18. Megyn
CHAPTER 18
MEGYN
M y feet ached from dancing and my mouth was sore from smiling so much. Regardless, I paced while I talked, and smiled the whole while, recounting the events of the previous night to Maggie while she sat enraptured on her bed. When I finally finished, I flopped down on the little cushion at the foot of Maggie’s bed, grinning, out of breath.
Maggie leaned over onto her elbows, looking down at me. “First of all, I’m so glad you went to that party with him. I’m really glad he talked you into it, anyway.”
“I really wanted to go with him, but I was so scared,” I admitted, feeling a pang of nerves all over again as I recalled his invitation. “But he made it seem okay. And I really did want to go.”
“You need to do things like that more often,” Maggie told me. “You shouldn’t let your fear hold you back so much.”
“It’s pretty hard,” I said.
“I know. I’m just saying, you’d be so much happier if you kept fighting against your nervousness.”
I rolled onto my back, looking up at the ceiling. “I wonder if I really will need to fight on my own or if Carter will do it for me.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie paused. She was sharp and got it right away. “Did something happen at that party?”
“I may have skipped over the part with Suzie.”
“Ugh,” Maggie groaned. “Of course she was there. What happened?”
I shivered, recalling how I’d come back with the punch, overhearing Suzie’s hissed words. I’d heard a lot more than even Carter seemed to realize. “She called me a pauper. She said I would never make a good match for Carter because I don’t have money and don’t know anything about money.”
“That bitch!” Maggie cried, sitting upright. “I want to slap her. I need to slap her. Do you know where she lives?”
I also sat up, watching Maggie as she seethed with rage on my behalf, wavering like a wave of heat rising from a concrete sidewalk. “If I told you where she lived, you’d go and slap her?”
I wouldn’t believe that from anyone but you.
Maggie nodded. “She deserves to have it done to her. I’d sneak to her window and climb in and slap her. While she’s still reeling, I’d escape again. I could do it to every person who’s ever wronged you.”
“The media would have a field day with you.”
“The Serial Slapper,” Maggie said.
I laughed, and Maggie laughed too, though she was still serious.
I managed to get my laughter under control. “Anyway, Carter told her off and stood up for me.”
“I’m really glad that he’s almost as protective of you as I am.”
I laughed again. Sometimes I forgot that, while I might not have many people in my corner, the ones who were there would do anything for me. I needed to work harder to remember that. “He told me that Suzie’s just jealous of me.”
“Of course she is. You’re beautiful and sweet and you put your all into everything you do. Suzie doesn’t know the half of that.”
I nibbled on my thumbnail. “Part of me wonders if it has to do with the apron I’m making.”
“The what?”
I flushed a little while letting Maggie in on my project that I was doing for Suzie. She started out frowning and that frown only grew in intensity as I kept talking. I finished by saying, “Maybe she feels indebted to me and that’s making her even worse. All the stuff she said to Carter, but she’s the one indebted to me.”
Maggie waited until I finished talking and then burst out, “Why the hell did you offer to do that for her?”
“She was upset…”
“Oh, Megyn. You are way too nice. This girl has been nothing but a pain to you and you’re worried about her feelings.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I also thought about if maybe she might tell someone about the work I’d done. Maybe I’d get more people interested in my work. I know that probably won’t happen. But it feels so good to be working on something. Finally. I don’t really regret it. And Suzie isn’t a total bitch. She’s almost tolerable sometimes. I just think she has, like, Little Dog Syndrome.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Maggie asked.
“Huh?”
“That makes you the big dog.”
I groaned. “No way.”
“It absolutely does.”
“Maggie, no!”
Maggie glanced at me and said, calmly, “Woof.”
I shrieked and picked up a pillow, lobbing it at her.
Maggie deflected the pillow with a slap of her hand, sending it launching across the room, reminding me that she used to play volleyball in high school and was pretty good at it. I turned my head to watch the pillow’s flight. It hit the floor with a resounding thump.
From somewhere else in the house, Deacon let out an inquiring murmur, though he didn’t follow up on it. Presumably, he was too busy tinkering with this or that to bother with an odd sound coming from the direction of his sister’s bedroom.
I turned back to Maggie. “If you slapped Suzie like that, her whole head would fly off.”
She smiled, pleased with herself.
I touched her deadly slapping hand. “I’m really grateful to have you as my friend.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“I’ve been thinking of something.”
Maggie said, “That was a terrible segue.”
I ignored her, since I knew sometimes the best choice was to not give her any further ammunition to work with. “I want to find a small apartment.”
“I think that would be a great idea. It’d be way easier to manage, financially. But what about the house?”
My heart ached, knowing what I was about to say. “I think I should try getting rid of it. The house. Selling it.”
Maggie stared at me. She slid closer across the bed and picked up my hand, holding it in hers. “That house means a whole lot to you, Megyn. All the memories. You’ve talked before about why you can’t get rid of it. What’s made you change your mind?”
I swallowed hard, staring at her hand wrapped over mine. “I don’t know.” I swallowed again, my throat suddenly dry. I did have reasons, but those reasons suddenly seemed fragile and pale in the light of day, less convincing than they had been while I lay in my bedroom trying to fall asleep. “Like, they’re memories. In the past. I’ve held onto the house so long because I don’t want to give up on the past. But maybe…”
I stopped talking, my throat too tight to force out more words. Maggie sat with me in silence, watching me.
