Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
AUGUST
I want tonight to be special.
I’m trying not to think too hard about how good this thing with Lennon is going. Or what that might mean. That shit freaks me out.
But like Dr. Delaney says, what’s important is staying grounded in the now. And in the now, while yeah, the rollercoaster has been riding high, I haven’t let myself chase the dopamine hits to keep riding it higher and higher until it pops off the rails into freefall.
I keep my routine.
My weekends with Owen stay focused.
I don’t miss an exercise routine.
God knows I can’t miss a shift at work, with my back-to-back bookings. With my art, I’m starting to build an actual… reputation.
All because of her.
Dr. Delaney reminds me not to sprint 100 steps ahead, as tempting as that is.
I really, really like sprinting.
Especially when my brain feels like it’s painting with brilliant neon fire, every speedy little rabbit thought I have.
Suddenly I see how I can have this amazing career, expanding where I’m at until I’m able to save up enough for my own shop.
And I could hire guys like me, who’ve had some struggles and are fighting to get their lives straight.
I wouldn’t expect them to operate at 100% all the time, and maybe we could all have a community around being a little goddamn kinder to each other.
Mack’s really been a mentor in that way—he never lets his guys that rent out chairs in his shop to get too competitive. And he looks out for us.
Even when I had a big boost, we worked together to help share so that everyone could get more exposure and work.
Like, a lot of the tattoo culture is super hypermasculine and cut-throat, always somebody ready to yank the chair right out from underneath you.
But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if, as, like little collectives, we worked to support the whole person so that we could all thrive better?
As Dr. Delaney is always saying, it’s not fucking pie.
Just because I get a piece, it doesn’t mean there’s one less piece for you.
What if instead, we work from a rising-tides-lift-all-boats? And just fucking support each other, wanting the best for each other because we know, supporting each other together, we can all thrive because god knows there’s no shortage of folks wanting tattoos.
So let’s get our minds and bodies right, and rock the hell out of our fucking craft, right?
And it all seems possible because of her.
Possibilities seems possibility with her, too.
Because this shiny, sparkly brain that’s sprinting down a thousand trails at once, feeling like I understand the whole fucking universe sees, for the first time in forever, how I could actually have a future with someone.
Like a forever kind of future.
Yeah, we had a fucked-up beginning.
But it’s not like things ever turned out the way they said it was supposed to.
There was one path all the teachers (and my mother) were ever interested in telling us we should take my whole life.
Grow up, take the SAT, get into the best college you can, take out loans, then pray you can get a steady office job working for the man to pay off all your loans just in time to get a mortgage, aka, taking on an even bigger debt that you then work the rest of your life to pay off—
Look, that was just never gonna be my path.
So fuck it.
I met the girl of my dreams during a wild, one-night stand and then she just happened to be still-married to my bitch of a brother.
Life’s funny that way. The kind of shit no one would believe, but there it is.
Am I really gonna let whatever anybody else might think about the circumstances fuck up what might be my chance at the best thing that’s ever happened to me?
Lennon’s amazing, gorgeous, kind, and funny. Fuck, she’s so funny, and fun. Who the fuck knew life could be fun all the time and not a dreary slog of negativity? She just bounces out of bed happy and grateful and full of ideas for all she wants to do that day.
I’ve never met anyone like her.
I didn’t know people could be like her.
I doubt I deserve her, but she makes me want to be better every day, so I even have half a chance at being the man walking the path at her side in life.
Is that crazy to say about a woman I’ve known only a little over a month?
I know it’s too crazy to say out loud, that’s for damn sure.
Even though I want to crow it from the damn rooftops.
I’ve still met myself.
And I know that I might believe this with all my brain and soul and it seems wildly possible right now… when I’m at the rollercoaster’s heights.
Everything always feels possible when I’m up here.
I’m on top of the whole goddamn world.
I’m trying not to think about what comes next and how I’ll try desperately to hold on to these same beliefs when the fall comes and the ground drops out from underneath my feet like it always does.
Because maybe, just maybe it will be possible to hold onto anyway… for her.
And in the meantime, I just want her to know how special she is.
So I pick Lennon up from a coffee shop after a shorter shift than my usual nine- or ten-hour sessions I’ve been pulling lately at the shop.
