Page 164 of Trading Paint
Tear-offs – Jameson
My phone buzzing woke me up that morning. I noticed the way we were lying and smiled. We ended up cuddling sometime throughout the night. Thankfully, we were still fully clothed.
The sun had risen, but the rain had yet to slow. The metal roofs of the cars outside pinged as the rain drops fell. I remembered the sound well, having lived in Washington where the cloud cover and rain were unrelenting.
I watched her sleep through the mirror over her dresser, the morning light providing the right amount of luminosity. Her features softened from sleep were almost seraphic. I wanted to stop time right then and never move from this place with her securely in my arms, away from any harm the world would cause her. Since hearing from Charlie, I alternated between confusion, anger, fear and sadness.
Please just let her be okay with this.
The problem was,she wouldn’t be okay. He was dying. The only biological family she had left was dying. I couldn’t think through this. I couldn’t find a way for it to be okay, she wouldn’t be okay. I could only hope I would be there for her when she needed me.
Watching her that morning it was easy to see the change in me. For the longest time, it was so hard to see what was right in front of me,her. But now, it was so simple, so unmistakably obvious.
Just like tear offs on a visor, you don’t realize how obscured your vision is at the time, until you tear away that cellophane, and suddenly you can see and you’re wondering how the hell you made it through the last few laps like that. It was as though hearing Charlie tell me he was dying, cleared away any doubt I had that I was meant to be with Sway. In some way I was and I saw it so clearly now.
Sway, who’d been sound asleep until now, stirred in front of me. She was snuggled with her back against my chest, my arm draped over her waist resting against her stomach.
I should move. I thought to myself.I really should move. This was intimate, right?
And then she sighed.
“Jameson?” she spoke sleepy, “Are wesporking?”
Laughing, I had to spit some of her hair out of my mouth to reply. “It’s called spooning, Sway.”
“Spooning is a dumb word. So we’re forking?” she turned her head around to glance back at me.
I groaned. The woman was killing me.
“Nope—I’d have noticed if we were forking, for sure.”
A ray of sunshine broke through, shinning on her face.God, she was so beautiful.
“I wish you were still traveling with us.” I told her kissing her forehead. “I miss you.”
She smiled. “I do too.”
I hated that I couldn’t tell her, I wanted to. She deserved to know how drastically her life would change. I also knew I couldn’t offer anything. I would do nothing but complicate the situation if she were with me all the time. Nothing would change by telling her.
My phone buzzing again ended anything I wanted to say to her in that moment. Wes called to remind me to be at the airport in a few hours so I decided to shower.
After I took a shower, I walked out into her living room to see Sway curled up on the couch, next to Tommy, who was eating cereal from a bowl in his lap. He was pointing to the television screen, thumb on the remote’s pause button, wearing a look of deep concentration. He looked much like a scholar extemporizing upon his area of passionate interest. Sway was watching the screen, equally fascinated.
“You see, you need lots of assembly lube. Eventually you can—”
“What are you watching?” I was praying they weren’t watching porn after watching her neighbors last night.
Tommy shrugged, eyes glued to the screen. “A video prepping the camshaft for insertion,” he said. “I’m giving her a rudimentary education.”
He can’t be serious.
Sway’s eyes focused on mine, squinting.
Running my hand through my damp hair, I motioned for the door with a tilt of my head. “I need to get going.” There was no way I could watchthat, with Sway here.
She jumped to her feet dumping Tommy’s bowl on him.
“I’ll drive you.” She turned to Tommy. “Clean that up fire crotch!”
