She and I originally met on SecondLife a couple of years back, but the show is so over on that site. I brought her over to WOW, and by the looks of her Night Elf Druid, she’s not doing too bad for herself. Gotta love a girl with big…balance mojo. I find her avatar and look at those long locks of red hair and svelte figure wrapped in leather and knee-high boots.

  I realize that I want to see her. Not just in the game. I greet her the way I always do.

  You got a boyfriend yet?

  Long pause on the other end, and I try to remember the last time I dropped in at her place. It’s been, crap-ola, since before we rescued Maya. I guess in the real world that might come off as a cold shoulder.

  Just you, she writes back.

  Bingo, Yhatzee and Connect Four!

  Mind if I come over? Might as well get to the point.

  Another pause. Me feeling more guilty about stagging her for so long.

  I’ve missed you, she finally writes.

  Me too. I can explain. I’ll be over tonight then.

  Bring some whipped cream. WildStarz can be a flirt. Must be those big blue eyes and pointed elf ears. Amanda, the girl behind the elf, is shy as can be. Sweet though. Real sweet.

  Conveniently, I’m already packed. I shoulder my duffle bag, as is, and get Sir Hopsalot back into his carrying case. I put everything into the front seat of Bubba, my Ford F-150 and give the hood a nice slap for good luck. Bubba’s getting on in years, and he’s lost a little paint on various misadventures, but the son-of-a-bitch hasn’t let me down yet. As I pull out of the garage, I take a moment to look up longingly at my lucky hat, still up in that Satan tree.

  Bad idea going to meet a girl without my lucky hat. I think about giving the tree one more go, but dismiss it. No need for a repeat performance of yesterday’s humiliation.

  I need to get strong again. If I were honest with myself, I’d admit I’ve been slacking off on all the instructions Dr. Lee and Francesca left me about guzzling protein shakes every few hours, taking a load of vitamins, and focusing on light cardio. I stare at the hat. Really throw some eye daggers at it. Things are going to change. I’m all in from this moment on. Ready to pack on some muscles. Woo Amanda good and hard. Climb that motherfucking tree like a champ and start saving the holy hell out of the world whether it wants me to or not.

  ***

  Bubba gets me to Denver in a couple of hours, and I manage to pound back three protein shakes on the way. It’s amazing how many calories I can put down and still look as weak and skinny as Olive Oil. I hate thinking about that or what Amanda’s going to see when I knock on her door.

  I like to bring her a little present every time I see her. Nothing fancy. Just a small thank you for not changing the locks, and because I have a feeling that she doesn’t get a lot of visitors. These times when we’re together are special for me, but I think they’re really special to her.

  I pull into a little flower shop and greet the shopkeeper, a tiny old lady with hair as white and fluffy as cotton. Definitely somebody’s adorable grandma, which is my luck, because I happen to be great with grandmas. A couple of smiles, and a few “pleases” and “ma’ams” later, and Nancy is hopping all around the place, pulling out flowers galore for me. She brings back this bouquet filled with flowers I couldn’t name if my life depended on it, but they’re beautiful. Citrus orange flowers mix with bright yellow ones and sprigs of white dance around the sides to set it off. The price tag is $49.99.

  I haven’t gotten around to telling Tarren yet, but we’re almost completely broke. So, I pass on the big, beautiful bouquet and go for a handful of lilies instead for $9.99. Nancy, my new best friend, wraps them up for me, and she does a really good job, putting a ribbon around them and this nice clear plastic wrap. I know she’s giving me extra even though I bought about the cheapest thing in the store.

  While she’s doing her magic, a man walks into the store hand-in-hand with a little girl. The girl is stork skinny, all legs and arms topped with wild curly hair. Inside the store, she immediately pulls out of her father’s grip and starts touching and tugging on everything. She actually skips. It’s real cute.

  “What do you think Mom would like?” the dad asks.

  “Uhhhhh,” the girl says. I can’t tell kid ages at all, but she’s real young, maybe five or six. “Everything.”

