Page 5 of I’m Not Yours

I chuckled. I wasn’t surprised by what Jace was saying. He was always so quick on his feet, so entertaining.

“Everything’s white and sterile,” Jace went on calmly, as if he was conversing over a steak dinner. “There are shots here, bad-tasting medicines, all kinds of beeping machines, people in white coats rushing about who want to poke and prod you. No, I’d rather be biking.”

“Yeah?” the young man yelled, still belligerent, still being restrained but slightly calmer. “I don’t like it here. Yeah!”

“Yeah,” Jace said. “Biking or fishing for me, that would be a better place to be. What would you rather be doing?”

The young man looked confused. “I dunno, man! Maybe fishing for a shark. I know I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t mean to do that much of that white powder, and I only needed to chill out, you know, kick back? The whole thing messed with my brain and I don’t like it here.”

“I know, friend.” Jace patted the young man on the shoulder. “How about if you and I sit down and I’ll make sure you’re doing all right, and then we’ll send you back out and you can go fishing for a shark. How’s that sound?”

The young man struggled again, still confused, still fighting but halfheartedly. “Okay, but I’m not stayin’ in a hospital. No way. You can’t make me.”

“That’s right. I can’t.” Jace nodded. “It’s a free country, buddy, and you can make your own choices.

But you look like someone I can sit down and talk to, and I need a break.

I need to sit down, rest my feet. It’s been a busy day—a lady got kicked by a horse—so come on in this room and we’ll get things figured out. ”

“Nah. No. I don’t want to go in a room. You might lock me up. Leave me there. I’d be alone. I gotta take off my clothes and my head is all screwed up and I itch and I’m seeing weird stuff in front of my eyes. Is there an elephant in that corner?”

“No. No elephant. We got rid of the elephants last week.” Jace put his hands out. “They took up too much room. But look here. There’s not even a door on this room. Only a curtain. You want out, you’re out. Come on in. Let’s talk. Five minutes. I know you’re busy.”

“I’ll give you five minutes,” the young man insisted, holding seven fingers up. “Five. I got things to do and my guitar is talking to me and I gotta get some Jell-O. I need Jell-O.”

“We have Jell-O here. I think it’s red. Or green. Can’t remember. We’ve got chocolate chip cookies, too, I think. I like those. Not as much as apple pie. Allie’s apple pie.”

I froze on my good leg as Jace turned toward me for a millisecond and grinned.

“Anyhow, I’ll have someone bring the Jell-O up. Come on in and hang with me for a minute.”

“Okay, doctor dude. I’ll do it. Let’s go, Mom.”

The young man’s parents, already limp with stress, sagged in relief when their son stopped fighting.

I didn’t want to stay in the hospital any longer, either. Hospitals make me nervous, too. All those shots, machines, scary things happening. But there was Jace. Gorgeous and kind. He was one reason to stay, but I knew I wouldn’t.

I limped out. As I passed, I listened to Jace speaking calmly to the young man, figuring out what drugs he’d taken; so soothing, so in control. I glimpsed the back of his head, that black hair I used to love to touch.

I started crying even before I walked through the hospital’s exit door. My tears lasted all the way down the highway, back into the country, by the vineyards and farms, and up to the seriously-needing-work white house my dad had left to me. Probably the only thing he had ever given to me.

My leg burned as I went up the stairs of the deck. I sank onto a couch in the family room, stunned. Seeing Jace again had knocked me down like a pitchfork to my heart. The pain was as raw and as fresh as the day we broke up.

Margaret and Bob put their heads in my lap and I petted them. Margaret whined. She’d lost her stuffed pink bear again. I got up to find it.

I didn’t think I’d see Jace again in my entire life.

Now he was back. Less than half an hour away, living here.

I wanted to hold that man, but it wouldn’t work. For many reasons, it wouldn’t work. I had done the unforgivable. Jace would not like me if he ever found out.

I stared at my dad’s urn. I could hardly believe it when the attorney my dad hired to handle his estate and cremation called me about his death. I was so angry.

So, so angry.

I ride my bike to get rid of some of that anger.

I have a really cool bike. It was expensive.

I have cool bike clothes, too, also expensive.

I am not trying to show off; I’m trying to outride being poor and desperate.

My mother bought me a pink bike with a basket, which I rode in Montana.

I loved it. My dad wouldn’t allow me to bring it back to Oregon.

