HIM

I felt like a puppy walking beside her. I tried to hide my excitement and my nervous energy. She had asked me if I wanted to go for a walk and I was so excited I couldn't even form words so instead I nodded and did a pretty pathetic dog impression that included panting and shaking my butt as if I was wagging an imaginary tail. Everyone else was put off by my bad jokes and awkwardness, but Olive came over and rubbed my head and called me a good boy.

So here I was beside her trying to be just that by listening to everything she said and like always it was so much. I had spent my whole life avoiding people like her, spotlight people, the front and centers, the last thing I ever wanted was attention. I listened to another one of her wild stories. She was so animated which made everything she said better.

She was pretty in a way that defied popular beauty standards and I found it refreshing. She was not defined by her femininity in fact she was quite boyish, but I found it charming. She was rough around the edges and kind of always loud even when she whispered, but I found it endearing. She didn't need to tone down, the world should be so lucky to be in her presence, at least that was how I felt.

The sun shined down and highlighted her light brown eyes in a way that made them look like drops of honey behind her almost invisible glasses. She wore her auburn hair in a pixie cut and it suited her. She had a face that was far too nice to hide behind bangs or long hair. I loved the freckles that lightly sprinkled her nose and cheeks because they matched her eyes. Her full lips formed the cutest gap smile that was contagious.

“I thought we were getting coffee,” I asked as we turned the corner into a residential neighborhood.

“We are,” she replied, taking out keys and slowing down. She came to a stop and held out her arms and shook them in front of the next brick building, “Tah dah! I told you I knew a place, Lawrence.”

I was a little surprised and amused. She was so free, how she spoke unfiltered, raw, and said and did whatever she wanted. I admired her for it and was attracted to her because of it.

I could not believe I was standing in her apartment, a small walk around the park turned into an invitation for coffee. I had not thought she meant at her place but here we were. Of course, I wasn’t being presumptuous I was just honored she had let me in.

“Sorry,” she said as she kicked off her shoes relieved. “My feet are ripe,” she smiled, shaking her head, and seeming pleased with herself.

I went to playfully dispute when the reality of the situation kicked in, not that her feet smelled and oh did they ever, but that I had to remove my own shoes. My heart dropped into my stomach, and I froze.

“What's wrong? Holes in your socks or stinky feet? Don't worry you can't compete with me,” she snickered, putting her feet into mug shaped slippers.

She continued to talk to me, but I was still too in my head to respond, and I started to downward spiral when I heard what I needed to calm me.

“You can keep them on,” she shrugged, “I don’t care.” She touched my arm and brought me back. “Are you in construction?'' she asked, and I knew she was referencing the steel toe boots I wore.

They weren't exactly summer wear and construction would make more sense than the real reason I wore them.

I shook my head and then did what I did best deflect by asking questions about her. “So, what do you do?”

People love to talk about themselves, normally I use it as a distraction so that they don't glimpse behind the curtain and realize how truly mad I am.

“No way you're not getting off that easy,'' she motioned for me to follow her further into the apartment. “You wear those heavy boots and in summer at that, for fun?”

“Yeah, and seven pairs of socks.” I do not know why I said it, it just tumbled out of my mouth. There was something about her casualness with how weird I was and how she said everything she thought aloud, it was infectious or something.

She laughed again then stopped. “Wait, you’re serious,” she said and for some reason I confirmed it like I was proud of it for the first time in my life.

“Oh, my goodness, I used to do that,” she said, jaw dropping.

“Really?” I asked. I looked at her knowing right then that she had to be the one.

She exploded into laughter, “No, just the standard one pair!” She raised her eyebrows and flashed that smile. I laughed heartily which was a rarity and she joined me chuckling that loud yet adorable chortle of hers.

I followed her into the kitchen, and she was not kidding when she said she knew a place. It was like I was in a coffee shop. An enormous chrome espresso coffee maker contraption thing took up a large section of the counter and it was completed with all the accessories, whips and grinders and whatever other things I'd seen a million times and had no idea what they did.

