I should have known better, really. I have learned in these past months that when Brid tells me one of our charges is not ready for something, she is usually right.
Still, I can’t help but think that we have managed to salvage the situation—that some good has come out of the storm. Brid will not tell me what she thinks, as she is still angry with me for disregarding her advice, but I think that when she has forgiven me, she will agree.
But I am ahead of myself. This evening, then, was a game night held with Sarah and her friends, the second to which Lewis had been invited. Lewis was unsure when Sarah told him about it, so she gave him the date, time, and location, and said that he would be welcome if he chose to come.
Up until this afternoon, Brid and I argued about it. She felt that Lewis was not ready, that he still needed time to collect himself and build a more secure foundation in himself. I felt that to meet others, to make friends, would help in this process.
“But if it goes badly,” she said, “it could set him back weeks, perhaps even months. You are still too eager to take risks with your charges, Asa’el.”
I was silenced by that, reminded of Grace and Shannon, who suffered because of the risks that I took with them. But other risks I have taken have paid off—I need only look at Freya to know that. “There is always risk to gain something as wonderful as love.”
“And healing is about avoiding risk.” Brid sighed. “I know that you feel strongly about this, my friend, but we are meant to balance one another, and I assure you, if we do this tonight, it will not go well.”
Even then I knew that she was probably right. But I could not suppress the feeling that this was important, that it had to be done.
I turned away from Brid. “Let us let Lewis make the decision, then.”
She frowned, following my gaze. We both knew that despite Lewis’s uncertainty as he tried to decide what to wear, he had already made up his mind. He meant to try, and his determination was stronger than his fears.
“Part of our role is to discourage our charges from hasty decisions,” Brid reminded me.
“But it isn’t hasty. He has been thinking about it all week.”
“Worrying about it.”
“Brid, in the end, it is his choice,” I said, “and if he has made up his mind, neither you nor I can dissuade him.”
She shook her head, but I could see that while she still did not agree, she did not have any more arguments. “Very well. But stay close to him. I will be here to help clean up the mess afterward.”
Is it not comforting, to have a friend who, even when she disagrees with your actions, will still help with the consequences of them? I know that I take great comfort in it.
In any case, I did stay close to Lewis as he drove out to the address Sarah had given him. He was intentionally late, not wanting to be the first to arrive, but his timing was a bit off—when the door opened to his knock, he could see several people through it, but Sarah was not one of them. Immediately his anxiety hiked higher.
“Hi,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
“Hi,” the woman answered, her smile faintly puzzled, but polite. The silence stretched.
“Introduce yourself,” I suggested to Lewis.
He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “I’m—I’m Lewis Deyerle.”
Understanding washed across the woman’s face. “Oh—Sarah’s friend! Hi!” And she threw an arm around his shoulders.
This was a mistake, and Lewis went stiff as a board. I sent a jolt of awareness through her mind, and she hastily retreated, laughing. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I just—I’m a hugger. My name’s Josalyn, but everyone just calls me Jo. Please come in.”
Feeling that this had been a mistake, but aware that it was too late to back out, Lewis trailed her into the house. I followed close, trying to calm him and wondering if he and Brid were both right.
Still, it seemed to go well enough at first. Jo introduced him to the other members of the group—her husband Drew, who was busy in the kitchen finishing up a pizza to go in the oven, as well as their friends Jason, Ian, Eric, and Amy. They were welcoming, and their questions were mild enough—where did he work, how had he met Sarah, where did he live—that Lewis managed to settle down a bit, and even began to smile. And he was that much more relieved when Sarah arrived, breathlessly apologizing for her lateness.
“Work was a nightmare,” she explained to Jo, offering a six-pack of beer and a tub full of muffins. “Tony was all over me, bitch bitch bitch about his stupid—” She caught sight of Lewis, and her face lit with a smile. “Oh hey! You made it!”
“Yeah,” he said, returning the smile. He thought, without my having to point it out, that she seemed genuinely glad to see him.
“Well, that brightens up my night,” she said. She grabbed a beer and went to sit right next to him. “So what are we playing?”
A promising start, it seemed, but it was her arrival that seemed to make things start to go downhill. At first I could not quite tell what it was, but a new tension was in the room, and midway through the first card game, I realized that it was coming from Jason. Before Sarah joined the group, he had been perfectly friendly to Lewis. Now his words had taken on an edge of challenge, and I realized that he was attracted to Sarah, and that Sarah was aware of this and trying to discourage it.
