A Chance for Sunny Skies (28 page)

I held my hand over my mouth to cover a smile. Then I let out a loud cough, held my head high, and walked out the door as my friends turned and saw me. One by one, they made their excuses and goodbyes to Frankie, followed me out, and met me on the street in front of the building. We looked back and couldn't help but laugh as we saw the poor security guard collapse back into his chair and wipe his forehead with a handkerchief.

I looked at the women huddled around me and pulled them into a hug. "Thank you so much. I love you girls."

"We love you, too," Rainy said. Anna and Lizzy nodded.

I stepped back and smiled. "Sorry to run, but Benny's out of surgery." Their foreheads all seemed to wrinkle at once, so I put my hands up to stop their worry. "He's okay, but I have one more stop to make on the way. I promise I'll call with details later."

Benny wobbled as he tried to stand up. The plastic cone around his head was messing with the poor guy's balance, but every time I took it off he tried to lick the spot on his neck where they'd done the surgery. They had completely shaved the area, down to his soft pink skin. So between the buzz-cut Brian had given him, the all-the-way shaven spot on his neck, and the huge plastic cone, he looked like something aliens had abducted, done tests on, and sent back.

"Sorry, bud. I can't take it off. The vet said you weren't supposed to lick it." I gave him a pat on the head and went back to the instructions and millions of pieces I had spread in front of me on the floor. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the paper again. "Do you see a pile of pieces labeled C2?" I asked Benny, who looked at me and flopped over in an attempt to lay down.

I sighed and picked through the bags on the floor, checking the small stickers that labeled what they were. Then there was a knock on the door. I stopped and looked down at my too-small, black, sneaking-into-buildings-outfit, the same one I'd been running around in for the last few hours. Shrugging, figuring half the city had seen me wearing it already, I stood up and went to answer. I checked the calendar making sure it wasn't another "your rent is late " situation.

When the door swung open, the day of the month didn't matter, because it was Brian on the other side. He looked kind of dressed up, like he'd gone home, showered, and deliberately put product into his hair, slicking it back loosely.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," I said (because we're both master conversationalists).

His face went slack and his head shot back in surprise as he took me in. "What are you wearing?" He pointed to my barely-there outfit. I couldn't help but notice how his eyes seemed glued to my low-and-short dress. It made me smile until his features hardened with thought and he backed away. "Sorry, am I interrupting something? Are you on your way out?"

I cringed. He must've thought I had a date, because who wouldn't? People don't normally put together organizational furniture in short dresses. Well, except when they're too excited and don't want to even stop for a second to change, like me.

"Oh, no!" I said. "It's not what you think." I looked down and motioned to the dress. "It was just a -- disguise from something I had to do earlier." I was about to step back, let him in, until I remembered (dammit) he wasn't supposed to see what I was building yet, so I stalled. "What are you doing here? I thought -- I thought you just wanted to be friends." I knew my face was not hiding my pain well and that my voice wavered, but I didn't care.

He held up his hands, which I hadn't noticed were not empty until now. In them he held a small blue and green argyle sweater. I tipped my head and pursed my lips.

"And that is?"

His eyes brightened. "It's for Benedict. I felt bad for making him look silly, so..." He shrugged.

"So you thought you'd embarrass him even more by making him wear a tiny old man sweater?" I chuckled and took the piece of cat clothing. "It's adorable, but he's not exactly in a great mood right now." I pointed to where he was sacked out on the floor looking like the whole world had turned its back on him.

"Poor guy." Brian motioned inside with his hands. "Can I see him?"

I nodded and stepped out of his way. What the hell. This stuff was going to take me another week to build at this rate.

"Whoa, what's all this?" He stood in front of my scattered pile.

I looked at the floor. "I don't want to tell you."

Brian scanned my apartment and I saw him take in the hooks, shelves, and organizational cubbies I'd already built or put up. I rested my chin on my shoulder as I avoided his eyes.

"Sun..." He closed his eyes, never finishing my name. "You did all this for me, didn't you?"

I shook my head. "That would be silly. We're just friends."

He walked toward me and put a hand on my elbow. "But we aren't."

I looked up, met his eyes, and wrinkled my forehead. "You said --"

He shook his head and put his hand up to stop me. "I was scared and mad. I felt so selfish for what I had done, coming in here and trying to change your whole world when you let me stay with you. I had no right."

"Neither did I. I'm a grown person and I care about you, there's no reason I can't share." I motioned to the new additions to my apartment. "I wanted to show you that I could compromise, because my apartment or yours, now or later, living together is never going to be easy. It's going to take both of us changing, but it's worth it to me."

Brian's mouth pulled into his half smile. "Me, too." Then he moved closer to me and tilted my chin up. It felt like our first kiss ever. I wanted more, I wanted it all, but I pulled away.

Because if he was going to commit, I needed to, as well.

"There's something I have to tell you first," I said, looking down.

He ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, no. You're already married? Who is he? Please tell me he's not some rich guy who owns his own country and buys you little black dresses, because I really don't think this can compete with someone like that." He motioned to his body that I loved.

I pulled him to the couch and we sat down. "Not married. No countries. And this dress is Rainy's. But a few months ago, something crazy happened to me and it changed everything. It's over now, but I would feel weird not telling you."

His forehead wrinkled and by the apprehensive look on his face, I figured he thought I had changed sexes or something. I didn't want to keep the guy guessing any longer, so I jumped right in.

"A few months ago, I almost drowned." I bit my lip and watched his face.

The anxious look only deepened as his head shot back and he said, "Really?"