All the fixings like syrups, powders and sprinkles neatly lined up and labeled in matching bottles.

In front of a beautifully dressed window sat a small table, like a café perfect for two. I took a seat.

“What’ll you have?” she asked, suddenly transforming into a barista before my eyes, apron, and all. She started turning things on and preparing two mugs. “Well?” she asked again, turning back to me.

I was so grateful to be here that I was speechless. “Er, uh, what’s today’s special?” I managed to say through my awe. I really wasn't a coffee guy. I had only agreed to get coffee because she suggested it.

“I'll make you my favorite,” she said as she grinded beans and whipped creams and brewed things and softly hummed.

She was so lovely obviously in her element. I could not contain myself watching her and I let out a sigh. Luckily, she assumed it was the intoxicating aroma and although that was pleasant, it was her that was truly intoxicating.

She served me the prettiest cup of coffee I had ever seen. It was a shame to ruin it by drinking it, but it was too alluring not to. I sipped as she sat there at the edge of her seat for my response.

“Mmm,” I moaned more than said aloud and that satisfied her. I guess I did love coffee after all.

She grazed my arm looking me in the eyes as I sipped again eagerly. I put the mug down and blushed.

“Now, tell me about you,” she demanded.

But how could I really? “I'm new to town,” I told her because it was true, but I didn't say why.

How do I nonchalantly mention that I moved here to flee my hometown, a place of terrible memories. I was smaller, poorer, and quieter than most of my peers and I was odd. I did not have the greatest advantage to begin with because of my dad’s reputation and no one ever let me forget that.

How could I say that this is my first date if this even was a date. It wasn’t that I was shy as much as it was that I had no genuine experience with adult conversation, with any conversation really. The only real discussions I had were in therapy or in group sessions, but that hardly qualified as normal chit chat. How could I tell her that I was six months out of a psych ward without ruining everything?

I went in at fourteen years old and was released three days after my twenty-first birthday. My original sentence of four years was extended because I made the fatal flaw of telling the truth. I know everyone says they didn’t do it, but I really didn’t. Well, I did, but it wasn’t me, it was Him. I would have never hurt Jerry or May. They were my only friends, the only good things in my life.

"Tell me more about these episodes," Dr Jordan prodded me as he adhered to every shrink stereotype. He held a pen and notepad and sat in a small chair with short arms that made him appear larger than he was. The wall behind him was meticulously decorated with all of the certificates and degrees that said he knew what he was doing. He sat straight up with his face all scrunched up, judgmental, scribbling notes, nodding, and constantly pushing his thick round glasses up every time they slid down his sweaty nose.

They are not episodes I thought, you won’t understand, but instead I tried again to explain what really happened. I needed him to know, everyone to know that I was not capable of what happened.

I started from the beginning when I was too young to articulate what I felt, but I knew something was wrong. I winced with each step, recoiled from them. It was a wretched feeling that shook me to the core.

As a toddler I could not explain the feeling that rang through me every time I placed my foot on the ground. I could only cry because I did not know the words to describe that the act of walking made me shutter. They thought it was leg pain, it was not. There was nothing wrong with my legs or feet. I demonstrated that when I used them to jump to and from furniture to avoid the floor. I practically invented that floor is lava game because that was my day-to-day life. I detested walking on the ground and avoided it at all costs. I hopped from a stool to the counter, I used books and toys as steppingstones. It was how I got around, but the older I got the less acceptable it became especially in public or at someone else’s house. My parents pretended not to worry, often playing along to stop the tantrum they knew would erupt, but I heard them talking at night and I knew how they really felt. They were embarrassed and concerned.

At about age four I started finding other ways to cope because I noticed my parents rarely took me out and when they did no one wanted to play with me. All of my weird habits were alienating me, and I already did not have much going for me especially my household being what it was.

