Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

6 9 ~ R u s t y

                 

Present Day ~ July 12, 2011

"And what does AR stand for again?" Bailey asks as she balances on a stool, her eyes scanning the wall. She glances back at me on the bed, where I can't help but smile a little to myself, that day coming back to me.

"Umm..." I continue sorting through by bag. I keep my eyes on the baseball cap in my hands as I speak. "Aaron Rusty?" I say it like a question, but it isn't one. Not really. Bailey laughs anyway. "What?"

She keeps laughing, just shaking her head at me.

The room is pretty much dark. She's been coming out in the middle of the night after "being struck with inspiration" every other night this week. I don't mind. It's not like I'm able to sleep either.

Bailey strung old Christmas lights around walls of the room and draped them across the ceiling in a spider web. Colton helped her figure out how to hook them up to a switch, so how it's like we have our own little sky of stars without having to turn on a light bright enough to wake us up. The entire set up gives everything in the room a vague shadow and a smooth glow.

Tonight, the light is kind of relaxing, or at least it would be if it weren't for the open window letting in the breeze. Anyone could be out there... watching.

I finally look straight at her, ready for eye contact. "We're not hijacking your art, I promise. We expected you to sign it too."

"R, you don't get how hilarious you can be sometimes."

I just keep staring at her in confusion.

"No, I don't see how I'm being funny. We didn't really mess it up, did we? You can always paint over it, right?" I look back down at my hands again, flipping the cap on my head.

Bailey just shakes her head. "You are so oblivious."

She bends down next to the two letters and adds a B to the mix in the same color spray paint. Now it spells out BAR, but at least we know what it really means.

"And how is that?" I ask, no giving up on sorting through my things and am sitting back against the wall.

"R, I'm going to tell you something, but only if you don't interrupt me, okay?"

I nod. She hops off of the stool and heads over to her easel, a blank canvas awaiting her touch. She smiles a little when she talks, amused. "You call him Blue." I can still hear a trace of the laughter in her voice, but it isn't mean. "I'm pretty sure he likes that. Do you get what I mean?"

I shake my head.

"Rusty," she groans. She usually doesn't call me by my full name, just R. That's why I signed the wall with only an R, and not my full name. "He always smiles at you."

"He smiles at everyone."

"Not before you got here," she says, shooting me that look again. I stay silent as she speaks, but get myself to at least stand up and walk to the window. "He was in a funk before you got here."

"Why?"

Bailey tilts back on her heels, biting her lip. "His mom, you know." I nod but keep looking out the window.

"Okay...?" I ask, and she just shrugs. I noticed it too when I first got here. He smiles more now, and he talks more. He laughs more. And I have been wondering about it, but I've never really talked to anyone. Just like Bailey, it didn't seem like my place.

"You're not getting my point, are you?" she says grabbing another can of pain. I laugh for once.

"Not at all."

"My point..." she trails off in thought, thrusts the can of black paint to me, and then points at the wall with the window. It's the one with a floor-to-ceiling painting of a coral reef. "Well first, you need to paint that wall."

"The whole wall?"

"Yup," she turns, popping the p. "And also Blue totally likes you."

"Bailey..." I trail off a little, stopping to flip my hat backward.

"Come on, R. You like him too." she grins and I turn away to the wall and start to brush the black over the marine life that used to occupy this wall.

His dad is a cop. I'm a criminal. That doesn't exactly sound promising.

"It doesn't matter," I say.

"You're not getting away with this, R.," she says this while she starts on her next masterpiece. From where I stand, all I can make out from it is the outline of a building. I don't respond.

"You smile more around him, too. You know that?" She laughs when I just shake my head and roll paint onto the wall. Why does she want to paint it black, anyway?

She turns on the music but quickly flips the volume down on her speakers.

I say nothing, just paint with my back to her, shaking my head.

"And you spent the whole day together last week at the quarry."

"That... It wasn't like that." I mumble this at the wall, but she knows I'm talking to her.

"You also left the fair together."

"Also wasn't like that."

"You helped him out at the diner. And you didn't even get paid. Tell me that wasn't like that."

I shrug and stay silent. I'm not going to talk about this.

A moment passes and I just let her think she's right. It's easier this way. So I don't have to explain why we left the fair or why we went to the quarry. Not only would that blow my cover, but it isn't a part of myself that I am willing to share with someone else. I mean, Blue knows a little bit. That's because I keep tripping up around him and giving things away.

"What I want to know-" I smile mischievously back at her as I say this. "--is what is going on between you and Colt."

She giggles and looks away. Blushing.

Wow.

"Umm..." she mumbles, dabbing paint onto her canvas. I've painted almost half of the wall by now. It's a small room and she had taped the edges yesterday, but I'm still getting tired.

"You know," I tease her, grinning. "I'm pretty sure he likes you too."

Her face gets redder and I laugh. She laughs too, but more embarrassed.

"He always smiles at you," I mock her and she just drops her brush in a cup of turpentine and starts to walk out.

"I'll see you in the morning, R." She laughs and I smile.

"And you smile more around him!" I yell after her as she disappears around the door.

When she's gone I finish up the wall and I'm practically sleepwalking by the time I'm done. Without a second thought, and without thinking to even close the window, I collapse into bed. The light breeze from outside sweeps through the room again.

As soon as my eyes shut, I feel myself drifting away. For a split second, I wonder if I shut the window... But then I'm dreaming. And it's too late.

But I really should have shut that window.