Chapter 6 – Angie
I’mcareful to keep my face right when I go inside and join Madison and the girls in a cuddle puddle on the couch. Tamblyn asks me where Brandon went. I say he had to go home. Madison raises an eyebrow, but she doesn’t say anything. We finish our party with pizza and a hike up to the gas station snowball stand on Bayshore.
When Miss Dawn gets home, Madison leaves to get ready to go out to Donovan’s, and I make a late dinner of BLTs and the last of the watermelon I cut up for lunch. As soon as I’ve done the dishes, I take the girls to the basement so that Miss Dawn can have some downtime. She never makes us feel unwelcome, but it’s got to be a lot to go from an empty nest to a full house with kids again. Sometimes, she must just want to kick her feet up and watch grisly murder showsin peace.
At nine o’clock, Ivy is already conked out on the carpet in front of the TV, so I have to wake her up to brush her teeth and put her jammies on. She’s never handled being woken up gracefully, so she sobs her way through the nighttime routine, and she’s still hiccupping when she drifts off again in the middle of our bedtime book.
Tamblyn stays awake until the end, and she climbs into the top bunk with none of her usual stall tactics. The sun has worn them both out. I’m exhausted, too. I throw a load of laundry in the washer and go to my narrow room. I vividly remember when Mr. Mike built it for Brandon when Miss Dawn needed his room upstairs for her daycare kids.
Madison and I messed around and watched the construction, dancing in our socks on the concrete floor and generally being annoying, while Mr. Mike did all the framing and drywall and paneling with Brandon’s help. This was a few years before he laid down carpet and put in the bar and the woodstove.
The room is hardly wide enough for a single bed and a nightstand. There’s a dresser at the far end, and that’s it. There’s no window, and you can hear everything through the walls, but at least I can close the door and change my clothes in private. And honestly, it’s handy to be able to hear the dryer buzz.
I put on a clean T-shirt to sleep in, click the overhead light off, and climb into bed. It’s a weird, cheap thrill to think that the bed used to be Brandon’s. When Miss Dawn let us move in, she said it only made sense to use the furniture already down here, so my clothes are in his old drawers, and since I didn’t come with any twin sheets, I’m tucked under his old, plaid, flannel sheets.
I feel like I’ve gone back in time, and I’m thirteen again with the world’s most painful crush. I don’t know why people are cute about crushes. In my experience, it was one of the most agonizing, embarrassing experiences in my life, and I almost married Tyler Reynolds.
I remember sniffing Brandon’s letterman jacket when I hung my coat up next to it on the hall tree. His room doesn’t smell like him anymore—the basement musk has taken over—but I can call it to mind perfectly. It’s ridiculous. I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation longer than five or ten minutes, and nothing that wasn’t casual, but behind the shed, I was kissing him like he’d come back from war.
I have to get us out of here before I lose my last scrap of dignity.
I pull up my banking app on my phone and check the balance. It’s the same as when I checked yesterday and the day before. Not enough.
Omari, my partner on day shift, is doing the radiology tech program at the community college, and he has a family, too. That’s a two-year program, though, and he has a wife who watches the kids at night.
I think I’d like being a tech. It would be weird to say out loud, but what I like about my job now is helping people who are in a bad way. A lot of the time, they’re scared or hurt, and if they’re pissy, it’s usually because they’re in pain and out of their comfort zone.
I like being kind and calm for them, making their shitty day a little better, showing them understanding in whatever small way I can. I’ve had plenty of bad days, and I know how a hand on your shoulder or a kind word can be enough to keep you going.
I can see myself doing mammograms or something where people are freaked out and need an understanding, capable touch. I have that in me, but it never really occurred to me before. I think Tyler used up all my capacity in that area when we were together. I was always having to be understanding and capable while he was throwing temper tantrums and going deadweight whenever life got even slightly inconvenient.
Why did I put up with it for so long? Is it that once you eat enough shit, the taste doesn’t bother you anymore?
I don’t know why I did it, and that might be what bothers me the most about it all now.
