Free Far From You by Lisa Schroeder Page B

me
    and caressing me,
    and told myself
    it would make everything
    better.
    After all,
    the world outside
    the MarQueen Hotel
    would surely
    disappear
    while we lost ourselves
    in each other.
    But as I looked around
    the lovely lobby,
    I knew we would end up
    back there to check out
    and head home.
    And that’s when
    it hit me.
    No matter what changed
    in a hotel room
    between me and Blaze,
    everything else
    would stay
    exactly
    the
    same.

I need to believe
    When I told him I wasn’t ready,
    and that I might have been doing it
    for all the wrong reasons,
    he told me he understood.
    He told me I needed to be 100 percent sure.
    He told me he would wait until I was 100 percent sure.
    “You’re really okay with it?” I asked him
    as we sat in the car before going home.
    He shrugged.
    “I love you.
    So I’m okay with it.
    As long as it’s you making the decision.
    Not your dad.
    Not your friends.
    And most of all,
    not the everyone’s-a-sinner preacher at your church.”
    “Come on.
    It’s not even like that at my church.
    How can you talk like that when you don’t know?
    You’ve never even been.”
    “I know I don’t need God, Ali.
    And I don’t need a bunch of people telling me I need
    God.”
    “You make it sound like God is a bad guy.
    He’s not bad.”
    Blaze sighed as he started the car. “Let’s get you home.”
    As we drove in silence,
    panic expanded
    in my chest
    until I almost
    couldn’t breathe.
    First Claire.
    Then Dad.
    Now Blaze.
    I reached over,
    took his hand,
    and placed it on my
    rapidly beating heart.
    “Please tell me we’re okay,” I whispered.
    He pulled the car over
    to the side of the road,
    reached over, and kissed me—
    a long,
    slow,
    wet,
    beautiful
    kiss.
    “We’re better than okay,” he told me.
    “Believe me?”
    And of course,
    I did.
    Because the other choice
    was pretty much
    unthinkable.

trying to understand
    Blaze’s dad
    was a bad, bad
    beast
    of a man.
    Blaze hasn’t told
    me a lot.
    But enough
    for me to know
    he was hurt
    on a regular basis
    and has
    a few scars
    to show for it,
    though more inside
    than out.
    I think he
    blames
    God,
    because it’s hard
    to blame
    the one
    who really
    deserves it.
    What I believe
    is that life
    is music and fabulous fall foliage,
    but it’s also cancer and wars.
    That’s just how it is.
    Maybe God could do better.
    But shit, so could we.

doesn’t fit
    The next morning
    when I woke up,
    I called Blaze
    to tell him how much
    I loved him
    and appreciated him.
    I told him
    a lot of guys
    wouldn’t have been
    as understanding
    as he was.
    He said
    that’s because
    a lot of guys
    are assholes
    and he swore to himself
    he’d never be
    like that.
    After we hung up,
    I found Dad
    on the couch,
    holding Ivy.
    Just him
    and her.
    I watched them
    from around the corner.
    He stroked her head.
    He played with her feet.
    He picked her up
    and held her tightly
    against him.
    Part of me
    wanted desperately
    to join them,
    while another part
    wanted to turn and run
    and never
    come
    back.
    When I was little,
    I loved doing puzzles.
    There was this
    ABC puzzle
    I played with
    all the time.
    I always got the
    M and the N mixed up.
    I’d try
    and try
    and try
    to get the
    M to fit in the N spot.
    I’d spin it
    this way
    and that way
    until I finally
    got up
    and walked away.
    Right then,
    in that moment,
    watching them together,
    I felt like the M
    trying to fit
    in the N spot.
    And once again,
    I walked away.

broken
    I was in the kitchen
    getting cereal
    when Victoria came in.
    She held
    a little frilly
    yellow dress.
    “Isn’t this the cutest, Ali?
    We’re going to dress her up and go to the store.”
    I listened to them
    giggle and squeal
    as they got Ivy ready
    for her first trip
    to the grocery store.
    You’d have thought
    they were flying to
    Ireland
    to meet Bono.
    After they left,
    I felt so alone,
    and all I wanted
    was to talk
    to my best friend
    about everything
    that had happened.
    I got up the nerve to call,
    but her