Offside

“Then fucking drive yourself!” I yelled back at her. “Just fucking go!”

She stood silently in the doorway with her quivering lip being attacked by her upper teeth. She looked down at the car keys in her hand and then looked back to me. I dropped my eyes to the bottle of blue Gatorade and started pulling at the loose corner of the label.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t…”

“Whatever,” I said without looking back at her again.

“I’ll be back,” she replied.

“Don’t bother.”

“I have to at least bring the car back,” she said softly.

“I’ll get it myself.”

“Thomas, that’s—”

“If you’re going to leave, then just get out already!” I screamed at her.

Nicole’s words halted in her throat as she turned and ran out of the house. I heard the door open and close as my chest started to feel as if it were compressing inward. As soon as I heard the car start down the drive, I wanted to run out and stop her, but I didn’t move.

Instead, I yelled, banged my fist on the table, and knocked over my Gatorade. The amount of destruction just wasn’t good enough at all, so I picked the bottle up and threw it against the wall. As a big blue puddle formed on the kitchen floor, I dropped my head into my hands and wondered how I could have fucked it up so badly in the first forty-eight hours.

I just wanted to know where she was going and why. What was so wrong with that? I wanted to know who called and who she was going to go see. That was all.

I didn’t want her to go.

But I practically threw her out.

And I told her not to come back.

Shakespeare came to mind, of course, and I thought “I will speak daggers to her, but use none.” I wondered if it really made any difference in the long run. She was still gone.

I leaned my head on my forearms and just listened to my own breathing until the mess on the floor got to me. I grabbed some paper towels, wiped up the spill, and then used some of the bleach Nicole had out for the shelves of the refrigerator.

Once the floor was wiped up, I paced around the house. I was about as agitated as I could possibly be as I ran through the last six minutes and twelve seconds Nicole was in my house.

I knew I shouldn’t have brought her here.

I didn’t know exactly why being here made all the difference, but I was sure it did. I didn’t really want to bring her here at all. I didn’t want my Rumple to be…tainted by this place. Her house was warm and friendly and full of laughter and good food smells. My house was cold and full of pain.

My head jerked up as my mind spun around and found its focal point—its single need.

I headed up to my room to find some relief from the tumult.

I drew.

Without my sketchbook, I was stuck with lined notebook paper, but I cared less about that than I did about the sudden need to get pencil to paper. Even if it was notebook paper and a number two instead of linen paper and charcoal, I had to draw. I just had to.

Nicole was the most vivid thing in my mind. More so than favorite soccer games, high-class meals in Portland, or birthday blow jobs. My mind grabbed on to everything about her—the way her hair moved when she turned her head, the slight clenching of her jaw when I was being a smart-ass, the look in her eyes as she lay down beside me and ran her fingers over my hair…

…and that’s what I drew.

The curve of her cheek against the pillow and the strands of her hair cascading all around her came first. The pencil flowed over the rough paper to create the edge of her T-shirt near her shoulder then the line of her neck.

My hand worked nearly as fast as my mind as I captured what beauty I could, eventually slowing down to make sure the detail was spot-on, especially the look in her eye. I didn’t know what the look meant. I wasn’t even sure if I had ever seen a look like that before—not directed at me, certainly. I just knew I liked it.

The sun began to set outside my window, and my stomach growled a little. I ignored it and kept drawing. Eventually, my eyes started to blur, so I made myself take a break. I lay down across my bed and looked at the picture in my hand. I tried to position myself just as I had been last night and put the picture down where she should have been.