When I was twelve, I rode a used bike that a neighbor in the next-door trailer gave me. She had been in jail for ten years for a robbery she committed with an ex-boyfriend. Glenda was a very nice woman who told me she had been “as crazy as a cat in heat, and I made some crazy mistakes.”

That bike was crucial to me. I had to ride that bike to school and to the grocery store.

I rode it when I could no longer stand another minute with my dad or when I thought of my mother.

I rode hundreds of miles on that old bike, and when kids made fun of it, I literally tried to run them down. They shut up after that.

When that bike finally broke when I was a teenager, it made my life truly hard, until the teachers at my high school gave me another one. I loved it because it took me to school, then to my job.

Because I had a job, that meant I had money, which meant I could buy food.

Because I had a job, that meant I could save money and leave home at sixteen as an emancipated minor.

When I got my job after college, I saved every penny so I could buy my condo and feel like I had my own, safe home with a door lock, something that was mine that he couldn’t enter and ruin. After I had a savings account, which brought peace to my mind, I bought my first cool bike.

The racing bike I have now reminds me of who I was and who I am now.

It reminds me that now I bike by choice, not because I’m desperate.

The sleekness of my cool bike reminds me that when I bike to the store, it’s to buy blackberries or ice cream, not to buy noodles and sauce that will take all the money I have in my pocket, even with carefully saved coupons.

When I ride in the country, I ride because I love to see the leaves change, or flowers in spring, or geese flying overhead, or a sparkling lake. I’m not riding because I’m trying to escape my dad’s triggered temper.

My bike is an accomplishment to me. It lets me outride my pain until it’s behind me. My bike lets me be me—the new me, not the scared, trembling, deeply saddened, lonely girl I used to be.

Two days after I left the hospital and Jace, I drove to the store. In the curve of the road there was a huge steel goat that made me smile every time I passed it. It was an awesome piece of art. I’d heard that an artist lived in the house behind it.

A little way farther I saw a sign outside a red barn. It said BARN DANCE and gave the date and time.

That was sweet.

But I don’t dance anymore.

And who would I dance with anyhow?

My phone rang at ten o’clock the next morning. “Allie.”

I knew that voice so well. It rumbled through me—warm, soft, and strong.

“Hello, Jace.” I didn’t need to ask how he got my phone number. It was in my medical records.

I had been up for three hours. The horses on the farm, Leroy and Spunky Joy, did not seem to think that I needed rest. They liked their food on time, and they liked their servant, me, to bring it to them, no matter how mottled her thigh was from the menopausal horse’s attack.

The rooster, Mr. Jezebel Rooster, cock-a-doodled appallingly early.

I thought it was strange he had a witchly, female name. If I could I would eat him.

“How are you doing?” Jace asked.

“Fine. I’m doing well.” That was a lie. My heart felt like it had been stepped on by a gang of stampeding horses.

I sank into a dusty blue chair in the corner.

I didn’t like the chair. It reminded me of my dad.

Old, uncomfortable, hard. I didn’t like the inside of his house, either.

It was crowded with stuff; it was dreary and depressing.

I simply hadn’t had the emotional energy to take care of it yet.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Bob jumped up and sat on me. Margaret squished in, too. I was covered by dog. I heard a long pause, and I knew Jace didn’t believe me.

“I don’t believe you.”

“What are you, psychic?”

He chuckled, and that chuckle zipped all around and through me.

“Not psychic, but I do know how much your leg must be hurting right now, Allie. Make sure you’re taking that medicine I prescribed. No sign of infection? Red lines? Good. I’m sorry it happened, but it was . . .”—he paused, and I heard a quick intake of breath—“I really liked seeing you.”

I closed my eyes, a flood of utter anguish seeping into every inch of my body. “It was good to see you, too.”

“Why did you leave? I wanted to check on you again.”

“I left because I have hungry animals at home who get annoyed when they’re not fed on time, and I had to pick apples.”

“For my apple pie that I’m getting soon?”

“Your apple pie?” I’ve missed you. I’ve missed eating apple pies with you.

“I’d like to bring you lunch, then we can eat the pie together.”

“What?” I feigned outrage, though my hands started to shake as I petted the dogs. “You can’t see a patient outside of the hospital. It’s against the rules!”

“You’re not my patient anymore, and I like to break rules. Where are you?”

“I’m at . . . I’m at my dad’s home in the country.”

“Can I come over?”

“No.” Oh yes. Please come over. I want to hug you. I want to be with you. I want to make love among the apple trees.

“Why not?” Jace was a forceful, take-charge sort of guy.