Scene from Clarity

As the rest of the crazies shuffled around the gym in their drug-induced stupors, Cute Guy motioned for me to follow him into the weight room. He had his hands in his sweatshirt pockets and he quickly rolled one out to show me he was holding not only a lighter, but a joint. That guy Josh came through somehow! Well, damn!

I shifted my eyes around to see if anyone noticed as we slipped into the dimly-lit weight room. The one staff member who was assigned to the gym area had been in the corner talking up a blonde who had an enormous rack, and, really, there was no other reason he needed to have a conversation with her.

So we were pretty safe. This dude was mesmerized by her tits. Another man adding to her diminished sense of self-worth because he's more interested in her breasts than her brain and, whatever, that's her problem and definitely not ours. Cute Guy settled into the shadowy part of the wall behind the mats. I crouched down along with him and he immediately set to lighting his joint. After sparking it up and taking his hit, he offered it to me. My heart was beating furiously and my head was buzzing loudly. I started breathe a bit heavier. This all before I took the joint. And then I take a couple of hits and pass it back to Cute Guy. We both abandon the safety of crouching for the comfort of sitting on the floor.

Cute Guy squints as he takes another long drag. He is even more attractive with his one brown eye shut and the other looking at me and his long Chris Cornell hair falling around his face in silky, sensuous waves. If he weren't so damned hot, he'd almost look like Jesus, I think. And then I immediately feel horrible for thinking this, but it can't be unseen.

I've taken two or three hits when Cute Guy tells me his name is Travis. He takes a deep breath and then he rocks my whole world.

"So, me finding you, us meeting...was no accident. I know you going to find this hard to believe, but I was supposed to find you." Now I'm starting to panic a little. I'm thinking about my situation: I am a fairly small woman, in a psychiatric hospital, alone with
a man I just met and know nothing about; we are both fucked up and already on psych meds -- me and my stupid impulsive behavior.

As my mind raced with weed-fueled paranoia, Travis went on. "Look, I don't want this any more than you do. But if you just try to be calm and look at me again, you'll know exactly what I'm telling you now."

I was anything but calm as I dragged my eyes back to his. His head was tilted; somehow looking at him from this angle was like studying art. It was difficult to lock into his gaze at first, but when I did, I felt...Holy Shit! What the fuck was I feeling? I looked away.

"So yeah, " Travis went on. "We are connected."

This was completely unfair, what he was doing to me now. My head was so far up my ass, I didn't know which end was up. I couldn't even find words right now.

"What does that even mean? What are you even talking about?" I finally managed to spit out.

Unlike me, Travis was completely calm. He was pinching the joint between his thumb and middle finger, head still tilted, squinting, studying me. He drops his head, silent a moment, then looks back at me sideways, smoking.

He lets out the breath he had just been holding and says, "I would think you would know already, that you would be used to this kind of thing."

The world felt weird for a moment. Like I was in it, but not really a part of it. Everything -- people, words, lights, started to swirl and rush past me. It went faster and faster and my face started to tingle and I felt myself start to sway and --

"Don't," he simply said, and he was still calm. "It's ok. You know it is."

I knew no such thing. Although the sound of his voice was like cocoa butter and I wanted to rub it all over myself at that moment but instead I fought with the idea that I was being ridiculously impulsive right now and that finally, someone else shared my..."thing."

"I'm not psychic. If you knew all about me, you -" he cut me off.

"No, that's more my...'thing', kinda," he explained. "What you have, that's more of a gift."

I stood up on my knees to get closer to Travis. I snatched the little roach from between his fingers. I could tell I was going to need it. As I exhaled, I let my head relax and I looked into Travis' liquid, beautiful eyes. " Trust me, Sunshine, it is no gift. If I get a gift I don't want, I can give it back or give it away to someone else, or throw it out, even, but this...THIS SHIT I'm stuck with!"

Travis smiled at me not completely unlike a parent looks at an overtired toddler. He motioned for me to pass him back the dwindling joint which I did. He sucked on it with skilled, and I noticed, soft lips, all the while staring me down with piercing, squinty eyes.

"I know this wasn't your choice. It wasn't mine, either. Yet here I am."

"Inside a mental hospital," I pointed out, being helpful.

"That was just for you," he told me. "To get to you."

This time, it wasn't so much panic as much general anxiety, with which I am also well-acquainted, that started to seep in around the cracks of his words, both because he could just be some crazy stalker guy who suddenly, inexplicably became obsessed with me and hunted me down to the extreme of getting himself locked away in the same mental hospital as me or he could be telling the truth. Of course, I didn't even need my "thing" to tell me which was right. Yet.

"You had to find me HERE of all fucking places?" I asked him, squishing up my face in a total bullshit expression.

His face was the sun, radiant in a light blush and a huge smile. God, he was beautiful!

"Actually," he began "it didn't necessarily have to be here. That was fate or something stepping in, I guess. You were already coming here. I, on the other hand, made a deal to come here to avoid rehab."