I began wearing seven pairs of socks, it wasn’t specific to anything more than that just was enough with a pair of boots on to make my steps feel decent.

It forced my parents to buy two shoe sizes up, but it made me much more tolerable, even if I never removed my shoes. It was a temporary fix, a band-aid on something that really needed stitches.

The problem was when I stepped down, I did not feel the floor or ground under me, not the hardwood or carpet, sand, or grass. I felt something else, something that started as that sleepy needle feeling like when you sit on your legs for too long, but then that sensation spreads shooting through me. It was not exactly a physical ache the way someone might imagine, it was more like being pushed or forced, it was a violating feeling. It made me instantly weak. Although I knew the floor was under my feet somehow it became nonexistent. I could not feel it. What I did feel was a foot. Another foot, mirroring mine, from the opposite way. Stepping as I stepped heel, toe, our stride was identical. I felt someone, something walking with me, tethered, bound to me. The more I walked without a barrier, a shield, the more we walked together. There was no ground, no anything, it melted away to an inverted abyss where I could finally see who shared my steps with me. I only needed to see him once to know I would do anything to never see him again. The further I walked the clearer he became. At first, I thought he was more like my reflection rippling beneath me the way it does in a puddle, but step after step he became more real. He was parallel to me from underneath, connected at the feet. He was a shadowy version of me, but the more visible he became the less we looked alike.

His features did not turn into anything I could recognize. His face was empty as if someone had erased his features leaving all his details smudged. Even when he came into focus his parts still remained blurred and empty. Except his eyes or what appeared to be eyes. They were more like small mouths where eyes should be. Sneering, salivating, shrieking and even though they did not speak a word I knew what he wanted.

That was when I had my first black out at about six years old. I woke up on the couch barefoot and muddied. I was confused and especially disheveled having been without my shoes and socks. I covered my feet and found my mother in the backyard burying the evidence of my misdeeds, Whiskers, the neighbors’ cat. She couldn’t bear to look at me. I did not do it; I would never hurt Whiskers. I snucked him milk as much as I could, I sat outside with him for hours, I loved him, but he didn’t like Whiskers.

I think that day my mother realized there was a method to my madness. She never questioned my footwear again. She let me wear my winter boots all the time and I did. It caused me to sit out of gym for not being properly prepared and that caused the boys to tease me, but they already did about everything else they could, so I was used to the abuse. I did not care; I wasn’t going to change into sneakers. I could not risk it.

The Stevenson's were brutal. Kyle was held back a year so him and Kevin were in the same classes as me which meant the torment never stopped. When I was at school they were there and when I was home, they were there too visiting Miguel two houses down. Sometimes they walked a few steps behind me spewing a barrage of rumors about my Dad, other times they would use me for target practice with whatever rocks they’d picked up along the way and then force me to collect them so that they could throw them at me all over again. I learned to avoid them by taking a shortcut behind the school through the trees and that is where I met Jerry. We became inseparable, Jerry and Larry, and somehow along the way May just kind of joined us. We did not mind a bit, especially not me.

I was happiest with them; Jerry was my best friend and I absolutely adored May.

Things in my life were far from perfect, but they were the best they had been in some time. My household was calm because my dad was away for work which I later learned meant jail. Although my mother was around, she never quite came to terms with who I might be after the Whiskers situation. She kept her distance after that, but Jerry’s mom welcomed me with open arms and warm meals. We walked to Jerry’s house every day after school, carefully dodging the Stevenson's. We were the best trio; we liked all the same things other kids teased us for and we loved each other because of that. Jerry really understood me, and May gave me a stomach full of butterflies and I loved every moment of it.

Then just like that from one moment to the next my entire world shattered.

I had to stay after school to make up a test I had missed. As soon as I finished, I ran through our shortcut to Jerry’s. I rushed not wanting to miss any of our favorite show and have to endure Jerry’s terrible retelling. Suddenly I crashed right into something, not something, someone, Kyle Stevenson.

