Chapter 18 Gina
Gina
“Idon’t understand why this damned cat doesn’t like me,” I groused, dodging Vader’s swipe at my arm. “I even brought him tuna.”
“He’s just protective of his mama, aren’t you baby?”
Protective enough that he’d scratched me several times now when I wasn’t paying attention. Not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to remind me that he was watching me.
Kimberly picked up the cat, hugging it to her chest and pressing a kiss on its furry little head. Vader purred happily, even while he glared at me with one eye flashing a warning. The way she was hugging that cat was giving me ideas.
“Do you want to have kids?”
We’d never talked about this before.
“Kids?”
I nodded.
“You know, I haven’t given it much thought, to be honest. I’m not dying to have kids, but I don’t think I’d be opposed to it either if the situation was right. Not right now, but maybe in a couple years.”
“I’d love to have kids. Preferably at least two so they can be friends.”
Kimberly chuckled. “Tell me you’re an only child without telling me you’re an only child. Most siblings are definitely not friends, at least not during childhood.”
“You didn’t get along with your siblings?” I asked in surprise.
I knew Kimberly had two sisters and a brother, although I’d never met any of them last time we were dating.
They didn’t live in Seattle, and we weren’t together long enough for one of them to make a visit, but I knew the siblings all talked and texted regularly.
I’d been under the assumption that they’d grown up super tight.
“We mostly do now, but not back then,” she responded.
“My sister Kara was always a total bitch to me and Misty because she was convinced that my parents liked us better, but she coddled our brother Tyler. Misty was super secretive and mostly ignored all of us like maybe she wished we weren’t there, and as for Tyler, he tried to get along with everyone but that just irritated all of us.
At any given time, two of us would have an alliance against the other siblings. It drove our parents nuts.”
“That sounds hard.”
Kimberly shrugged.
“It’s pretty typical I think, most of my friends had drama with their siblings too.
The four of us fought like cats and dogs, but if someone came at one of us, watch out.
One time in junior high some dude put a worm down my shirt, it was slimy and gross and I totally freaked out.
My sister Kara hadn’t spoken to me in days, but she ran right up and gave him a bloody nose for messing with me.
She got suspended for it and when I thanked her for helping me, she punched me too, then blamed me for getting grounded. ”
I shook my head. These sibling antics sounded horrible, but my girlfriend was grinning like these were happy memories. It was all so different from my own family that it didn’t compute.
“I’d like to meet your family some time,” I said without thinking.
I immediately slapped my hand over my mouth. The last thing I wanted was for to think I was being too clingy, I’d been trying hard to avoid that.
“Never mind, I didn’t mean to say that.”
She gave me a look I couldn’t interpret.
“It’s cool. You’re my girlfriend. I’m sure you’ll meet them eventually. Kara and Tyler almost always come for the holidays.”
I felt a warmth in my chest at the idea that Kimberly thought we would still be together when the holidays rolled around. That was months from now. Then again, other than her cranky ass cat, things seemed to be going well between us.
It had been a month since we’d agreed to date officially, and really, not a lot had changed.
We still chatted a few times a day on text.
We got together on the weekends and usually went to dinner one night during the week.
The big differences were public shows of affection and sleepovers.
We’d had four now, one every weekend, and we were both careful to limit it to one night and do more than just have sex like we used to.
It was a nice, easy progression in our relationship.
It felt much more mature than our first time around, and I had to admit that it also was more even.
We weren’t having the ups and downs and wild emotional swings of our first relationship.
Well, I wasn’t anyway. Kimberly had been more even-keeled the first time around, but she also had kept herself closed off, where now she actually was talking about her feelings and her likes and dislikes.
We’d both grown, and I was glad we’d grown in a way that complemented each other.
“By the way, it’s been a month now. Are we re-upping this girlfriend arrangement?” I asked lightly.
“I hope so. I already bought us those tickets for Mama Mia when it comes to town next month.”
“Well I’d hate to miss a musical with Abba, so I guess we’ll have to stick it out,” I teased.
