Chapter 2 #2
Yes, shit can still be a little harder for me because of… just how my brain works. Which, as Dr. Delaney is always saying with that kind, compassionate dad voice of his, is understandable.
But it also doesn’t mean the effects on the others around me are any less impactful.
“Trent had to move the blankets just to sit down.”
I sink down to the step on my ass at her words. Fuck, it does genuinely kill me a little to hear the mighty Trent had to swoop in to fix my fuck up. It’s not jealousy—that ship sailed a long time ago and I genuinely don’t miss Priscilla that way.
It’s more about the petty pain of knowing Trent will be a far more stable, reasonable stand-in father to my son than I’ll ever be able to be. I imagine Trent picking up the pillow barricade that Owen and I spent an hour building, putting everything away with his sensible hands.
I know that’s not fair. Trent is fine. He’s a good, stable guy, which is precisely his most annoying quality.
“I’ll be more careful next time with time management,” I say.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad.” And I can hear that she means it, which is one of the genuinely hard things about Priscilla—she’s too decent for it to be simple. “I just need the handoffs to be cleaner. For Owen, too.”
“You’re right,” I say again.
After we hang up I stay on the step a while.
She’s right. She’s not wrong about any of it. She’s usually not.
I cleaned the kitchen first because I was trying to attack the things that most needed to be done first and work down the list. It’s the habit Dr. Delaney suggests I try to build and I try. Man, I fucking try. I just ran out of time before I got to the living room.
Ain’t that some shit?
When you try your hardest to keep everything together and you still fuck it up?
I drag my hands through my hair. Because I guess, if I’m brutally honest, some part of me knew I was running out of time. And I didn’t hurry, because Owen had fallen asleep in the fort.
He’d crawled to the center of it with his head on a pillow and just passed out, the way little kids can—completely, no transition, just gone—and I sat in there next to him for maybe twenty minutes that I didn’t have, listening to him breathe.
The dragon sword on the floor beside him. The pillow walls standing.
I didn’t want to break it down while he was sleeping in it.
That’s the part I don’t tell Priscilla.
By the time eight o’clock comes, the shop has had two more walk-ins and one booking for next week. Mack turns on the blues and doesn’t bother trying to talk. He knows what my bad days look like by now and doesn’t push. I appreciate this about him.
I don’t think today was a bad day, technically. Not like they used to be, anyway. This is what a bad day looks like now. Everything a little slower. It’s harder to get out of bed. Everything gets done, just with a little more difficulty. Or a lot.
Either way, it’s another day marked off on a calendar.
So what if I feel the distance between right now and the weekend like a vast, unending chasm?
I drive out to the RV park in the dark, the highway south of Austin doing its usual thing, which is existing as the longest drive in the world when you’ve just had a long day and a shorter distance when you’re not paying attention.
I’ve been parked here two years, ever since I moved out of the house Priscilla’s parents own.
The RV is not what I thought it would be when I agreed to this arrangement. Priscilla’s parents gave it to me—they were buying a new one, and frankly, a ten-year-old RV was small change to them if it meant finally getting me out of their daughter’s life forever.
The old me would’ve been too proud to accept it. But after Owen got here…
Well, pride just doesn’t have a place anymore when you’re a parent. So I take it, park it here, pay my minimal bills, and try to keep my shit together.
I thought living in an RV would make my life feel transient and unstable.
But somewhere in the first few weeks I started fixing it up—replaced the light fixtures, put in proper shelving, got a decent mattress—and now it mostly just feels like somewhere I live.
Small, yes. But also like something no one can take away from me.
I change and grab my gear, then head to the pool.
It’s dark and cold, the RV park mostly quiet. I can hear music from somewhere further back, but the plaza is empty.
The pool lights are off since it’s January, and I don’t bother to go switch them on. I know this pool in the dark by now.
I drop my bag by the edge, pull off my shirt, and dive into the deep end.
The shock of frigid water makes my lungs clench up and my muscles seize a little before I force my sluggish limbs to start swimming.
I love it.
I know people don’t understand this. Mack thinks I’m insane for my nightly cold plunges.
But from the second the water closes over me, the noise in my head changes register. It’s a cacophony that gets distant and smaller, and for the length of a lap I’m only doing one thing, which is moving through the resistance.
I’m not thinking about the blanket fort.
I’m not thinking about Priscilla’s voice on the phone.
I’m not thinking about the butterfly tattoo or Mack’s careful management of my moods or the sketchpad in my bag.
I’m just swimming, in my routine, and for a little while, anyway, everything feels manageable.
Fourteen laps in and my skin is buzzing, hot with exertion even as the cold clenches my chest like a fist.
I haul myself out at the shallow end and notice that the hot tub cover is off, neon lights blazing from underneath the now bubbling, steaming water.
And there’s a woman there.
She’s not even in a bathing suit, just a shirt and shorts. And her face glows like a goddess from the dancing light of the hot tub as she claps and laughs with glee as she steps foot into the water.
Apart from my son’s giggle, it’s the single purest sound of delight I’ve ever heard.
She does this adorable little shimmy as she drops down into the water, her joyous laughter only cut off by her dropping all the way beneath the hot tub water.
I jerk my gaze away, realizing I’ve been staring. And freezing my balls off just standing here when I know the trick of the cold plunge swim is to keep moving at all times.
I dive back under and swim furiously.