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“I wouldn’t want to leave Caleb and Valerie alone,” I say, using my friend as a much-needed crutch. It’s a valid argument, though. They’re like preschoolers when they’re together, and they can’t be trusted not to destroy this restaurant once they’re left without adult supervision. Once, at a pool party, Valerie dumped an entire chest of ice on Caleb’s head after he told her girls were weak. She’s a lot stronger than she looks. It’s all those insane yoga poses that she holds for unnecessary lengths of time. Thankfully for Caleb and his head, there were no drinks left in the ice chest to knock him on his noggin.
Valerie gives me a look that saysstop being an idiot.She can’t stand to be in Caleb’s presence, and she likes it even less when they’re alone. But she knows how I’ve been struggling this week in regard to all things Josiah. She knows, and I know, that I need to get this interaction out of the way, and whatbetter way to do that than a quick car ride home where I have a clear time limit and escape if things aren’t going well.
“Okay,” I say, turning to face him. “Let’s go.”
The car ride is agonizing, and it feels like we’re never going to get to my house. Can’t he drive any faster? I want to say something to him, but I have no idea where to begin. I’ve never struggled to talk to Josiah before. Normally when we’re together, the conversation just flows naturally, or if we don’t have anything to say, the silence is comfy. He’ll do his thing, and I’ll do mine. But right now, the air is thick with tension and unsaid words, and I feel like I’m going to burst right out of my skin.
I brave a quick glance at him, trying to gauge how he’s feeling. I can’t be the only one dying over here. His eyes are squinted, and he’s leaning forward a bit. I’ve never seen anyone so focused on the road before. Is he as miserable as I am…or can he not see? Everyone in the comments of my last video was talking about how close he held his needles to his face. Should I be worried for my life right now?
“Josiah, why does your face look like that?” I ask, hearing the shake in my voice.
“What do you mean?” he asks. He leans forward even more so that his torso is right up against the steering wheel, as if that’ll help him see the road better. He can’t be serious right now!
“Please tell me you can see!”
“Of course I can see,” he says, but it’s not very convincing. He sounds defensive. There must have been some truth to all those comments about getting the boy some glasses.
“Then why are you squinting and stuff?”
“It’s just harder to see at night, but it’s like that for everyone!” He opens his eyes up fully and sits up straight in his seat. Every muscle in his body is tensed up, as if every cell is focused on the road in front of us. I’m not convinced one bit that he can see well enough to be operating heavy machinery. It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden in his car with him, or I’m sure I would have noticed this before now.
“I can see perfectly fine at night, actually,” I say. He waves a hand at me and shushes me so he can focus. He’s made this drive hundreds, if not thousands, of times. He shouldn’t have to focus so much.
“I’m not feeling particularly safe at the moment,” I admit, holding onto the side of the door for dear life. Josiah looks over at me, obviously offended. I’ve never felt unsafe with Josiah before, but he needs to know that his vision isn’t a trifle thing to mess around with, especially when my life is in his very hands.
“We’re one minute from your house,” he grumbles. One minute from my house, and we still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room. At this point, I don’t think we will, and I’m relieved. After a day like today, I’m not up for having any frank conversations. I’m so tired I’ll probably end up crying, and I don’t feel like crying. All I want is to sit in front of my TV and forget about everything around me.
Josiah turns the car into the long driveway and puts it in park. He’s still a good distance away from the house. Why isn’t he driving all the way to the house? I’m exhausted, and it’s so dark and creepy outside. I don’t want to walk all the way down the driveway.
He turns to me and rests his elbow against the headrest of my seat. His face is awfully close to mine. If I wanted to rest my head against his shoulder or lean in and kiss him, it would take very little effort. But I don’t want to do either of thosethings. Not one bit. I scoot away from him toward my door where it feels safer.
“Are you going to talk to me?” he asks. His voice is deep and grumbly, and it does things to my insides that seem almost inappropriate.
“Are you holding me hostage until I do?” I ask in return. I offer a smile, but I doubt it’s very convincing.
“No, I’m not. If you don’t want to talk about it right now, I’m not going to force you. I’ll never force you into anything, Ellis. But I want you to know that I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk…or other things,” he says. His voice is gentle and deep. His words calm my racing heart. I still have a lot on my mind, and wewillhave to talk eventually. But it doesn’t have to be right now. It can happen on my own time.
“Thank you, Josiah,” I say, looking down at my clenched hands resting in my lap. He puts his hand on the back of my head and oh-so gently leans in to place a kiss on my temple. His lips linger on the side of my head for a moment longer than necessary, but I love it. I want nothing more than to turn my head toward him and press my lips to his, but that would reveal more than I’m willing to. It would change things before I’ve decided if I want them to change.
Before I’m ready, he leans back, but then, a moment later, he leans back in toward me and presses his forehead to mine. For a moment, we silently breathe in each other’s air. His nose grazes mine as he lifts his head ever so slightly to press one more kiss to my forehead. His lips are soft and sweet.
I’m about to throw all caution to the wind and kiss him, but he pulls away and sits back in his seat. He puts the car in drive and takes me the rest of the way to the house. I get out of the car without another word to him. I don’t think I could have said anything even if I had wanted to, because what was that exactly?
12
Josiah
Ellis has conned me into doing another activity with her. After the cooking adventure she had with Valerie, I thought she had decided that she was a better fit for her list of activities. It appears not, though. We’re doing yoga this time, and I’m honestly so scared for my muscles. They’re strong, but they’re also very inflexible.
I’ll never hear the end of this from Caleb. He claims that yoga is a sport for people who want to seem like they’re active but really hate exercise. “It’s all about relaxation and breathing and finding your inner peace,” he says. I think he’s got it all wrong, though. I looked up some yoga videos on YouTube earlier to prepare for this class because I didn’t want to embarrass myself again. Whatever that person in the video was doing didn’t look relaxing at all.
Before Ellis asked me to come with her, I had never thought about yoga enough to have an opinion one way or the other about the intensity of the workout. Theonly thing I knew about it was that Valerie is an instructor, and she has always been in really great shape. No one has that kind of muscle tone by “pretending” to exercise.
I now know for a fact that it’s very real exercise…no pretending necessary. I also now know that Caleb has never taken a single yoga class in his life, or he never would have said any of those bogus claims about it. Nothing about this class has been relaxing or has helped me find any inner peace. My inner peace ran away screaming in fear and pain in the first five minutes of class.
I’ve been holding this pose for what feels like an eternity. My left leg (that I’ve been struggling to balance on while my right leg is extended in the air behind me) is shaking like a leaf, and if I have to hold my arms up for one more second, my shoulders are going to revolt. And why are my abs in so much pain? We haven’t done any ab exercises yet. If Valerie tells me we’re doing abs next, I might actually cry, and I don’t want to cry in this room full of people who are literally killing it with this workout. How do they all have such good balance?
My ankle is wobbling like a newborn fawn, and I fall out of the pose for the fifth time. I hazard a glance over at Ellis right next to me. She’s holding the pose like it’s no big deal for her. Her ankle isn’t wobbling at all, her leg hasn’t gradually gotten lower to the ground, and her face isn’t scrunched up in pain. The only sign that this isn’t a walk in the park for her is her intense focus on her breathing and the slight sheen of sweat on her forehead, neck, and back.
