Nineteen #2
Momentarily, I malfunction. I convince myself that I must’ve gotten half the pool in my ears, that all that chlorine must’ve burned a hole in my eardrums and distorted my hearing – that must be the case because I can’t possibly have heard what I think I just did.
Except when I cough out a disbelieving ‘You went out together last month?’ both my stepmom and my ex nod.
Marisol fucking giggles. ‘I see your boyfriend more than I see you.’
A distinct ping sounds from somewhere within my brain.
My eyes snap closed; the sight of this fuckery is physically painful. Blindly, I aim my incredulity in Ben’s direction. ‘Are you fucking psychotic?’
‘Daniela.’
I force my eyes open again, if only to make fleeing a lot easier. ‘I need to change,’ I claim, despite very obviously having already done so.
‘Dani—’ Ben chides, and oh, is he so very lucky that I am too done with this conversation to deal with him the way he deserves.
‘Take him to dinner,’ I throw at Marisol, as I turn back to the changing rooms. ‘I don’t care. But if you do, I’m not coming.’
The sighed version of my name that I am oh-so-intimately familiar with follows me as I storm back the way I came.
I shove the changing-room door open, I fucking dare Sienna to still be in here, for anyone to try me right now, and I’m a little disappointed when it’s empty.
A lot more relieved that no one’s around to hear my incoherent yell, to watch me launch my bag across the room and fucking kick a locker.
Or at least that’s what I think.
‘What did that locker ever do to you, champ?’
Momentarily, I’m convinced that chlorine has gotten to my brain too. It’s rotted away whatever part is responsible for perceiving reality, it’s bolstered the part that causes hallucinations, because, again, I am so unconvinced that what’s happening is actually happening.
Heath is not at my meet. Heath is at his own meet.
Yet there Heath stands, there he smiles, there he stoops to kiss my cheek, and here I dodge to avoid him.
‘Of course,’ I breathe, with a humorless laugh, because, oh God, isn’t this just perfect? ‘Of course you’re here.’
I’m losing my mind. Teetering on the ledge. Holding on by a thread. So, naturally, some otherworldly force demanded his presence. It always fucking does.
‘Of course I’m here,’ he repeats, but with none of the bitterness. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Why?’ I answer his question with one of my own before shaking my head, wriggling out of his grip, continuing on my way. ‘Actually, you know what, I can’t talk right now.’
With a rough noise, he chases me down and catches me again. Fingers wrapping around mine, he tugs despite my groaned protests until we’re sheltered by the relative privacy of the emptying bleachers. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Try again. Truth this time.’
Sighing, I scratch the itchy patch of hot skin rapidly spreading across my chest. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘Yeah, I’m getting that. What I don’t get is why. You’re seriously mad that I skipped my meet to come support you?’
I chew on the inside of my cheek. ‘A little.’
‘But that’s not all of it, huh?’
‘My stepmom’s here.’
‘And that’s a bad thing?’
‘It’s not bad. It’s just . . .’ I sigh again. ‘It’s complicated.’
Heath hums understandingly, one hand rising to tuck a stray strand of wet hair behind my ear. ‘Tell me about it over dinner?’
‘I can’t.’ I knock his hand away. ‘She wants to take me out.’
Maybe. Unless she decides to take Ben instead. Which is honestly more likely than the alternative.
‘Okay.’
Nodding brusquely, I mumble a goodbye before walking away, and he lets me.
He follows me.
I frown at him over my shoulder. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘Leaving?’
As the panicked heat in my chest flares, I turn and plant a halting hand on his. ‘I don’t want her to see you.’
His expression droops. ‘You don’t want me to meet her?’
‘Obviously not.’ Frowning, I assess his own crumpled brow, his cocked head, his mildly . . . offended? Disappointed? Not-quite-right expression. ‘Why would I want that?’
Wrong thing to say. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Heath kisses his teeth, retreating a step. ‘Right. Yeah. Why.’
‘Heath, she doesn’t even know I broke up with Ben. She’s already gonna give me shit about that, and I can’t spring you on her too. Not when I’m gonna have to explain that break-up too in a couple of months.’
‘Right,’ he repeats. ‘I get it.’
I don’t think he does. He definitely doesn’t like it. As close to sullen as he’s likely to get, he nods sharply and backs up again. ‘Cool. No worries.’
‘Heath,’ I say, and nothing else immediately follows. I can’t take it back, I won’t lie to him, and I’m not going to apologize for telling the truth. ‘I really don’t know what I’m saying wrong here. It’s not that big a deal, is it?’
