Page 19 of Knot Just for Show

Roxy growls low, her mauve eyes glinting with barely leashed anger.

I bobble a string of nods, having less than zero interest in any kind of confrontation.

“I know, I know. You’re too much of a sweetheart, a little bit of a doormat.” Roxy winks.

“Hey!” I jostle her with my shoulder. “Look, here! I just asserted myself.”

“Tch, I’m so proud.” Roxy gently body-checks me back, and I nearly fall off my seat, the pair of us still laughing as Kimmyemerges from the ether to let everyone know that there are five minutes until our next dates.

While I hadn’t considered how ambitious a speed dating rotation of so many dates in a single day was until now, I was certainly dragging.

For the most part, I had found myself critically underwhelmed or outright bored. With the exception of Mavren and Teddy, there hadn’t been anyone I’d really hit it off with. After lunch and a few early afternoon dates of great mediocrity, I find myself staring down the last few hours and nearly a dozen remaining dates with dread. My social battery has long run up, and I’m struggling to imagine a world where I actually make it through another date period–let alone eleven of them.

I’ve stretched out on the couch, my monogrammed fleece throw blanket wrapped tightly around me like a pink fuzzy cocoon—allowing myself to rest my eyes until my next date arrives on his side of the partition.

I must be on the precipice of dozing off, because I don’t remember hearing the click of the door or any of the other tells of my date’s arrival before I hear his voice:

“Hello? Anyone there?” Tentative and searching, his vowels soft and elongated. West Virginia maybe? I’d have to ask.

“Yes, hello—I promise I wasn’t catnapping when you came in.” I yawn, stretching upward into a seated position, smoothing my blanket over my knees as I rouse myself.

“Oh, is it nap time? I wouldn’t mind having a nap myself—I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” he speaks slowly and with a warm undertone, I’m instantly lulled into comfort by his casual ease.

“Pesky cameras would give us away,” I sigh dramatically.

“Thwarted yet again, one day we shall nap in peace,” he concurs gravely, before continuing. “Thankfully, you’ve already saved me from more dreadful small talk. I didn’t think I could stand another surface leveldatethat felt more like an interview for a job that I don’t want to be applying for.”

Both of us laugh.

“So, is asking your name going to lose me points? Or do I get to know what to call you as we get straight to trauma dumping about our fucked up childhoods?” I chirp sweetly, doing my best to keep a joking tone.

“Oh please, I feel like such a heel for not introducing myself before I got to complaining—lovely to interrupt your certainly-not-a-nap, I’m Ronan.”

With his accent, the name sounds lovely and musical,Row-nun.

“A pleasure to meet you Ronan. I’m Ursula. What fucked up, deep topic would you like to dive into first? Aforementioned child trauma? The political and/or religious alignment conversation? Or perhaps you’d like to exchange the list of different antipsychotic medications we’re currently taking or not taking, as if we’re reciting the evening menu at an expensive restaurant?” I babble on—unsure if my joke is landing or if I’ve just been floundering to dead air because he’s already made a break for it—sprinting out of his ‘bubble’ without bothering to slam the door behind him.

Instead, I’m rewarded with the soft raspy sound of his laugh, like dry grass in a sweet autumn breeze.

“Well, why don’t we start off with the fucked up stuff that usually scares away the people you’re gonna date?” he offers, as casually as can be.

“Really? You wanna cut right to the dealbreaker stuff right off the bat? Right after the, ‘my name is’ ?” I laugh nervously, trying to play it cool—but inside I’m freaking the fuck out. I’m not ready to do much more than the basics today, especially not when I’m this worn out from the day’s depleting social interactions.

“Yeah, I do–actually,” his laughing subsides, but his voice is still warm, still gentle.

“If it makes it easier, I can go first and everything,” he volunteers.

“Well, I guess it’s settled then. Spill.” I sit up on the couch, hugging my blanket covered legs protectively against my chest—my chin hooked into the valley between my bent knees, my toes curling tight beneath the pink fuzzy blanket. It’s all I can do not to actually hold my breath as Ronan starts speaking.

“Ok, I’ll give you the abridged version for now, so you can opt into all the weepy details later, if there is a later,” he laughs weakly before pressing on. “My mom died when I was real young, and then my dad ran me out of the house when I was thirteen because he found out I liked girlsandboys.” His breath hitches, but only slightly as he swallows another lungful of air to continue his tale. “I lived with my Meemaw for a few years after that, bless her.” I hear him swallow down a wobble in his voice. Even though he’s clearly practiced this bravado and confidence routine, the act—the mask is starting to show its cracks.

“She died the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. She didn’t own the trailer she lived in, she just rented. I was sixteen, so I had no idea that someone had to keep paying the rent or that I would get evicted. As you can imagine, I learned the hard way.” Ronan rolls right past the tiny gaspthat escapes me. I’m fairly certain that my pity is the last thing that he wants, but I can’t help myself. I don’t know what I was expecting for him to lay out—but it wasn’t this.

“I couldn’t stay in her trailer, but we were in a pretty rural area. I stayed in the nearby backwoods in a tent for about a year trying to finish out high school, so I wasn’t technically homeless—but after I dropped out of high school and started hitching and train hopping, I was absolutely homeless.” Ronan’s narration builds in confidence and musicality the further he gets from his grandmother’s death, but I’m left reeling from each new detail about the mystery man on the other side of the wall.

“I did quite a lot of traveling and adventuring before I ended up settling down in LA after finding out that my Meemaw had a younger sister who had escaped coal country and made her way to the west coast. My great aunt never had never married, never had any kids of her own. She was living in a cute but rundown place she couldn’t take care of any more. I ended up staying with her, fixing her apartment and defunct laundromat.” My heart swells and I feel the smile spread across my face as I hear his words. Finally, some happiness in his story.

“She left both the coin-op and the apartment over it to me when she died,” he sighs, the momentum of his story sagging once more, much like it did when he’d mentioned the loss of his grandmother.

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