May 16
Ryan
I wake to the sound of the dog skittering across the cabin floor. The room is already illuminated with mid-morning sunlight despite the early hour, a consequence of the 4:15 am sunrise this time of year. The puppy stops as he passes the couch on his way to the front door and heads toward me, tail waving. I reach down and rub his fuzzy head. He spent the night in the bedroom with Ana. The training books don't recommend it, but I thought this arrangement would probably be more comfortable for all involved. Ana's crying still wakes me up on occasion and the puppy was very distraught last night at the prospect of sleeping in the carrier he arrived in.
"Hi boy," I say as the dog twists his head to lick my hand. He nuzzles his head against the couch and stares up at me. "Come on up," I say, taking the hint and picking the dog up off the floor. I place him on my chest. Finally dry after his bath last night, his fur is soft and warm under my touch. The puppy crouches and gratefully begins to lick my face. I laugh as I scratch behind the dog's ears. I see Ana standing at the opposite end of the couch, still wearing pajamas. The sight of her reminds me of the feeling of her hands running through my hair last night. Phantom tingles run through my scalp again and I quickly turn my attention back towards the dog, feeling flustered.
"His name is Casper," she says.
"Oh is it now," I say, addressing the dog sitting on me. I'm unable to come up with anything more eloquent than that, with the memories of her touching me still dancing through my mind. I search for something to say that'll render her as lost for words as she's made me. Then the perfect jab comes to mind.
"Tell me, Casper," I say, still devoting all my attention to the dog, "what's it like to sleep in a real bed, hmm? I've forgotten, myself."
I glance back up at Ana to see her mouth fall open, her face a cross between shock and amusement. She begins to laugh. I smile back at her.
"Wow," she says, sitting on the arm of the couch near my feet, shaking her head at me and still smiling. Her smile takes on a mischievous air. "Casper says your bed is very nice and it's much better than his cage. He also says that he's grateful to you for letting him use it."
"You're welcome, Casper. Such a polite dog."
The dog continues to lick at my chin, completely unaware of the conversation he's been having with me but pleased to be the center of attention.
"Casper and I were on our way outside. He has some business to attend to in the front yard."
"Ah," I say, realizing the puppy on my chest is a ticking time bomb. "Sounds like important business." I gently lift him off of me, careful not to put any more stress on the animal's likely full bladder, and set him back on the ground.
"C'mon, Casper!" Ana says in an enthusiastic voice, pitch much higher than her normal speaking voice. "Let's go outside! C'mon!"
The dog trots happily toward her and follows her out the front door. I take this opportunity to dress and shave. I dislike shaving since my dominant hand is incapable of performing the task. It's possible with my left hand, but not as easy. The first several weeks living on my own, I often ended up looking like a teenager who'd lost a battle with his first razor. At one point I gave up on shaving altogether but quickly discovered this plan produced even worse results. Most of the hair follicles on the right side of my face were destroyed by the fourth-degree burns I suffered, so I ended up with the most lopsided, ridiculous-looking beard in the history of facial hair. It only managed to make me look even more repulsive and seemed to draw more attention to the exposed scars. After that abysmal failure, I've kept my face clean-shaven, despite the occasional nicks I still give myself. And really, what's a few cuts when half of my face was burned off?
By the time I'm out in the living room again, Ana and Casper have returned inside. The dog is trotting around after Ana as she moves around the kitchen, a waffle iron heating on the countertop.
"Excuse me, Casper, but you're in my way," Ana says to the little dog looking up at her cheerfully from the ground in front of her.
"Casper," I call. The dog does not look my way. "Casper!" I try again.
"He hasn't quite learned his name yet," says Ana.
I grab a squeaky toy and give it a squeeze. The dog's ears perk and he looks over in my direction, but quickly loses interest.
"He knows I'm the one with the food," Ana says. "You probably won't be able to get his attention unless you can top that. I haven't fed him yet. I was planning to wait until breakfast was ready."
I pick up the empty food bowl and pour in the dog's recommended allotment of kibble. I walk up to the little dog and hold one little nugget of food out to him. This method of diverting the dog's attention proves very effective. I manage to peel him away from Ana and into the living room. While Ana finishes preparing our breakfast, I keep the dog distracted by playing with him and occasionally rewarding him with a little food nugget, but my own attention is still drawn to the enigmatic woman in the kitchen. Every time I look at her, I remember her fingers in my hair last night.
I'm still not completely sure why I even let her. I hate it when she's looking at my scars, and yet I let her look as closely as she wanted for upwards of ten minutes. I even let her touch the scars hidden under my decidedly non-army regulation hair. What's even more surprising is that she didn't seem to mind the scars. Granted, I wasn't able to study her face, so if she was grimacing as hard as I was, I wouldn't know it. When she's talking to me, she looks me in the eye normally, as though half of my face isn't terribly disfigured. But on a few occasions, I've caught her looking at me when we're doing something else, like reading, or fishing, or eating dinner, and her eyes are on my scars. I only ever have a moment to study her expression before she looks away. She never looks repulsed, frightened, or anything like what Saph brought me to expect. Her expression is indecipherable. I can't tell if she's holding back an expression of horror, or maybe pity, or perhaps something else entirely.
