Chapter 2 #2
“I’m always generous,” Wesley says and then proceeds to pull on something forcefully. He lets out a groan of physical distress.
I set my phone on the work bench before I hop up beside him.
“Where’s my flashlight?” I say, looking around.
Wesley got me my own since I wouldn’t stop complaining about having to use the perpetually dirty, ugly, black-and-silver one that’s probably been around for decades. Mine is purple with a sparkly finish and I carved my name into the end of it so everyone knows who it belongs to.
He steps away and pulls open a toolbox drawer. “Right here.” He hands it to me and steps back on top of the upside-down bucket beside me.
I get a whiff of him, noticing the sweat on the ends of his hair, his neck glistening, his back and underarms wet. He’d definitely been at this for a little while.
“I’m trying to get this bolt off.” He grunts and hits it with a wrench. I adjust the path of the flashlight for him and hold it steady. “Perfect,” he adds and tries again.
I watch as he holds his breath, his bicep tightening and the veins in his arms bulging. I catch myself staring for a second longer than I should and then look away. He exhales sharply and mutters a curse.
“Maybe you need to let me try,” I tease.
He laughs and takes a second to catch his breath again. “One more time and I might have to get Dad.” He turns his baseball cap around before hoisting himself up higher to try again.
“Come on, you—”
“Uh-uh!” I smack him on the butt, knowing a curse is the last word in that sentence.
He laughs. “I wasn’t gonna say it.”
“Yes, you were,” I argue. I know him way too well to believe that.
We haven’t been “just neighbors” in a very long time, basically, our whole lives; he is my best friend.
He’s the only friend who never left me. I don’t have any girlfriends anymore.
When we were still in school, I had a few, but we never got together outside those walls.
I didn’t want to…everyone got into trouble on the weekends.
Trouble that I didn’t want to be anywhere near.
Therefore, the last time I saw anyone was graduation day.
I haven’t heard from anybody either, and it doesn’t bother me.
I don’t need a group of friends. I have my family, Wesley, his family, Blake and Sierra, and of course, Brantley.
“You’re right. It’s good you’re here to keep me in line.” Wesley’s tone is light and playful.
“And to hold the light,” I add.
He repeats, “And to hold the light.”
The bolt finally comes loose a minute or so later. “Good Lord, finally.” He huffs and climbs down.
I jump down as well. “Good job.”
His brown eyes smile back at me and he walks over to the workbench.
I enjoy being here like this with him. It’s relaxed, there are no expectations, and it’s always fun.
Just two friends hanging out with nothing better to do.
Well, I don’t have anything better to do.
He’s actually doing important stuff, I’m just watching.
“Brantley texted you,” Wes informs me, wiping his hands on another shop rag.
I walk past him to the workbench where I left my phone and tap the screen to see what he said.
“I wish you would tell me what makes you so anxious to be around me. Your boyfriend.”
When I hadn’t answered, he followed it with, “I’m not mad, love you.”
My stomach knots slightly. I clear the message from my lock screen and flip it face down. My cheeks warm and my body stiffens at the fact that Wes saw it, but I don’t know why.
Wesley’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Trouble in paradise?” His eyes search mine.
I quickly look away. His gaze is too sharp, too knowing. Not where I should focus when I’m trying to keep my thoughts to myself. Although, there’s a comfort in it. He wouldn’t tell anyone, especially if I told him not to.
I start to the couch by the unlit woodstove. “I was supposed to go to his house after dinner,” I admit.
Wesley takes a couple of steps closer but stops a few feet away from me. “Oh. What made you change your mind?”
“Same thing that always does.” I sigh.
Wes has known about my anxiety since middle school.
He knows how much it disrupts my life. The first few years of dealing with it, I didn’t even have a name for it.
I thought I was just weird. That I had this embarrassing, overdramatic nervous system that no one else on this Earth seemed to have.
It’s isolating and a huge reason I lack long-lasting friendships.
My anxiety kept me home, out of the party scenes.