  “Everything, huh? I don’t think we could fit everything in the car. How about you pick out one bouquet. Whatever you think is the most beautiful.”

  I make sure not to stare, since I’m not really looking to come off as a major creep. It’s just that I like this. Normal people doing normal people stuff. I don’t get much opportunity to see what the rest of the world is up to with their lives, so when I do, I try to remember it, especially nice people like this father and his little girl. Helps sometimes when we’re digging graves in the middle of the night, checking into another forgettable hotel room, or putting 700 miles under our tires in a single day.

  I lay the flowers carefully on the front seat of the truck, pull off a leaf, and tuck it into Sir Hopsalot’s cage for him to nibble on. Then I stop at WalGreens and buy a bottle of whipped cream and some condoms. Ribbed for her pleasure. I’m a thoughtful kind of guy.

  The sun is just setting when I finally snag an empty parking spot in Amanda’s apartment complex. I wander around a little until I find her door, the one with the little bluebird welcome sign on the front. I give the door a solid knock and rock back and forth on my feet while I wait. I actually feel nervous. That’s never happened before, not with Amanda. I really am losing my touch. God I need my lucky hat.

  “Lee!” she cries happily as the door swings open, and it really is good to see her face and that big nervous smile putting dimples in both cheeks. Amanda loves the flowers. The way she cradles them, you’d think they were made out of gold or something. Course, that’s before she notices Sir Hopsalot, and then he’s the center of attention. My sidekick is pretty shameless about the whole cock blocking thing too. Amanda puts him right down in her lap and strokes his fur, and he just lets her do it. We’re definitely going to have a conversation about proper wingman behavior at some point in the near future.

  Amanda’s shy in person. Doesn’t need to be. She’s put on a little more weight since I saw her last, but she’s still a pretty girl. At least I think so. Her apartment is exactly as I left it. Same little TV sitting on the way too big media center, same hand-me-down coffee table, same faint scent of floral perfume.

  It takes her an hour to finally ask about my appearance, though she’s been giving me strange eyes since I got here.

  “Cancer,” I tell her. “Liver.”

  She actually gasps, and a look of such horror crosses her face that it makes me uncomfortable. “Lee, oh no!”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her quickly, “I’m in remission. Docs are hopeful it won’t be back. Though nothing is sure.” I tack on that last part, because who knows what could happen in the field. Maybe I’m in the ground next month, and it’d be better if Amanda thought cancer got me rather than that I just dropped her like last night’s trash.

  The cancer bit works wonders. Sir Hopsalot is left out in the cold, and now I’m the one getting petted. I close my eyes, feel Mandy’s hands on me, and it’s real nice.

  ***

  Amanda sets me up on the couch, finds season three of Battlestar Galatica on Netflix, and prepares dinner. I’m not allowed to do anything. I try, but she knows I couldn’t peel a carrot if I had a gun to my head, and since I’m a cancer survivor, you know, I get certain bennies.

  I half watch the show – seen ‘em all at least three times each – and half watch Amanda. The girl is amazing, like a conductor at the center of an orchestra. Three pans sizzle on the stove while she mixes something in a bowl and sets it down to chop up vegetables and sprinkle spices onto a big slab of meat. She doesn’t use the microwave, not once.

  By the time dinner is ready, I’ve got a serious case of drool going on. The whole little apartment smells like the kitchen of a five star restaurant, or at least what I think a five star restaurant would smell like. Mandy brings me over to this tiny table stuffed in the corner of the kitchen where plates and silverware wait for us. My lilies cluster together in a glass in the center of the table, between a pair of mismatched candles. She’s even set out wine glasses.

  I wish she weren’t so nervous though, thinking everything is over cooked or under cooked or there is a little too much ginger in this or that. I have to keep assuring her everything is fine, but it’s hard, because I’m stuffing my face like a maniac. I’m sure it’s delicious, but chewing isn’t so much in my plans.

  I think I gross Amanda out a little bit.

