The thing about admitting something like attraction, even to yourself, is that once it's out, you just can't stuff it back in. Once you let yourself feel it, it just gets stronger, more persistent, more aggressive the more you try to tamp it down. Flynn knew this about emotions from hard personal experience, which is why he tried his best not to have any.
Letting one feeling out is like opening the door, opening the floodgate. Like a Pandora's box of angst. In Pandora's case, a shit show of horrors ran out into the world leaving humanity with only hope. For Flynn, it was a very similar shit show, except he was left with only awkwardness. A lot of it.
Rapunzel would come into the bar as if nothing had changed; sketching, telling stories, mumbling to Pascal. She'd started bringing snacks, which she shared with Flynn. They were always a little bizarre. Ginger bread men in late spring, with frosted scuba outfits on. A gallon of banana flavored ice cream. Star shaped slices of kiwi and a vat of whipped cream. She didn't live by the same culinary restraints as most people. She ate and swung her feet under the bar stool and was completely oblivious to his anguish.
And it was anguish. He vacillated between emotions like a pregnant woman planning a wedding. He hated her. He hated how he watched the door for her to come in and the street corner after she left, and never deleted any of her stupid texts.
Did you know that in Russia they put mayo on pizza? Let's do it.
And then he didn't hate her. Then he loved every fucking thing about her. He didn't love her, just things about her. Like how she blew her bangs out of her face when she was drawing. Or the strange, unexpected analogies she made. Or that she went out of her way to brush hands with him when he passed her a drink (it wasn't his doing). Or the curve of her neck. Or the way she smelled, like honey suckle plucked straight from someone's garden and plopped right down in his bar. For him.
At those moments, it felt like the right thing to do, the only thing to do, was lean across the bar and press his mouth to hers, feel her, and taste her, and enjoy every quirky, tragic, gorgeous breath she took.
That was when he took a cigarette break and told her not to follow him. It hurt her, but he had no choice. If they were alone together when he was feeling that way, he'd do more than kiss her. So he went off on his own and sucked down breath after breath of night air, tar, and nicotine instead.
"But why?" Tom asked, in session the following week. "Why fight it? It seems like what you both want."
Flynn sputtered, holding his hands out in exasperation. "She doesn't know what she wants. She can't even decide what color socks to wear in the morning. She's told me this. How it will sometimes take her half an hour to pick them out."
Tom shrugged. "She doesn't seem nearly so indecisive about you. She spends every night following you around. You have to be there, because it's your job. She shows up just because she wants to. And you said before that she had some job during the day she dislikes, whatever it is. So when does this girl sleep? She seems pretty single-minded about you, if she works all day and sits at your bar all night."
Flynn had never thought about that.
And that pushed her from flaky to intense. Too intense.
"Oh stop it," Tom scolded, rolling his eyes. "I see that look on your face, that skittish, nauseous look. You won't kiss her because she doesn't want you, and now you won't kiss her because she does? Look at yourself, Flynn. This is not her problem. This is your problem."
Flynn frowned, brooding.
One time she bit her lip while trying to get the proportions of the caterpillar she was drawing right. She bit it, the soft pink skin stretching against her teeth, then her tongue darted out to soothe the bitten part and he just about lost it. He retreated to the back room and stayed here, leaning his forehead against the cool cement wall and taking deep, cleansing breaths.
"I don't get it," Flynn sighed, rubbing his temples as Tom stared him down. "I've been with a lot of women. It didn't feel like this."
Flynn hated saying the word 'feel.' He hated feeling and he hated talking about feeling.
"I'm sick." He said. "I am seriously ill."
Tom sat up straighter, like he was getting to the good part of a movie. Tom was sick. He got off on this crazy bullshit. Everyone was sick.
"How is it different?" Tom asked.
Flynn slouched helplessly. "I don't know. I guess most of the time I see a woman, I acknowledge she's attractive, she sizes me up, we go somewhere, we fuck, it's over. Done."