I wish I could remember her expression when she first saw my face as I was having a night terror, screaming at her and probably scaring the hell out of her. Part of me hopes I never remember her expression. It's infernally annoying.What was she thinking last night when she felt my scars? What did her expression look like then?
This time, I'm the one caught staring by Ana. She smiles brightly at me before returning to her task. I look away quickly and to my horror, feel the heat rushing into my face. I devote my attention to the dog again.Does she have any idea of the effect she has on me? I really hope not.
When Ana calls me over to the table and Casper is finally allowed to eat his food unencumbered by a woefully distracted man, I am struck with the thought that I might be taking Ana for granted as my new live-in housekeeper/cook.
"You don't have to cook, you know," I say after swallowing a bite of a Belgian waffle. "I can do it myself."
Her eyebrows shoot up. "Are the waffles that bad?"
"Wha- no," I say, realizing I've accidentally insulted her. "They're really good, I promise. All the food you make is really good. You're a great cook. I meant-" I pause, trying to figure out how to express my worry that I've relegated her to the level of a position in my parents' household staff. And since my family lived in LA, often their staff was of Latin heritage. I instantly feel even worse. "I don't want you to feel like you're obligated to. You don't have to cook if you don't want to. Or do dishes, or clean, or anything. You don't have to work for me to keep staying here." I stop again. "That came out wrong. I mean-"
"It's fine," Ana says, cutting me off and laughing. "I like cooking. I've never had the time to try my hand at it before. I'm actually really enjoying it. And I'm not cleaning for your benefit, well not directly anyway. I'm a little bit of a neat freak. It stresses me out when stuff is dirty. Cleaning can be kind of therapeutic for me. Just don't ever tell my mom that," she says with a wry smile.
A second later, the smile drops from her face and her hand comes up to cover her mouth. As I watch, knowing what's coming but completely unable to figure out how to fix it, her eyes begin to fill with tears. She stares into the living room for a few seconds, then pushes back her chair and wordlessly walks into the bedroom. In a moment, I begin to hear her muffled sobs.
I stare at the table, angry with myself for bringing up the topic to begin with.If I'd just kept my mouth shut...
I look over to the white fluffy puppy staring at me from the floor near my feet.
You're supposed to know how to fix this, I think at the dog.Aren't you supposed to go lick her tears away and make her laugh?
The dog stares back at me, utterly oblivious. I sigh quietly. I don't even know how to handle my own grief. How am I supposed to help someone else with theirs?
I look up at the door to the bedroom. She didn't close it. Should I go in? Does she want company or privacy?
Follow my lead, dog, I think as I give Casper a significant stare. He returns my stare blankly, but happily follows when I push away from the table and trudge slowly into the bedroom.
Ana is sitting on the bed, facing away from the doorway, cross-legged and hunched over with her face in her hands. She's curled up into a tiny ball of misery. As I watch, her whole body shudders with a quiet sob. Stooping to pick up the little white dog, I tuck him under my good arm and bring him over to the bed. He pads softly across the bed over to Ana and curls up next to her side. She doesn't react. Awkwardly, I climb onto the bed as well, positioning myself so that I'm sitting beside her and facing her. She still hasn't moved, so I hesitantly wrap my arms loosely around her.
She's frozen for a minute and I'm afraid touching her was a mistake. The last time I tried to hold her while she cried, she shoved me off and ran away. Though I now know she was on the brink of a panic attack at the time and likely felt as though she was suffocating, her reaction to what I thought was a comforting gesture hurt me more than I care to admit even to myself. I've been hesitant to touch her ever since. I'm about to let go of her and try to salvage what little remains of my dignity when her hands drop from her face and her arms encircle my waist. She buries her face in my shirt. Her body spasms as she holds back another sob.
"It's OK to cry," I say into her ear.
She obliges me, taking a shaky gasp and letting the breath out in another quiet sob. I hug her a little closer and let her cry into me. Her long, curly dark hair is cascading down her back, each curl looking soft and silky. If I had the courage, I'd run my hand through her hair the way she did mine yesterday.
I mentally slap myself. She wasn't touching me out of any sort of affection yesterday, she was just drying my hair. That was all. There wasn't anything more to it than that. I don't have the right to keep dreaming about her gentle hands in my hair or to make it into something it wasn't. I especially don't have the right to think I'm entitled to touch her, even if it's just her hair. I'd let go of her now if she weren't hugging me back. Feeling sufficiently chastised, I try to think about something, anything other than the events of yesterday evening as I hold a distraught Ana. Eventually, her breathing finally calms and she finally speaks again.
"Will I ever be able to think about them without crying?" she asks.
I consider this for a moment. "Yes. You'll still be sad, but it won't always hurt this much."
"Will I ever be able to think about them without feeling sad?"
"I don't know yet." I don't know if I've ever had a moment when I remembered my friends and didn't feel the sting of loss. It's become less painful over time, but I've never been able to think about them without a twinge of sadness. And more than just a twinge of guilt. "Maybe someday."