Breakthru W Tim Mickey

Breakthru with Tim Mickey, 11.24.12

Dear Levi,

Sunday came, and I went to church in a new outfit I bought in the clearance cast off’s at Target with the prize money from being Top Rookie at Midland. I hoped I looked beautiful for you. I wore a black pencil skirt but it had intricate fluer de lis patterns embroidered into the fabric. And the blouse was loose and flowing white and gold circles, like a Grecian princess. I wore my black diamond suede boots too and curled my hair. You would have been so impressed… but you weren’t there. Anna sat alone with her snotty friend Brittany. I wondered if you were sick and sent an extra prayer heavenward.

After church, Melissa Hainline invited me and Kendon to their mk gathering that night. The last one of the semester.. and I didn’t want to go, I was so tired, but I couldn’t think of a graceful excuse. So I approached Kendon, and he turned me down cold, and I drove off for 10^th street that night in the dark and cold all alone. I’d stay just a few minutes, and then go home and crash. I was so exhausted I wondered if the makeup helped at all or if it was all just pointless? The weariness was deep deep into my fingers and bones.

When I pulled up to the house, there were people already there. I shut off the enine, decided to leave my purse, and walked up the slippery drive. Everything had iced over in the recent temperature nosedive. I knocked on the door and shivered, longing for the light and warmth inside.

The door opened, and it was Tim Mickey. He took one look at me and shut the door promptly in my face.

The shock… it was staggering. Sure, I’d always run the risk of seeing him here. But it’d never happened before. And that he just shut the door in my face? Tears jumped into my eyes and my heart squeezed uneasily. I felt sick, so sick. Was it so horrible that I existed?

I was going to just turn around and go back to my car and spare him the annoyance of my presence when he yanked the door back open and tried to laugh it off as a joke.

What kind of joke is that?

I hesitated, then decided to keep my pride. I stepped inside, in the glory of my severe black coat, sexy belt, and sexy bots, and leveled him a cool, composed look.

“Sorry, Tim, but you’ll just have to get over the fact that I am here.”

And I let my coat drop off and began slowly unzipping my boots as if I didn’t see him anymore, definitely not very Heartland approved in cat-like posture. But I decided I was going to completely ignore him, and when I had my boots off and was standing in shimmery black nylons, I flounced away into the kitchen without looking at him like I would have looked at Levi, unable to resist his magnet. Tim was different. He held no spell on me without Levi nearby, although my stomach was doing acrobatic flips.

Tim! Tim! Tim!

I walked into the kitchen and ignored my shaking, icy fingers. I ignored my stomach. I ignored the memory of the dreams I used to have about Tim, about making out with him, about the way I imagined his kisses would boil my blood with desire.

Because back in the days of weakness, he was always with Levi, and they became inseperable not only in real life but also in my life. And when I dreamed of kissing Levi, soon his face became blurred with that of his twin, until soon I couldn’t distinguish them and had a total meltdown. Thank God for Gabby, who listened to my humiliated breakdown and helped me sort out my feelings and explain my weird dreams.

But it was no less embarressing, months later, to see that my twisted self conscious still thought about him in the way it thought about Levi, with incensent longing and curiosity. Oh, dang being a girl!

And maybe being a girl, I had this vague, unshakable feeling that Tim was following me with his eyes all night. More than that, I had a feeling that he was deliberately trying to catch my attention. It was absolutely baffling. He hated me. Levi was happy with Anna. Why even bother anymore?

As I clung to Lenichka like a shadow, I wondered if this is what it felt like to Levi back in the spring when my eyes followed him, too. But at least he knew why. He knew how deeply the pain ran, how desperately I longed to fix things. But I had no clue what lay behind the cool, imperious eyes of Tim.

Since the biggest point of coming to the Hainlines was to hang out with Lenichka, she was quick to pull me into easy conversation in Russian as we made coffee in the kictchen. Tim was of course, following me there, and although I was trying my best to keep my back to him and pretend like I didn’t see his presence at all, I’m pretty sure it was him who went, “Wow!” and began to speak in another language, too. I had to roll my eyes on the inside at the pettiness of it. Wasn’t this a foreign student gathering, anyway? What was the big deal with having a second language being used in casual conversation between two unpopular girls? It made me uncomfortable.