Had I not struggled with it, I can’t say for sure what my life would look like.
It’s impossible to even imagine my life without it. It’s all I know.
Wesley was never a friend who gave me a hard time or left me out of plans. Once I realized that everyone else wasn’t truly my friend, I started hanging out with him and his friends instead.
Wesley clears his throat. “Well, at least he’s not mad.”
“Yeah. This time,” I mutter and hesitantly look back at him.
His eyes are already on me. “What’s that mean?” His shoulders straighten, and he walks over with purpose, as if he’s going to sit down and solve all my problems right now.
I swallow, not sure how I’ll get out of this one. Those caring brown eyes of his are hard to ignore.
This is the first time in our friendship where one of us has been in a relationship.
While I know it shouldn’t feel weird to talk about it with him, for some reason it does.
Maybe because he’s a guy? I don’t know. I know he’s looking out for me and wants to make sure I’m happy, but at the same time, I also have three very protective older brothers that I have to answer to as well.
It’s occasions like these that I wish I had a girlfriend to talk to.
I always have my mom, but there are some things I don’t want to tell her.
Then there’s Ella. She would be levelheaded enough to talk about things with, but with that I risk Jesse finding out.
They tell each other everything—as they should, they’re married, after all—but that doesn’t really help me out much.
Taking in a breath, I just say it: “Well, he brought up going away with his friends for a weekend the other night and I said I wasn’t sure about going.”
Wes adjusts himself in the chair across from me. “And he was mad about it?”
“He was just annoyed that I didn’t even seem to want to try and go. To do something he wants to do for once.”
Wesley sits back in the chair and lifts his hat from his head, running a hand through his wavy brown hair before flipping it back around the right way. “Well, I mean, it’s not all about him. It would be different if you were married to him, ya know?” he points out.
I nod. “I know.”
He stifles a small laugh. “Tell him you’ll go away together for your honeymoon.”
I groan. “Yeah, right.”
I want to get married one day, so much. I want to have kids…that’s all I’ve ever wanted. But the idea of it actually happening isn’t registering. I can’t picture it. Not when I can barely manage to go to Brantley’s house for dinner without throwing up beforehand.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Addie. Maybe you don’t like him that much.” Wes shrugs, the way he says it is dry, but still not at all what I wanted to hear. That’s something Cody would say, not him.
“Just because I’m struggling doesn’t mean I don’t care about him,” I snap. Wesley’s eyes flicker and he raises a hand in surrender.
“I’m not trying to piss you off, I’m just being your friend.”
“Well, it comes across a little unsupportive considering you know I would love nothing more than to be off this anxiety leash.”
“Addison.” He breaths, his voice calm. “I know that. But you’re different than other girls. He shouldn’t make you feel even worse or more isolated than you already do.”
As much as I have this urge to argue and defend Brantley, I know it’s only because Wesley is starting to unwrap a truth that I’m not prepared to face yet.
I know he’s right. I know Brantley may not be forever, but I’m trying to see that for myself.
With time. Right now it’s blurry. I’m going to have anxiety my entire life, I just have to keep pushing through and maybe things will get better.
They’ve gotten a little better in the last year and a half.
“He’s just trying to help me,” I point out.
“Okay. Well then, good.” He nods as if he’s satisfied. I know he isn’t though. It’s in the way he broke eye contact with me before finishing the sentence and walked away all at the same time, changing his focus back to the tractor…the entire conversation over just like that.
As the tools he uses clank together, I stare into empty space. I don’t really like how the room feels between us. It wasn’t even an argument, but the way it ended makes me feel uneasy. I want to have regular nights like we normally do.
Just before I open my mouth, Wesley’s voice fills the quiet. “I need some assistance here, assistant.” He looks over, signaling me with a nod of his head.
The mild tension I felt disappears when I get over to him. I sense his mood has shifted back to normal. I step up on the bucket again, and he hands me my light. I let go of the breath I was holding and happily anticipate the night to continue as it normally would.