A Place to Belong: Chapter Four
IV.
My Touchstone
As I drove I kept wondering why. Why did I save that girl? Was it justice? Stopping that asshole was the justice. I didn’t have to go through all the effort I had to ensure her safety. Was I trying to take away his prize? A growl grew in my throat at thinking of her as an object as he had done, so it couldn’t have been that. What was it that made me put in the effort that I did to ensure that she would be safe and alive? She was nothing to me. No one. But I’d risked time and effort to save her from befalling a terrible fate…
Why?
I slipped the car gracefully through traffic, weaving in such a way that my mortal self would have seen as irresponsible, but my reflexes were quicker than they’d ever been before, and adrenaline didn’t leap into my core at the slightest provocation as it had done when I had a life to lose. My music faded into the background as I pondered my actions thus far tonight.
There was no other way to describe my actions at the tailor. I’d robbed a man by intimidating him. I’d committed grand theft auto and forced the owner of said car to walk miles in his bare feet, certainly qualifying as torture for someone as soft as him. My actions were cruel, calculated, and possibly evil by certain standards.
So why the girl?
Would the mortal me have intimidated someone to get what I wanted? Possibly, had that version of me been anything close to intimidating, but honestly, I was a pretty timid mortal. Bowing to the whims of others or mentally checking out of their manipulations until I was garnered the opportunity to slip away without confrontation. Leaving had always been my best strategy. Intimidation sounded too much like sticking up for myself. Mortal me would never attempt to do such a thing.
Stealing? I’d shoplifted as a youth, if one could call taking food from an already pilfered package at my old retail job shoplifting. I’d stolen a trading card from another child once when I was in middle school. But grand theft? I would have been too scared of angering an owner just for touching their car, let alone stealing it. That’s not something the mortal me would have ever done.
As for torture… I know that my mind has always been skilled at coming up with methods for harming others, either physically or mentally. Not the healthiest fantasy, but when feeling impotent to affect the world around me, finding a way to hurt those who’d hurt me had always been a fantastic daydream… but one that I would never have had the stomach to follow through with. Given the blade in my hand with zero chance of consequences, the old me would probably never have used it.
Saving the girl, though, I thought back to times when that old, pathetic chivalry reared its ugly head. Sacrifices I’d made, such as the sleepless night I’d spent watching over a friend who’d drunk too much, carefully monitoring her breathing because she had sleep apnea and would sometimes stop breathing then gasp herself nearly awake. How I’d cleaned up her vomit and tilted her so she wouldn’t choke to death on it. How I’d changed her shirt with my eyes closed to protect her modesty while still making sure she wasn’t inhaling the scent of her own sick the entire night. Watching the Iron Giant not once, but twice, back to back, because I couldn’t reach the remote after the second time she’d almost rolled out of the bed, missing the corner of my desk with her temple by inches, so I’d moved to the floor with her and kept her health foremost in my mind. An ex-girlfriend in the next room, defending me to roommates who suspected I was doing improper things with a drunk girl, only for them to watch as I came and went from the room to clean up and care for her.
The memory came flooding back to me. I wondered if she’d remembered my actions. She’d thanked me the day after, saying she’d clean and return my shirt to me, reassured me that the sleep apnea was nothing to worry about, but thankful that I’d cared enough to watch over her to ensure her safety. I haven’t spoken to her in years. I think she’s married now. I think she has kids, or at least one. I know her husband… or knew him. We had all been college friends, then drifted apart when life moved us on.
I’m a memory to her now, and she’s a memory to me, but that didn’t change the motivation. People who need protection deserve protection. That had always been at the core of my being. Perhaps the lessons from my parents, grandparents, and other members of the older generations had instilled this as ‘protect women in need’ rather than just people in need, but it was at the core of my belief. That woman tonight reminded me of my old friend. A woman in need, maybe not desperately, but in need regardless.
One cannot climb to the top of a pyramid without stepping on a few hapless nobodies along the way… I heard the beast whisper to me.
“Perhaps,” I muttered back, thinking of my other friends and the times they’d needed my support, and the times I’d needed their support. “But step on too many and you’ll find a hard landing should you fall. I’d rather a slower climb knowing I have people to catch me than a rapid elevation followed by a fall to rival Icarus.”
The beast went quiet, though whether that was because it was cowed or because it agreed I could not tell. I reached for the dial, increasing the volume as I rolled the windows down, allowing the wind to whip through the car as ZZ Top’s legendary guitar riffs flowed out into the night air, carrying their blues styles away with my own struggles. There was no reason to resent my choices. It’s who I am, made from the people I’ve known, and I would continue to carry them. But it was my choice if they would be leg irons weighing me down or rigging attached to my sails.
