Chapter 12 – GLENNA
GLENNA
B y mid-afternoon, I’ve convinced Dad that I’ll be fine at my apartment. I’m restless and bored, and even though I can do editing on my laptop, I like working in my own space with my own lighting.
I’m not sure when Cash finally leaves, but he blows up my phone all day.
Im sorry.
Can we talk?
I shoot my mouth off. You know that.
Goddamn it Glenna.
And then nothing for a few hours.
Then—
I know its weird about the pictures. If you want em back you can have em back.
Then an hour after that—
I take it back. I’m keepin em. Damn it Glenna. Text me back.
I try to ignore the messages and focus on editing shots to upload to PixiePix, but I can only go a few minutes before I check my phone. If there isn’t a new message, I reread the old ones.
I’m ridiculous.
If I want him to leave me alone, I should tell him to stop and block him. That would be the mature thing to do. Right?
Or should I text back?
I don’t know. I’m still mad. Hurt. Confused.
Scared.
I’m really sore between the legs. I have to sit on a pillow.
I scroll through shot after shot of a goose in flight, and I have no idea which ones are better than the others. My brain keeps pointing out unpleasant truths and asking uncomfortable questions.
Toby said mean shit all the time. He never apologized, and I ignored it.
Why’d I do that?
Cash said he was serious when he asked me to homecoming. I never considered that. Not for a second. The logical conclusion was that he was messing around, but what would have happened if I hadn’t run away to cry in the bathroom. What if I stood my ground and told him to fuck off?
What would he have said?
Would his face have looked like it did when he was leaning against his truck, staring balefully at my dad’s apartment?
Did it look like that?
I gotta turn my brain off. I’m not figuring anything out. I’m only making a bigger mess of my feelings.
I click out of my photo editor and trudge into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
I’m dragging ass, but if I take a nap, I won’t be able to sleep, and I can’t handle tossing and turning all night, thinking about Cash’s mattress on the floor, how whenever, however, I touched him, he shuddered and moaned.
I’m filling the pot with water, flushed and irritated with myself, when my doorbell rings.
My nerves jolt like I’ve been zapped by static electricity.
It’s Cash.
I take my time pouring the water into the coffeemaker. The bell rings again.
When I check the peephole, my heart crashes. It’s Jesse Wall.
I draw the chain and open the door.
He shuffles sheepishly side to side, flashing me his shy, male model smile. He is unearthly pretty for a guy.
“Hey, Glenna.”
“Hey.”
Red darkens the slash of his high-boned cheeks. “Cash has a client this week. They’re camping up on West Peak.”
“Okay.” I wince when it comes out snarky. I’m not trying to be rude. Jesse really is the nicest person.
“He just wanted me to let you know. That’s why if you try to call him, it’ll go to voicemail.”
“Okay.”
Jesse’s blush spreads to his neck and ears. “He, uh, could’ve texted you that, but he wanted me to check on you. Make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m good.”
He runs his fingers through his curly hair, but it’s already tousled, so it doesn’t make a difference. He coughs and swings his jacket back with his fists jammed in the pockets.
“Really. I’m fine.” I force a smile. This is so awkward.
“It’s just, ah—Cash is worried. Because of the Del Willis stuff. If you need to go somewhere, I can go with you.”
“That’s okay. No plans until the pumpkin chuckin’.” Harvest Day is this upcoming weekend. I’ll be taking photographs for the Gazette, as usual.
“Well, uh. All right, then.” He gives me a kind of salute, winces, waves, and strides off down the hall as quickly as he can without breaking into a jog.
He’s freakin’ adorable. Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, he got man-sized, but he still has that boyish tentativeness. He’s the only Wall that doesn’t strut, but reserved as he is, he still has their innate confidence. Is it the height? The money? The name?
I go back to the kitchen and pick up my phone. While the coffee brews, I scroll back through Cash’s messages.
My finger hovers over delete.
And then they get a mind of their own.
Don’t send your baby brother to check on me. You’re embarrassing him and yourself.
Tap. Sent.
What did I do?
I look for dots.
There aren’t any.
Because he’s on a mountain out of range of cell service. Like Jesse said.
Or because he’s done with me. Because I can’t have a simple conversation and express my feelings and say what I want because I don’t know.
Because I’m emotionally stunted.
I knew what I felt about Toby. I felt like I didn’t want him to leave me all alone.
How do I feel about Cash?
