18 Ginger
18
Ginger
The week dragged on forever. Working with my father was emotionally exhausting, especially having to pretend the whole time that there was nothing in the world I liked better than being there. I found myself spending more and more time alone in the office imagining I was lying on the beach, not thinking, not doing anything, just feeling the warm sun and the salt breeze on my skin.
With Rhys. Showing up next to me.
I tried to take refuge in that illusion as the clock ticktocked slowly onward. I looked around Dad’s office: piles of papers; printers shooting out the latest invoices I was responsible for; drawings of next season’s cabinets hanging on a gigantic corkboard by the desk; smooth, boring walls I’d be staring at for weeks till summer ended…
And at last, it was coming to an end.
The next day I’d catch a train and go back to the dorms. My sense of relief was palpable. I smiled as I remembered I’d gotten permission to move to a larger room I’d share with Kate. I wanted to live that last year, and for a second, sitting there in that office, I hoped it would go on forever. I didn’t want to confront adult life or work or have any responsibilities at all.
“Are you done with the invoices?”
“Yeah.” I got up when my father came in. I turned off the printer, grabbed the papers, and pointed at the table. “Should I leave them here?”
“Yeah. I’ll take a look at them tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I walked around the desk.
My father wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him. He smelled like rolling tobacco (he’d tried and failed to quit a few times) and the fabric softener Mom had used since I was a kid. I took a deep breath, feeling surrounded by a sense of the familiar. I didn’t know what we were doing there, really, until he looked around and sighed with satisfaction.
“Someday, little Ginger, all this will be yours.”
I swallowed and noticed the knot in my throat. Dad turned off the lights, and we walked out. I said nothing on the way home.
“Are you all right, Ginger? You said you were all right with it…”
I needed a moment to realize he was worried about lunch. Dean’s parents and mine were seeing us off, like in the old days. I shook my head.
“I don’t mind. Really.”
“All right. But if you change your mind, just say you don’t feel good and go to your room. Ginger, I know maybe I wasn’t as tactful as I should have been when you and Dean split up. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately…”
“Dad, for real. Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.”
“I just thought he was a good guy…”
“And he is. But not for me. That’s no reason not to like him.”
“Fine.” He took a deep breath, a bit more relaxed.
I appreciated his thoughts, but I didn’t want my father to change the way he was with Dean. He’d always treated him like the son he never had, and he expected him to take a role at the top of his company. There was no way I was going to wedge my way into the relationship they’d been building for so long just because we were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend. It was fine. More than fine, even.
I didn’t mind not getting an explanation…
Or that we hadn’t even talked about it…
I kept repeating that, trying to convince myself. When we entered the house, the scent of meat pie was in the air and the whole Wilson family was in the living room. Dean’s parents hugged me so tightly, I was afraid they’d break a rib. We hadn’t seen each other all summer, and it was weird, to say the least. Maybe they didn’t realize I’d been avoiding them, because the past few weeks had been depressing enough without initiating an uncomfortable conversation I wasn’t ready for.
Dean stared at me with his hands in his pockets. He looked nervous. I nodded at him and went to the kitchen with the excuse of helping Mom take dinner out of the oven and put it on the plates.
Donna was last to come in, when we were already sitting down at the table. She took a generous portion and sat down beside me, thank God. I looked down at my plate and listened, chewing, paying attention only to the display cabinet full of old knickknacks Mom had never wanted to throw out: gifts from when we were baptized, old decorations long out of fashion. After a few bites, I felt the food getting stuck in my throat. I took a drink of water, trying to figure out why I was so upset. Finally I dared to look up at Dean, and… I didn’t feel anything. Not a trace of longing when I saw his brown curly hair, the movement of his Adam’s apple, or his dark eyes.
We were close not too long ago, working together in class, but funny enough, there in my home was the first time I felt differently about him. I think it was because I hadn’t realized till then what a constant presence Dean had been in my life ever since I was in diapers. I got that nasty scar on my knee when I tripped and fell running after him down the street behind my house when I was seven. He was the only boy I’d made love with. The first in everything. The one who took me to prom. The one I applied to college with. So many moments. So many memories…
And now he was there in front of me like a stranger.