“Well, well, so here’s where you been hiding!” Kyle shouted. He grabbed the back of my shirt tightly in his grip. Kevin stood beside him grinning and pounding his fist into his hand.

I managed to pull away and successfully escape. I was going as fast as I could, but winter boots are hardly running shoes and they caught me in no time. Making them chase me only made it worse because instead of the normal noogies or wedgies or even rock throwing the focus was my boots. I mean they had always made fun of me for them, everyone did, but this day they pinned me down and ripped them off of me.

They laughed madly like two hyenas standing over me. Kyle tied the laces of my shoes together and hung them around his neck as if they were some sort of trophy. I fought the best I could, but to no avail, they were double my size. They stripped the socks off my feet, balled them up and threw them in opposite directions. I was crying hysterically and begging for my boots, but it only gave them more satisfaction.

Miguel came running through the trees. “Hey where did you guys go?” he called out, realizing what he’d walked into when he saw me laying on the ground on my back barefoot and sobbing.

He treated me fair enough unless they were around. His face showed pity, but he knew better than showing the Stevenson's weakness.

“Aw man, leave the poor kid alone. He can’t help it that he comes from a dirtbag family,” he shrugged.

The brothers cackled. I tried to look for an exit or think of my next move, but I was too flustered. I did not know where my socks were, and I knew better than attempting to get my boots back. I still pleaded for them, and Miguel tried to help me in his own way.

“Give him his crappy ol boots back, what do you want them for anyway?”

But the brothers refused, and he cut me a look like he was sorry, but it was all that he could do.

In that moment I decided to flee to Jerry’s house. It was against anything I had ever wanted to do, stepping barefoot on anything. I did and it was not the leaves or branches or rocks beneath my feet, it wasn't the hot pavement that hurt. I felt like I was losing myself with every step.

I was feeling myself slip away. I was less afraid of the brothers chasing me and more afraid of whatever it was with me, whoever. He was with me, that other me, Him. I was moving towards Jerry’s, but it was not me. I was there, but gone, as if my body had been high jacked and I was merely along for the ride. I was simply a spectator, paralyzed, silenced, but not numb.

My emotions were hypersensitive because it was all I had left since he was in charge of my pace, he controlled my motions. He flung Jerry’s door open and all I could do was be petrified. I was worried for the safety of my friends, I panicked, and then I was in shock.

Somehow even with all this going on it still seemed important to me, and I could not help it. Finding them this way, kissing, as our favorite TV show played in the background. It floored me, even if just for a brief moment. My best friend and her, she wasn't my girlfriend, but he knew how much I adored her. I was annoyed and a little jealous, but then I could feel his sensations, the seething, his rage, and fury. It was like it bled onto me, infecting, and incapacitating me.

He picked up the lamp that sat on the side table and bashed Jerry over the head. May screamed as Jerry slipped off the couch unconscious and bloody. I could not stop it, poor May, he began choking her. He looked her right in the eyes as she gasped asking why. I could feel how much he enjoyed feeling her struggle beneath him as he squeezed tighter, smiling bigger as her breaths grew smaller and shorter in between. Terrence, Jerry’s brother rushed in and pulled Him off of her in just enough time for my charge to be attempted murder.

How could I tell her that about me?

She was leaning in wide eyed, sipping in between slow blinks and she said again, “Tell me about yourself.”

I wondered how long I had let my mind wander trying to find the right way to not lie, but not quite tell the truth. I tripped over my words.

She smiled and touched my arm again giving it a squeeze and I told her. I told her everything. There was something about her that was all or nothing and I gave it all to her. I said everything, I confessed every freaky detail I never said to Dr. Jordan. I was not even sure how long I had gone on when I finally took a breath.

