What do I do with the boy?

G called me yesterday, while I was finishing clearing out my desk and dropping off my keys.

"Hello?" says I.

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars," he says, his voice a thick drawl. "I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it."

I laugh. "...what ever are you talking about?"

"You know, I just... do things," he continues. "The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are."

And then I realize he's doing the Joker monologue from Batman. I don't know if he was reading from something, but it didn't seem like it.

"What're you doing tonight?" he asks, after he's finished.

"I just handed in my keys," I said. "It makes me inclined to drink, so I'm going out for dinner with James, and then we're going to have beers."

"Ah, well--"

My phone beeped. It was James.

"Oh, oh! I gotta go!" I say. "James is waiting for me!"

"Can I call you later?"

"I'd like that."

We hang up.

I have a very nice sushi dinner with James, and then we go to the Hop for some beer. He's driving me home at the end of the night (though really only about 11pm), and my phone rings. It's G.

I flip open my phone. "Call me back in half an hour?"

"What?" There's a lot of noise in the background. I wonder where he is.

"Call me back in half an hour!"

"Okay!"

Click.

James drops me off. I head into the house. It ends up being about forty five minutes before my phone rings again.

"Hello, you," I say.

G rambles off a long list of game specs. He sounds excited, infectiously so. He ends with, "Is the goal good? Yes, it's good! I'll call you again in fifteen. I gotta go!"

Click.

I realize he was in the middle of reffing a hockey game. What a nutter.

Fifteen minutes later, my phone rings again: "Fifty seconds left, score is *mumblemumble*, can they do it?"

"I don't know," I say, laughing.

He's breathless, excited. I hear the game buzzer in the background. "Can I call you again in half an hour?"

I'm still laughing. "Sure, sure."

Half an hour later, my phone rings again. He's in his car, heading home.

"What was that all about?" I ask. I am highly amused.

I can hear him grinning. "I wanted to share some of what I love," he says.

I am secretly pleased by this.

I am, at the same time, both softening and hardening to this boy.

I can feel myself falling, tumbling, helplessly, and yet I start building stony walls around myself and around the memory of my previous heartbreak.

I try to put on the brakes, but he takes me by the hand and with nothing but a featherlight touch, my brakes crumble.

He is so far away.

But I want this one. I want his fire and passion, his quirks and frustrations, his insecurities and failed dreams.

I want this one.

And I hate that I want this one. It makes me feel so helpless and hopeless.

.

Rosie.

Before&After