My stomach started turning and I stood, wiping my mouth with a napkin. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me, not understanding.
“I don’t feel very good. If you’ll excuse me…”
I walked up to the second floor, stumbling on the carpet. Once I was in the bathroom, I washed my face with cool water and tried to calm down. I didn’t know what all that was about. It didn’t make sense. Or maybe it did. Maybe it made complete sense at the moment.
I heard knocking at the door.
“Ginger…can you open up?”
It was Dean. I took a deep breath, slid open the lock, and let him in. We looked at each other in the bathroom mirror.
“I think… I think we should talk.”
“It’s about time,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He followed me to my room. Inside, he looked at the corkboard still full of photos of him. The silence was uncomfortable. Dean looked too big and too strange in that room, as if he didn’t fit there, however little sense that made.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“I guess we should have had this talk months ago. I’ve been thinking about it since then…” He walked over, and I felt the mattress sink as he sat close to me, still nervous. “I don’t know, Ginger, you’ve always been in my life, and I… I guess I had a breakdown and didn’t stop to think about your feelings. I’m sorry.”
I took a breath, surprised. Mainly because I knew him so well and he wasn’t someone used to saying he was sorry. In his eyes, I saw he was waiting for a response, and I was trying to work out if I was angry, if I had a right to be, or if I should be understanding , and if that meant I’d be turning back into the Ginger I didn’t want to be. I shook my head.
“I should scream at you. I should…”
“That’s not you though.”
“Yeah. But I want to.”
“I’d like us to try to be friends. I’m not asking for us to see each other often or anything like that, but we could see each other one afternoon for a coffee or something. I don’t know.”
My nose tingled. And it wasn’t because of Dean; it was because of me. I looked down at the comforter, at a loose thread that seemed to hang there, unwanted. What a life , I thought. Being there, lost, unable to move, unable to be a part of the fabric around me, stuck. That was how I felt in that moment. Two parts of me were fighting against each other. One of them wanted to forgive Dean, be his friend, get back something of the relationship that had brought us together for so many years. The other wanted to get up, suck in a deep breath, and start screaming. But I didn’t even know what to scream. I didn’t hate him. He’d hurt me, the way he’d done things, but I’d also hurt myself, for just taking it when I should have reacted. Not for him, but for me. I felt that ship had sailed now, and there was no point in trying to catch it. And the Ginger I was now didn’t even want to in her heart.
I remembered that swallowing that pain had, in a way, brought me into contact with Rhys. How ironic. I guess every action, every detail, every decision takes us toward a different destination, and sometimes your fate can change when you least expect it.
“If you want to be left alone…”
I shook my head. “I forgive you.”
Dean smiled, and before I could prepare myself, he leaned over and hugged me. I couldn’t get my arms around his back, but I didn’t pull away. I was still a little uncomfortable until he let me go.
“You know… I miss you.”
I couldn’t tell him I missed him too. Those months away from him had helped me get to know myself better, even if I was still lost, and I had a new friend, had kissed another guy, and had gone out on a date…
“I’ll need some time to learn to be comfortable with you again. I’m not saying no to a coffee sometime in the future, but it’ll need to be later. And I think… I think I at least deserve an explanation of what happened. Why all of a sudden you wanted to live and experience new things and all.”
That was hard for him at first. He opened and closed his mouth, looked down at his hands, let the seconds pass. Then his shell cracked, and he told me how he’d been feeling, how the monotony had worn him down, how he felt he was missing something, even if he wasn’t sure what. It hurt a little, because I was part of that routine that wasn’t enough for him, but I could also understand.
“Are you better now?” I asked.
“Yeah. I think so. It depends.” Dean cocked his head, looking curious. “How about you? You seem different, Ginger.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I smiled. So did he.