Page 99 of True Sight
“What can I say, it’s that Wednesday high,” she pants behind me, adjusting her headset since it nearly flew off her head after she did a hair flip that rivaled that of Beyoncé.
“Girl, goodbye,” I snap, rolling my eyes at her and beginning our cool down song. I lead the two of us and our participants through the entire four minute song and say goodbye to everyone before closing down the room. It’s one of our last solely virtual classes with the studio opening the Monday after the New Year which is shockingly only two weeks away. I can’t believe Christmas is next week already.
“Gah, that was so fun,” Alex sings behind me. I turn to see her tossing herself onto the floor of our main classroom and wiping the sweat off her forehead with her shirt. Her core flexes as she works to dry herself off before she pulls her dark ponytail out from under her sweaty back.
“You’re in quite the mood today.” My voice is light and inquisitive, egging her on to tell me more.
“That’s what an orgasm will do for ya.” She peeks at me through a squinted eye and flashes me a smirk. I lean over and playfully slap her thigh.
“Uhm, okay girl, get it. Please tell me all the dirty, disgusting details.” She laughs and I let her happiness continue to fill me up. Without her, I don’t think I would feel as good as I do.
“Puh-lease, a girlneverreveals her secrets,” she coys, wiggling her shoulders a little against the floor.
“What?” I cry out, she can’t be serious. “I’ve told you all of my dirty, disgusting details before.”
“But you’re a boy, and boys have that primal need to boast about their conquests. I’m not the same.Especiallywith my lips.” When she peeks at me again and subsequently blushes, we both fall into a fit of laughter.
“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous. At least tell me if it was male, female, or personal pleasure device.” I lay down next to her on my back and look up at the ceiling. The room we’re in has come together beautifully and is exactly what Ihoped it to be. The thought of having real students dancing and working out in it with me in just a few short weeks doesn’t seem real.
“I guess you’re just going to have to wait and find out in the next story,” she teases before sitting and redoing her ponytail. “What about you, you seem a little brighter today than when I saw you Monday. Did you work it out with your boy?”
I sigh and hammock my hands together before resting them behind my head as a type of pillow. “Not yet but I’m taking your advice. I waited forty-eight hours and haven’t heard from him so I’m just going to go over there tonight when I know he’s done working for the day so we can talk.”
I decided this last night as I tossed and turned, failing to find sleep, and wondered if he was doing the same. Worried that he had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep. Worried even more that he did and felt like he couldn’t reach out to talk about it. I knew that I shouldn’t have run away but past experiences had spooked me when he didn’t say it back right away. He was a processor and needed time to make any kind of decision, it wasn’t right of me to expect him to live at my speed. So I’m going to go to his place tonight and lay it all out on the table. Tell him that I love him even if he isn’t ready to say it back and that I’m willing to wait for him if that’s what he needs me to do.
“Henry, that’s amazing.” Alex’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and brings me back to the present with the help of her hands on my arm, shaking me. “Don’t wait till tonight though, go now and surprise him.”
“I thought about that but then I thought about him and what he would want. He’s busy wrapping up the final details for the studio and all the other work he does. I’m going to give him the day to get his work done and then just steal hisnight from him,” I finish with a smirk. I know he has his standing Wednesday game night with his friends but my hope is that I can catch him before he leaves and then we can meet up once he’s done.
“Naughty boy.” She swats her hand at me. “I hope it goes how you want it to. You’re a fucking catch and if he doesn’t see that, that’s his own damn fault.” She stands from the floor and goes to grab the cleaning supplies to wipe down where we had taken class. I stand to help her and once we’ve cleaned up and put things away, we grab our stuff and head towards the door.
“I have a good feeling about it. I don’t know what it is, I just feel this wave of change coming.” I pause for a beat and smile to myself. “It feels nice, feels right.”
“Well whatever your juju is telling you, I’m all for it. I have to get going but I’ll see you tomorrow? Last set of classes until after Christmas?”
“You know it. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I call out to her as she walks towards her car.
“Don’t stay up too late. I love you and don’t forget to practice safe sex,” she waves and yells back.
After waiting ten minutes for my Uber to arrive because it’s simply too cold for my pretty little legs to carry me home, I lock the front door and trot out to the car, opening the door and taking a seat behind the front passenger seat. I say hello to my driver like I normally do and make a mental note to myself to commit to purchasing my own car once the studio is opened in the new year. The driver and I chat as we drive home with the low buzz of the local radio station playing in the background. He’s telling me about his wife and kids as I’m looking at the launch party schedule for the studio to make sure everything is in place. After tonight and classes tomorrow, I want to shut my brain off, relax, andspend the holiday with my boyfriend. That is, so long as he wants me too.
My brain is trying to remember if I’ve ordered enough food for the party when the screaming sound of a car horn cuts through my thoughts. My eyes look towards the sound and go wide for a fraction of a second, just long enough to see another car coming speeding towards my side of the vehicle. I feel my seat belt tighten around me like a serpent as the four-door I’m in goes into an endless barrel roll. The screeching sound of metal against cement fills my ears before we come to a stop hanging upside down. I blink my eyes and see shattered glass on the ground beneath me and can hear screams coming from the distance. My head pounds as warm blood drips from my forehead, staining the concrete that’s just a few inches from my head.
A euphoric lightness that I’ve never experienced before fills me. I take a breath to experience it on a deeper level and close my eyes to let it consume me.
Then, I can’t feel anything at all.
39
CONRAD
The afternoon rolls by as I continue to work on the most important project I’ve ever worked on. After meeting with Hank yesterday, I know what I want—who I want. And that person is Henry. But I don’t just want him, I want my friends to know about him too. I want to be able to share the person who’s made me the happiest I’ve ever been with the people who are like my family. For my two worlds to finally come together. I’ve been working on it all afternoon after the idea came to me on a walk with Annie. And listening to it back now that it’s finished, I know it’s perfect.
I’ve spent the day in a makeshift recording studio I set up in my closet. Using blankets and pillows, I muffled the noises of the outside world and pressed record on an expensive microphone I purchased years ago for a client project. Holding it to my chest, I let it record a sixty second track of my heartbeat. I remember how he said listening to it settles him and with this, he can listen to it even when I’m not around. Over and over again, I repeat this process but each time doing something to make my heart speed up or slowdown in order to capture different frequencies on tape. I can’t wait to tell him how I sprinted in place in my closet for two minutes and quickly pushed record to capture my racing heart. As I work to edit down the audio files I captured, I know this is the perfect way to give him my heart.
My index finger clicks my trackpad for the final time to export the last file that I recorded. Saving the files to a flash drive, I stand from my chair and stretch before finally stepping out of the closet for the first time in hours. I plan to take it over to his place on my way to D and D with the guys, show it to him, and then ask if he wants to come with me to meet my friends. Everyone else brings their own plus one so why can’t I bring my own? Even though technically I’ll be bringing one and a half if you count my furry companion. I spin the flash drive between my index finger and my thumb as I head for the kitchen, suddenly fully aware of how starving I am after coming out of my work induced flow. My hand trades the flash drive for my phone which I left on the counter so it didn’t buzz in the background. When I pick it up, it illuminates to notify me of several missed calls. I scowl at my phone, not recognizing either of the numbers. One starts with the local 843 area code and the other is an international number with a +44 ahead of it.
My stomach sinks, sensing that something terrible has happened even though my brain isn’t sure what it can be. I have a voicemail from both numbers and decide to listen to the local number first, assuming there’s less of a chance that it’s spam than the international one.