I followed Lenichka to the fireplace to put my stuff down. My cup was an old one with doodles of “I Love Levi” all over it, and my face burned painfully, wondering what Tim would think if he saw it. But I was safe over here in the little corner on the floor before the fireplace, everyone else was crowding around the new leather sofas or the food on the dining room table.

The night began with prayer and then a line for food. And the strange events picked up right away. When I tried addressing Mrs. Hainline in regards to the Kenyan soup she was serving, Tim appeared in the conversation out of nowhere. The uneasiness made my appetite lag. Why was he so eager to explain the poor beef stew? Just because it was foreign didn’t make it cool to me. I could talk of hours of borsct, laghkman, or okroshka, exotic and fancy Russian soups that made this one pale in comparison to awesomeness. Not that I cared to do so. Because what was the point? No one cared. Not even me.

I was happy to scurry to the corner and join Lenichka… and appalled when Amanda Mickey, who had always given me the cold shoulder at the other get togethers, joined us… and Tim.

What in the world?

I was so uncomfortable at his proximity I wondered if it didn’t scream from my flaming red cheeks. I busied myself with dipped the bread in the stew and keeping my eyes on the group. Thanks to Levi and Anna’s first row spectacles in church, I was well trained on keeping my eyes to the ground. I didn’t look up to find out if Tim was looking at me or if I was just imagining the whole thing. But the sense of dread in my stomach was enough. He had chosen to sit by me, when he had a whole room of popular people and more comfortable places to choose. It was my own personal nightmare.

How many months had I looked towards him across the distance and felt knives being plunged into my stomach? How many times had I just been eating in the caffeteria, lonely as a wraith, and looked up to see him dragging Levi out of my proximity and out the door like I was a disgusting poison? How many times did I see them goofing off, laughing, hanging out, when that was my place? How many pictures did Levi take down of me and put up of him and Tim? And what about that excruciating day of my graduation when Tim wouldn’t even talk to me without a great deal of hesitation and the requirement of a third person present? I had never felt lower or more dispicable at the hands of anyone else… except Levi himself. And all summer I cried, dreading Tim coming back. Dreading that ruining of best friends that had replaced me. God had been mericiful and spirited me away to Ukraine… but now I was back, and Tim had moved his seat in church from my area to the balcony to the center aisle with his sister. Just like I was a poison. And if we crossed paths in the hall, his eyes were cool and hesistant, carefully calculating me before offering a returning flicker of a smile.

He was the cause for so many anguished, bitter, pitiful tears.

In the typical way that a boy tries to get a girl’s attention when she’s not giving it to him, he kept trying to jump into the conversation all night long. Whenever that happened, I made sure to give his commentary no significant response but always drew in someone else’s opinion.

At one point he did manage to lock me down into a one-on-one question. He directed the question to me by name. “Noelle, how many languages to you speak, anyways? You’re bilingual, right?”

I wanted to crawl under the carpet and die. The verse from 1 Corinthians jumped to my mind, but I couldn’t tell him what I really wanted to. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” Why did it matter how many languages I spoke, when Levi would never say “ya tebyla lublyu” to me again? What was the point of knowing other languages?

“Russian… Ukrainian… Then English… And Russian Sign language, I learned that as a teenager to work in the deaf ministry.” I shrugged, looking at the carpet, face burning. Please don’t ask me anything else about me. I don’t want you to know me. Please, don’t.

But I guess I surprised him enough. “Whoa, that’s like… quadlingual!”

“Yeah, I… guess.”

Somehow I felt selfcentered. Since I might never have the chance to find out anything about him ever again, I decided to direct the question back to him. “What about you? What do you speak in Africa?”

He was so enthusiastic to tell me about Swahili. And about how his city, Nakuru, was one of the fastest growing cities in the world. The inner little Noelle shook her head sadly, but didn’t bother voicing her thoughts, that Ukraine has a negative growth rate and it was dying off faster than any other country in the world.

But no one cared about Ukraine.

Tim told me that he was going to be a missionary back to Africa, and his dream was to go to the Congo. I shifted the focus of the conversation to include a third person and asked his sister, Amanda, since she was being polite to me tonight, what she wanted to do after college. To my surprise she just shrugged and said she didn’t know. I’d have thought she was as gung-ho to be a missionary as her brother. Interesting.

