Chapter 12 #2
“I feel like you, and almost everyone else, are taking this harder than I am, and I’m tired of it.”
I turn and sit up, my stitches instantly protesting. Apparently this surgery is similar to the aftercare of giving birth. Ironic, since I never will.
I decide to walk around during this conversation to avoid blood clots and keep myself sane.
“What is so wrong with us being upset? We love you and are worried.”
“Be worried by yourself. Be funny with me. Be light. Be something other than devastated about something that isn’t happening to you.” I make a circle around the room, trying not to keel over from what feels like cramps.
“Are you saying this to your dad?”
“You’re not my dad, Charlie. This is different.”
He sighs and rests his head against the couch.
“Monty, I’m sorry.”
“You’re always sorry. Try being something else.” Deciding that’s good enough, I sit back in the chair.
“Okay, I will be. I promise.”
My shoulders ease, and my chest rises as I feel like I have finally gained some control.
“I’m going to eat and go to bed. I’ll talk to you later. Okay?”
He gets up and kisses me on the forehead before leaving. I sink into the relief that having him gone brings me.
“Want to talk about it?” My dad comes back into the room, and I know from experience that he listened to all of it. I feel like that conversation proved him right about Charlie not being a good fit for me. I mean, I can’t even argue with him about it right now.
“No, it doesn’t matter.” In the grand scale of things, what we are is the least important thing I have going on right now, and that probably won’t change anytime soon.
“Okay,” he says in a way that means it’s definitely not.
I slap away his judgment and take the drink he offers.
For once, allowing me to tell him something when I’m ready, I decide to ignore it and pick up my phone.
Having kept it off the entire time I was in the hospital, I turn it on to a barrage of texts.
Opening them, just to get rid of the notification, I stop at Callahan’s when I see that every day he has sent me a different selfie.
All of them are of him shirtless in various mechanic calendar poses.
Under each one is a corny fact about love.
“Thought you needed a distraction,” he texted, making his intentions clear. Feeling more things than I should while being in the room with my dad, I send a quick thank you and move on. Still, the images stay in my mind late into the night.
When it’s just me on the couch that I now have to call home, I finally respond back to him.
My phone screen lights up with his name, and I instantly answer. My fingers tap on my lips while he says hello.
“How can I help you?” I ask, sliding down on the sofa.
“Well, you can let me hear that pretty voice call out my name.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I would like to hear you say it at an altar, more.”
I roll my eyes and lay my head back on my pillow. “I thought you were calling to have phone sex?”
“I am, I just wanted to remind you of the end goal.”
“I can’t deal with you.” I feel my cheeks heat, and I hate that he brings this reaction out of me.
“What are you wearing?”
I look down to see my T-shirt stained with paint and baggy sweats. Wearing some sort of compression granny panties, I don’t even know if I’m supposed to take them off.
“Honestly, just picture me naked,” I say, rethinking this idea.
“Sweetheart, you could be in a pickle costume and I would think you’re sexy.”
I laugh and roll onto my side, the idea of masturbating gone. Maybe I should wait a week or two when I can take these off.
“Is this a fantasy of yours? Having sex with a pickle?” I ask.
“Actually, in high school, I had this weird sex dream where I was a burger and she was a bun. I understand the innuendo, but pimply awkward me in a meat suit is not sexy.”
“I mean, I could get into it.” I try to imagine him in as many ridiculous outfits as I can, and in all of them, I still find him sexy.
“What’s your weird fantasy?” he asks.
“I don’t think my fantasies are weird. I like clown porn, so nothing really surprises me anymore.”
“You’re a psycho.” He sounds so serious, it causes me to bust out laughing.
“Would you like to come to my circus, Callahan?”
“I think you found the one thing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Switching into a conversation about the type of things we watch it ranges from porn, to cartoons, to movies. That just sparks us talking until we are yawning more than speaking.
“It’s 3 a.m.,” I proclaim, sitting up a little bit. I keep my face neutral, but my mind still screams all its emotions about the fact that we have been talking this long. It’s so easy to get lost in him, and I’m starting to ask myself why I keep trying to find my way out.
“You’re a terrible influence. I have to go to work tomorrow.” He yawns again, and that gets me going.
“You called me.”
“And I would do it again, in fact, we can fall asleep on the phone together.”
It’s the corniest thing I have ever heard, and I still want to do it.
“How will I know if you are sleeping?” I ask.
“You will hear me snore. Or you can turn on your camera.”
I got braids before the surgery, knowing that I would not want to deal with my hair, so I know I look fine. But there is this intimacy to him seeing me sleep that makes me feel a little self-conscious.
“This is weird,” I say.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just is.”
“Well, I can come over and sleep next to you in person.”
That is the wake-up call I need to remind me of what we shouldn’t be doing. There is no way in hell I won’t fall for him if I find myself curled up in his arms. I don’t need to see what his face looks like when he is sound asleep, and I don’t want to feel his warm body pressed against mine.
Yet I still don’t want to say no.
“The phone will do,” I say, knowing I’m making a mistake.
I bring the coffee table closer and prop the phone up with some books. Plugging in my charger and calling him on video, I try not to sigh at his adorable face.
His beard is ruffled like he has been rubbing at it all night. He has bags under his eyes, too, that somehow make the green in them come out even more. His smile, bright and full, isn’t dimmed at all by the time of night.
“You look beautiful,” he says, lying down on his arm.
“Good night, Callahan.”
“Good night, Monty.”
I can’t fall asleep for the first hour, and neither can he. We just watch each other in silence, our eyes communicating what our mouths can’t. When he starts to doze off before me, I wait a few minutes just looking at him before I close my eyes.