Reclaiming the Sand

It sucked how he was able to reaffirm every crappy thing I had thought about myself and my life with only a few words.

Fly

“Don’t touch that,” Fly

“Sorry. That was probably rude huh?” he asked and I blinked up at him in surprise. Was this Fly

“Yeah it was,” I agreed.

“Sorry,” he said again and I found myself smiling again.

“You said that already.”

Fly

I snorted and it came out as a cough.

“Uh thanks,” I stuttered, finding myself without a witty comeback. What could I say to something like that?

“They’re really straight and white. They fit your mouth really well,” Fly

“I don’t even know what to say to that, Fly

“Do you still want to learn how to do this?” Fly

Fly

“You told me that day in school when you were wearing the blue shirt with the torn collar that you wished you could draw. You said you didn’t think you were talented enough. I offered to teach you,” Fly

“You did offer. I never took you up on that,” I said, forcing my brain to think back to a time I had worked hard to forget. My mind stretched and strained as it sought to extract the event Fly

It had served me well up until now. Up until I wished to remember specific elements of my past with the same clarity that Fly

“You never asked me again. But if you want, I can show you now,” he said, his voice slow and unsure.

I slid across the bench until I was beside him. I still didn’t touch him. I knew he didn’t like that. I didn’t want that either. But I was close enough to smell the soap he had used in the shower and the sharp acridity of sweat drying on his skin from sitting in the warm room.

Fly

One was the awkward twist of his hands when he was nervous. Another was the slight tick in his jaw when he was worked up. He was doing both right now.

With what seemed to be a conscientious effort, he stopped rubbing his hands together and placed them back in the clay. He took the ball he had made and rolled it across the table until it sat in front of me.

“Knead it for a few minutes. Make it pliable. It will be easier to mold,” he told me in small, complete sentences.

I did as he said, enjoying the way it oozed between my fingers.

“Break off a small piece and roll into a cone, like this.” Fly

“Like this?”

Fly

He plucked the clay out of my hand and pressed it together between his palms, flattening it before rolling it back into a ball. He put it down on the table.

“Try it again,” he instructed. I fought the urge to become oppositional and angry. I had never taken direction well. I balked at authority and had made it a mission while growing up to fight against the system in the only way that I could, with complete and total defiance.

But with Fly

It was becoming frighteningly easy to slip back into our old roles. I was slowly stepping back into the shoes of an Ellie McCallum that I had thought long gone. An Ellie that had existed only with Fly

Swallowing thickly. I rolled and spread the clay again. And once more Fly

“You’re not doing it right. It should look like this,” he held out his own flawless example and I thought childishly about squishing it, ruining it the way he had ruined mine.

But his insistence on perfection resulted in me finally creating a cone he was happy with.

“That looks good. Now pinch off another ball of clay and roll it between your fingers,” he said and I followed his directions. I watched and mimicked his movements, often not to his standards. And I would get frustrated when he’d insist I do it over again.

Forty-five minutes later, I was gri

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” I breathed out; hardly able to believe I had made something so delicate. My clumsy, inept fingers seemed incapable of something like this. But here I was, holding something lovely. It filled me with pride.

And it had been fun.

I had enjoyed myself.

Fly

“What should I do with it now?” I asked, not wanting to touch it, afraid I’d mess it up. My hands, so unaccustomed to making anything worthwhile, seemed poised ready to destroy it. It’s what I was good at.

“It needs to go into the kiln,” Fly

While he situated the pieces I looked at the pottery on the table that Fly

“This is cute. Did you make it?” I said, rubbing the rough edges with my finger.

“Yes,” Fly

I stared closer at the creature he had made and struggled with another memory I had shut away. “You had a dog that looked like. What was his name?” I asked, hazy recollections of a hairy dog danced through my head.

Fly

What had I said?

“Marty,” Fly

Marty?

That’s right! He had a Border Collie named Marty!

“You would throw balls around your yard and he’d pick them up and put them in a pile by your feet,” I said, smiling. Images of long fur and a wet tongue on my cheek made me feel warm inside.