For the Best (16 page)

Finally she spoke, “I wanted to say I’m
sorry for the way I left. For months I knew you and I should end,
but I was depressed. I couldn’t let go.”

“I wouldn’t have let you go.”

She nodded. “I got that. So I did the
leaving.”

“Things are different now. I’m different.
Please come home with me Hanna,” I begged.

“Tanner you’re only a sophomore. We need to
try and forge our own lives for awhile.”

“But my life IS yours,” I argued.

She turned in my arms and gently ran her
thumb across my jaw. I let her think. The morning sun was burning
away the mist. So many answers sought by me had gone unanswered.
How long could the love she had for me last?

“Why won’t you stop drifting?” I asked.

The answer was evident in her eyes. “I’m not
drifting. The world won’t stop turning for you without me.” She
linked her hand into mine.

“You are done here in a month. You haven’t
mentioned where you’re going next.”

“Because I don’t know.”

“Then join me at school and figure it out.
You don’t have to attend classes. Just come and be with me while
you decide.”

She held tight not relinquishing my hand and
began to walk in silent contemplation. At the trail post she
turned. “We never did Highline Trail.”

“No, we didn’t.” I failed to not sound
irritated.

She laughed. “You’re pissed?”

“A little.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’ll come home for you. I
can’t promise to stay.”

Hanna

I arrived back in a state I’d sworn never to
return. Crossing a vast concrete ensnarement of travelers passing
endless windshield hours in a deadened wide eyed coma probably
brought on by caffeine, nicotine, and glaring billboards every five
miles that offered a breakfast buffet in a strip club.

An hour and half later, I exited I-75
following signs to the campus. The starry sky gave way to the tree
lined streets, and rows of unkempt student rented houses. A light
was on in a window. I wondered if it was Tanner’s bedroom. His last
text was that he had waited up for me.

Was Tanner lonely, wishing for summer to
have never ended, hoping I’d come round?
I opened my door,
retrieving my overnight bag and hesitantly approached the door. I
didn’t want to wake a roommate but this was college, and campuses
never slept. Just as my finger aimed at the brightly lit button
that would chime for a visitor the door swung open to frame Tanner
bare-chested in pajama bottoms on the other side.

His arms reached for my waist and my feet
left the ground. “That took forever!” he exclaimed.

“Forty eight hours including the five hours
I’ve slept in the past two days.”

He shut the door behind me as he ushered me
inside. “Tell me what you need.”

I followed him past a small tiled living
room with a galley kitchen view of particle board cabinets
laminated in white. We entered a bedroom, his judging by the
familiar items and pictures. He eased my bag on the floor.

“The bed. The bed is all I need.”

“No food, no drink, no hot shower?”

“Okay maybe the shower,” I conceded.

He watched me gather a toiletry kit from my
bag and he grabbed a clean towel from his closet before he left me
in an aging bathroom where shiny pink and gray tiles circa 1950
adorned both the floors and walls. I found the right temp and let
the hot water wash the aching miles and fast food waste off my
skin.

With my wet hair wrapped in a towel and a
XXL Glacier Park sweatshirt hanging so big and low on my body you
couldn’t tell if I was wearing shorts underneath I went back to his
room. He had placed a steaming cup of tea with some powdered
confection Danish wedding cookies beside it on the nightstand. I
took a sip, then a bite and sat on his bed curious as to where he’d
gone. I hugged my knees to my chest slipping the bulky shirt over
them.

I heard the front door open and he came back
dangling my keys. “I went to make sure you didn’t have anything
worth stealing in view. People keep getting their windows smashed
in for pocket change around here.”

“Is it that bad of a neighborhood?” I asked.
The street looked tired but not criminal.

“Shit happens.” He shrugged.

Without asking, he pulled the towel from my
head and stroked the wet strands until they were only damp. As he
squeezed the tendrils, he rubbed my head with the cotton. The
effect and my weariness were hypnotizing.

