” I look up at Tucker.
He smirks with a glint in his green eyes, meaning he’s about to push me to ask myself. “Why don’t you try asking?” Tucker reaches out, pulling me from around him, and now I’m in front of him.
“Uh…” All three eyes have an intensity that I don’t think I want to be part of, but cowering away isn’t an option if I want to show Tucker that I can stay at a hotel alone. Pushing my glasses back up my face, I blink. “Do you, uh, umm, know of the best hotel money can buy here?”