During the evening, I learned the very first things I would ever know about Levi’s new best friends. Amanda worked the jewelry counter at Walmart. Tim no longer unloaded with Levi, but now worked in the pharmacy and spoke about the drug-addicts he dealt with each day. With my previous knowledge from Lori that Trevor wasn’t an unloader any more, either, that meant the happy little band had broken up. Which surprised me, even though it couldn’t have lasted forever. But in my mind, I saw Tim and Anna pulling a pallet of boxes from the break room and Levi inside with Trevor and me, crying and shaking in agony, begging them to go get Levi. And the way Anna rolled her eyes, and the clear hesitance in Tim’s steps, and the guarded, annoyed look that appeared on Levi’s face. It would haunt me forever, the night I would realize he had shut me out. The night I realized I was on the outside of a secret gang that I knew nothing about and was powerless to overcome. The night he took my notes down from Santana… the night I finally gave up.

And here we were.

In the strangest, most painful night of my life.

I should have just gotten up and left. Faked not feeling good. Excused myself to Lenichka and the Hainlines. But part of me was terrified to move. So I stayed still and kept my head down and smiled and laughed and kept up with the conversation as if I didn’t have a care in the world. He would never again see me without the defenses up. No matter what it cost me.

And then the night came to an end.

Brother Hainline had us go around and give something we’re thankful for. Public speaking always has a way of bringing out nerves in even the most confident person, except for me, and I sat there playfully flipping around wording in my head for what I would say and looked down to see Tim’s hands clutching the carpet.

Strong hands. Scarred hands. White hands, with a flush of red. Tough hands for such a small body. Fingers running againt the grooves of the other hand in nervousness, such a small but significant gesture of humanity. And in that moment, I was captivated. I stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching in anxiousness for his turn, and I was seeing Levi’s hands. The part of him I loved the best. And I saw weakness, I saw opening, I saw vulnerability. I saw youth. I saw how young Tim is, and for the first time, I saw him putting effort into keeping th cool façade.

If it wasn’t for that, that moment of watching him clench his hands in nerves, I would have never have stayed later when he wanted me to. I’d have been long gone.

I said I was grateful for my coworker getting saved. I hope you tell that to Levi, that the guy I was with was just a coworker. And that I am witnessing at work with more results than him this year, and maybe he’ll remember last year. Maybe he’ll remember me!

Tim said he was grateful for his dad. And for everything he learned, and all the regret for the things he didn’t learn back when he had the chance.

Amanda said she was grateful for her brother, Tim.

Another little piece of my heart melted. That’s what I would have said about Steven. And that’s what every guy should say about his dad, the way I feel about mine. It was the first thing I heard about them that I liked, that I could relate to… that touched my heart.

And there was something about the way Amanda leaned her head on Tim’s shoulder that made my heart squeeze. It wasn’t a flippant “I love my brother” because he’s cool or popular or it makes me look girlie. But it was the kind of love that was born of trust, born of protection. And I envied them so badly… I miss Steven so much.

And then it was time to go. Happily. But I had to ask Tim for my coat, since it was stashed behind him near the hearth, and I said goodbye to Lenichka who was running for the door and her ride first before beginning to unzip it to put it on.

I guess the night could have ended there and been pretty crazy enough. But it didn’t. Because Tim hadn’t moved but spoke out to me again, standing a few feet away unable to get to the door thanks to the little demons (I mean kids) playing with toys on the ground.

“How are you doing, Noelle?”

I wondered if I’d heard right. Was he honestly so keen on getting me on a one-on-one conversation? What was it to him and Levi how I was? Was he testing me? Or what? A thousand confusing and fearful thoughts flooded my head. But I merely looked over at him and gave a thin, polite smile. “Just fine, thanks.”

Please move your stupid kids so I can go. Who knows were the parents were.

“Are you really… doing alright?”

I slowly turned, shock tingly down my spine, and looked at him dead-on for the first time all night. He was obviously desperate. No one would try that twice. And as I stared at him, my face as blank as I could manage, I saw something I’d never seen before in his eyes. Openness.

“Really, I’m fine, Tim. God has been very good to me.” Code for, you and your friends broke my life and there’s nothing left but God’s arms and unclear soverignty to fall into each night in the loneliness and nothingness.

I felt selfish again. Plus, diverting would be a good tactic. “How are you doing?”