What was worse is that Lewis soon realized this, too.
Suddenly her presence close to his side, her conversation, and her smiles all seemed false to him. I tried to tell him that this wasn’t true, that she also enjoyed his company simply for the sake of having it, but it wasn’t easy for him to shake the feeling of being used. He grew quieter, letting the talk wash over him, except the moments when Jason’s pointed words made him sink lower.
The first and second games both ended in victory for Drew, and Jo threw her cards away in disgust. “He’s too good at this one,” she said. “Let’s play poker.”
Lewis’s heart plummeted, and I lunged forward to discourage this idea.
“Oh, no, come on, I’m so broke right now,” Amy complained.
“Yeah, let’s try something else,” Eric said, getting up and wandering over to the bookshelves. “Got any board games?”
“That play seven people?” Drew asked. “Nope.”
Jason looked at Lewis, though no one else did. Lewis considered leaving, and I considered letting him. But there was no time.
“Poker’s good,” Ian said. “We don’t have to play for cash.”
“Oh, yeah, let me go get Jo’s collection,” Drew said with a laugh.
Jo protested, but everyone else was intrigued by this, and soon they had poured out jars and jars of buttons across the table. They were all having such fun deciding which buttons were worth how much that Lewis could not get a word in edgewise. He sighed and accepted the cards he was dealt, but his heart was sinking, and I realized that I had lost control of the situation.
There was nothing to do but to play the game. I watched the clock and Lewis’s mood, trying to decide how soon I could persuade him to leave. He had reached a critical point where everything sunk him lower—even when he began to win, his little piles of buttons growing larger than the others’, it only reminded him of how he knew to play so well.
“New guy’s raking it in,” Ian said between hands, shuffling the cards.
“Yeah, you didn’t tell us he was a card shark, Sarah,” Eric laughed.
“On purpose,” Sarah said, winking at Lewis. “He’s going to take me out on his winnings this weekend.”
Lewis’ heart stuttered and sank even lower. She doesn’t mean it, he thought savagely.
“That will be some hot date,” Jason said with a laugh that was far less kind than Eric’s. “Once he fences all those buttons, he’ll have what—three dollars?”
“Maybe we’ll be creative,” Sarah said, shrugging. “You can do a lot with three dollars.”
Jason’s smile disappeared. “I just bet you would do a lot,” he muttered.
Lewis looked up across the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
The force and volume of his voice silenced the table—up until that moment, he had spoken in little more than mumbling.
“What?” Jason asked, trying to play it off.
“Calmly,” I warned Lewis, with next to no effect.
“You heard me, and I heard you,” Lewis said, setting his glass down with a thud. He pointed to Sarah. “Apologize to her.”
“Wait, what did he say?” Amy asked, confused.
“Lewis, it’s fine,” Sarah said, for the first time realizing that not all was well. Too late, just like me.
“It’s not fine,” Lewis snapped. “You’re supposed to be her friend, and you talk like that? Guys like you make me sick. Now you fucking apologize.”
“Get off my back, man,” Jason replied, getting angry himself. “What are you, the fucking police?”
“Jason,” Jo snapped, but she got no further, for Lewis stood up and hurled his glass against the wall. It shattered, glass and whiskey flying everywhere, and the women shrieked. Eric leapt to his feet, arm stretched out in front of Amy.
Before anything else could happen, I seized hold of all their shock and threw it around them like a lasso. Holding them still, I turned to Lewis. “Leave,” I said, with all the force I could muster.
The color drained from his face. Without looking at Sarah, or anyone else, he turned and stalked out of the house.
I too was shocked and horrified, but I was also angry, and I knew that I had to do something, before he could get too far away. I turned to Sarah, as frozen as all the others, and I said to her, “You played a part in this. Go after him.”
She swallowed, pushed herself to her feet, and followed.
Lewis hadn’t gone far—he was sitting on the porch steps, his head in his hands. Sarah stopped just outside—the closing door hit her in the back, and she leaned against it.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked when she had her breath back.
Lewis was pressing his fingers hard into his skull, as if he could break it open and spill out all the black sludge. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” he said.