She camps out here for long days of her own as she ramps up her new business while she’s still closed out of her old one.
Her lawyer assured her any work done after the date she separated from Jake is 100% her own and won’t have to be split 50/50 with Jake even though they’re still legally married.
So she’s been busting her butt just as hard as me to create her future.
When I pop into the shop, she’s hunched over her laptop, her brow adorably scrunched as she types away furiously.
I drop into the chair across from her at her table. “Hey gorgeous. Cancel whatever you had planned tonight.”
Her face lights up when she sees me. “I didn’t have anything planned.”
She immediately shuts her laptop lid and starts packing up, like she didn’t look like she was engaged in the world’s most intricate and important work situation two seconds before.
She just drops everything, like she’s always ready to get back to the real business of living. It’s only one of her amazing qualities.
“Good. Then it’s easy.”
She frowns at her phone. “Wait, I thought you had four appointments back-to-back tonight? Shouldn’t you still be at work?”
“I rescheduled the last one. I haven’t taken a night off in weeks. So I’m taking one. With you.”
She frowns a little and shakes her head, but finishes packing up her stuff. I grab her laptop bag and swing it over my shoulder because she packs this thing like a brick.
“Hey, I can get that!” She smacks at my shoulder.
“And limp all the way down to the truck because it’s half your weight?” I scoff. “Or you could just let your boyfriend carry it.”
I think both of us tense as the word accidentally slips out of my mouth.
Lennon suddenly goes silent beside me, her face unreadable as we walk down the street.
Goddamnit. Why do I have to be such an idiot all the time?
“Fuck, sorry, Lennon. I didn’t mean to say that. I know we haven’t really talked about any labels or anything—”
“It’s not—” she interrupts me, sounding frustrated, and then she just stops on the sidewalk, lifting her hands to her temples in a way that covers her face from me, before finally dropping them.
When she does, she looks pissed and also totally overwhelmed.
“I can’t have a boyfriend, August! I’m still married. I barely left my husband a month ago and I have no money and none of my shit together. I thought you got that!”
Then she starts walking again. More like stomping, and muttering to herself. “Oh my god, this was such a bad idea. Mom was right.”
At which point, my entire pumping heart falls out through my ass.
She talked to her mom about me. And just like with Priscilla, her parent saw me for exactly what I am.
Of course Linda did.
A parent’s job is to protect their child. A good parent, anyway.
And Linda can see clearly what Lennon herself has been too caught up in the whirlwind to realize.
I’m no good for her.
I’ll only end up causing her more pain, in the end.
I met her when she was in a vulnerable state, and it was selfish of me to ever let things go as far as they have.
Fuck. Fuck, what have I done?
I thought I’d changed, but here I am, reenacting the same old damn playbook.
And to think, I really believed I’d changed. What a goddamn sucker to think a few years of therapy could really fix a soul-dark fuck-up like me.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my words frantic. “Of course. Of course, Lennon. That was fucked up of me to say. You’ve got way too much on your plate to—”
Lennon spins around, hand flying to her mouth like now she feels sorry. “No. August, I’m sorry. I think Mom just got in my head, I—”
“No, no. Oh God, Lennon, please don’t apologize.”
I stop on the sidewalk, heaving for breath, and turn my back to her.
Because now that she’s apologizing to me when I was the one who overstepped what should have been an obvious boundary, I see how my manic back-tracking could be a form of manipulation.
I don’t mean it that way, but isn’t that the kind of shit Jake did to her all the time?
Lennon touches my arm. “August, let’s just talk about this.”
But inside, I can feel it happening.
The bubble has popped.
It’s not her fault. Anything can trigger it. Usually it’s my own stupid goddamn bravado pushing things too far. Sometimes it can be as little as an emotional commercial on TV.
It doesn’t matter what the trigger is.
What goes up must come down.
In an instant, all the elated, conquer-the-world energy inside me just crashes.
Pop.
All the hundreds of possibilities and open doors in front of me slam shut.
I’m not Superman anymore.
I’m the scum of the earth.
And just so, so fucking sad.
I knew it was coming. I always know it’s coming. That it still has the ability to shock me every time makes the sadness even deeper and heavier.