I expected the usual Christan blithe answer. Fine, thanks, doing well. And then I would just push past the miniature monsters and their blocks and be away from the confusing proximity of Tim Mickey.

But he didn’t. “It’s been a really hard semester,” he said instead.

And from that moment on is a blur. I remember just seeing his hands, like a little boy’s, like Levi’s, like someone I cared about. I remembered my heart softening at his honesty as he began to pour out words. I stood there and let him talk… eventually my feet got tired and so I just sat down on the hearth with him. But that was awkward so I ended up on the floor at his feet, looking up at him, inches away, almost like we were real friends.

And he spent… twenty whole minutes… pouring out to me his troubles from the last months. It wasn’t until he said that he had lost his best friend, Levi Fowler (as if I didn’t know who it was) that I understood why he was telling me everything. And why me.

Apparently being an RA is harder than it looks… having to deal with ridicule from the guys who don’t appreciate the deans’ suggestions. Having to put up with hearing guys bad talk the deans. Having to lose friends. And apparently the whole atmosphere was getting to him, as he told me of the guy he rode with to work who complained about the school and used bad language, about the guys in class who goofed off in their answers and made him mad… I had the feeling that Tim was very mad and frustrated inside.

Part of me was cautious. I loved Heartland. I wasn’t like the Crossbearers who went around badtalking the school. So even though there are definitely losers there (aka Tim himself, up until twenty minutes ago, Levi and Anna and Brittany) there are a lot of good kids just trying to do something for God. I didn’t want to jump on the gossip badwagon.

But I had a feeling he was just trying to tell me about himself. Not about him and Levi. Or me and Levi. But just about him. It was… baffling.

Finally I asked, softly, “Tim why are you telling me all this?”

He just looked frustrated. “I don’t know! But it’s all just in my head…” and he kept on going.

I wish that my mind didn’t blank out when people talk to me. Honestly… I only remember a miniscule percentage of the conversation.

But I knew enough. Tim was alone. He was hurting. He was seeking God. And he was slightly, in a way, worried about me.

He asked about Kendon… finallyI was able to talk with someone about my worries. Since Tim is an RA, I tried to keep things light, but, I asked him to pray for him. Tim suggested it was the University that caused the problems. But it wasn’t. I knew what it was. I just could never say. Because no one would believe me.

I finally got a chance to speak. I told him that I knew where he was at. I’d been there. I told him things weren’t easy for me now, even, unable to go home. But I told him to look to God… that sometimes, when you look back at your darkest days, they are your very best.

And then I asked him what he was doing for Thanksgiving, and he said he didn’t know.

Part of me knew I’d be yelling at myself later, but part of me was just so tired of the war I’d never meant to start in the first place. I can still see Tim before the smoke, on the first day I met him, sitting outside the caffeteria, when Levi pointed him out as his new coworker. I went over to interrogate him and ask him to take care of my best friend. At that moment, I’d imagined we’d all be friends. I’d had no clue of what things would really turn out like…

I invited him over to mine and Kendon’s. I told him we probably wouldn’t do much, but, last Thanksgiving I was alone and it wasn’t the way to go.

He looked at me cautiously, then admitted, “I don’t think it would be allowed.”

Well, well. I’d never really been friends with an R.A. before. Obviously, this was complicated.

And then Tim picked up his glass and acted like he was ready to end the conversation. My head was still ringing with the torrent of information he’d given me.. his favorite book, The Pursuit of God by W.A. Tozer, Levi’s favorite author… random, rambling facts I couldn’t grasp coherently. He’d never really asked for my response. He seemed ready to just walk away.

And unlike Levi, I let him.

I put on my gloves and turned and walked out the door. Out to my car, and I sat there. For a good ten minutes. And then he wasn’t coming out, and I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for in the dark, anyways, so I drove home.

But when I got home and got in bed… there was nothing. No sleep. No peace. No rest. I tossed and turned and ran the night over and over and over again in my head, until my tortured brain screamed at me to stop. But I couldn’t. Because I’d never spoken with him since he became Levi’s bestest friend. Since they left me all alone. And it was as close as I’d ever come to having Levi himself speak to me… and my mind couldn’t handle it.

Because it wasn’t Levi.

And yet, it was so much more than I was ready for.

It was a long, wearying night.

I didn’t sleep one minute.

Your star,

Rigel