Tanner’s arms were wrapped around me caught
in an abundance of XXL fabric. We spooned side to side one of his
legs trapped between mine. His door swung open and three strangers
barged into the room.

Befuddled with sleep, Tanner rubbed his
eyes. “What the fuck? Who let you guys in?”

“Door was unlocked. We’ve been tailgating
all day. Only an hour till kickoff. We expected your ass
there.”

I slid my legs from the mattress. I saw
their eyes follow. Tanner stood, shoving them out of his bedroom.
He came back in, “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“No big deal.” I could hear the guys in the
living room apparently not leaving without him.

“They’ve got an extra ticket. You up for the
game?”

“Sure.”

I watched as he switched his flannel bottoms
for jeans and a t-shirt. I pulled off my sweatshirt hearing his
laughter as he figured out underneath was a tank top and shorts.
Explaining, I said, “With Kali as a roommate all summer I slept
dressed. I never knew when I might need to leave. Guess old habits
die hard.”

We reconvened with the group in the living
room. Shots lined the counter. Tanner padded barefoot by them with
me trailing reaching for a Gatorade in the fridge.

He introduced me and smiles exchanged. They
were less compromising than his high school friends, but they still
checked me out. I didn’t blame them for their curiosity. Who
wouldn’t question what attributes could endure a relationship from
elementary to college?

“The problem with excess is that it
eventually appears moderate and you convince yourself that you have
not reached your limit.” Tanner’s friend was preaching drunken
philosophy regarding the merits, or was it non-merits of
drinking?

I’d done three shots prior to kickoff, a few
chugs of a boda bag filled with rum. Tanner was always close
partaking the same amounts but effectively remaining sober as if my
safety and sanctity depended on it.

As we jostled with waving arms doing gator
chops multitudes of limbs bumped and pressed reminding me of open
air dance clubs in daylight. My inebriation pulsed throughout my
circulatory system. I chilled then heated, faltering between
exhaustion and elation. The bottled water Tanner kept handing me
couldn’t satiate me. I would start to sober thinking the water I
drank was working much like a dried fruit left to soak. Rehydration
only served to stimulate my slowed circulation and the drunkenness
increased.

The kiss cam passed over unsuspecting fans
as the televised game commercials aired for the viewing audience.
We laughed as it recorded shy children, jokingly pausing over
students dressed up as Gumby and Pokie pretending to be entwined in
a passionate kiss. Then it passed over us - Tanner, me and friends.
One of his friends on my right seemed to be leaning towards me.
Then Tanner’s hand cupped my neck and pulled my attention from the
big screen scoreboard to bestow me with a kiss. Not a sweet peck
for the audience but a jealous kiss claimed before unsolicited lips
could encroach uninvited. The crowd’s roar of approval quickly
abated and Tanner released me to ponder what was to come.

Tanner

Hanna seemed to have won over my friends,
especially my roommate. He could probe and open up places she
wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t really get it. She answered him easily
as if I hadn’t posed the very same question several times
before.

“How’d you end up in California?”

“I had a list of places I wanted to see.
When the place I had been got old, I moved on.” That was the
abridged version she gave me but for Dan she purged, “My roommates
- everyone worked in the restaurants, bars or on the lifts. Down
time was one endless party. I got tired of it. So my one friend
from Cali suggested I come there.”

My head shot up. The ring of a cell phone
interrupted. She checked the screen and muttered, “Speak of the
devil,” and hit a button to send the call to voice mail. I watched
her dismissively return to her novel as if there was no pertinence
to the conversation she and my roommate had just covered.

I picked up where Dan left off. “Did you go
by yourself?”

“More or less,” she answered. “My friend led
me to the job at the winery. I found a place to stay over the
internet.”

“Guy or girl?” I asked jealously.

“Guy. His name is Ansel.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

Her mouth fell open and she didn’t disguise
her anger, “I think we went over this in the summer.”

“Did you?”

She rolled her eyes. “We slept together but
we weren’t lovers.”