"And how does that make you feel?"
Flynn glared. "Come on, Doc."
Tom snorted. "It's a valid question. Therapists ask it for a reason."
Flynn sighed. "It makes me feel... physically gratified, and accomplished."
"Accomplished, how?"
"Like validated, I guess. This woman who most guys would give a limb to be with picked me, and I... did a good job? Do you really want the details? I mean how does it make you feel when some girl screams your name? Or do you know?"
Tom deflected with a curious smile. "That doesn't sound like it's about the sex at all. Interesting."
"Pft. Of course it's about the sex. That's all there is between us."
Tom shook his head. "When most people describe sex, they talk about warmth, tension, pleasure or pain, force, closeness, sensation... you talk about it like a business transaction. Like these women give you a little gold star and a positive review."
Flynn was silent, chewing on that.
"When you describe Rapunzel, it's different," Tom continued.
"I've never had sex with Rapunzel."
"Right. You've barely touched her. And yet you describe her in more sensory terms than women with whom you've been intimately acquainted."
One time there was a big game on at the bar and when Corona won, someone really annoying started throwing purple and yellow confetti everywhere. It took hours to clean up. And Rapunzel stayed to help, getting under the tables with a dust pan and helping him take all the streamers down. And then she picked glitter and tiny construction paper suns out of his hair with a giggle, her fingertips just brushing his brow like butterfly wings.
Flynn groaned, letting his face fall into his hands. "What is wrong with me?"
Tom remained neutral. "Why do you think that means there's something wrong with you?"
"Why her? She's barely more than a kid. What does that say about me?"
"You're reading into the wrong things," Tom said firmly. "Unless you regularly find yourself attracted to much younger women and have neglected to tell me."
"No."
"It's not because she's young that you're drawn to her, it's because she's her. It sounds like she doesn't take things for granted. Like she actually experiences her life. You touch a beautiful woman and feel nothing. Rapunzel touches anything and feels everything. You're used to people looking at you and seeing what they could take from you. And it sounds like she looks at you and just sees you. Can't you see why that would be appealing? You don't use your nerve endings, Flynn. You've gone your whole life without feeling anything. And here's a girl who feels and makes you feel."
Flynn swallowed, a sinking feeling filling him. It was just too much all at once, too many risks to take, too many ways things could go horribly wrong. "But what about her? She could get really hurt."
"The fact that you even give a damn is pretty telling."
"I could break her heart."
Tom nodded. "Yeah. That's what happens to people. They get their hearts broken. She's eighteen. She's overdue for a broken heart. And so are you."
On Saturday night Rapunzel seemed worried, slouched down in her stool like she'd been completely deflated. When he inquired, she said that her court date was Monday and she was scared.
"Aw, don't be scared," he said casually. "This is small time court. There won't even be any lawyers, just a judge. Just explain your side and he'll assign you some community service or something and then it will be over."
"I've never been to court," she said quietly. "The judge sounds scary."
"They're just grumpy," he said. "Their robes are uncomfortable."
"The court house is enormous," she said, cuddling into her hood. "I'll feel so small."
Flynn leaned onto the counter closer to her, so he could speak quietly, soothingly. "They'll probably put you in one of the smaller, side rooms. They're really modern and have carpets and stuff, none of that huge cathedral-esque stuff going on. Just a normal room. Do you know if spectators are allowed?"
She shook her head. "I don't really know, they said I could bring someone if I wanted, but they'd have to just sit and watch."
"Would it help if I was there?" He said it before he thought it through, and yet he didn't regret it. He wouldn't unsay it, even if he could.
She looked up at him, her huge green eyes swimming with confusion and a little hope. "Would you come with me?"
"Of course." Not 'maybe.' Not 'sure.' Of course. Of course he would go with her. Of course he would be with her. It was a given. And he was strangely okay with that.
