Unhinge Me (11 page)

All of the jogging Caleb had done around the college had made him pretty familiar with it. It was the biggest campus in Georgia, and maybe even the world. It made finding a private spot really easy, and Caleb took Alex to his favorite. But when they first drove onto the campus, Alex had to duck down in the car. She felt so silly scrunched down like that, but it was broad daylight and there was no way they wanted to get caught together now.

Caleb looked down at her with dark eyes and smirked. “This reminds me of another time you were down on the ground like that.”

Alex’s cheeks flamed. Deciding to get him back, she reached up between his legs and gave him a squeeze. The car swerved as Caleb gave a shout. Alex snickered and took her hand back. Caleb just shook his head and grunted. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you enjoy this sneaking around,” he accused with a smile.

“Maybe a little,” she confessed.

The ride was long as they drove deep into the park. Alex didn’t mind. Once she was able to sit up, the scenery was beautiful. The road was lined with willow trees, and Spanish moss hung over everything like dripping jewels. It looked like a wonderland. Even once they parked and Caleb grabbed the picnic basket out of the back of the car, they still had a little while to walk. Alex was glad Caleb had warned her to wear her old sneakers.

As they started walking to the site he had picked out, Alex kept taking big gulps of fresh air. It felt so good to be outside just enjoying nature. She wondered how long it had been since she went on a run. It was probably since she’d met Caleb, she realized. She missed the feel of the ground speeding under her feet, the wind in her face, the smell of the air as it sucked into her lungs.

Alex sighed. “How heavy is that basket?” she asked Caleb.

Caleb looked down at the basket in question. “Not very… why?”

Without answering, Alex smiled and took off running down the path.

“You’d better catch up if you’re going to show me where to stop!” she shouted over her shoulder.

Caleb stood there in shock for about a half a second and then took off running after her.

“Challenge accepted!” he shouted back.

He caught up quick and smacked her butt as he passed by her. She shouted in surprise and tried to run faster to catch up with him. He told her he was new to running. There was no way she could let him win now.

They ran for almost a mile while Alex tried desperately to catch up with him. Abruptly, the path opened up to a small clearing and Alex stopped, so surprised she forgot about the race. It was the most beautiful little spot she had ever seen.

It was a small, grassy clearing, empty but for a single willow tree. On either side of the clearing were more trees so that it was surrounded on three sides by the forest. On the fourth side, the one opposite where they stood, was a small lake. The lake was clear and calm and also surrounded by trees except where they were. It sneaked around to the left and back further unseen. On it, alone, relaxed a pair of swans.

It was so perfectly serene it almost felt unreal. Alex felt immediately relaxed, like just their arrival at the little place had taken a big weight off her shoulders. She looked at Caleb, trying to show him with her eyes how much she loved it.

Caleb knew. He’d felt the same way the first time he’d happened upon the spot. It was so far off the path of the campus it was also practically impossible to see or be seen by anyone. It was the most private they felt since they’d met.

Without saying anything, they looked at each other and smiled. Caleb grabbed her hand and they ran toward the lake to pick a good spot for the blanket. They found one they both liked, just close enough to the edge of the lake to be able to hear the soft waves lapping the shore. Once the blanket was down and they had settled on it, Caleb began to pull the first part of the meal out of the old, classic looking picnic basket. Alex sat back to watch him. A breeze blew through the little glade and ruffled Caleb’s hair while he worked. She couldn’t help but sigh at how handsome he looked, the sun making his blue eyes shine.

Unpacked, the meal looked more like a feast. It was more food than Alex could ever have imagined. It was as if the basket were a clown car; more and more food just kept coming out of it. There was bread and cheese and meat, most of which was something she had never heard of or was prepared in a way she had not tried. Caleb seemed to enjoy making her try new things. And all the food was paired with the most delicious wine she’d ever tasted. She loved all of it and ate way more than was lady-like. She was commenting on that fact when Caleb gave her a strange look.

“What?” she stammered, confused.

“You women today, you’re obsessed with being skinny like models,” he accused.

Alex rolled her eyes.

“No, really,” he insisted “What you don’t realize is that most men don’t care what size you are as long as you have confidence and enough boob and bum to grab onto!” he contended, shaking his head.

“Well, I’m gonna call bullshit on that one,” she shook her head. “You men say that crap all the time, but it’s the skinny blonde bimbo that always grabs your attention when she walks by.”

“Did it ever occur to you that those women are just the ones who have more confidence?” he asked her. “It doesn’t matter how fit they are, if you see a woman with that much poise, she’s going to get looks. It’s the confidence we appreciate. Besides, the clothes the bimbos, as you call them, wear show more tit, and tits always get a man’s attention no matter who has them,” he said with determination and a half smile. “In fact, I prefer my women to have a little curve like you do,” his deep voice vibrated.

Alex blushed and thought about his words. Even with all the running she did she never seemed be able to get rid of her slight hourglass figure. She usually tried to cover it up, but something about Caleb made her feel less self-conscious.

She sighed. “Well, I don’t know why you’d be attracted to me then. I barely have any confidence at all.”

Caleb studied her face. “You fake it well. I guess that’s all that matters.”

He smiled and laid his hand on her waist, pulling her closer to kiss her softly. Alex leaned into him and melted into the kiss.

A little while later, they sat quietly watching the swans. Alex leaned back on her hands and put her face back to let the sun shine on her. It smelled like spring in the little meadow and she wanted to soak up the sun and breeze like a sponge. Caleb laid with his head resting on her lap. Alex noticed how easy it was with him to just sit and say nothing. She looked down at the back of his resting head and ran a hand through his wavy hair. Everything about being with him seemed so easy. It was so different than any other relationship she had ever been in. It made her unquestionably happy and also genuinely terrified at the same time.

