Meant For Me (14 page)

So imagine dating profiles for a fifty year old man and a twenty-one year mute created by a thirteen year old. Sarah tried dramatic gestures first. Like Dad in the dark staring out at the sunset, with headlines she stole from The Fault In Our Stars. Mine was me in black and white, standing on the porch in my bathing suit, gripping the post, with “Take the road less traveled.” I told her it looked like an ad for Maine tourism for pedophiles.

Next, she attempted whimsical. Dad was tossing a stick to the dog. For me, it was a picture from the summer when I was jumping on a trampoline at the fair. I’m not kidding. Trampoline jumping. I looked like a cheerleader on Vicodin. The headline was “I’ll explain kerning to you.” She tried a quirky About Me list for each of us, with things like “Loves chocolate! Hates mean people! A horror buff!” It was exclamation point heavy and more than a little manic.

What I discovered is that no one gives a shit what is on your profile. They look at your profile picture and they either keep swiping through their options or they pause and send a message that usually reads like one of the following: Ur hot. Wanna hook up? Hi.

I met a grand total of one guy from our little experiment. He talked to me like I was mentally handicapped then tried to get me to go down on him in his car.

My dad’s profile was on a site Sarah deemed appropriate for an ‘old person.’ So his interaction with women was more conversational. But they also all seemed to either want to hook up with him or get married on the second date. As Sarah put it, “Bitches be clingy.” So what was the conclusion? That we all spend so much time playing the field, allowing ourselves to succumb to dating ADHD as a new profile popped up every two seconds, that we (the collective WE, not me) were never satisfied, until suddenly we realized we were alone. And then we wanted to skip all the dating parts and go straight for the Happily Ever After.

It doesn’t seem natural. Organic. I wondered how all those Zoosk couples smiling in their “we met on Zoosk” ad pictures managed to cut through all the BS and make it to a natural, sustaining relationship?

Dad went out with three different women and came home shaking his head and rubbing his chest like he had heart burn.

Sarah was mad at us when we took the profiles down. She didn’t think we gave it a fair shake. Some day I will retaliate and put a picture of her sucking a milkshake and use the headline “Shake It Up” for her dating profile the minute she turns twenty-one. But knowing Sarah, she will just talk a guy into dating her. She’ll just wear him down until he can’t resist and she has convinced him he’s happy with her. Which he probably will be because no one will ever be able to claim Sarah plays head games. Everything she thinks comes out of her mouth.

One day when I find my voice again, I will open my mouth and everything I’ve ever thought will rush out like a verbal tsunami and I only hope it won’t leave you knocked unconscious from the force, or sweep you totally away from me.

I was picking Chloe up in the morning and I lay in bed and reread her words to me. I don’t think she had any idea that she had already found her voice. It wasn’t verbal, it was written.

It was bizarre to think that I’d missed her, but I had. I couldn’t wait to touch her, to kiss her.

My room was dark but my apartment was clean. I’d spent the day dragging it back from the edge of disgusting to livable and I could smell the hint of lemon from the cleaner in the air. My window was open because we’d had a sudden dip in temperature and the breeze rattled the screen slightly.

I had been dodging anyone female for the last two weeks and I was hard, in desperate need of release. But I refused to jerk off. I wanted to strain the edges of my self-control. No alcohol. No women. No orgasm.

So I lay naked in the dark, thoughts racing around and around Chloe, cock hard and throbbing.

And I relished the control. The awareness. I felt ready.

Like Chloe had said, people seemed to have forgotten how to date. It was hook ups or forever. I wanted to give that to her- the middle ground. A guy who would do more than ‘hang out.’

So I lay there and plotted my strategy.

There was something stealthy about showing up at the ferry dock but not having any intention of seeing my sister on Vinalhaven. I felt a little guilty and while I knew it would be more gentlemanly to pick Chloe up at her house, she hadn’t wanted to waste time on me coming to the island and getting caught up in seeing people. Understanding she just wanted to see her sister, I agreed, but then felt like a douche sitting in the parking lot as the ferry pulled in.

Stepping out into the morning sunshine, I pulled the baseball hat I was wearing down lower. I was going for the any-other-guy look, an attempt to blend in and be anything other than noteworthy. I didn’t want anyone to ask questions, here or in New York. This was Chloe’s show, not mine. I was just glad to have a role, any role.

