What I came to realize as I grew up was that what my parents did hadn’t worked because having fun and a bit of a distraction made me forget my grandma or miss her any less. It simply gave my mind permission to switch into a different gear.
I still had a lot of rough days and nights for a while, but after that carnival in the backyard, things started turning a corner.
Again, though, Damian’s tragedy is a bit of a different situation and I don’t have any illusions that I’ve cured him of his grief. At best, I’m just hoping that I can get him through the weekend without having him retreat back into his room for the rest of our stay.
We’ve got shit to do.
The rest of the weekend is pretty quiet, though it’s filled with plenty of conversation. The best part comes at around 4 o’clock Sunday morning when I get a call from Damian telling me that he found my last trap the hard way.
I’m just surprised it took him that long to go for the Icy Hot-filled lotion bottle in his bathroom. One thing you can set your watch by is a man’s need to relieve backed up pressure, and in lieu of a sexual partner, you’ll find that particular kind of relief generally comes in a fairly predictable way.
Did we accomplish everything we set out to accomplish after Dutch told us both to get away and practice our ability to be attractive together? Probably not.
What we did accomplish, though, was to start building the foundation of actual intimacy that isn’t just going to go away when the cameras stop rolling.
It’s not much, but it’s a start.
I’m just happy enough to say that this is the weekend that Damian and I have become friends.
Chapter Eight
Reshuffling
Damian
“You’re not going to believe this,” Danna says when I come through the door.
Before I have a chance to ask her what she’s talking about or ask her if she would kindly shut up for a while until I’ve had some time to decompress from the mini-vacation, I see what she rightfully thinks I won’t believe.
“Where did all this come from?” I ask.
“Guess who,” she says.
“Ah, Rita,” I laugh, “my own personal deranged fan.”
“Do you actually know what you’re looking at?” Danna asks. “It’s really pretty impressive when you read the note and figure out what all of this is.”
She bends down and picks up a folded piece of paper from the corner of my coffee table and hands it over to me.
The note reads:
“Dami,
How quick we are to forget one another. From the moment we’re born, we start to die. Every day, we’re a little bit closer to reaching that final end, and I don’t know how many more of those days I can wait to be at your side.
I know that sometimes people don’t understand me, but I think you would. I think you already do. Sweet Dami, I want to show you the ways I’ve grown and died every day since I’ve known you. —known you. —known you. I want to show you the ways I’ve grown and died every day since I first saw you, so I’ve decided to share a piece of me that you started planting that very first moment my eyes caught yours. I’d never seen someone with such kind, caring eyes and such incredible mental agility that you had when you saved the world as Burke Howard, and in that moment, I knew that every part of me that falls away should be yours to do with as you please.
Yours forever and ever and ever and ever,
Rita”
“Burke Howard,” Danna says, “that was Casting Shadows, wasn’t it?”
“Immediate Dream,” I correct her. “Casting Shadows was the down-and-out pitcher who’d gotten in trouble with the league one too many times, only to turn everything around in just under 90 minutes and get everyone to love him again.”
“Right,” Danna says. “You know, you’ve been making some pretty shitty movies recently.”
“I took a break,” I tell her.