Strong (4 page)

Before getting in the truck, I chance a look at the sky. “Chase, look,” I say, pointing toward a patch of starry sky between the clouds. The snow has stopped, at least for a little while. There are still many heavy-looking clouds threatening to drop more snow on us, but the few open patches provide me the opportunity to share a little more of my passion with Chase.

As I'm pointing, I draw the outline of one of the constellations. “There's Orion,” I tell him.

“I've heard of Orion, but the only other ones I recognize are the Big Dipper and Little Dipper,” he says.

“
Those are the easiest to spot,” I tell him. I trace out the outline of Orion. “Orion is the hunter. See his shoulders? And the three stars in the middle make up his belt, and then another little line of stars makes up his sword.” I can't tell if Chase is really following what I'm saying, but he's leaning over my shoulder, breathing next to my ear. I can feel his warmth on my cheek, and I can hear his soft breath. My knees start to feel weak. At least he's pretending to be interested.

“
Then, look to the left of Orion.” I move my finger along the sky and try to trace out another constellation. “Those two are known as Gemini, the twins.”

I continue in almost a whisper. “If there were no clouds, you could see Taurus over there, and Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. Do you see how bright the stars are when there's no light pollution?”

“They're fantastic,” he says. He's so close that I think his lips might be brushing against my ear. I want him to kiss me.
If I turned around and caught his lips with mine, would he kiss me back
? I wonder. I'm too shy to find out.

I pull up as close to his cabin as possible, and just as he's getting out, Chase turns back to me and asks, “We're still on for brunch on Sunday, right?”

“Yes!” I remember and tell him, “I'll text you my address.”

I can barely keep my attention on the pastor's sermon this morning.  My thoughts keep drifting off to a certain chocolate-haired guy. I have to keep dragging my brain back to the here and now. When I was little, I used to get in huge trouble if I was distracted or misbehaving during church. Without thinking, I check to see if my parents have noticed my wandering attention. They wouldn't discipline me for it now that I'm an adult, but it's an automatic response after years of being redirected.

After church, I brew a fresh pot of coffee and start making my mom's famous Cinnamon Crumble recipe. It's the best coffee cake in town, confirmed by the county fair board three years in a row.

The knock at the door starts my heart racing. Since my hands are full of cinnamon and brown sugar, my mom opens the door. I hear her exclaim, “Oh, Chase, you didn't have to do that!” She returns from the kitchen door with a huge poinsettia in her hands. There is a small rope suspended above the flowers, almost like a hanging plant, and I quickly realize that Chase must have rigged it so that he could carry it inside.
         

I turn, with my hands still in the mixing bowl. “Hi! Sorry I can't come over to shake your hand just now.” I smile as he makes his way to look over my shoulder. “Hi,” he whispers right next to my ear. “That looks great.” My face feels flushed as he heads to the table and sits down.

Just then, Marcus barrels in and yells, “When is brunch going to be ready?  I'm starving!” Typical middle school boy. I'm so grateful he hadn't walked in when Chase was whispering in my ear. I would have never heard the end of his ridicule.

However, being the obtrusive boy, Marcus finds another way to embarrass everyone in the room. “Hey, what's with the crutches? Did you break your leg? I broke my leg once and had to wear the cast for six weeks. And then I used the dumb crutches for another six weeks. You probably slipped on the stupid ice, right? Yours are different, though. Can I try them?”

“Marcus!” My mom says sharply, trying to distract him. “Please make the orange juice.”

I bite my bottom lip and look at Chase to see his reaction to my brother's brainless questioning. “I'm sorry,” I mouth out to him. 

He smiles reassuringly at me and then looks at my brother. “I've had them a lot longer than six weeks. Both of my legs are weak, so I use them all the time.” 

Thankfully, that satisfies my pea-brained brother's curiosity. He finishes the juice and leaves the room yelling, “Let me know when the food is ready. I'm starving.”

“You mentioned that!” I yell back. Chase and my mom both laugh.

“
I hope you like bird's nests,” I tell Chase as we transport all of the food to the table. The confused look on his face prompts me to explain. “
These
are bird's nests,” I motion to the plate filled with bread that has been fried with an egg in the middle of each, where a small circle of bread has been cut away.

“
And this is my mom's famous Cinnamon Crumble,” I inform him proudly. I haven't met anyone who hasn't loved the stuff.

Brunch is a pleasant mixture of food and conversation. Of course, my parents ask Chase about college. He tells my parents that he is studying to become a physiatrist. He goes on to explain the unfamiliar term, “It's a doctor who specializes in rehabilitation. The full title would be Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Specialist, but that's kind of a mouthful.”

I wonder again about his crutches. It has only been a few weeks, but it seems like I've known Chase forever. However, it strikes me as odd that I still don't know why he uses the crutches. I assume that it's not the best time to ask him, during brunch, in front of everyone.

