Page 42 of Meeting Her Mate
It wasn’t until I had turned around to see what she was beckoning me towards that I gasped in awe. There was a deep chasm in the ground with a lot of slopes and a completely smooth surface. It resembled a swimming pool more than anything. Inside it, there were teenagers, kids, and some adults performing tricks on top of—
“They’re called skateboards,” Alexis said. “Now do as I do. Sit down at the edge of the skating rink. Put your feet down. Watch the skaters while you eat and drink.”
“All right,” I said, following her lead.
We sat side by side, watching as the skaters flew in the air, crashed on their knees, performed strange tricks with the board, and collided with each other. Alexis shared the giant bag of Doritos with me. Crispy, coarse, and spicy, those Doritos were burning a hole in my tongue. But thankfully, the ice-cold Slurpee immediately numbed the pain. I experienced what Alexis had called a brain freeze. I drank a little bit too much too fast, and my head felt like it had turned to ice.
Gorging on this weird combination of food made me realize just how much hungry I had been. Alexis showed me how to eat the Twizzlers. I was a bit disgusted by the look of the fizzy gummy worms, but Alexis assured me that those were not real worms and that I should try one of them before I made up my mind.
“Fine!” I exclaimed as I pulled one of the fizzy worms free and put it in my mouth. A sour explosion took place in my mouth, making my eyes water. “Holy crap, they’re delicious.”
“Told you,” Alexis said with a smug face. “Now try the Mars bar.”
“It’s just a thick slab of chocolate,” I said, looking at the bar and calculating if I’d be able to eat it all or not.
“Don’t think too much about it. Just close your eyes, take a bite, and then let me know what you think,” Alexis said.
I complied. This was all her idea. I had trusted her this far and was not let down. And by golly, she was absolutely right. The caramel, the chocolate, the nuts, and the thick texture of the whole bar made for an excellent amalgamation of velvety flavor that filled my mouth immediately. Before I knew it, I was ravenously chomping down on the rest of the bar.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had enjoyed myself like this.
“Hey, thanks for this,” I said, feeling completely satiated and quenched.
“Oh, this is nothing,” Alexis said, waving her hand at me. “Don’t mention it.”
“No. I should mention it. No one’s ever taken the time out of their day to spend an entire morning with me doing nothing but shenanigans. It makes me feel like a child again. So innocent. So pure. And it was all so fun,” I said.
“I just figured it would be a nice change of pace for you. If you want, we can always go back to my apartment and start surveilling Maurice on the emulator phone. But I’d rather we didn’t do that. Out here, in this rink, there’s no danger. No vampires, no two-faced werewolves, and no vengeful heirs seeking to poison you. It’s just you and me and all the skaters in the rink,” she said while sucking the chocolate off her fingers.
“It’s like Buddhism,” I said. “You know, finding Zen in doing nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say we’ve done nothing. We’ve just devoured thousands of calories each. And you’re due for a sugar high any second now.”
Now that she mentioned it, I did notice my fingertips buzzing with a current. I could see brighter, too. All the colors around me became deeper and more vivid. I turned to face Alexis.
She looked like a dream.
“Sugar crash aside, this is the most normal I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” I said, noticing for the first time how magnificently her hair blew in the wind, how her cheeks reflected the light of the sun, and how her eyes glinted every time she looked in my direction.
“I bet I can do you one better.” Alexis was positively grinning now. “Come on. I have a surprise for you.”
“Why are you being so nice to me? I haven’t earned it,” I said, feeling ashamed upon remembering how I’d been to her in the beginning.
Alexis sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. Then she tilted her head sideways, looking me straight in the eyes, and said, “Because we all fuck up. But that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve a second chance. Life is all about second chances. You know, it’s not entirely your fault that you’re having nightmares, are suffering from PTSD, and are prone to outbursts of anger. Your suffering was long, and it takes time to detox from all that. I’m just helping you get back to normal. Detox, so to speak. We all deserve peace, some more than others, and you look like you need it. Happy?”
I was happy. I just did not know how to tell her. At least not in words.
Chapter 15: Alexis
In Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower series, the term used for fate was ka. In his fantasy series that fabled the life of a lone gunslinger in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, ka was described as a wind. Ka was magical. Even though I didn’t live in a world created by Stephen King, I adhered to the principles of fate. And sometimes, fate has a way of blowing like the wind and guiding you to the right place at the right time.
Such as what happened earlier today. Yesterday, when Will had spoken so kindly to me about me being smart and talented, I took his words to heart. Later, when he had left for his home after we’d shared that undefinable kiss, I stayed up all night for several reasons that included speculating on what I’d do for a living, checking on Maurice’s emulated phone to see if he was talking to Ralph or Blair again, wondering what my kiss with Will meant, and trying to sleep but being unable to because of the wild energy coursing through my body.
It dawned on me that I was not going to go back to the diner. At least not now. Sooner or later, I’d have to face some of the pack members. It was kind of hard not to when you lived in the same city. So why not sooner?
At the start of the day, I got into my truck and headed down to the wharf, where Mallory, one of the pack members, was just getting set up in her office. Back when I used to work data entry shifts at the wharf, Mallory was my supervisor. As far as people go, Mallory was a stone-cold, disaffected, calculating person, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t extend the odd helping hand every now and then.
“I see your plight, and I raise you one of my own,” Mallory had said at around six in the morning when I’d gone to ask her if there was a job opening that would be worthy of my time and effort. “More and more fishermen are leaving this place. That means what? Deserted ships. We can’t have deserted ships on an active wharf. The harbor becomes overpopulated. We can’t decommission those ships either. Where do they go?”