Page 6 of Assassin Anonymous

My hands are flat on the counter, like I’m trying to hold myself down from floating away. These hands that have caused so much hurt, that have made my eighth-step list so goddamn long. Kenji seems to sense the shifting gravity and places his right hand over my left, to keep me grounded. My instinct is to pull away, but I appreciate the intimacy of it.

Especially because his hands have done the same kinds of things as mine.

“You’re my fourth sponsee,” he says. “Two gave up. One, his past caught up with him. You moved through the steps with real focus. You showed up for them. Then you got here and you hit a wall. I don’t want to lose another one. Remember, this is a kindness. Not just for the people on your list, but for yourself. What you are doing is learning to forgive yourself.”

“I know,” I tell him. “I’m just being difficult.”

“Very.”

Four in, hold for four, out for four, empty lungs for four.

He’s right. Moving into the ninth step means I can finish it, and then one day—well, I don’t expect to truly forgive myself, or to find some kind of inner peace, but maybe I’ll be able to sleep at night, or just hate myself a little less.

Maybe those things could be enough.

The door chimes behind us. A young couple comes in, holding up a phone at eye level, which they’re both smiling into like lunatics. He’s wearing a black skullcap and has a tattered scarf looped tastefully around his neck. She’s got big thick glasses, a fuzzy pink coat, and a shaved head.

“On today’s episode of Undiscovered Eats,” the young man says, “we check out Lulu’s Diner, which is so off the beaten path it doesn’t even have a Yelp page, and—”

Lulu snaps her fingers, which stops him from talking, and without lifting her pen from paper, or her eyes from what she’s doing, she points to the door and says, “Get out.”

The two of them hover in the open doorway, the frigid December air chasing away the warmth. Neither of them knows what to say, and they look to us like we’re going to help.

I offer them a half shrug. “I wouldn’t mess with her.”

Without another word, they leave.

And that’s why we come to Lulu’s.

I realize Kenji’s hand is still on mine. We look down at where we’re touching, then back up to each other, and we burst out laughing. It was the pressure release valve that both of us needed in that moment.

Kenji reaches for his wallet. But I’m ready, a fifty-dollar bill folded in my pocket and ready to go. I slap it on the countertop and he sighs.

“Please…” he says.

“It’s all good, bud,” I tell him.

Kenji is big on custom and tradition and doesn’t like that I always pay. But I walked away from my old life with a sizable nest egg. He walked away with the clothes on his back.

“Thank you,” Kenji says, offering a slight bow. “And yes, it would be nice to exchange presents this year. It’s been a long time.”

“Oh, that was just me being difficult. Again. After last Christmas…”

“Perhaps,” he says, “we should take a bad memory and replace it with a good one?”

I’m struck by a couple of feelings at once: giddiness at the idea of doing something so normal as exchanging gifts, and then, of course, the noxious shame of what happened the last time I wrapped a Christmas gift.

But it feels like another small step on the path leading to the kind of life I want to build.

The kind where normal things happen.

“Spending limit is fifty bucks,” I tell him. “Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

We get up and shrug into our coats. Lulu may notice, or she may not. I yell across the diner to her. “Hey, Lu, it’s almost Christmas. You ought to put up some decorations.”

“Hmm,” she says, I think.

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