Flynn collected his tips from the week and bought himself a pair of nice slacks and shoes for court. He really didn't care what the judge thought. But he wanted Rapunzel to feel at ease, to feel like he was taking her seriously and not blowing the situation off.
She explained to the judge that while she knew it wasn't encouraged to paint on buildings, she wasn't aware how 'serious' a crime it was, and she was sorry and she wouldn't do it again. It made Flynn uncomfortable to see her apologize for something that made her happy, and irritated to see the judge frowning severely at her. The mill did look better with suns on it. Come on, Corona. Get with the program.
Because she seemed to understand her 'wrong-doing,' and because the content of her paintings was relatively innocuous, the judge assigned her no fine and only ten community service hours, but part of those hours had to be spent painting over her 'decorations.'
Flynn suggested they get slurpees afterwards and throw bread to the pigeons out front, something she'd expressed extreme interest in earlier.
"To the pigeons," she corrected glumly. "Not at them. And no, thank you. I think I just want to go home."
Flynn raised an eyebrow. Rapunzel never wanted to go home. If he let her, he was pretty sure she'd follow him around all day every day. "What's up?" he asked.
She looked really uncomfortable in her crisp, prim shirt-dress. She looked grown up and uncomfortable.
"Come on," he said gently. "Ten hours isn't so bad. You can get that done in a week. And Pascal will be there with you. I would too, but I don't think they'd let me."
"I don't want to paint over my drawings," she said, shoulders drooping. "I spent a lot of time on them. They look nice. Now I have to paint over them like they were never there. Sometimes that's how I feel, like I'm not even here. Why did I even bother leaving that house? Sometimes I wonder that. I feel like it doesn't even matter that I'm here."
"Whoa, whoa," Flynn said, ushering her over to a bench near the pigeons. "Just because the judge doesn't know art when he sees it does not mean that you don't matter."
"But I don't have any impact on anything," she said. "I might as well still be locked up for all the difference it makes that I'm out here. My landlady doesn't like me, Doctor Jones thinks I'm crazy, I can't even hold down a job. I had a job working in a restaurant when I first got out, the police set it up for me. I liked it, I was a line cook. I love to cook, and I'm good at it. I really improved the dishes, I think. I made them taste better and look better, but I was fired because I guess you're not supposed to do that on the line. But the food was so bland and boring if I made it like they said. I don't get it."
"Now I'm a maid for a big hotel and I'm not even sure how long I'm going to last at that. I'm good at cleaning, too. And I make the towels into these little origami animals. But the head housekeeper said that it's not professional or elegant and I have to stop. She said the same thing when I left flowers I found on the way to work in rooms after I'd cleaned them. And when I tried turning the sheets down in different ways. I can tell she's getting impatient with me. But if I can't do any of those things then every room is the same, and there are hundreds of rooms, every day. It's so boring. I feel like I'm dying. Who cares if I clean them? If I don't, someone else will."
She sniffed, staring at her hands. "I don't know. When I first got out, the world seemed so enormous, and limitless. So many people, and so many things, I could go anywhere and do anything and never do the same thing twice. But that's not really how it is, is it? I can't afford anything, and I don't know the right people, or I don't know the rules. Now I even have to cover up my stupid drawings."
Flynn watched her watching the pigeons for a long time. He wasn't the best for pep talks of this kind. He'd never been terribly impressed with the world. And he'd been pretty damn bored of everything until she came along. It made him even more jaded to see things conspire against her, trying to snuff out someone who felt more deeply than he'd have thought possible.
"Yeah, people suck," he said simply. "Most people are really tiresome, soulless things. But you know, we can kind of carve out our own space for what we want to do. In fact, I have something I need your help with. And you owe me, because they won't give me the bail money back until you've finished your service hours."
She looked at him, still down but unable to hide her curiosity.
"Why don't you run home and change, and meet me at my place after? Bring your paints. And a shopping list, because I want to see if you're really such a good cook."