If I think too long about it, I give myself acid reflux, so I distract myself by scrolling social media. I’m not really focusing on anything when a text pops up on my screen.
R u up?
It’s from Brandon. He’s never texted me before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him text. He calls people like a boomer.
What do I say?
I haven’t gotten a late night “are you up” text since high school, and it was always Tyler, drunk and wanting to see if he could sneak into my room to get laid and crash until he’d sobered up enough to go home.
This can’t be a booty call. Not with how we left it. And where I’m living right now.
Does he want to talk?
Do I?
I turn onto my side and curl into a shrimp. On the one hand, no, I don’t. I’d rather pluck my eyeballs out. But on the other hand—I’ll probably explode if I don’t find out what he wants.
My stomach clenches and careens at the same time, and even before my thumbs tap “yeah” of their own accord, I know it’s inevitable. If someone shows an interest, I respond.
I’m expecting to see dots appear, but instead, the phone rings. For some reason, the volume is turned up loud, and I fumble it. I have to lean all the way over the bed to fish it out from under the night table. When I click the green button, I’m breathless.
“Hi?”
“Angie.” Brandon’s voice is low. Stern. Now my stomach feels like I’m in trouble.
“Yeah?” I say, suddenly defensive.
“I’ve got something to say, okay?”
“Okay.”
He sounds so serious. Is he dumping me? He can’t. We’re not going out. Oh Lord, he’s not calling to let me down easy, is he? No normal guy would, not after a single make-out session, but no other guy I know would be making a whole-ass phone call when he could text, either.
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I went too far, and I know that. I didn’t mean to go that far, but I did, and I accept responsibility for that. I knew Maddie would keep the kids inside, but you didn’t see her wink at me, so you didn’t know that, and you put a stop to things, and rightfully so, and I was an asshole.” He stops for a breath.
My brain whirls, trying to process. Maddie knew he was making a move?
He plunges on. “I shouldn’t have said those things, but I want to be clear—I am always going to be up-front with you, and I want you to feel like you can be honest with me, too. I fucking hated that you were with Tyler, but I’m an adult, and that wasn’t my choice or my business. I didn’t need to talk to you like I did today. I only ever want to treat you with respect, and I didn’t, and I apologize.”
He falls quiet. What do I say? Is he reading this? It sounds way too smooth to be something he’s coming up with in the moment. “And just to be clear,” he adds. “I’m not sorry it happened, only that I pushed it too far.”
I wait a few seconds to make sure he’s done, and then I can’t help but ask. “Did you write that out?”
“Yeah,” he says without missing a beat. He’s not the least embarrassed.
“On paper?”
“In my notes app.” He’s not bothered at all that I’m asking. I’ve never met a man less touchy about his pride than Brandon Kaczmarek. “There’s more.”
I’m already having a hot flash from embarrassment under his old flannel sheet. I don’t think I can handle more. “Listen. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Angie, it obviously wasn’t fine with you,” he says.
“It’s fine, really. But thank you. For saying.” Tyler would never, not in a million years.
“It’s nothing.” It obviously isn’t, but I get what he means from his tone. It doesn’t bother him to say sorry.
I want more than anything for this conversation to end, but also, I don’t want to hang up. Except for the glow of the phone, it’s dark in the room, and lonely. “Let’s just sweep it under the rug, okay?”
He chuckles from the back of his throat, and I shiver. “Sweep it under the rug?”
“Yeah. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” He draws in a breath, and the phone is pressed so close to my ear, it’s like a whisper. “We can do—or not do—whatever you want.”
I bite my bottom lip until it stings. “I let things get carried away, too.”
“Yeah, you got carried away,” he says, a touch of smugness in his voice. “I did, too,” he adds.
“So you said. A few times.”
“Let me read the rest of what I wrote,” he asks, almost playfully.
I don’t want to let him. Whatever he says, I’m going to have to respond somehow, and I just want to be in this moment a little longer, listening to him breathe in the dark, my whole body tingling and warm. I want things to be new with him, not complicated and probably doomed.
