Chapter 10
Everly
“So he just walked out on you?”
Making herself at home, Oakley tugs her pajama-clad legs into a cross near my sheet-encased feet.
She shakes open the woven throw folded there and spreads it over her, shivering the mattress in the process.
She pestered me the entire weekend about Knox.
Now, on Tuesday night, after yet another frenzied and frigid day that’s made my tired bones literally ache, she’s cornered me and pinned me down, leaving me no choice but to field her questions.
“Pretty much.” One minute Knox was asking me out, and the next, poof, a vanishing act. “I guess he doesn’t take rejection well.” Only, I wasn’t rejecting him. I needed to figure out if me taking Friday evening off was workable.
Her makeup-less eyes are wide, her mouth open. “That seems…childish.”
I shrug. “Yes, it does.” And I have no space for that sort of man in my life.
The part of me that loves control, order, and the known breathes a sigh of relief at being able to check Knox off my list. Relationships can be such drama. Break one’s stride.
But much like a pesky younger sister, my emotional side, the one with tamped down longing, the one that occasionally permits my heart to take over for a spell, feels the sting of tears.
The metaphoric kind, of course. I could never cry over a man I barely knew, much less a hypersensitive, overreactive kind.
With a head tilt, Oakley hmms. “He didn’t seem childish.”
No, no he did not. I smirk. “You spent five minutes with him, Oak.”
“Sometimes that’s all that’s needed. Besides, I’m a master at reading people.”
I’ll take this moment not to remind her of her freshman-year college boyfriend, the guy she was one security check at the airport away from eloping with back in the day.
Starting at the base of her skull, she slowly combs the long strands of her shampooed hair with her fingers. “That’s so weird. I’m telling you, something doesn’t add up.”
“Two and two pretty much always make four, Oak.”
She swats my logic away. “Says miss black-and-white attorney.”
“Hey, miss med school, miss woman of science, facts are facts.”
She snorts. “Doctors have to think outside the box sometimes, too, you know.”
This conversation is a deteriorating one, if not flat out pointless from its inception.
“I’m sorry, sis. I know you were into Knox.”
Those are not words I ever spoke. Words have a way of returning to haunt.
“Maybe he’ll come back.”
“At this point, I hope he doesn’t.”
Snuggled into the blanket, Oakley huddles forward. Fuzzy tassels brush against her chin. “Maybe something happened. Maybe he got an important phone call.”
And walked out without a word? No thanks. “He still could have come back later on, or at any point over the last two days. Besides, all the coworkers he eats lunch with have been in twice, but not him.”
“You didn’t ask them where he was?”
“Not on your life.”
“Of course, you didn’t. That would have made too much sense.”
“If you’d met the rest of the guys, you’d understand. Trust me.” That one guy, Mike, I think, leers nonstop. I get away as fast as I can. Besides, Marlene is usually happy to wait on them.
Oakley taps the blanket to her chin. “I still say there could be an explanation.”
“Nope. His face changed when I didn’t accept his invitation to the cantata.”
The pillow against the sleigh headboard of my old bed, in my old room, supports my lower back. Goodness only knows after two weeks of eighteen-hour days, my body feels every step I’ve taken in those atrocious, de-feminizing pair of no-slip work shoes.
“I get it, Ev. I do.”
“Thank you.”
But instead of real commiseration, Oakley squints hard. “I get that it’s easier to convince yourself the guy is a loser and to write the whole thing off than to consider there might be an explanation. This way, you don’t have to deal with possibilities.”
“Possibilities?”
“Yeah, if he comes back, you’ve already labeled him a jerk—the perfect reason not to go out on a real date, no matter how great his explanation is.” She drags the back of her hand along her forehead. “Whew, right?”
I crank my eyebrows to a sharp pitch and hold. Then relent. Yawn. It isn’t worth debating. “I’m tired, Oakley.”
“Yeah, tired of feeling.”
I pop off the headboard, too tired for her harassment. “Excuse me? I feel.”
She nods knowingly and as if she’s scored a point. “Oh, I know you do, but ever since Lance you invent reasons to not go out on dates when asked. Seriously, do you sit around and make lists of excuses?”
Sure, I love lists—but I most certainly do not have one with that header.
“I’ve been busy the last three years, thank you very much.
” Finishing law school, preparing for the bar.
Learning the ropes of attorney life, including navigating the pitfalls of working for self-important, unethical, entitled partners.