“
Where are you planning on going to medical school?” My father questions.

“
Well,” Chase begins, “I was telling Kate that I haven't gotten that far yet. I still have to apply to schools and take the Medical College Admission Test. I will get my Bachelor's degree this spring.”

My mother chimes in, “Well, Katherine will also be finishing at the community college this spring. She is still researching schools as well. Such a busy time in both of your lives, so many big decisions. I can't imagine either one of you have space in your life for much more than that.”

She is probably just trying to make pleasant conversation, but it feels to me as if she's trying once again to drive home her point that neither one of us is ready for a relationship.

“
Where do you go to church, Chase?” My father asks. It seems like that could be a much more loaded question than my mom's little jab about school. But my dad is more masterful at making conversation, so he can make a potentially tricky question sound like he wants to talk about the weather.

“
My family is Roman Catholic, sir.”

“
Ah, so have you been going to Holy Cross while you're visiting? It's such a beautiful church.”

“
Yes, we went last weekend. It
is
a fantastic piece of architecture. But we often go to my grandmother's church in Ontonagon on the weekends. We were there last night.”

Chase goes to church. Is that why I see something different in him? I go to church, too, but I don't think anyone is particularly drawn to me because of it. How could that make him so much more attractive?

We spend the remainder of Sunday afternoon playing board games. I vanquish Chase in a game of Scrabble, and then he crushes me at Monopoly. We join my parents who are watching a football game.        Apparently, my dad is a Badgers fan, which I never knew. Chase and my dad prattle on about the team, the coach, the season. I quickly become bored and excuse myself.

I head to my room to get ready for work. But first, I send another text to Dani:
Chase is here!

From Dani
: PICTURES NOW!

I run downstairs and tell Chase to smile. Before he figures out what happened, I've already hit
send.
Hopefully he's not too weirded out that I'm sending a picture of him to my best friend.

By the time I reach my room, Dani has responded:
Holy skunk, he's cute!

That's Dani for you – a combination sophisticated art student and granola-eating tree hugger and eccentric scholar of life. She says the goofiest things and couldn't care less what people think. I'm glad she approves.

When I'm ready to leave for my shift, Dad and Chase are still talking, so I leave them to it. 

“
Are you sure you don't want to ride the trolley again?” I bat my eyelashes in an exaggerated way.

“
Yep, I'm pretty sure. I'm still thawing out from last weekend.  But, before you go, let me give you this.” He leans in for a kiss on the cheek before I leave.

That spot on my cheek keeps me warm for my entire shift on the trolley.

Chapter 4

It's a long week of classes. It usually drags on at this time of year: the semester will end soon, everyone is eager to have a break for the holidays, and it is unquestionably the coldest first-week-of-December we've had in a long time.

I have a full load of classes this semester, sixteen credits packed into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I purposely left Fridays open because I knew I would need extra time and energy to work the trolley's ten runs each weekend. It may not seem like a lot, but between keeping warm and smiling for four hours straight each night, I'm usually pretty tired out by the end of the weekend.

On Monday, I run at the high school track again, but on Wednesday, I decide to brave the cold outside. 

I cover my face and body as best I can, and I think ahead to where I've seen the least ice on the roads. I decide on a straight route through town, where most businesses will have salted their sidewalks.

I think about Chase. How can I miss this guy so much when I didn't even know him at this time two weeks ago?  My mind,
and
my heart, have already begun to toy with the idea that Chase might be
the one
.  Maybe that's why he seems so
familiar
to me. Maybe he was
made
for me. I try as hard as I can to control that line of thinking because I don't want to get ahead of myself.  But there is just something about him that makes me think he's different.

As I round the corner to the main street of town, I notice that many people are bundled up, going from store to store, doing their Christmas shopping. I pass a small group of people and I think I hear them speaking with British accents. I wonder if they came all the way from England just to visit Eagle Canyon.  Probably not, but it's fun to hear their elegant accents gracing our humble little main street.

Another block ahead, I notice a familiar figure with crutches. I slow to a jog, and then to a walk so that I'm not completely out of breath when I reach him. 

“
Hey, Chase,” I greet him casually, although my heart is racing. And it's not just from running.

“
Hi, Kate. You're a runner?” He asks, with more than a hint of surprise in his voice.

I'm
a little surprised at the confounded look on his face.

“
Yeah,” I pant, still trying to catch my breath. “I don't usually run outside when it's this cold,” I tell him. “But I can only take so much of the indoor track. It's too monotonous.”

I want to stay and talk all afternoon. All evening. All night. But I know I should continue with my run, or I will lose my momentum.

“Well, I have to keep moving,” I tell him. “But hopefully I'll see you soon.”
In other words,
call me!