Kimberly got up to use the bathroom and while she was gone I somehow got into a stare-off with Vader. He sat straight up on the cushion she’d vacated, staring at me. I stared back, neither of us willing to lose by looking away.
“Are you two having a staring contest?” Kimberly laughed when she came back. “What are you, kids?”
“I’m not looking away first,” I said, continuing to stare at the cat.
“Oh for the love of…,” she paused, grabbing Vader and taking him into the kitchen. “Come on baby, let’s get you some wet food so Gina and I can have some adult time.”
She opened a can of wet food – the cat’s favorite – and after dishing it out into his bowl, she returned to the couch, sitting next to me and putting her arm around me.
“Do you want to sleep over tonight?” she asked.
“I’d better not, I have an early meeting tomorrow,” I said. “We have some foundation officers that want to have a breakfast meeting with us at eight.”
“It’s funny how you’re the same person as before but not the same,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re still funny and quirky and sweet. But when we dated before, you’d hint around about staying over and kind of pout if I didn’t ask you first, and then if I did, you’d never leave. After a while I wanted to hang out at your house just so I could leave when I wanted to.”
I winced and she added, “I’m not saying that to make you feel bad, I swear.
We were both at fault in that situation.
I could have been clear that I didn’t want you to stay over or if I needed space, but instead I just sulked.
I’m just struck from time to time when I notice the difference in us and how we interact with each other now. It’s cool.”
“The thing about growing up feeling like your family doesn’t love you or care what happens to you is that you sometimes have a tendency to latch onto people who give you even a crumb of affection,” I explained.
“But over the past few years, I’ve learned how to be okay alone, and how to not let other people’s actions define me the way I used to. ”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for my part in what went wrong in our relationship.”
“I’m sorry I accused you of cheating on me, and I’m really sorry I dumped all your shit on the lawn.”
“It was wet too. Some of my stuff got ruined.”
I winced. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Maybe we can just agree to let bygones be bygones,” she suggested. “We were brought into each other’s lives for a reason, and I don’t want to ruin it by reliving the past.”
“Sounds good.”
“How’s work going besides your foundation breakfast tomorrow?” Kimberly asked, changing the subject. “You haven’t said too much about it lately.”
“We had another family move into permanent housing,” I said proudly. “While she was at the shelter the mom participated in a women in trades program and now she’s going to be an apprentice HVAC technician specializing in heat pump installation.”
“Wow, that’s so cool.”
“Yeah, I went to her trades program graduation a few weeks ago with our shelter manager Julia and the client’s kids were in the front row with her parents cheering their heads off, it was really inspiring.”
“I’m glad you found your place in the world,” she said. “I know you liked the youth program too, but it seemed to frustrate you a lot.”
“It did. Management wasn’t good, at least not for my program.
And youth are a hard population to serve, they tend to have a lot of setbacks and it’s super hard to earn their trust. But also I didn’t know how to manage the vicarious trauma of social work jobs the way I do now.
It just added to the issues I was having then. ”
I hated the fact that I’d been a basket case back when we were dating, but I felt proud of the way I’d moved past it and become a better person.
“Vicarious trauma?” Kimberly asked.
“It’s like you get traumatized by hearing all the horrible things that other people experience, especially when it reminds you of your own issues,” I explained.
“Often our clients will tell you the most awful stories of things that happened in their homes or on the street and after you hear all these stories of people being beat up or raped or robbed or abused, if you don’t set boundaries and develop some emotional shields, eventually it all wears you down and you either start having issues like not sleeping, becoming bitter or cynical, having panic attacks, stuff like that. ”
“That explains why you seemed to both love and hate your job with the youth,” she noted.
“Yeah. In the end, my getting laid off was the best thing for me, because when I started working at the Sunrise program, I’d dealt with all that. I have healthier coping mechanism now.”
I stood up. “I’d really better get going now.”
“I love you,” Kimberly blurted out unexpectedly. “I just want you to know that.”
I paused, drinking in the moment, feeling relief and gratitude that we’d gotten to this point despite everything that had happened in the past.
“I love you too.”
Vader made a loud hissing noise from the kitchen and I laughed. “Even if your cat hates me.”