Chapter 7: The Squeeze and the Memory
The joint had burned down to a stub, a thin line of ash clinging precariously. Leonid’s thumb was still on her jaw, his forefinger resting against the apple of her cheek. The intensity of the moment before had softened, melted into something hazy and thick as the smoke hanging between them.
He moved his hand, but not away. He shifted, pinching her soft cheek between his thumb and forefinger, giving it a gentle, playful squeeze. It was a gesture from a different lifetime. Her eyes fluttered shut at the contact, a tiny, almost pained exhale escaping her lips.
“You used to have more baby fat,” he murmured, his voice gravelly from smoke and disuse. He took one last drag from the roach before crushing it in the ashtray amidst old bottle caps and gum wrappers. “Your cheeks were like two little rice cakes.”
He released her face, leaning back against the leg of his armchair. The game on the TV had gone to screensaver, abstract shapes floating silently in the neon dark. The only light was the desk lamp, turning everything the color of old honey.
“Remember that?” he said, not really looking at her. He was looking at the Polaroid, at the gap-toothed girl with the popsicle. “When you fell off your bike on Crescent Hill? Scraped your knees so bad they were fucking hamburger meat.”
Jennie’s eyes were open now, watching him. She didn’t speak. She just drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them, a silent invitation for him to continue.
“You didn’t even cry,” he said, a faint, reluctant smile touching his mouth. “You just sat there in the gravel, looking at the blood like it was a fascinating science experiment. I had to yell at you to get up.” He ran a hand through his curls. “Carried you all the way back to your house. You were so light. Like carrying a bag of angry cats.”
“I was not angry,” she whispered.
“You were pissed I’d seen you fall. You kept telling me to put you down, that you could walk. Your shoelaces were covered in blood.”
He reached for his whiskey glass, drained it. The alcohol was a warm blanket now, smoothing the sharp edges of his thoughts, letting memories swim up like bubbles from the bottom of a dark lake.
“And the fort,” he said, the words coming easier. “In the woods behind the old Thompson place. We built it out of rotten plywood and stolen milk crates. It smelled like wet dog and dead leaves.”
“You said it was a spaceship,” she said, her voice a little stronger.
“It was a fucking death trap. A nail was sticking out of one beam, right at eye level. I told you to watch for it, like, a hundred times.” He shook his head, laughing softly. It was a real laugh, warm and unguarded. It changed his face, made him look younger. “And what did you do? Walked right into it. Got a gash on your forehead. Needed three stitches.”
“I was distracted,” she said, a defensive tilt to her chin. “You were explaining the flight plan.”
“I was making shit up! You were bleeding all over our ‘control panel’.” He stretched his legs out, his feet nearly brushing hers. “My mom was so mad. She said I was a bad influence. Your mom just sighed and said it was on brand.”
The silence that followed was comfortable, full of the ghosts of two kids who existed only in these shared, brittle recollections. He lit a cigarette, the match flaring brightly in the dim room. He offered her one. She shook her head, just watched him smoke.
“Then there was the bee,” he said after a long drag, smoke streaming from his nostrils. “At Marisol Park. That giant, fuzzy bastard.”
A different kind of smile now, one tinged with something like wonder. “You saw it coming for me. I was too busy trying to steal a base. You… you just stepped in front of it. Put your hands out. Like you could reason with it.” He chuckled. “It stung you right on the palm. Your hand swelled up like a baseball mitt. You cried that time.”
“It hurt,” she said simply.
“I know it hurt, you weirdo. Why’d you do it?”
She was quiet for so long he thought she wouldn’t answer. She just watched the slow burn of his cigarette. “You were important,” she said finally, as if it were the most obvious equation in the world. “The bee was not. A simple cost-benefit analysis.”
He stared at her. The clinical, detached way she said it, contrasted with the utterly irrational childhood act, was so perfectly her it made his chest ache. He remembered her sitting on the park bench, her small body shaking with sobs, her hand a swollen, red mess, while he stood there, useless, holding a melted ice pop the vendor had given them.
“You followed me everywhere after that,” he said, his voice dropping. “For weeks. Like a lost, creepy little puppy. I couldn’t shake you.”
“You didn’t try very hard,” she pointed out.
He had no rebuttal. Because she was right. He’d complained. He’d called her a nuisance. He’d pretended to lose her. But he’d never once told her to leave him alone for good.
The cigarette was half gone. The room was a vault of shared history. The tough, bored bar waiter and the feral, brilliant girl were gone. In their place were just Leonid and Jennie, two people who had inhabited each other’s lives for so long they were mapped onto each other’s bones.
“What happened to us, Jen?” The question left him before he could stop it, quiet and raw.
She unfolded herself. She moved from the foot of the bed to the floor beside him, not touching, but close enough that he could feel the heat of her. She looked at the clutter, at the trophies, at the adult mess of his life.
“We grew up,” she said. “You got tall. And beautiful. And everyone wanted you. I got… stranger. And I wanted you more than all of them put together. The math became unsolvable for you. For me, it was the only equation that mattered.”
He finished the cigarette, stubbed it out. The vanilla-and-salt scent of her on his sheets was stronger now, mixed with cherry blossom. It was the scent of the night, of this ceasefire, of a door cracking open that he’d sworn was welded shut.
He turned his head to look at her. Her profile in the lamplight was cut glass and shadow. The memory of her bloody knees, her stung hand, the absolute faith in her eyes as she’d stepped in front of that bee—it crashed over him with a nausea that wasn’t unpleasant, just vast.
Without thinking, he lifted his hand again. This time, he didn’t pinch. He brushed the backs of his knuckles down the curve of her cheek, following the memory of baby fat that was no longer there.
She went perfectly still. Then, like a flower leaning toward a single source of light, she tilted her head, pressing her cheek into his hand. Her skin was warm. Her eyelashes cast minute shadows. She let out a breath that was almost a whimper, a sound of profound, unbearable relief.
He didn’t pull away. He let his hand rest there, the pad of his thumb making tiny, absent arcs against her temple. The desk lamp flickered once, a hiccup in the current, and in the temporary dimness, he knew with a certainty that chilled and thrilled him.
The fort was gone. The bikes were rusted. But she was still here, in his ruins, performing her insane calculations. And for the first time, he was no longer trying to solve for X. He was just looking at the problem, and wondering what it would be like to stop fighting the answer.