Chloe didn’t act like we were on an undercover mission though. She got off the ferry with a backpack around her shoulders and her face lit up when she saw me. I felt the smile spreading across my own face when I saw her. She moved so gracefully, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and I was a fucking sucker for her. I was ridiculously hot for her, but more important than that, I was falling head over ass in love with her.

I kept telling myself to fight it but then I kept not fighting it.

So I was pleased that she was pleased to see me and when she rushed forward to give me a hug, I opened up my arms and caught her, pulling her tight against me so I could feel her petite body in its entirety.

“Hi,” I murmured.

Her response was to lift her mouth towards me, her head tilted, lips falling open. She wanted a kiss. I wasn’t going to tell her no. If she didn’t care who was watching, I wasn’t going to give a shit either.

“Do you want a kiss?” I asked, lips so close to hers our breath intermingled.

She nodded.

“Okay.” I brushed her lips with mine, just a brief, soft tease. “It’s good to see you.”

Chloe nodded again.

She clearly wanted another kiss, a deeper, hotter kiss, but I decided to torture us both a little. We had a long few days ahead of us and at some point during our trip I was going to give us both what we wanted. Me. Chloe. In bed together. Naked. The anticipation would be killer, in the best way possible.

“Are you ready? It’s a long drive.”

She nodded. She looked excited. Chloe’s hand slipped into mine, naturally, as we crossed the parking lot to my car. Once in the passenger seat, she unzipped her backpack and pulled out an envelope.

“What’s this?”

Peeling it open, she showed me there was a stack of money in it. She put her head on her hands and mimicked sleep.

“For the hotel?”

She nodded.

“You don’t have to pay for the hotel.”

Now she nodded emphatically.

“Where did you get this from?” I asked.

Her arms cradled an imaginary baby.

“Oh, babysitting? Damn. That’s a lot of diaper changes.” There was five hundred dollars in the envelope. “I can split the bill with you. It’s only fair.”

She frowned like she thought that was dumb. Hell, maybe it was dumb. It wasn’t my sister or my trip. But it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to gain something from it. I’d get to be with her. How lame ass whipped was that? Whatever. I wasn’t going to let her pay for the whole bill. That would be just…wrong.

“Pick what music you want to listen to,” I told her as I pulled out of the parking lot. Then because I hadn’t touched her enough, I rested my hand on her knee and squeezed. Her skin was warm, smooth.

She put her hand over mine and laced her fingers over my knuckles. It felt natural. It felt right. Like everything I had done, everything I had missed, wasted, been waiting on, no longer mattered when I was sharing the same space as Chloe. There was something simple and straightforward and innocent about the way she cared about me. It was like she didn’t fear rejection or care about impression, playing games, or being coy. For whatever reason, she liked me, and she wasn’t afraid to show it.

Her musical choice surprised me.

“Country?” I asked, shooting her a grin. “And here I thought you’d be into hair metal.” Which wasn’t true, but somehow I’d pictured pure pop, not country.

She wrinkled her nose and pointed to me.

“Me? No, not hair metal. I like indie rock.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What?” That amused me. “There is nothing hipster about indie music, you hater.”

As we started south, I was surprised to hear Chloe hum a little. It wasn’t humming in the truest sense, but it was a sound coming from her lips in tune with the music. Not words, but a beautiful sound that filled the warm car and made me relax, fall into the rhythm of driving. I didn’t need to hear her talk, even if I wished she would. I no longer felt the urgent need to force her to speak the way I had when I’d met her. She spoke to me in her way- through music, through her writing. It was enough for me to feel like I knew Chloe. She wasn’t the mysterious stranger speaking a language I didn’t know any more.

Once Caitlyn had told me a story she’d read in a woman’s magazine where an undergrad studying abroad in Italy had fallen in love with an Italian who didn’t speak English. She didn’t speak Italian. Yet after a week together, they’d made plans to marry and for her to permanently settle in Italy and I had told her I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. She had thought it was romantic. To me, it had been wildly impractical and frankly reckless. How the hell could you know the other person wouldn’t say something asinine once you did speak the same language? What if they were a moron? Or you had diametrically opposing views on life? Raging liberal versus ultra conservative?