Oakley again dismisses my…excuses…with a flap of her skinny little hand. “You’re talking to a future medical student prepping for her entrance exams. You can’t out-busy me—and I still find time to date.”
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth and count, praying I make it to ten. Are brothers this maddening?
Her hand snakes out from the blanket and rests on my shin, squeezing. “Okay, look. I didn’t mean to set you off this bad, but listen. You’re probably right about Knox. I can’t imagine why the guy couldn’t wait five minutes for you to finish in the kitchen.”
I should box up that stupid tree and pitch it in the dumpster.
“So, fine, he’s not the one for you, but please open yourself up again so that when the right one does come along you don’t miss him.”
I’m nowhere close to crying, of course. The burning in my eyes is merely from the super dried-out air courtesy of the heater running nonstop. And that is thanks to an arctic air mass that lost its sense of direction, liked the South, and once it got here, decided to stick around for a while.
I pat around the nightstand for the squeeze bottle of eye drops lodged between a tissue box and a tube of lip balm.
“Nothing Lance said deserves a second thought, Everly. Never has.”
Forget the balm. I glare daggers. Oak has crossed the Rubicon now, what with her soft, compassionate tone that vaporizes my defenses. Yes, I confided in her, but that in no way whatsoever gives her the right to use the things I told her against me.
“Yes, you can be quite serious, but not too serious, and, as your sister, I can testify that you most definitely know how to have fun if you want to.”
I snort a laugh.
Her lips pucker. “That may have come out wrong.”
The throb in my temple builds.
“What I’m saying is, yes, you’re a thinker type and your idea of fun is more cerebral than most people’s, but—”
“Stop already!”
Oakley wilts back, stumping herself for once. She chews at her lip, pitying with her eyes.
I pat her leg. “It’s alright. I get your point, and, believe it or not, I’m happy with who I am.
Yes, the things Lance said stung for a while, but I guess the hardest part was…
” I search for words that do my feelings justice.
“It hurts coming to realize that you were fully invested in someone, only to discover the entire time they were picking you apart in their head.”
She nods slowly. “I imagine that makes it hard to trust again.”
“It does, but trust me. I’m not so hung up on Lance’s faultfinding that I can’t get past him.”
“Good, because you two simply weren’t right for each other. That’s all. I mean, his idea of a good time was painting his chest and acting like a fool at a football game and praying the camera found him so the whole world could see.”
A laugh spits itself out of my mouth. I was never so embarrassed as that Sunday afternoon. Sorry, not my style. Considering the awkward display occurred on our second date, I have zero excuse for not wising up before his hurtful jabs ever had a chance to be spoken.
Knox
After too solid a night’s sleep considering the gravity of the event that drew me home, Mom and I share conversation over coffee and toast. Sunshine, filtered by the high, stratus clouds of winter, brushes across the room. Dozer, a tank with legs, rumbles like a freight train near my feet.
“I can’t believe you don’t have the tree up yet, Mom.” The first of November usually kicks off her decorating season.
“What do you mean? It’s up.” A velvety robe of Christmas red covers her pajamas, and a coordinating red and green headband holds her bedhead from her face.
“Yeah, I noticed the living room tree got a makeover since last year—looks nice, by the way—but what about the foyer tree?” It’s always been her favorite and the capstone of the house’s holiday décor.
With her hands warming around her mug, she sighs. “You know, I’m not as young as I used to be.”
I give her the side eye. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She smiles, sliding her hand to touch mine. “Don’t look so serious. I’m not implying anything awful, I’m just saying that the twelve-footer is a lot of work, and without family around to help or to enjoy it?” She shrugs. “I guess I’m just not feeling it this year.”
“But you love that tree.”
“What can I say? Time marches on, and I’m not sure it’s worth the work any longer. Besides, your dad’s been giving me the what-for about climbing the ladder. He says at our age we can’t be too careful anymore.”
Please. Both of my parents are sharp and spry. However…accidents do happen, and yeah, I guess time is creeping up on all of us. “Hire someone.”
Her eyes roll. “Now you sound exactly like your brother. That’s not my style, and you know it.”
I take a sip of the freshly ground coffee Mom buys from a local gourmet shop. Sure beats the watery brew the motel stocks the room with.
“I’ll help you.”
She swishes the air with her hand. “Oh, you’ve got better things to do.”