“So how was your time with Rachael last night?” Caleb lazily asked, making conversation.

“It was fine… great actually. I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing her,” Alex thought aloud.

“I’m sorry if I have been monopolizing your time,” Caleb smirked in a very unapologetic way.

She pulled his hair a bit.

“Liar.”

“Ouch,” he feigned. Alex laughed.

“No, she understands and is happy for me. She’s not one to be needy or selfish. She just lets me be me and encourages me to be happy.”

Caleb looked up at her.

“Is that what you are - happy?” he asked softly.

She looked into his eyes and smiled tenderly.

“Yeah… I really am.”

And that was Caleb’s moment. As he lay there looking up at her with her hair falling down loose around her shoulders, it made him remember about how he used to wonder about its softness. He was right about the florescence; they did hide the natural red highlights. In the afternoon daylight they shimmered with all different shades of brown and auburn. The sun above her made a little halo effect around her head and her green eyes shone brilliantly with her smile. That’s when he knew he loved her.

He’d probably known for a while. Maybe back at her apartment, when he saw so much of her in the décor, or maybe the first time he took her to Shenanigan’s and introduced her to Joe and Josie. It was possible he’d known all long. But in that moment, in their little secret place, he knew it more than anything he had ever known in his entire life.

“I…” he began, but Alex, oblivious to his newfound feelings, interrupted him.

“Anyway, it was just for my birthday, so you don’t have to worry about it becoming a weekly thing or anything.”

Caleb stopped and sat up.

“Wait, your birthday? Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday yesterday?” he said, distraught.

Alex looked ashamed.

“I don’t like to celebrate my birthday usually,” she confessed. “And it’s today, not yesterday.”

“Why don’t you like to celebrate your birthday, Alex?” he asked quietly.

She sighed and rolled her eyes in frustration. “Because I just don’t, okay,” she half-shouted. “It’s not fair, I keep having them… while everyone else doesn’t…” she trailed off, getting so quiet Caleb had to lean in to hear.

“Alex, who are you talking about? Who doesn’t get to have any more?” Caleb had noticed that Alex never talked about her family. He’d tried many times, but she never seemed to want to elaborate and he never pushed, always afraid to scare off the little doe in her. Perhaps whatever she was withholding from him would be a key.

Alex was embarrassed by her sudden outburst and didn’t know what to say next. When she didn’t answer, he took her chin in his hand and made her look at him. The depth of the sadness in her eyes broke his heart in two.

“Tell me.”

A tiny bit of the wall she had built around her heart and soul fell down and, feeling like she could really trust him, Alex started to tell her story to the only other person besides Rachael.

“I lost my mom at birth,” she began. “Complications with her heart, the doctors said. So I never knew her. Her family was so distraught about her death that they all ran away from me and my dad. Seeing me reminded them of her and they said it brought them too much pain, so we never heard from them again. Even so, my dad did a great job of raising me. He was both my mom and my dad and he was really good at it. I think I had a pretty good childhood. He had such patience with me and never lost his temper. He loved poetry, and we spent a lot of time reading it together, as you know.” Alex smiled at the thought. Then immediately her face darkened again.

“Just after my thirteenth birthday, I lost him too. Drunk driver.” Alex took a ragged breath. “I… didn’t take it well. My other grandparents, his parents, took me in then. I was especially close to my grandmother already and she was like a rock for me. Whenever she didn’t think I was looking, I saw the pain in her eyes from losing her son, but she always kept a smile on for me. I wasn’t easy to deal with after that though. I was a teenage girl who was struggling with the death of her only parent and going through puberty at the same time. It was rough for a while, but she was tough lady. She managed to keep me from doing anything too stupid. It was during the rough part though that Grampa got sick. They said it was cancer, but there was a part of me that couldn’t help blame myself,” she confessed.

Caleb cringed. He knew the feeling.

“Anyway, he died when I was sixteen. My grandmother’s heart was utterly shattered and this time she couldn’t hide it. I saw her age what seemed like decades in just months. By the time I graduated high school, she was a small and frail version of who I knew growing up. That summer, we got the news: cancer again. I always wondered if it wasn’t a broken heart instead.” Alex stopped to take a deep breath. She didn’t even look up at Caleb, in fear she would see his sympathy and break down and not be able to go on.

“No longer able to be my rock, I decided it was time for me to be hers. I took a year off from school to care for her. She was angry with me for doing it, of course, but she was so small, she just didn’t carry the same authority she used to. Yeah, I blamed myself for the loss of her husband, so guilt was part of it, but really I felt like I was losing the only person I had left, and I had to stay to take advantage of every moment. We spent lots of time talking and laughing. Her mind was as sharp as a tack for a long time, even though her body was failing her fast. She was such a smart ass and would pick on me endlessly.” Alex laughed in memory.

“Thinking back on it, a lot of what we talked about were things about my future. It was almost as if she was trying to prepare me. We also spent lots of time reading poetry together too, my father’s love of it having been passed down from her. In the end, all I did was read to her whenever she was awake.” Alex’s eyes got a very faraway glaze.

“I lost her at the end of that summer. I intended to stay home another year and try to do… something. I don’t know what… rebuild… understand maybe. But when the lawyer read me her will, I found out she had gone behind my back and submitted an application for here because she knew it’s where I wanted to go. He’d done it all for her. She had me enrolled and the whole four years paid for. Even set up a small apartment so I could grieve and deal with things on my own. And since the semester was starting soon, there would be no refund if I didn’t go. I didn’t feel like I had a choice, which of course was her plan. She was bossy even in death,” she smiled. “She was right, I suppose. Had I stayed home, I would have wilted away and not known what to do with myself.”