We both sat in disbelief, her from what I’d told her and me from the fact that I even did. She was so quiet, and she was never quiet. She stared at me blankly.

I knew what it was, I do not know what I was expecting, I felt like an idiot. I knew I had to go before she called the police. As I stood, I was already thinking of another town that was a candidate on my places to live list because I could no longer live here. I knew I should have never talked to anyone. I am meant to be alone, well, I am never alone with Him.

I rose and she pulled my arm to make me sit. I did, baffled.

“So what, you’re crazy, normal is boring anyway,” she sighed.

Was she going to belt out laughing again, I was in suspense. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed me passionately, wildly, sending my mug crashing to the floor. I gasped, but she made no reaction and said, “We were going to need something much stronger than coffee anyway.”

“You got a bar in the living room?” I joked.

She was still rosy in the cheeks, as bold as she was our kiss still made her blush and it was enchanting. “No,” she answered softly, trying to compose herself, “but I know a place.”

And there we were fifteen years later standing in front of ‘A Place’, our very own café that we had owned for ten years now. Our first date has become our second child on the way, Olive in her third trimester and me in my fourth year free of Him. Everything had fallen into place. I still wore my socks, I still wore my boots, but I was at peace. He did not lurk beneath me waiting, lingering. Olive was my cure; happiness was the key and I basked in it. I ignored the sense of impending doom that had ruled my life until now.

The cafe was everything we could have ever wanted. It was not just successful but cherished. It was the local go to with a wonderful reputation. We had a list of regulars and a never-ending line, and it never stopped. Although we were grateful for the business, we were relieved when we closed down shop and made the forty-five-minute commute to the peace and quiet of our little home in the middle of nowhere.

On Sundays, the café was closed, and we stayed home and enjoyed the quiet and each other.

I sat on the porch with my feet up. I watched Olive waddle behind Emerson, it amused me the way a newly walking toddler and a very pregnant mommy walked so much alike.

I was mildly jealous. I did not feel Him anymore, but I still avoided stepping if I could. My role at the café consisted of all the paperwork where I could sit behind a desk with my feet on a stool.

The only bearable walking I did was on the treadmill and that was solely to maintain my health, still in boots and all seven pairs of socks.

I watched them both running through the grass. I loved watching them. I wanted nothing more than to join them, to be part of it.

Olive caught my glance and blew me a kiss. All of these years later and she still made me blush, we still had that spark. She loved me even if it meant enduring all of my oddities, and even if it meant I had to watch these moments instead of participating in them. I desperately wanted to be part of it, but I was scared. I was free of Him and yet he still had a hold on me.

They were only a few feet away, but they might as well have been miles because I felt so left out. She kept turning around and meeting my gaze, it was her way of including me. She would point me out to Emerson and wave to me, but it only made it seem more like I was interrupting their moment. The wind whipped through her hair she’d let grow out with the pregnancy. Emerson hid under her belly, and she pretended not to know he was there, and their laughter echoed.

She was glowing not because of the sun shining down on her and not because she was pregnant, but because she always did. She herself was a source of light and everyone loved her, not just me. She made life worth living and reminded people to make the most of it. She brought out the best in anyone she met the way she had in me.

She always inspired me to take risks and be a little impulsive.

Opening the café was spur of the moment and it is thriving, our children were not exactly planned and yet they were the best things we never asked for. She had taught me so much about life and truly living it and in that spirit, the spirit of spontaneity I ran and joined them.

Olive was pleasantly surprised, and I even saw a reaction in my young son. I was not the dad who played this way with him, but I was going to be now.

I chased behind his frantic run as he adjusted to the ever changing ground beneath his feet.

I picked him up and spun around and Olive led by her belly slowly joined us. She kissed me, always like the first time, passionately and wildly.

