Chapter 17
When I wake up, I can still hear Callahan snoring downstairs. Something so loud and abrasive shouldn’t be this cute.
“Hello,” she yawns into the phone, reminding me that she is in a different time zone.
“Oh shit, did I wake you up?”
“No, I’m sitting here questioning my life choices. I have to be on set in an hour, and once again, this is at an ungodly time. What’s up?”
I explain to her everything that has happened over the last forty-eight hours. I try not to put emphasis on the fact that I feel like I was proven right, already knowing what she is going to argue. Still, she seems to hear it in my words.
“Don’t let Charlie make you feel like you can’t depend on people.”
“I really can’t take being disappointed again.”
I hear the shuffling of her blankets as she probably sits up.
“Look, Monty, I know because of what happened with your mom, you have your issues. I get that. But have me and your dad ever not been there when you needed us? Even if that isn’t often.”
“No, but—”
“No buts. It took me years to gain your trust after your mom left. I don’t want it to take the same amount of time for you to give it to someone else, especially Callahan.”
“I’ve known the man for five months, and you want me to trust him not to let me down?”
“He is going to let you down. That’s inevitable. But I am asking you to trust that he is someone you can lean on when you need to be held up.”
“Why?” I pull the blankets back. This conversation is heating me up.
“Like you said to me about Errol, I just get a good feeling about him. I also think it says a lot that without you even asking, he showed up yesterday.”
I rub my forehead, trying to clear up the fog she is creating in my mind. Yesterday, before he came, I was so clear-headed about what I needed, and now Farrah and Callahan are making me second-guess it all.
“There are so many reasons for me not to date him.”
“No, there’s not. There are just excuses. Just end things with Charlie already and date the man.”
“Damn, it’s like that?”
“Yes.”
I giggle into the phone, and I hear her do the same. She makes everything sound so simple, forcing me to see past my conceived complications.
“I’m going to tell him about what happened with my mom. Hopefully that will help him understand where I’m coming from.”
“That makes sense, but first tell Charlie to go to hell.”
Validating that how I felt wasn’t an overreaction, her anger is comforting.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a week.”
“Can’t wait for you to come to Ireland. It’s frickin gorgeous, and the men. The men, Monty.” I can imagine her fanning herself.
“I already have an Irishman, thank you very much.”
She oohs and aahs at that, prompting me to get off the phone with her. Feeling better about my decisions, I call Charlie.
“Before you say anything, let me apologize.”
Bypassing any greetings, he jumps right into the conversation.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Monty, I know I fucked up. I just don’t know what to do in this situation.”
I want to say that Callahan did, but that seems petty.
“It doesn’t matter. Honestly, we have had, like, three good moments since we started seeing each other again.”
“Because a lot’s been going on. This hasn’t been easy.” I can hear his movements as he paces. His words are as frantic as his steps.
“I know it hasn’t been easy, but that shouldn’t matter. If anything, this should have made us stronger.” I keep my voice low, not wanting an audience for this conversation. “Look, I didn’t call you to argue. There is nothing for us to discuss. I’m done. We aren’t meant to be together.”
“Monty.”
“No, Charlie. I honestly don’t need what we are doing in my life right now, and if this has taught me anything, it’s that you still haven’t grown up. You have made this entire experience about you, and when you got the chance to focus on me, you dropped the ball.”
“Let me just come over so we can discuss this.”
“There is nothing further to discuss. We can be friends, but we are done with the dating thing. I’m over it.”
He hangs up the phone, solidifying how childish he is.
I don’t have it in me to care at this point, more relieved than anything that this whole thing is over.
I kept expecting him to show up and be the person I needed him to be, but at the end of the day, I was more in love with the idea of him than the actual man.
Charlie was all potential and no follow-through, and I need someone who will constantly prove my fears wrong.
Now I just need to figure out how to let myself have that.
I order us lunch before I go downstairs to wake Callahan up. In the meantime, I work to build up the courage to break down something I have only ever told a handful of people.
I don’t know how to express the thing that has defined so much of me.
I can’t put into words the blocks I’ve built around my heart.
It’s not that it’s hard for me to fall in love.
I’ve done it before. I love Charlie. It’s just it’s not easy to get me to let someone into the part of me that only a few people hold space.
While I wait for the food, I map out the conversation. When it shows up, I walk downstairs with the understanding that there is no clear way to say this.
After we eat, we ease into a soft silence on the couch. More comfortable than I should be in his presence, I feel safe to just exist with him. Too bad I have to break the quiet.
“So,” I say, sounding awkward as hell.
“La, Ti, Do,” he finishes, like we are in a musical.
Some of the tension leaves my shoulders. “I want to try and explain to you why I wouldn’t normally date someone like you.”
“Finally,” he says, throwing his hands up. I push his chest, and he just grabs my hand, pulling me into him.
“No, I need to see you as I say this.” I pull back and turn so that I’m facing him more full-on. I take in a steady breath before looking into his eyes.
“So, my mom is white.”
He doesn’t say anything, waiting for me to continue.
“She, um, well, she was with my dad, I think, because he is Black. She thought having mixed kids would be beautiful, or she was just fetishizing him. I don’t know.