Because the heights of possibility were so, so bright and beautiful and seemingly within reach.
And now seem more than a million light years away.
“August?” Lennon calls, a note of alarm in her voice, and it sounds muted like it’s coming through water.
It’s just the chemistry in my brain playing tricks on me.
Knowing so doesn’t help because everything slows down. My thoughts. Sounds and input.
Sometimes it feels like I’m suddenly swimming in a fish tank.
“Hey actually,” I manage, the formation of words suddenly difficult and clumsy to make with my mouth. “It’s been a really long, exhausting week. I just kinda want to crash tonight.”
Lennon frowns at me. “That’s not what I meant, August. Can we just not do labels yet, is all I meant.”
Every fresh word out of her mouth feels like another blow.
I wanna disappear to be the size of an ant on the cement beneath our feet. There’s a dim bulb of desire to explain that of course I understand.
I know she’s being entirely rational and smart.
I know my brain is blowing this way out of proportion in a way that is magnificently embarrassing, along with my internal meltdown about it.
She’s asking for a boundary and I want to celebrate that with her, not make her feel bad in any way, shape, or form. It only makes me admire her more.
But at the moment, it’s literally not possible for any of that to get out of my mouth.
I’m stuffed full of cotton, the roller-coaster having suddenly bottomed-out in a way that is the last thing she should have to deal with considering everything she’s been through lately.
It’s horrible and inexplicable and irrational and—
Forming the sentences I managed a moment ago was done with monumental difficulty. When I’m at my lowest lows, which I can plunge without any notice when the balloon pops, I’m barely capable of communicating at all.
“Yeah. Totally agree,” I manage, and throw an arm around her shoulder for a reassuring squeeze before letting go again and aiming down the last block.
Just got to get to my truck before I really fucking collapse in on myself.
It’s only one of the reasons I’m so grateful my son is still just four years old, because he doesn’t mind the times I’m only capable of grunting and otherwise go mostly non-verbal.
Owen thinks it’s funny and spends the whole weekend giggling at “growl daddy.” And I spend the whole weekend hugging him tight and pretending it’s wrestling, another of his favorite activities.
Dr. Delaney says that’s okay because of some attachment theory bullshit, that kids his age need lots of touch to feel secure.
How do I tell him so do big kids my age?
I’m sure as hell going to miss Lennon’s touch tonight in bed.
We took separate cars on the way into Austin today because of our differing schedules, so I give her a kiss on the forehead and manage, “See you at home,” before hopping up into my truck and closing the door.
I’m a little slower on the drive back to Uhland. My head’s mostly blank in that spacy way it goes after a balloon pop. I’ll catch myself staring at a blank wall for a couple hours when I’m in the worst of these spells.
Lennon’s already waiting in the parking lot when I get there.
I sigh, feeling the last of the energy in my body seep out. I always knew I’d disappoint her. Frankly, it’s better that it happens now before we get in any deeper anyway.
I try not to think about how devastating that thought is. There will be time for me to wallow later, when I’m all alone.
Lennon bounces over immediately as I climb down from my truck, because of course she does. It’s who she is.
“I’ll wash up and change, then meet you at yours?” she asks brightly.
Words so hard.
Wanna do right by her.
I try for a smile. Fail.
“Not tonight,” I push through mud-mind to say. “Just gonna crash. Super tired. Sorry, babe.”
“Oh my god, no. You do look like you’re barely standing up, August.” She comes and throws her arms around my waist. “I’ve been a selfish cow not letting you get more sleep when you’re working like ten hours a day.
My chin on the top of her head, I start to shake my head no.
Just not enough energy to explain what’s actually happening when I get like this.
I know it’s so complicated to understand what’s going on from the outside.
Priscilla fucking hated it when I just totally shut down.
She used to say I’d just turn to stone. Like I was stone-walling her.
We were both young and I didn’t even have a diagnosis yet.
I didn’t have the words, up or down rollercoaster-wise, to explain what was happening when I got like this.
I’m clearly not much better now.
“See you, beautiful,” is all I can manage before turning away from the beautiful brightness that is Lennon and heading to the dark of my lonely RV, every step sinking deeper into the heaviness, mind and body.