“I don’t need to ask them anything,” Levi told me. “They have plenty to say without prompting. I don’t need to pay someone to tell me that I’m lazy.”
“Are you?”
“I guess so. When I look back at my life, what have I done? Nothing,” he answered his own question. “Damn. This is the worst date I’ve ever been on.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and really meant it. “I did tell you that I have a real problem with bonding.”
“We can’t continue like this and we can’t let it end on this note.” He stood up. “Do you have to get back to work?”
I should have, but I didn’t want to. Maybe I was lazy, too? “No,” I answered.
“Then let’s try something else. I have to be able to tell Ava that I made an effort.”
I stood slowly. “You also have to drive, because I don’t have a car. Is your insurance up to date?”
“It is. I’m able to handle a few things,” he answered. “Want my arm?”
I leaned on him a little and we walked outside. As far as dates went, I didn’t think it was the worst. The time before this, I’d ended up in the hospital, so today’s outing with Levi was actually a big step up.
How was that for optimism?
Chapter 3
“What do you think?”
“This is…what is this place?” I asked.
“My friend August and I used to come here,” Levi explained. “We spent way too much time in this exact spot rather than having our asses in desk chairs in the high school down the street, where we belonged.”
It felt a little like we were in the middle of the wilderness, but we were actually somewhere either in the city of Detroit or just at the limits of it. He had driven for a while and then started to cut down some side streets and we had ended up next to a large park.
“I can’t walk very far yet,” I’d cautioned but by holding onto his arm again, I’d managed to reach this destination.
“Is that a natural spring? How can that be?” I asked now, looking at where water bubbled out from between two large boulders.
“It’s either that or a broken water pipe that no one has bothered to repair for at least fifteen years. Here, you can sit.” He helped me lower down to rest on one of those rocks, and I was not going to be able to rise again without a lot of help.
It was so peaceful here, as if we weren’t in the city at all. The water gurgled and I heard birds and insects, too. It reminded me of my childhood. “We lived out in the woods, far away from everything when I was a kid,” I heard myself tell him.
“So does my little sister. She loves it.”
“All I wanted was to get away. I thought I’d live in a big city and work in biotech.” I’d had a lot of ideas about my future life, how I’d drive a convertible and have an apartment with a terrace. I hadn’t done any of that except for getting near a city. Optimism...
“You hated being in the woods that much?”
“No, I liked the woods. I like being here, too,” I answered.
He looked around and breathed deeply. “It’s not too bad,” he agreed.
“Is this what you do all day? You just hang around?”
He looked at me and I got the feeling that he was going to say something, but then he only shrugged.
“Wouldn’t you feel better if you were out of your sister’s basement?” I asked. “Wouldn’t your life improve if you had a job and a direction?”
“Who says I need to feel better?” Levi asked me.
“Why would you have bothered to send me the picture of a chicken if things were going so well? You would be busy with other stuff on a Thursday instead of meeting a stranger.”