‘You’re right. It’s not.’
‘Okay.’ Awkwardly, I shift on my feet. ‘I need to go.’
‘Okay,’ he parrots. ‘I’ll see you later?’
A little tension bleeds out of me. He can’t be that mad, can he, if he wants to see me later? ‘Yes, please.’
Two words, and he goes from stiff and squinty to butter-soft. ‘Okay,’ he says again, lacking any of the previous edge. ‘You were fucking incredible, by the way.’
‘I know.’ I hesitate, before muttering a giant fuck it. Rising the few inches it takes to make us eye-level, I press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Another to his actual mouth – an impulse more than an active decision. ‘Thank you for coming.’
And then, because I have bigger things to reserve my bravery for today, I scurry the fuck away.
Shockingly, Marisol is still waiting when I emerge from the changing room, impatient and Ben-less, and as much as the thought of her and Ben fucking conspiring makes me dry-heave, I very quickly start to think it would’ve been a much more tolerable alternative.
Within five minutes of being seated at a restaurant that I am extremely under-dressed for, my stepmother starts compiling a thorough, ruthless list of everything wrong with me.
I need a haircut. A couple of highlights would be nice too.
My freckles are getting out of hand apparently – do I know that I need to wear sunscreen every day, not just when it’s sunny?
My swimsuit was unflattering, my shoulders are looking awfully broad, and, oh, sweet Jesus, do not even dare to look upon the sorry state of my fingernails.
It’s so relentless, so endless, that by the time the topic shifts to the one I was dreading the most, I’m almost glad.
Almost.
‘Honestly,’ Marisol titters over the rim of her water glass, eyes thrown up to the sky. ‘Poor Ben, hm? You could make a little effort for him.’
The segue is perfect, but I hesitate to take it. I fucking fear what might come out of her mouth if she learns the one thing she likes about me is now obsolete. But then I think about what would happen if she found out on her own, and I fear that reaction a hell of a lot more.
Real quick, like I’m ripping off a Band-Aid, I blurt, ‘We broke up.’
I swear to God, she gasps. ‘What?’ Her hand shakes as she sets her glass down before palming her chest, as if the news has broken her freaking heart. ‘When?’
‘A few months ago.’
‘Daniela,’ she chastises lowly with a tut. ‘You never tell me anything.’
‘Sorry, Mari,’ I apologize, and I really try to mean it, because she can always tell when I don’t. She’s always griped about the offensiveness of false regrets, claims I insult her with them, that she’d rather not hear an apology at all.
I wonder if I would share that sentiment, if she had ever actually apologized to me before.
‘What did you do?’
I almost laugh. Of course she would assume the break-up was my doing.
My fault. She loved Ben – or at least she thinks she did.
She loved the perfect, polite version of him that he became around her.
The son-in-law of her dreams to make up for the stepdaughter of her nightmares.
God, I don’t think she would even believe me if I told her that he cheated, and if she did, she’d probably suggest I pushed him to it.
‘I didn’t do anything. We just broke up. ’
‘Can you fix it?’
‘I don’t want to.’
A long, aggrieved sigh strikes whatever crevice of my heart harbors that pesky, permanent brand of guilt reserved specifically for a child disappointing their parent. ‘Does this have anything to do with that other boy?’
‘What other boy?’
‘El calvo. With the,’ she sighs again, ‘tattoos.’
So she saw him. Great. ‘He isn’t bald.’ I spit a needless defense and automatically regret it when her face pinches even more. ‘And it had nothing to do with him.’
‘But you are seeing him?’
I hesitate. I contemplate lying – or telling the truth, I guess, depending on how you look at it. In the end, for some fucking reason, I decide to nod.
‘Well? Are you going to tell me about him?’
I swallow. Pick mindlessly at the hangnail on my thumb. Mentally cycle through everything I know about that other boy, and wonder why, exactly, a little voice in the back of my head panics at the thought of him paling in comparison to anyone else. ‘His name is Heath.’
‘Wow, Daniela,’ Marisol muses, her faded accent coming to life as her voice thickens with sarcasm. ‘I feel like I know him already.’
‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘I want you to bring him to dinner tomorrow.’
I choke on nothing but my next breath. And a mild panic attack. ‘I can’t tomorrow.’
‘Next week, then.’
‘Mari, I don’t—’
‘That wasn’t a suggestion, Daniela.’ Smiling so deceptively sweetly, she lifts her glass in a cheers. ‘Wednesday. Eight o’clock. No excuses.’
Wednesday. Eight o’clock.
Time of fucking death.