I nodded. "A fisherman saved me. When I told you I had been swimming and doing some fishing as hobbies, that was a real stretch of the truth. I had been swimming for my life and the only fishing vessel I've ever been on was the one that saved me that day."

He leaned forward, still listening, so I kept going.

"The embarrassing thing is that before that day, I had no friends, no life."

Brian tipped his head to the side and opened his mouth to protest with something nice like, "I'm sure you had more than you knew" or something supportive. I put a hand up to stop him.

"No. I had no friends because I let crushing anxieties rule my life. I had been bullied in school and kept getting more and more awkward and it was just easier." My face became hot as I realized how much I was telling him and that there was no going back after this. "You know those near-death-experience stories where people talk about their lives flashing before their eyes?"

Brian nodded.

"That happened to me when I almost drowned, but not exactly." I squinted as I tried to explain the next part without sounding bat-shit crazy. "Well, I never really had much of a life before the near drowning, so when images started to flash through my mind, they weren't from my life."

Brian cocked his head to the side. "Images? Are you sure?"

I nodded. "Yeah, they were random snap-shots and I thought someone up there just felt sorry for me and, you know, threw me a bone, tried to put some fun things in my mind while I died."

Brian looked sad, but a little bit like he understood which gave me the strength to keep talking.

"But I lived and I realized that my life was important, special. I was all about living life to the fullest and making some changes. That's when the images started showing up."

Brian didn't meet my eyes, but looked up. He didn't believe me. "Okay," he said, finally.

"The first image was a white fence and when I saw that very fence one day while I was driving, I went up to the house, the teahouse. I met Rainy, who became my friend. Each vision or image was attached to a person I was supposed to meet or to something I needed to do. It all helped me create what I have now."

Brian smiled, but then froze. "Wait. Was I?" he asked.

I nodded. "The green shoe, your green shoe that Jack threw into the road. That was my third sign. That's why I came to help you, but I got too nervous and ran away that first time."

He chuckled. "Man, you booked it out of there, didn't you?" He looked into my eyes for a second. "I was really sad when you left. I spent the next month looking for the girl with wild red hair and those beautiful blue eyes, every day on my lunch."

I felt my cheeks turn hot and red. "I looked for you, too. You found me first."

He nodded and threaded his fingers through mine. "Sunny, this is all..." he shook his head, "a lot to take in."

My chest felt tight. I took in a deep breath to try to relieve some of the hot worry, expanding out from my heart.

"I mean, I don't even know if I believe in anything up there." He pointed up. "And believing that I am part of some plan. It's... wow." He sat quietly for a long time and I could see his mind working hard.

I leaned forward. "I know. I get it. It sounds crazy to me, too, but it happened and I'm starting to feel like there's a reason the universe picked me, like I'm supposed to help others like me. I don't know." I looked him in the eyes. "You don't have to understand it, you just have to trust me. Can you do that?"

He blinked and sighed, running his hand through his hair.

I smoothed wrinkles on my pants that weren't there and sat down, smiling, watching the other five faces that watched me and then looked somewhere else when they realized I was looking back. My heart beat in my ears, loud, but I took a deep breath and began.

"Thanks so much for coming."

No answers, just silence. Some nodding. I knew what they were feeling, the anxieties crowding their thoughts.

"What a great turn out for our first meeting." I motioned to the two chairs I'd had to add, not believing that anyone would come to a meeting advertised on a few flyers placed on billboards around town. I nodded to the parents sitting in the back, leaning forward, wanting their kids to participate.

I checked my watch. "It's about time, so I think we'll get started." The parents smiled and nodded. The girls sitting around me looked down, turned red, and pressed their lips together uncomfortably.

"Let me tell you a little about myself to get us started."

And I did.

I told these girls how I had spent the majority of my life so far dealing with crippling anxiety and hadn't a friend to my name until a about five months ago when I started to change things in my life. I told them that I started a series of counseling sessions. At this, I saw a few girls pick at their hand-me-down jeans or rub a worn sweater, and I stopped, since I already knew they couldn't afford counseling. So I specified that it was a free type of counseling that was more self-directed. Very hard, but very worth it. That in the end, I had dealt with my anxiety enough to be on television as a weather girl.

Their eyes started to lift, their shoulders slumped less.

"Wait! Aren't you that girl who froze, though?" one of the dads called from the back, confirming that these girls might have it just as hard as I did with my mother.

I suppressed an eye roll, turned it into a smile, and remembered that they were here, with their daughters, a step my mother wouldn't have ever taken. So I gave them a few points and moved on.

"Take out the notebooks you brought with you, please." I waited while they did. "I want you to close your eyes, think about your future, and picture the first seven things that come to your mind. Write them down."

The girls started writing. I stood up and walked around the circle.

"Why seven?" a parent called from the back.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I just pulled it out of the sky." I smiled and looked back to the writing happening in front of me. It wasn't fast, some of them paused for long periods between each word, their eyes shut tight, but they were doing it. My lungs felt tight and proud already of these teens I had just met, these girls who were here to get help from me, these girls I hoped hoped hoped the universe meant for me to help by saving me.

"Okay," I said, seeing that they were almost done. I sat back in my chair and pulled my legs up under me. "These images are going to be your guide, your road map to getting over some of these anxieties. Don't get me wrong, they'll always be there, but with this work we can hopefully move them into the backseat instead of the driver's seat." I looked up, not knowing much about teenagers, not knowing if these were old enough to drive yet. Would they get the car reference?

In looking up I met eyes with a frizzy haired brunette, her hair sort of helmet-like and unfortunate, her eyes blue and deep and sad. She held my gaze. After a second, I saw the corner of her mouth pull up into a hopeful smile.