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He takes me to the exercise room. Astrid and her kids are standing on the blue plastic mats waiting for us, with Garrett. Garrett has his massive arms folded across his chest and looks stern and menacing. Joshua has us go behind screens at the end of the room to change into loose workout clothes.
We warm up, then I practice with Joshua while Garrett teaches Astrid and her kids the basics. They really get into it, slamming into the plastic dummies with gusto, if not with finesse. Sometimes they miss the dummies entirely, or trip and fall over, but they all spring right back up and dive in, fists flying.
A couple of hours pass by, and we’re all covered in sweat and gasping with exhaustion.
“I’m going to learn how to kill your brother if I ever see him again,” Fletcher says to Joshua with a gleam in his eye. Paul looks at his big brother with pride, and nods.
Fletcher is skinny as a beanpole. The kind of kid you’d be afraid to let stand on a subway grate because he might fall through. I love his spirit.
Joshua dismisses him with a cutting glance. “Not if today’s any indication.”
Astrid flashes a startled look at Joshua. Fletcher’s face falls. Fortunately, the other kids are already walking over to the changing area, and they don’t hear it.
I grab Joshua by the arm and pull him aside as Fletcher heads over to the changing area, shoulders slumping.
“How dare you treat him like that?” I snap. “He looks at you like you’re a god. You have the power to crush him just using your words. So don’t.”
Joshua’s toweling the sweat from his hair as I speak. “If my words alone can crush him, then he needs to toughen up a little.”
I lower my voice so nobody else can hear. “You are not your father, and you don’t have to act like him!”
He drops the towel on the floor and walks out of the room without a word.
I change my clothes, and hurry after Astrid and the kids as they’re leaving.
“Fletcher, you did great. Way better than I did on my first day sparring. Joshua just has a hard time relating to people. It’s nothing personal,” I say to him. Fletcher nods, but he doesn’t look convinced.
Since sparring is done, we eat lunch, but Joshua doesn’t join us. We all go outside afterward. The weather is mild and balmy, in the sixties. I join them in a few games of basketball, then we stroll through the gardens. Fletcher’s quiet and subdued all afternoon long, which puts Paul in a bad mood too, and Astrid watches them with worried eyes. I’m furious with Joshua.
When they go back inside, I head over to the obstacle course, but I can’t haul myself up the ropes. I need to build up my upper body strength if I want to make any headway, and that’s probably going to take me months.
Then again, I don’t have anywhere else to be, do I?
The thought fills me with gloom. I sit down cross-legged on the ground next to the wooden tower I just failed to climb.
I’m staring into the distance at the mountains a few minutes later when I feel a tingling that sweeps throughout my whole body. I don’t have to look up to see that Joshua’s coming; there’s this connection between us that makes me exquisitely sensitive to his presence.
He walks up to me and stops, waiting. I twist around to scowl up at him.
Silently, he holds out a bottle of Gatorade, and I climb to my feet and take it without a word. I drink half the bottle before I turn to meet his gaze.
“Come to tell me what a lousy job I’m doing with the rope course?” I snap.
He frowns. “No. Why would I do that?”
I keep forgetting that his brain doesn’t make connections like other people’s do.
“Because you’re being very critical today. You were way too hard on Fletcher.” He looks as if he’s about to argue, so I say “What do you want to achieve? Do you want to crush his self-confidence so he gives up? Is that your goal?”
“Of course not. Why would I want that? It would be wasteful and serve no useful purpose.” He’s genuinely confused.
“The way that you snapped at him will not help motivate him to improve. It will have the opposite effect. Please trust me on that, Joshua.”
He sighs, staring off into the distance. “You know I don’t have good interpersonal skills,” he tells me. “For most of my life, I only interacted with people until they gave me what I wanted, then I left as quickly as I could. I excel at a lot of things, but socializing isn’t one of them. Being around people for more than half an hour feels like rolling on a bed of nails.”
“You spend tons of time with me,” I point out.
He smiles with a deep weariness and caresses my mouth with his finger. “I never get tired of you.”