“
'Bye, Kate,” he takes off his glove and brushes his warm hand on my cheek before I race off again. I feel him staring at me as I resume my run.

On Thursday after my last class, I bundle up for the walk to my truck. I could practically park at home  and walk to the tiny campus, but the parking lot is just a bit closer. Besides, sometimes I stop off at the little gift shops after class to piece together my Christmas shopping, or I pick Fiona up from school. I am thankful for the remote start my dad had recently put on the truck for me.

I click the button and I'm startled by a familiar voice behind me. “Can you give me another ride?”  I smile and turn to find that Chase has already grabbed his right crutch with his left hand to move it out of the way, and he pulls me into a firm hug with his right arm. In that wonderfully warm moment, he leaves another kiss on my cheek.

“Wow, you're becoming a stalker!” I laugh. My face remains close to his; he stops for a moment and looks at me as if he contemplates giving me a real kiss. 

Then he smiles and turns toward the truck. “It's not getting any warmer out here,” he yells as he leaves me frozen to the spot with his warm kiss still tingling on my skin.

I have only kissed two guys in my life. One was when I was in ninth grade.  I had known the guy – well, “boy” is a more accurate word – forever, and we spent our freshman year “going out.” Meaning, we spent the year holding hands at school, sitting together at basketball games, and occasionally meeting up with friends at the movie theater. There were never any real “dates” since we were only 14.  We kissed a few times at the movies. It was nothing serious.

My other kiss – the
only
kiss I shared with the creep – was with a guy who spent his summer here in Eagle Canyon. He was from Montreal, Canada and he spoke French. I flirted with him shamelessly every chance I got, which was every single day. He came to the pool where I worked as a lifeguard during the summer months. He came to swim laps in the Olympic-sized pool, and he stayed to let me flirt with him. It was easy with his French accent and his killer Olympic-sized-swimming-pool toned body. But the first time he got me alone about half way through the summer, he tried kissing me with his tongue and with his hands all over my body. It was kind of disgusting, actually, and I ended up telling him he was jerk. After that, we had no trouble ignoring each other at the pool. Even so, I was relieved when he finally left to go back to Montreal.

I find that now, I have a desire to kiss Chase in a whole new way. Not as some sappy high school girl. I want to kiss Chase as a grownup. Like I mean it.

But
what
can I possibly mean after such a short time?

I hop into the already-warming truck and ask, “So, do you
really
want a ride home, or would you like to come over to my house for a bit?”

“
Your house sounds great,” he grins.

“
I should have known you had an ulterior motive,” I tell him smugly. “How did you get to town?” 

“
My sister dropped me off.  I wanted to do a little shopping. I'll text her and tell her I don't need a ride back.”

I'm mildly shocked when my mom invites Chase to stay for dinner, considering her repeated hints that I'm not ready to pursue a relationship with him.

It's one of the few nights she doesn't have to work, and she loves to cook. She makes a scrumptious chicken pot pie and we all eat way too much. As always, she scoops out the last bit to save it for Dad since he's working again tonight; otherwise Marcus would pile-drive the stuff no matter how much he'd already eaten. Fiona has arrived just in time to salvage a small portion for herself as well.

The boys volunteer to clean up, meaning Chase volunteers and Mom forces Marcus to help him. 

Mom, Fiona and I head to the den. Mom puts on a soothing Christmas CD. I don't normally find Christmas music
soothing
. I'm subjected to every possible rendition of every single Christmas song, sung by every single celebrity, during the entire month of December. But this particular CD contains very calm, relaxing piano renditions of Christmas favorites, with no obnoxious singing.

We sit and relax a bit before Mom asks, “So, have you asked Chase about his...condition...yet?”

I feel a little irritated at her choice of words. It sounds like she thinks he has some contagious illness. I give my mom the “No, why would I?” look, and she continues. “It would be helpful to know what you're facing if you two are becoming serious. If it was an accident, then you know it won't get any worse.  But if he has some kind of disease...” She stops and seems to re-think her choice of words. “Or if it's a genetic condition, it could be degenerative. I think you would want to know if it's going to get worse. That can affect a lot in a relationship.”

My emotions fluctuate between irritation and fear as I try to figure out how to address my mom's question. Leave it to her to find another angle from which to pitch her “you're-not-ready-to-get-serious” campaign.

Finally I just say, “Mom, stop worrying so much. We're not serious.”
Yet
, I think.

Marcus enters the room, catching my last sentence. “Yeah, she's just going out with him because she feels sorry for him.”

My mom gives him a stern, “Marcus!” as if that's the only thing she has to say to address the idiocy of his statement. Sometimes I wish she would duct tape his mouth shut.

“
Shut up, you freak!” I tell him fiercely, but quietly enough so Chase won't hear.

A moment later, Chase finds his way into the den. “I should be getting home,” he tells me, and then abruptly heads for his coat.