I licked my lips, pushed the pain down. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been so invested in the past that I can’t move forward. Being unable to give up on the house means I can’t save up money. I can’t do anything, accomplish any of my dreams.” A pang of pain went right through my heart. I struggled to finish. “The people who made those memories aren’t there anymore. The house is… just a relic. It can’t do anything for me.”
Maggie slid even closer to me, pressing her side to mine, letting me lean on her firm, taller frame. She wrapped her arm around my back. “I know why you’re feeling this way.”
“Why?” I haven’t even been able to figure it out myself.
She rubbed my back. “It’s Carter, of course. Spending time with him is making you want to look to the future. You’re not a burden, Megyn, but that house is and you’re finally seeing it. You’ve been dragging that house with you all this time, like a woman with a suitcase full of boulders and maybe a few diamonds. Just take the diamonds with you. Leave the rest behind.”
“I must be pretty dumb to be lugging boulders around.”
“No.” Maggie smiled softly, sadly. “You just think they’re worth more than they are.”
She was right. She had managed to put into simple words what I had struggled with for so long.
Why couldn’t I do that?
Why couldn’t I be good enough to save myself? To know what I needed?
I’ve never had any practice. I don’t know how.
Maybe doing this, making this change, would show me how to do all those things which I had been incapable of in the past.
I kept leaning on Maggie, resting my head on her shoulder. “My only real regret about selling the house would be that I… well, it’s kind of dumb.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve never told anyone about this before.” I hunched my shoulders. “It’s kind of a dream I had. I wanted to maybe turn the house into a sewing shop someday.”
“That would have been a great idea, if you could do it.” Maggie kept rubbing my back.
“It kind of makes me feel like I’m giving up on my dream.” A sudden lightning bolt of anxiety struck me, electrocuting me with its jagged, white-hot tendrils. I jerked upright, twisted in Maggie’s arm to stare up at her. “Letting go of the past isn’t the same as giving up on my dream, is it?”
Panic started clawing at me from the inside, jagged nails scraping at the cage of my ribs.
Maggie put her hands on my shoulders. “Of course not!” she cried. “Oh, Megyn. There’s more than one way to obtain your dream. There are so many ways to achieve a goal. I think you’re doing the right thing, sweetie.”
“I am?” I gasped, through my strangled throat.
“Absolutely. Instead of trying to claw your way out of this canyon, you’re going to be looking for another route.” Maggie suddenly yanked me into her arms, smoothing the back of my hair with her hand. I burrowed against her, chest hitching. “It’s scary, I know. For years, you’ve been in this canyon. You’re familiar with it. You don’t know what’s going to be down that other path. But it could be so much better. You have to hope.”
Some of the tension eased. I gasped in air and lifted my hand to rub my face.
Maggie gave a soft, soothing murmur. She kept stroking my hair, long caresses that soothed my tightly-coiled muscles between my shoulder blades. “You sell the house. You might not get much, but it’ll be enough to cover some of your apartment’s rent and maybe funnel a little away into savings. You work on this apron for Suzie. You look for other sewing jobs, maybe make some dresses here and there. Christmas is coming. After that, the new year. You chase the trends, rack up the money, build your reputation. And then you buy back that house and turn it into your shop, like you’ve always dreamed of.”
I listened to her and though I knew it would be difficult, I could almost, almost imagine it to be possible. With a lot of hard work and luck…
“Or you do it some other way,” Maggie finished. “You do it your way. But I believe in you. I know you can do it.”
“I don’t know if I can,” I said. “But I really would like to try.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Maggie pulled away. Her eyes glittered with that light of determination I knew so well. “Let’s do this shit. Let’s go make some tea and then we can start looking at apartment listings.”
I wasn’t ready, I wanted to say.
But I would never be ready. I just had to be brave and do it, and do my best.
I summoned what courage I could, mostly by thinking of how much better I’d feel if Carter showed up to an apartment building rather than a tiny rundown house. “Okay. Let’s do it. But we’ll just be looking, right? Getting a feel for the neighborhoods.”
“Absolutely,” Maggie agreed, a bit too fast, which meant she was agreeing for my sake. She hopped out of bed. “Unless you find one you absolutely love. We’ll have to move fast in that case.”
I wanted to say I doubted that would happen.
I held my tongue instead.
I had to hope. This would be a good practice exercise.
I again thought of Carter. I imagined seeing his fancy car waiting out in a parking lot, perhaps several stories under my apartment window. I could wave to him, and he would see me, and smile…
I hopped out of bed. “I’ll ask Deacon if he wants some tea, too.”
“He won’t.”
Deacon didn’t want tea, but he did ask, politely, if I could bring him some microwaved pizza rolls on the way back. I brought him his food while Maggie mouthed mom jokes behind my back.
She and I returned to her room, and we propped up her laptop on the bed between us, cups of warm tea balanced on our knees. We got to looking.
After a few hours, nothing had come of our searches. Maggie reassured me that we could keep searching, since more apartments would become available with every week.
I appreciated her reassurance, but I found that I hadn’t really needed it. In fact, I felt better than when we’d started.
I had practiced hoping and it hadn’t hurt at all.
It was only a little progress, but I would take what I could get.