  “Cancer,” I mumble through the food, and she breaks out the sad eyes and nods understandably. Bless cancer.

  We watch two more episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Amanda leans into me, murmuring how cool it is that my name is Lee, just like the brave, suave, muscled CAG on the show. Ironic indeed.

  We go to the bedroom after that. Course I have to run right back out again, because I forgot the whipped cream in the truck. When I bring it in, Amanda laughs all high and nervous. Toes are her thing, so I take off her socks, put a dollop of whip cream on each digit and then suck it off. That really gets her. She throws her head back and starts groaning. I kiss the tops of her feet and the little bony bump at her ankles.

  I think about Francesca, like I always do right before I have sex with Amanda or the other girls that I’ve picked up in bars and other places around the country. But I’m not with Francesca tonight. I’m with Amanda. I take Francesca by her small, warm hands and lead her to the back of my mind. I put her in a lavish bedroom and lay her out on one of those heart shaped beds with crimson silk sheets. I leave her a bottle of wine and make sure the Jacuzzi in the center of the room is going, and then I close the door. I’ll come back another night when I’m lonely and when it’s not so painful thinking of her taking care of me when I was in a coma.

  Amanda puts her hands through my hair.

  “I liked it longer,” she says.

  “I’ll grow it back out for you.”

  “I can’t believe you had cancer Lee,” she says. When I look up, she’s actually crying about it.

  “I’m right here,” I say. “I’m okay.

  “Lee,” she whimpers, “I…I…” Another tear rolls down her face.

  “What?”

  She turns her face away. “I’m fat,” she huffs.

  I know exactly how to play this. I lean in and give her a long kiss. “I like the way you look,” I say. “If anyone should be self-conscious, it’s me.”

  Truth is I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror anymore. Sometimes I wish I had even a tenth of Tarren’s looks. He’s got a face meant for the movies and packs on muscles like it’s going out of style. Doesn’t care a whit about it either. All the girls go ga ga the moment he enters a room with that tortured warrior vibe oozing out of his pores, and the big lug doesn’t even notice. The scars. It’s hard to be jealous of Tarren and the lot God gave him. I still am though, and it makes me angry as all hell at myself.

  “You had cancer,” Amanda says. “You have a right to look…different. I just can’t stop eating potato chips.

  “Come on.” I put my hand up her shirt. “I think you look fine. You want to turn the lights down more?”

  She nods, so I do. I also doc my iPod in her station and put on a playlist I made for having sex. I call it my “relaxing” playlist, but really it’s just for sex. Then, I take my clothes off. All of them. I look like a fifth grader who’s about five years away from puberty.

  “See,” I tell Amanda, “If I can get naked, you can get naked.”

  Then I crouch. Mandy notices what I’m doing. “Lee, don’t!”

  I leap into the bed and tackle her with kisses.

  Between us, we finish the bottle of whipped cream.

  When we’re done, I think about putting my clothes back on, but I’m too tired to get out of bed. I ask Amanda about her job and get her to tell me everything that’s been going on with her coworkers. She works in the shipping and receiving department of an industrial chemical manufacturer and thinks it’s the most boring job in the world. She never believes me when I tell her I want to hear about it. Thinks I’m just trying to win nice guy points. But it’s real interesting to me, like catching a glimpse of a foreign planet where things aren’t like drive, drive, drive, watch, watch, watch, BAM!, wrap up the body, get it in the ground – repeat indefinitely. I press her for the most random details like what’s on her desk at work. What kind of forms she has to fill out. What coffee they use in the break room.

  She asks me questions, and I tell her about our last software tradeshow, the new update to the programming, and how the economy has slammed us hard. I’ve got to be careful about what I tell her. Usually, I’ve got my fake life down pat, names, people, software details, everything. But ever since the coma, I can’t remember anything for shit. It’s gotten so bad, I actually scribbled down some notes on the way here.