Caitlyn had been annoyed with me.

But now I understood that we expressed ourselves in ways that weren’t just spoken and that sometimes, the words became a camouflage for the truth.

So I settled into Chloe’s silence and let her hum, and flip through her magazine while I drove the eight hours to New York. We stopped at a rest area and got lunch and she picked at her salad, though she did steal one of my fries. When I watched her trying to order what she wanted, I had a whole new appreciation for what it was like every day for Chloe and how easy it would be to settle into the life of a hermit. Since it was a fast food type restaurant, there was no menu she could point to in her hand. She had to hold her fingers up in the number of which item she wanted on the overhead menu.

The woman serving us stared blankly. “What?”

Chloe pointed to the menu then held up five fingers.

“I don’t understand, ma’am,” she said in a bored but irritated voice.

“She wants the number five meal,” I spat out, equally irritated. How hard was that to figure out.

“Why didn’t she just say so? Is she deaf or something?”

“No,” I said. “And she’s standing right here. She can hear you.” It reminded me of when I had suggested to Aubrey that having Chloe as a babysitter was a bad idea and my sister had coldly informed me that Chloe wasn’t an idiot. This cashier was making me equally defensive. Yet Chloe didn’t seem to mind. I wasn’t sure if she was just so used to it she didn’t care or if she tuned it out.

“Look, we’ve got a line,” the middle-aged woman told me. “What can I get you?”

So I had placed my order too and paid for our lunch that Chloe didn’t eat. “Are you nervous or something?” I asked. “Or just not hungry?”

She typed on her phone.
Nervous. Maybe I should have warned Anya we’re coming but I didn’t want her to say no.

“It is risky. But I understand why you want the element of surprise. She might not remember you though. Be prepared for that.”

She gave me the look that indicated she didn’t believe for a minute her sister wouldn’t remember her. Hell, maybe she was right. But then again, maybe Anya’s traumatic upbringing had messed up her memories. Or she thought Ekaterina was an imaginary friend she’d had. Who knew? I didn’t want Chloe to be disappointed but I had a feeling she was going to be. Anya didn’t look like the kind of chick who was all about the warm and fuzzy.

“Have you ever been to New York?” That thought had never actually occurred to me. I had been a number of times with my parents and once in college with some friends but I got the impression Chloe didn’t leave Vinalhaven very often.

She shook her head.

“It’s crowded.”

She made a face like I was insulting her. Okay, so that was a stupid thing to say. “I guess that’s obvious, huh?”

Typing rapidly, she then pushed her phone over to me.
Eight million people sounds crowded, yes.

“I hope this hotel is okay. It’s the only one I could find that wasn’t ridiculously expensive.”

Chloe reached across the table and squeezed my hand. She smiled and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” My chest felt tight. “Now eat your lunch or I’m going to worry about you.”

She was less restless the rest of the drive, even dozing off at one point like she hadn’t slept well the night before. She had offered to drive, but I had refused. It wasn’t that far and I didn’t want her to stress at all about anything. Somehow I had it in my head that Chloe was fragile. I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t shake the idea that I needed to protect her.

Which was really ironic given that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing with my own life. I had pulled over for gas when I got the email from my advisor that there was no way I could start classes this semester. He said spring semester was a possibility if someone dropped out before December. Fabulous. I stood there inhaling gas fumes and fuming myself. It was my own fault. I couldn’t ask for any special favors. I had no right to anything other than what I had earned and this was what I’d done to myself. Didn’t make me any less pissed off that when I decided to dig myself out of my hole I didn’t have a fucking shovel.

I slammed the door too hard. Chloe woke up.

Her eyebrows raised in question.

“It’s nothing,” I told her.

Traffic was ass going into the city. I-95 South was crowded from New Haven all the way to the George Washington bridge and I was hot and running out of patience. Chloe made a sound in the back of her throat as we drove into Manhattan and I glanced at her. She was craning her neck in all directions to see everything. When she saw me watching her, she grinned. I guess New York City was impressive the first time you see it. For me, it was currently requiring all my concentration to maneuver the streets. The only method of survival driving was to gun it as every light turned green and then slam on your brakes at red ones. If you didn’t move someone would honk at you, cut you off, flip you off, hit you.