I don’t think she really thought about what it would be like having Black kids, though.
I don’t look anything like her, and because of that, she constantly made me feel like I was not as pretty as her.
It was just very clear that she didn’t overcome her internalized racism. ”
I push back my hair, trying to have something for my hands to do. I expect him to jump in at this point and say “not all white people”, but he just keeps listening.
“The things she would say and do eventually made me realize that she thought she was better than us. She also thought she could get away with saying things like the N-word, and discriminatory statements because she couldn’t possibly be racist with a Black husband and child.
” I roll my eyes. “It only got worse as I got older. Still, I loved her. I wanted her approval.”
He grabs my hand and squeezes it.
“Around when I was eight, she had become a lot more conservative. Outwardly expressing these really fucked up views. When I would come home and tell her something racist happened to me, she would discredit my story and make it seem like it was my fault.”
I take a big breath.
“It got to the point where I started to hate myself.”
I look to the ground, trying to keep it together before I start crying. I know I should finish the story, get to the part that really messed me up, the part that makes me so independent, but I can’t open up about that yet, so I change my mind about telling him everything and end it here.
“Anyway, when she left, I had a lot of unlearning to do. Between dealing with her and her family, it became clear to me that white people will want Black people and still not like them.”
I pull my hand back and stare into his eyes. I need him to really hear me when I say this.
“I don’t ever want to put my kids through that. And no matter how woke someone thinks they are, it’s inevitable that their bias will come into play. This is why I didn’t think I could date you.”
He nods his head, his mouth pulled taut. I wait for him to try and prove to me that he is different and would never do anything like that.
Instead, he asks, “Where was your dad in all of this?”
“What?” I ask, my eyes growing bigger.
“Your dad. What did he do when she was doing all of this stuff?”
My shoulders tense, and I pull back into myself.
“He tried his best.”
“Did he?”
“Yes,” I practically yell at him.
Touching a sore spot, I ignore the pain. I refuse to admit out loud that my childhood was the fault of both my parents. I only have my dad now, and I can’t lose that too.
“Monty, I can say that I constantly work on unlearning my biases and educating myself. But you’re right.
I’m not going to be perfect. But your kids would never go through what you went through because you wouldn’t let them.
If I were even slightly discriminatory towards them, you would leave me and never look back. We would have a different life.”
I’m at a loss for words. Anything I could have said was stolen by his rebuttal.
“Look, we haven’t known each other very long, and I have a lot to prove to you in a lot of areas.
But your past won’t be your future. The fact that we’re even having this conversation right now is setting the groundwork for how we will be together.
” He grabs my hands again, this time pulling me into his lap.
“I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and yes, the color of your skin obviously plays into that. But what has made me stick around and keep fighting for you is the way that you are. This confidence, your humor, and the fact that you’re a bit of a nerd is what is going to make me fall in love with you.
I don’t want you despite the fact that you are Black, or because you are Black.
I want you as you are, and love that it includes your Blackness. We are different than your parents.”
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me tightly into him. Kissing my neck, he nuzzles his face there.
“I hate you,” I say, huffing.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. You are too good at words, and it makes it hard for me to stand my ground.”
“You’re just mad you found someone who can argue with you.”
“I would just like for you to be a little bit more unreasonable.”
“Sorry, I can’t do that.”
“Ugh.” I bury my face into my hands. The thought of having to talk about the other portion of my trauma has me fretting about the future.
“What now?”
“Nothing.”
He tickles my sides, causing me to fall into a fit of laughter. Trying to pull away, I’m unsuccessful as he holds me close.
“Tell me,” he says, his fingers moving up and down my sides.
“No.”
“Tell me.”
I finally lurch off of him and make a run for it. Getting about ten steps away, the constant fatigue has me slowing down. Because of this, he catches up and lifts me off the ground.
“Callahan.”
“Monty.”
“Callahan!”
He puts me down, and I have to lean against the wall to stay up. I hold up my hand, telling him I need a minute.
“I’ll tell you if we get to that point,” I breathe out.
“Fine, because that tells me we are heading somewhere.”
“Insufferable,” I mutter.
“Determined,” he says, leading me back to the couch.
We pass the afternoon the way we did yesterday, playing video games and talking.
When I start to get too tired to hold the controller, we switch to movies.
After a few really good action-packed films, I start to doze off.
Without me asking, he picks me up and brings me to the bedroom.
Tucking me in, he goes to turn and leave.
“Stay,” I say, eyes half open.
He needs no more encouragement, stripping down to his underwear and crawling into the bed. Pulling me tight against his body, his arms curl around me just like I imagined. The steady rhythm of his breathing is a lullaby that is singing me to sleep, but I fight it.
“I like you,” I say, turning to face him.
“I like you, too.”
“Good.”
I bring my lips up to his and am thrilled when it feels the same.
That electric need shoots through me, and I can’t help but draw him closer.
His hands wrap around my waist, and he pulls me until we are flush against each other.
I rest my hand behind his neck and grip on like I don’t ever want him to leave.
A yawn interrupts our kissing, making him chuckle. Turning me back around, he presses my body close to his.
I feel so warm and comfortable that I can’t fight anymore. I fall asleep in his arms, feeling like I have found the place where I belong.