  Also, I’m really tired. I can feel sleep pulling me down with metal hooks. Before the draining, I was able to stay up three days straight and hardly feel it. Now, I can barely make it through the day without conking out and sleeping like I’m dead.

  Amanda is asking too many questions. I can’t remember what my boss’s name is supposed to be or if Michigan is in my sales territory or not. My head is starting to throb. So, I just start making up this story about how I rescued the first lady after she was secretly kidnapped by terrorists.

  Amanda giggles as I throw in explosions, a galloping horse, and an evil Russian named Ivan. The last thing I remember is me pulling on a parachute and telling the first lady to hold on tight before leaping from a burning helicopter.

  Then I’m just gone.

  Chapter 6

  Sleep is not something I wake up from anymore. I’ve got to drag myself out of it, like a pit of mud. I don’t dream, or if I do, the dreams hit that damaged part of my brain and disappear into the abyss.

  When I finally crank my eyelids open, Mandy’s round, purple alarm clock announces that it is 10:23 AM. In those first few seconds, I know it’s going to be a migraine day. Amanda pulled the shades down, bless that girl, but even the faint glow of sunlight pierces into my skull. Head movement of any kind is an invite to paintopia.

  I put Mandy’s pillow over my face and lie there for a good hour feeling real sorry for myself while the pain takes cheap shots right behind my eyes. Never had so much as a headache before the coma, ‘cept for that one time this angel released some sort of sonic blast that threw me headfirst into a street lamp when I was seventeen. Tammy and Tarren made me stay awake all night, taking turns walking round and round a high school track with me after we buried that angel. Tammy told me the filthiest jokes I ever heard that night.

  What eventually gets me up from Mandy’s bed is not courage, not gusto or anything like that. I’ve got to take the mother of all pisses, and if it were my own bed, I might consider just letting go, but since this is Amanda’s pad, I pull myself up and stagger into the bathroom.

  My head’s so bad I actually have to sit down to pee. Good thing I’m already naked, because I’m not sure I would’ve remembered to pull my pants down. I never let on with Maya and Tarren how bad the migraines get, but since no one’s in the apartment I just let the pathetic all out. This includes actually crawling back to the bedroom instead of walking.

  I dive into my bag and can barely get the lid off the meds Dr. Lee gave me. After another hour of lying sprawled on the floor with last night’s t-shirt over my eyes, the pain backs off enough so that I’m capable of basic higher level thinking.

  When I drag myself back to the bathroom for a shower, I notice in the mirror that I’ve got a kiss print on my forehead. Amanda always likes to put it there in the morning right after she applies her lipstick. Usually I’m awake to kiss her back. Sweet girl.

  The shower is bliss. I probably add a couple grand to Mandy’s water bill, that’s how long I stay in there, but when I get out, I’m feeling better. My eyes are still half swollen shut, and my head is like an overripe watermelon screwed onto my neck, but at least I’m walking upright.

  I take two more pills and wander into the small kitchen. Breakfast is waiting. Scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, and a bowl of oatmeal. A little note from Amanda tells me how long I should heat each thing up in the microwave. Honestly, I almost heave all over the kitchen floor just looking at the stuff. My stomach is in no mood to actually do the whole food thing for probably the next decade. I hate doing this, but I scrape the food off the plate into the trash and throw some wadded up paper towels in after to hide the evidence of my deceit.

  Two small bowls sit on the floor next to the table. One contains a few remaining shreds of browning salad mix, the other is filled with water. I find my furry compatriot chillaxing on Amanda’s comfy brown couch. The ribbon from my bouquet is tied in a bow around his neck. Mandy probably wouldn’t be so pro-rabbit if she’d seen that his little round poops decorate the couch like a handful of raisins.

  Yesterday I set up the box of hay that he uses as a litter box in the corner of the living room, but he doesn’t use it consistently when we travel. I put my sidekick into the box now and explain the “good guest rules”. He listens with his serious face but then hops right out of the box the moment I turn my back to gather up the pellets from the couch. They’re dry and easy to collect. No damage done to the couch that I can see.