before more questions fly out of my mouth. I don’t know how I’m going to limit it to three.
“I liked the idea of being the first one to arrive at the scene.”
“That’s morbid.”
“No, it’s not,” Ran defends. “I wanted to be there to provide comfort in times of distress. To be a calming force amid the chaos.” He presses his palms flat on the table. “Okay, my turn.”
I straighten up in my seat, ready for the interrogation to continue.
“What did you see in Brian? I know I don’t know you well, but he’s a first-rate loser.”
Brian. What did I see in him? I saw someone who noticed me when no one else seemed to. I saw someone who held me when I cried about my mom, who assured me that he was the right person to give myself to for the first time—and every time after that—and I saw someone who was out of my league, yet still seemed to want me.
Ran taps his chopsticks on the table, awaiting my answer. I look to him, then lift up another piece of sushi and drop it in my mouth. The texture of this one makes me gag, but I bite it back and plaster on another haughty smile.
“My turn again,” I mumble.
Pulled down by the obvious disappointment from my answer avoidance, Ran’s shoulders fall and his shirt crumples at his waist. “O-kay.” He drags out the word and very slowly tilts his head.
“I’m sure you’ve seen all kinds of horrific motorcycle accidents, so why would you ride on that deathtrap on wheels?”
Ran gives me a look of utter frustration. “Maggie, is that seriously what you want to use one of your questions for? To ask me why I drive a motorcycle?”
I nod my head, hoping he believes it, because I really want to know so much more. I could compose a list as long as the phonebook with questions that I want answers to regarding Ran.
“I drive a motorcycle because I remember my biological father driving one.”
Something deep inside me sinks. Like the crack that Ran’s opened up in his confident exterior pulls me right through it. I don’t want to know this about him. I don’t want to see a vulnerable side to him. And I don’t want to picture a four-year-old Ran with a motorcycle-driving dad.
“My turn.” Ran twists his hands, one over the other. “And I really hope you’re getting full because I’d like an answer this time.” He interlocks his fingers and hovers his hands over his mouth. He breathes into them and after a short pause says, “When are you going to forgive your mom?”
The room starts to spin, the nauseating smell of fish fills my nostrils, and I grip onto the edge of the table to center myself. “What?” I grit out, so quietly, yet it feels like a scream as it burns against my lips.
Ran doesn’t respond, but his eyes attempt to draw an answer out of me with their infuriatingly tender warmth. They’re trying to draw out an answer Ran is not going to get.
Pursing my lips to fight back the tears and the anger that’s pressing just at the back of my tongue, about ready to fly out in the form of spiteful words and insults, I shove a third piece of sushi in my mouth.
I don’t think he’s intentionally shaking his head, but I notice it rotating side to side, almost as though it’s in slow motion, disbelief drawn on his face.
I make deliberate eye contact, and then lift a fourth piece up to my lips. As soon as it is swallowed, a fifth. And once I’ve choked down the last bit of greasy, pungent seafood, I deposit the sixth into my mouth, suppressing the attempt at escape the previous bites are making up my esophagus.
Like silver dollars on his face, Ran’s irises are encased in nothing but white. “Well,” he begins, but I notice the shake in his voice. “Now you’ve left nothing for me.”
My stomach heaves, but I quickly down the remainder of my soda, all the way to the bottom where it makes that crackling, empty echo against the ice cubes and plastic cup.
“So your only option is to answer me then.” I run my napkin across my mouth and then toss it onto the table. “What did you think about me the first time you saw me?”
“The first time I saw you?”
“Yes. The night of the accident.”
Ran’s indigo eyes pierce into me. “That you were beautiful.”