I wander to my bedroom and flop down like a starfish. I forgot my coffee mug on the kitchen counter. I stare at the white stucco ceiling, and I picture Cash. Frame him in my mind.
He’s centered in the shot. He’d never be any other way. He’s gazing directly into the lens. His muscles are bunched. His spine ramrod straight. Chest high.
Arrogant.
Or scared. Uncertain. Faking it like we’re all faking it.
Why did he have all my pictures?
It’s obvious. He collected them because they’re mine. He likes me. He’s liked me for a long time.
And since I ignored him, he behaved like a giant tool, which is somewhat understandable for a middle schooler, but plain sad in a grown man with bills and a paycheck.
He’s an idiot.
He’s an idiot who likes me and worries about me and is crazy good at sex after the first round.
What do I feel?
Am I brave enough to feel what I feel?
To risk going for something that would hurt if I lost it?
My brain loops, one thought chasing the next like the farmer and the dell, until my phone pings, and I gasp, dragged from a deep, dreamless sleep. The apartment is dark. There’s burnt coffee in the air. Did I forget to turn off the machine?
Ugh. I swing my feet over the side of the bed and grapple for the phone. It’s two o’clock in the morning. There’s a new text from Cash.
Embarrassment has never been a deterrent for me.
I scrub my eyes. They’re dry and itchy. I’m really feeling last night’s, uh, workout.
Marathon sex , a voice in my head whispers. The most amazing marathon sex of your life .
I text back, my sleepy fingers missing half the keys.
Thought you were up the mountain.
There are dots.
Hiked down so I could text you.
My belly tingles. I scoot back and rest against the headboard.
You left your client up on west peak to get eaten by a bear?
I use the bear emoji.
Bad for business.
The dots appear. Disappear. I stretch my legs, pointing my toes and flexing my feet.
Finally, there’s a ping.
You still mad?
I start to type no. I delete it. I type yes. Delete it. Finally, I send a barfing emoji.
There’s another ping. And then another. A flurry of pings.
I just walked ten miles in the pitch dark for you.
I could get eaten by a bear.
I WOULD get eaten by a bear for you.
Voluntarily.
My lips are softening. Little fizzes are going off in my chest like sparklers.
I bought all your pictures like a stalker but I don’t care and you can’t have them back.
There are dots, but I interrupt them.
Why?
He replies immediately.
You know why.
No more dots.
My fingers twitch, but in the end, I turn off the sound for notifications, put the phone on the charger, and go scrub out my coffee carafe.
It’s hard to fall back asleep, and in the morning, there are no new texts.
But that night, and in the wee hours every night all week, my phone pings, and Cash sends me dozens of pictures he took during the day. Bucks and does and raccoons and streams and big red leaves with his hand in front for size comparison.
And selfies. His face is stern. He’s wearing polarized sunglasses and a camo hat with a moose patch on the front.
I take a picture of the view from my window. His truck nuts hanging from my mirror. A selfie once I wash and blow dry and curl my hair in fat waves. Then I delete them all.
But I backup his pictures to my cloud, and I save them in a folder that I label “dumbass,” and then—in a quick flurry of keystrokes as if I’m doing something embarrassing—I rename “Cash.”
What happens if I make this real? If I say yes, let’s do this, it’s crazy enough to work?
Is that when it all crumbles to pieces?
He’s a hunter, right? Maybe he enjoys the chase, and as soon as he knows he’s got me, he turns into the dickhead I’ve been dealing with all these years.
The braying jerk who jogged down the basketball court in ninth-grade gym class, his back to me, oblivious to the fact that he just nailed me in the face with the ball.
Why should I take a chance on him?
Why should I take chances period when the world lives to rip the rug right out from under you?
I wrestle with myself all week, and since the coffeeshop is closed, I’m cooped up in my apartment. I visit a few of my favorite spots on the Luckahannock, but I already have tons of shots of waterfowl.
When I was a kid, I used to love taking pictures of people.
I liked to pose them, but what I really loved was in between poses when people joshed with each other or snuck a few murmured words.
Those expressions. The teasing. The quick touches.
My mom plucking a crumb from my dad’s beard.
My grandpa pinching my grandma’s butt when he thought I wasn’t watching.
I was behind the lens. I was watching. I never printed copies, but I have those shots saved in the cloud, too, in a folder marked “Family.”
What if I set up a studio? Did family portraits?
I couldn’t do it in this town. Not with the Dobbs name being mud.
But one day. Or somewhere else. Close by. I can’t leave Dad. But maybe—