“Rory?”

Ian crosses behind me, baseball bat over his shoulder.

I come back to myself. “Sorry. I got carried away.”

He shrugs. “That’s why we’re here. You want help? Or you want to finish this off yourself?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say.

“I think I’m gonna go for the Christmas tree,” he says, pointing toward the tree behind a mountain of VCRs.

“Go for it.”

I can’t picture him destroying anything. He’s six five; he’s a big guy. He could do some damage if he wanted to. But there’s no belligerence in him, no trace of aggression in how he carries himself.

I watch him bat at one of the ornaments, sending it into the wall with a satisfying crunch. He does it again. He’s methodical in his demolition of the ornaments. The way he goes about it, it’s almost merciful.

It’s endearing.

“Yeah, fuck Christmas,” I shout.

“I actually like Christmas,” he says.

“I can tell.”

His laugh echoes through the space.

I feel my pulse slow as I approach him, the rage swell subsiding. I take a few deep breaths to calm down, to ease myself out of it.

These rabid spells, like just now and with Matty, these moments that escape me, where I get hostile and power drunk, I need to find a way to curb them. I need an anchor, something to tether me to myself. Right now it’s him.

It’s watching him bat these tacky Christmas ornaments into the wall.

“You want a go?” he asks, offering up the tree.

“I like watching,” I say. “I like watching you.”

“Now I’m self-conscious,” he says.

“Come here.”

He lets the bat drop and steps toward me. I put my visor up. I step on an old TV to get closer to his face. I push his visor up and kiss him.

Next thing I know, we’re tripping over the VCR mountain, and he’s got me on the hood of the car I smashed to shit.

“You guys can’t be doing that,” the man says over the loudspeaker. “You can’t do that in here.”

“We’re not allowed to make out in here?” I ask.

“No, ma’am.”

“Uh!” I say to Ian, sliding off the hood. “He called me ‘ma’am.’ ”

Ian puts his hands up in surrender. “Rules are rules.”

I pull my visor down. “Fine.”

We find a pile of creepy porcelain dolls in the corner and bash their faces in. We stomp on some VHS tapes, throw bottles at the wall. If I feel the rage swell, I take a deep breath and look at him, and it goes away.

Not a problem. I like looking at him.

—

I don’t know why I tell Mom about my date with Ian. She’s the last person I should be talking to about a potential relationship, but it’s an hour to the airport and we don’t exactly have a wealth of palatable topics to choose from.

“After the rage room, he took me back to his place and made me chicken parmigiana,” I say. “It was nice.”