“Did you know I’m staying in your old room?” I change the subject.
“How’s it treating you?” He goes along without missing a beat.
“It’s fine.”
“Everything’s fine,” he says, and it’s a little dig, but he doesn’t say it like a dick.
“Do you remember when you and your dad built it out?”
“Yeah.” He chuckles. “I was so excited. I had this idea that I was getting, like, a sweet bachelor pad. I was gonna have a big-ass TV and beanbag chairs and a mini fridge, and I was gonna invite you down to play Mario Kart. And then it turned out to be the size of Mom’s minivan.”
“You never played Mario,” I say.
He was into shooter games like every other boy, and he got sullen the few times Madison made him get off so we could play.
“But you didn’t like anything except Mario.”
He’s right. I still don’t even though it’s been years since I played a video game.
“Why did you want to play with me?” I ask, my stomach fizzling. I know why, but I want him to say.
“Because you were pretty,” he says, and if any other man said it, it’d be a line, an ick, but the way he talks—the way he’s always talked—he’s just saying what he thinks. Simple as that. “Still are.”
My face flushes so bright, there’s no way he can’t hear it in my voice. I try to play it off. “Miss Dawn never would’ve allowed it.”
He laughs. “I guess not. I would’ve had to wait until Dad was in charge.”
“I don’t think he would’ve gone for it, either.” Despite the ponytail, Mr. Mike was an old-fashioned kind of guy. He was the one who wouldn’t let Madison wear lipstick or get her ears pierced until she was thirteen, and he was always lecturing us to stick together when he dropped us off at football games and stuff at the school.
“Nah. He trusted me.”
It’s true. Mr. Mike never treated Brandon like a kid. He didn’t call him “bud” or “buddy” like most dads. He called him “partner,” like a cowboy from a western. Maybe that’s how you raise good kids—you treat them like they’re already what you want them to be. I need to think about that more later.
“Would you have come and played Mario with me?” he asks, his voice a little lower, a little huskier.
“If Madison could have come, too.” That’s just the truth. I was shy back then. Still am. The only reason I went out with Tyler in the first place was because he showed up at my front door, and my mom was high and hollering “Who’s that knocking at my fucking door,” so it was less embarrassing to go with him than tell him no.
Why is saying no my kryptonite?
Why is saying yes just as hard?
All of a sudden, I’m so damn tired of being stuck between them, being afraid of them both. I wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I ran for the ice cream truck and stuck my hand out for candy and raced to the pool and cannonballed in, as free as every other kid, and I was so young then, but I can remember what it felt like to be fearless and bold because the sun was shining and the sugar was sweet.
I break my back so the girls will know that feeling. Do I really have to live the rest of my life without any sweetness for myself?
I don’t want to.
“Angie? You still there?” Brandon asks, his voice gruff.
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “You know, I liked what we were doing earlier. I didn’t mean to fight you off like you did something wrong. You didn’t. That was me, getting in my head.”
“I liked it, too.” The gravel in his voice uncurls something in my belly. “Let me read the rest of what I wrote?”
“Okay.” I stretch my legs all the way to my toes. For some reason, I’m not so worried now about what he’s going to say.
He clears his throat again, but this time, it’s not nerves. He’s playing around. “I know that you’re not ready yet, and I respect that. But I’m going to ask you out again. Or you can ask me out. I’ll say yes.” He pauses a second. “I will always say yes to you, Angie.”
“Why? ’Cause I’m so pretty?” I wince. I’m playing, but I don’t ever act bigheaded, not even joking around. It makes me feel exposed, like I need to throw up a wall, some kind of defense, because my entire body is Jell-O now, squishy, wobbly, tender, defenseless Jell-O.
“Yeah, that.” He pauses a second and then says, “That and how you make me feel.”
“How do I make you feel?” I felt like I was at the edge of a high ledge, and now it feels like my toes are curled over the edge.
“Like I’ve got reasons.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Oh, hell, what do I say to that, especially with my heart stuck in my throat?