“Sorry?” she repeated. She wanted to see his face, but she couldn’t bring herself to move out of the light, or to go past him. “You’re sorry? Lewis, that was unacceptable. This is my best friend’s house, and you just threatened all of us. It was totally inappropriate and you need to come back and apologize right now.”
“Oh, and what he said, that wasn’t inappropriate?” Lewis demanded without lifting his head.
“You let me worry about Jason. I can take care of him—and myself, by the way.”
Lewis pushed to his feet. “Fine,” he said. “You do that. Just do me a favor, and don’t use me to do it next time.”
Sarah would have stepped back if not for the door just behind her. “You think I was using you?”
Lewis looked back at her with one eye. “Weren’t you?”
I leaned over her, telling her to see clearly, to realize what this must have meant to him.
“I guess I did,” she said slowly. “But Lewis, I promise I didn’t mean it that way. I like hanging out with you—better than I like hanging out with Jason.” She put her hands on her hips. “Or at least I did before you started throwing shit.”
Lewis sighed and pressed his hands to his eyes. “You’re right. I should never have come.”
Sarah looked at him, and for the first time since they first met, she caught a glimpse of how deep the shadows are around him. She took a step forward. “What set you off?” she asked. “Aside from Jason.”
He looked away from her, down the dimly lit street. “The last time I played poker was in Afghanistan,” he answered shortly. “And all the guys I used to play with are dead.”
The words hit Sarah hard, and not only her. Behind her, through the thin glass door, there was a little gasp, and a heavy silence hung over the rest of them.
I had to support Sarah as she went to the top of the stairs. Suddenly her world had expanded, opening to allow glimpses of violence and pain, and it frightened her. But more, it broke her heart for Lewis, and she felt small and shallow.
“Lewis,” was all she said.
I made him turn, made him see the look on her face, the tears in her eyes. “She can see now,” I told him.
It did not lighten the dark around him, but it gave him strength to turn and walk up the steps. He paused next to her, wondering if she would recoil, but she didn’t. She held his gaze, blinking the tears away.
His mouth softened. He nodded once and turned to the door, where Jo was standing, her eyes wide.
“I’m sorry, Jo,” he said. “May I come back in for a minute?”
She nodded and stepped back. He came through the door, holding it for Sarah. The others were still sitting around the table, but it was not far enough from the front door that they couldn’t have heard what he said. The only one who could meet his eyes was Eric, who was standing in a posture that suddenly looked very familiar to Lewis.
“I’m sorry,” Lewis said again, addressing the room at large. “What I did was totally inappropriate. And I may be going through some shit right now, but that only explains it—it doesn’t excuse it.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jo. “If you have a dustpan and some towels, I’ll clean up the mess.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “We’ll get it.”
Without a word, Eric moved out from behind the table and into the kitchen.
Lewis nodded, glancing at Drew. “Thanks for having me, but I think I better go now.”
Drew looked at his wife, and understanding passed between them. “If you want,” Drew said, his voice light. “Maybe you can come back for dinner sometime.”
The invitation, and their forgiveness, made it easier for Lewis to breathe. “I’d like that,” he said.
Sarah wiped her eyes and stepped forward. “Lewis, do you want me to drive you home?” she asked.
“Nah, that’s okay,” he said, but he touched her hand lightly. “I’m good.”
It wasn’t quite true, but I thought it might be in time, and more importantly, Lewis thought so, too.
Eric came back into the room with a broom in hand and a few towels slung over his shoulder. He smiled at Lewis as he headed to the puddle against the wall.
“Sure I can’t help with that?” Lewis asked.
“I got it,” Eric said. He held Lewis’ gaze. “We all make a mess sometimes, right?”
I understood then that Eric, too, was a soldier, and that he knows some of what Lewis is going through, better even than I can. His assistance was an offer to help Lewis through it.
This understanding, and Sarah’s realization, and Jo and Drew’s invitation, all buoyed Lewis as he went back into the night. His blood was singing, and while the shadows were still thick around him, he could see that there was light there, too. I think he realizes that he is not alone anymore, and if there were a few who could understand and forgive, then there must be more.
And so I have hope, despite the trouble of the evening, that this will be for the good after all. Still, I think next time I will pay more attention to Brid’s concerns!