I could take that literally or
metaphorically. I chose the latter. “So what made you leave Ansel?”
I asked sarcastically.

“Different paths.”

I convinced her to come to a few classes
with me, trying to get her to give college a chance. My schedule of
courses for the semester was Landscape Management, Architectural
Design 1, Botany and a social/behavioral science elective. She was
curious and took it seriously. I could feel myself drifting under
the droning professor in Botany. She showed more interest than my
classmates when we categorized deciduous trees. She’d been quietly
observing me and another classmate pouring over the text when I
asked my partner a question. Hanna offered up the answer like she’d
been in the class more than once and as I marveled at her correct
response the girl I’d spoken to shot Hanna a glare.

Not long after she whispered, “I’ll meet you
outside.”

After class, I found her studying the
community bulletin board at the building’s entrance. She had a
couple of pull tabs stuck in her hand. A few jobs caught my eye and
I got excited thinking she was going to stick around. I also
noticed a few Ride Share notices where students were looking to
share drive time and gas to get away. I didn’t ask her what she
took because I didn’t want to worry about the inevitable, when
she’d pick up and leave.

Hanna

I’d taken a job, promotional work for a
beverage company marketing new products at university events. Of
course, we had to set up off campus usually in front of a bar that
was serving the concoction inside. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t
twenty-one. I was only supposed to offer tastings with another
co-worker. We had to wear t-shirts. White with the logo of the
drink and a pair of short nylon black shorts. No matter your size
the company issued extra small t-shirts for the events.

Tanner wasn’t thrilled with the gigs. I
wasn’t either but at $100 untaxed cash for three hours on a few
Saturdays I was on board.

The crowd kept taking the cups mixing rum or
vodka in without a pretense of drinking the promo untainted. The
distributor was faux marketing the nutritionally void beverage as
vitamin, natural, organic, antioxidant boosters. The real effect
was coupled with alcohol it shot through your bloodstream faster
than an epi-pen injection.

"I heard a rumor about you Hanna." My
co-worker, an annoying girl named Tuesday, was spouting words that
she had no idea at their impacted connotation.

Some guys were congregating in the
barricaded street out front. “Pass the pigskin.” I heard one bark
like a drill sergeant. His backups scurried.

"What rumor?" I asked.

“Hanna, look out!" Tuesday warned me as the
ball spiraled airborne to crash on our demo table splattering
drinks and splashing us. The catcher barely stopped in the nick of
time and narrowly missed squashing me flat. She and I cleaned up
spilled cups as he apologized.

Irritated but nonplussed, I looked
underneath the tablecloth where we kept our supplies for another
shirt. Nothing. I repressed a sigh disgusted by the wet sticky mess
wetting my t-shirt.

I texted Tanner.
Can you
bring me a change of clothes?

"What rumor?" I asked again.

She stared at me dazed. I think she was
amazed at the way I could carry a conversation, clean,
intermittently smile and pour at the same time.

“Oh, a rumor that the company has a
full-time position in Jacksonville and that you are in
consideration.”

Tanner took his time arriving, we were in
the process of dismantling and had already carried most of the
promotional materials to the company van Tuesday was driving back
to the warehouse.

He leaned in for a peck. "I got caught up in
the crowd." His hand hovered over the few remaining pre-poured
cups.

“Take this one.” I handed him the banana
infused ginseng vita water. He took one sip, grimaced and threw it
in the trash.

After I replaced my shirt, we walked back to
his rental holding hands.

“I’m going to visit Della,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah, when?”

“In a couple of days.”

“How long you staying?”

I shrugged.

“She still living with her brother?” he
asked with a trace of jealousy.

I looked away. If there was one guy Tanner
should not have been concerned about, it was Della’s brother Jace.
Her single dad had a heart attack when she was a sophomore, dying
and leaving the house to the two kids. Now Jace kept Della captive,
unwilling to sell the family home or pay her share of the proceeds.
I had never met him, but I had already determined I didn’t like
him.