I wish he was here.
I wish I’d already told him what I need to tell him, and we were past it, and it all turned out fine. If I had his confidence, I’d know now whether we have a chance.
But I’m a coward, albeit less of one than I was a few months ago. I summon up those small, tender shoots of courage. “I do want you to ask me out again. In a few months.”
“Yeah?” His voice goes so warm, it could melt marshmallows. “You’ll let me buy you dinner?”
“Sure. I’ll order the lobster.”
“You like lobster?”
“I’ve never had it. Have you?”
“Oh yeah. Lobster rolls. Lobster tails. Lobster mac and cheese. You’ve been missing out.”
“Do you wear the bib?”
“Of course. Got to protect the fine threads.”
“Fine threads, eh?” I’ve never seen him in anything but T-shirts and flannels and the lone blue denim shirt he wore on away-game days back in high school.
“If I’m wearing it, it looks fine.”
The conversation wanders away from there. We talk about restaurants and the jobs we had after school—I worked fast food, and he crabbed—and the times I went with his family to the ocean and Tamblyn’s first time at the beach. We talk for hours, and my eyelids droop. We both start drifting off and losing our trains of thought, but I don’t suggest hanging up and neither does he.
His voice makes the room safe and cozy, quieting my ever-present background worries like magic, as familiar as the lines on my palm and exciting and new at the same time.
I’m yanked back from the brink of sleep when he says, “Angie, you’ve got to hang up and put the phone on the charger for tomorrow.”
I’m too tired to reply with anything but a mumble.
“Goodnight, beautiful,” he says.
I pass out before I can answer him back.
That night, I dream.
I’m in this same pitch-black bedroom, but it’s like a stage, an empty stage in an empty theater, and I can’t see anything besides Brandon, standing at the foot of the bed. He’s wearing his work clothes—a neon reflective vest and jeans. All I’m wearing is an oversized T-shirt. No bra. No panties.
I’m propped on my elbows, my knees pressed tightly together.
“Show me,” he says, his voice rough and demanding.
My heart pounds in my chest. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’re Madison’s brother,” I say.
“She’s not here,” he says. “No one’s here. Show me.”
I want to. It aches. Throbs. He won’t touch me down there unless I show him, and it should be a simple thing to ease my legs apart, but I’m frozen, and he won’t come any closer. I rub my thighs together, desperate for the friction.
“Let me see, Angie,” he growls.
“No,” I whine.
“Do you want me to make you? Is that what you want?” His hand goes to his belt. He unbuckles it and yanks the strap free from its loops. I whimper. My ass clenches. He winds the belt around his hand once. The rest dangles.
“Please.” I want him to make me, but he just stands there, broad-shouldered, straight-spined, confident and in control, while I squirm on the bed, hot and needy.
“Why won’t you show me? Are you scared?”
“Yes,” I whimper.
He growls. “Show me.” This time, it’s an order that I don’t dare ignore. This is Brandon, but not my friend’s brother. He’s the man who makes the house’s ceiling lower and the hallways narrower when he steps inside. He’s bigger and stronger and tougher than me.
“Show me, or you’re not gonna like what I do.”
Suddenly, dream me isn’t scared anymore. She wants to see what he’ll do, and she knows he’s going to drop the belt before he does. His fist unfurls. The strap slithers through his fingers. The buckle thumps against the ground.
He flicks open the button of his jeans. Unzips the zipper. Draws himself out. My belly spasms.
I let my knees fall to the sides.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” I pant.
“You hurt me,” he says, his hand working his cock, his eyes burning. “Now you’ve got to make it right. Touch yourself. Touch that pretty pussy.”
“I can’t,” I moan. “You won’t want me.”
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m here right now. Come for me.”
The orgasm tears through me, jerking me awake. My heart pounds. I gasp for air, sweaty, with sticky fingers in the dark.
I look at my phone for the time. The call is still going.
“Brandon?” I whisper, my whole body catching fire.
There’s no answer.
I’ve never tapped end so fast, so hard, so many times.