I picked Emerson up and grabbed her hand and we took a stroll around the back way where the creek is. It was a lovely sight in the evening sun the way the colors reflected in the stream. Olive kicked off her shoes and I took off Emerson’s sneakers and socks and they stood in a shallow stream letting the water run over their feet. I stood by the edge holding their shoes. It was such a warm day they both seemed so refreshed.

My son beckoned for me and before I could say anything Olive started explaining to him that I could not, “Sorry honey, Dada can’t, but he can watch.”

They waved and I waved back and then I let both pairs of shoes fall to the ground. I quickly untied my boots and pulled them off and all of my socks and I joined them in the stream.

Olive mouth agape grabbed my hand, “You’re gonna send me into labor,” she said exaggerating.

I smiled, “I don’t want to just be part of the background anymore.”

I played in the stream with my son, the water was cool and just as refreshing as I imagined. I guided my son as we both took our first steps in a stream. Olive joined us grabbing his other hand and occasionally looking at me with joy and concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

I reassured her that I was. I felt the water, the soft ground in between my toes, pebbles, but not Him. I didn’t feel that sickening pull like a malevolent gravity or that fear that I was about to slip into darkness.

She smiled at me and the three of us walked in the setting sun. My daughter kicked as if to let us know that she was also included in the moment, the four of us walked in the setting sun. We stepped into the grass, and the warm blades bent below my feet.

Emerson pulled ahead and Olive let his hand go and he ran ahead. He turned around and called me and I followed behind him. Olive looked at me differently than she ever had, like a mixture of disbelief and relief like finally things could be normal. No matter how many times she said normal was boring I could see how much she was loving this.

I jogged a little in circles around Emerson and he giggled. As we moved towards the house I darted out and then ran back to them and then I did it once more. I had not run since… well, in too long. It was invigorating and Olive could see how much I needed it. She cracked up at the sight of me scampering about and running laps and leaping in the air. I felt so free. I ran and I ran, the treadmill had done its job, I felt fit, I felt great.

I could hear Olive’s laughter and I ran back to her wanting to lift her, but not wanting to harm her so instead I ran around her in circles and kissed her over and over again and did the same thing with Emerson. I picked him up, getting such a kick out of the fact that his laugh was so much like his mother’s. I put him down and went sprinting into the distance and for a while I kept going just because I could.

I stepped on something that hurt, no I stepped on someone, Him. I tried to compose myself I was obviously paranoid. I pushed the thoughts out of my mind, but all those old feelings resurfaced, the needle sensation, the ache, the push and pull, all at once. Suddenly I lost the feeling in my legs, but I did not fall, I kept going. I ran in the opposite direction than I wanted to run. I tried so hard to turn around and get back to my boots, where I foolishly thrown them.

I watched the world swiftly melt away into nothingness. I knew what this was. I no longer felt grass or mud, I felt a foot, His foot. I did not have a chance to fight, it was like he was there all along just waiting to pounce, waiting for me to put my guard down. Patiently, biding his time, in the distance waiting for his opportunity.

It was only Him and I and he never spoke. They never uttered a word, those mouth-like eyes, each grinning with rows of sharp teeth, they moved in a way that was twisted and perverse. I was entranced by them, not wanting to look, but unable to look away. They said everything without a word, foaming, slobbering, they called to me.

He came to a stop, we did, and I felt his foot atop of mine.

I looked up at him. He was there above me wearing me like a disguise. He smiled my smile, leaned over, and thanked me in my own voice.

I watched him go back to my wife and calm her worry. I seethed as he held my son, a furious rage grew in me as they ate dinner and completed our Sunday night routine. I thought I might die as I watched him lay beside my wife in our bed.

He sat up and grabbed socks.

“You’re going to put them back on?” she asked Him.

Pair one.

“Yes,” he said, putting on pair two, “I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Pair three and four.

Olive laughed.

Pair five.

“Well, you know what I say,” she said playfully poking him.

Pair six.

“Normal is boring,” they both said.

Pair seven.

Then he even put on the boots I wore to bed, and everything went black.