CHAPTER 22 #2
My phone finally vibrates as I’m halfheartedly sorting my socks. I’m so eager to answer it, that I end up dropping it. The phone lands with a smack on the wood and slides under my bed.
“Dammit!” I get down on my hands and knees but it’s too far under. The vibrating stops for a moment but starts back up soon after. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Looking around me, I can’t find anything to reach it, so I shove the frame out of the way and swipe at it with my shoe. Once it’s in reach, I quickly hit the green button. “Hey there, handsome.” I mentally smack myself on the back of the head, because oh my god, why am I so lame?
The phone is silent for a moment, then: “Hello. Please don’t hang up. We have been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warr—”
“Oh, come on!” I hang up just as quickly as I had answered.
What has gotten into me today?
I’ve got all the power here. This is my ho phase. I’m the one who wants to have the good sex. I’m the one who wants it casual.
So then why does this man have me chucking my entire bedframe across the room just because I think he’s calling me?
Rubbing my temples, I think, Girlfriend, you might need to go back to therapy. My phone vibrates again. When I look at the caller ID, my heart leaps into my throat. Okay, this time, play it cool. Don’t be weird.
“Hello?”
Bailey’s deep voice on the other end of the line greets me. “Hey, Palmer. Sorry I wasn’t able to text you back. It got really busy today, so if it’s okay, I thought maybe we could just talk on the phone for a bit.”
“Yeah, definitely! That sounds great!” So much for playing it cool.
“So, you said the kids were crazy today. Why was that?”
I relay to him all the day’s happenings, making sure to leave out the part about me having a new man; no need to make it weird for either of us. By the time I’m finished, Bailey is laughing along with me.
“They sound like quite a crew,” he says.
“They are. That’s why I love teaching middle school. They’re old enough to joke with, but still young enough to like you.”
He chuckles. “You might actually be a saint, because I was a dick in middle school, so I can only imagine some of the kids you’re dealing with.”
“Oh really? I find it hard to believe that a guy like you was ever an issue in school,” I say sarcastically. I can quite easily picture the man I know as one of my ornery students.
“Oh, yeah. I was a very angry little boy, and I didn’t think I needed school because it wasn’t something that I thought was going to benefit me in the long run.
Actually, I was in special ed because of my ADHD.
It made it really hard for me to learn when I was in elementary school then when I got to middle school, it just kept getting harder.
” Bailey pauses for a moment, and I can hear rustling in the background.
“I can’t tell you how many times I got into fights as a kid. ”
My brows shoot up, surprised at how much he’s opening up. “Why’d you get in fights so often? I’m sure you won them all.”
This time, my comment is met with out and out laughter. “Fuck no, I didn’t! My older sisters used to kick my ass regularly, so you’d have thought I would’ve learned my lesson from them, but apparently, I like to learn it the hard way. How do you think I got so good at it now?”
“Practice?”
“Not quite. I got my ass kicked enough times that I started to notice patterns and found ways to stop people from kicking my ass before they could.” We’re both laughing at this point.
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I say, “I’m just picturing you as a scrawny little dude shadow boxing in his mirror.”
Bailey hems and haws for a moment before continuing. “You’re not entirely wrong. But instead of scrawny, I was chubby, short, and filled with rage. Like an overweight Chihuahua.”
That sends me into another fit of giggles. “Please tell me that you have photo evidence of that somewhere. Is it on your social media? Because I swear to god, I will find it and scour every last photo until I have it.”
“No, but I’m sure my mom has pictures of it somewhere. The woman always made my sisters and I take a billion pictures for every little thing. I’ll ask her to see if she can send me a few to show you.”
“Oooh, I can’t wait!” I take a deep breath to stop my laughter. “Why were you getting into fights anyway?”
It’s so quiet on the other end that I pull the phone away from my face to see if we got disconnected. The timer on the call continues to count upward. “Hello? Bailey?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he replies softly. “I fought so much because… because of my dad.”
“Your dad?” I ask. “Didn’t you say he left before you were born?”
Bailey lets out a long sigh.
He’s uncomfortable, and I know I heard a hint of hurt in his voice. I begin to backpedal on the conversation. “You know, we don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. I was just being nosy.”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, no, I don’t want to talk about it, but if there was someone I would want to talk about it with, it would be you. Just… give me a sec.”
His words set the butterflies in my stomach to fluttering, but the thought of my question hurting him in any way makes my heart hurt. “Okay.”
After a beat, Bailey speaks again. “My dad didn’t leave before I was born. That’s just something I tell people because it would’ve been easier if he had. He caused a lot of hurt for my mom and sisters, and I hate him for it. Honestly, most days, I wish he had died.”
I stay quiet, waiting for him to continue.
“You still there, Palmer?” he asks, his voice small.
“I’m here,” I confirm. “Just listening.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I hear him let loose a shaky breath. “Sorry. I just haven’t ever talked with anyone about this, and it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to, Bailey.”
“I know. I just… I don’t know why, but I want to share this with you. There’s so much about me that I can’t tell you, so I feel like I owe you something, even if it’s not the answers to the questions you want.”
“Bailey,” I say sternly. “Please hear me when I say this. You don’t owe me anything.
No, I don’t love that I can’t really know things about you now, but you were honest with me about that.
I trust you. You don’t have to buy my trust with your pain.
” His breathing is heavy. “However, if you want someone to help shoulder what you have been having to carry, I’m here for you. Whichever way you might need me.”
When Bailey speaks again, his voice is flat and rushed.
“My dad was abusive. He beat us kids and my mom, but Mom always got it the worst because I think she thought that she could change him. One day, he was hitting my mom because she asked him why we didn’t have any money left for rent.
He hit her twice then shoved her to the ground and started kicking her.
I ran in and lay on top of her. She begged me to leave, but I stayed, and my dad beat the shit out of us both.
I tried to hit him back, but he hit me across the face and knocked me out.
When I came to, I was laying in my mom’s lap, and she was wiping the blood off both our faces.
I was in fifth grade.” He pauses to take a breath.
“That’s why I have a scar through my eyebrow.
He split it open, and Mom had to use superglue to seal it shut because we couldn’t afford to go to the ER. ”
“Bailey.” It’s not often that I find myself speechless, but this is one of those times. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he replies a little too blithely.
“After that, he didn’t hit us anymore. Instead, he started cheating on my mom and knocked up my teacher.
He left our family for her and their baby.
The town where I grew up isn’t that big, and kids are not kind in a small town; everyone found out, and you know middle schoolers. ”
I nod, even though he can’t see me. “They can be cruel.”
“To say the least. They tormented me about it constantly, and the only language I knew to fix my problems was violence.” Bailey laughs wryly. “To my benefit, I wasn’t very good at it. Hence the whole getting my ass kicked thing.”
I’m quiet, listening to him speak. All I want to do is take the big, strong man that I know and wrap him in my arms to tell him it’s okay. No one will ever hurt him again, not while I’m around.
“That went on for several years. My poor mom practically lived in the principal’s office. But then I met Mr. Thompson.”
“Who was he?”
Bailey’s voice becomes more relaxed and animated as he shares. “He was this super old dude who had to have retired at least once then came back to teaching. Anyway, Mr. Thompson ended up being my special education teacher my freshman year, and, oh my god, I hated that motherfucker.”
His statement catches me off-guard, making me laugh. “Why?”
“Because he called me on my shit,” he says matter-of-factly. “There was one day it got so bad, I threw my shit down and squared up to him. I was ready to beat the fuck out of this guy. Why? Because he had the audacity to ask me why I slept through algebra.”
“And then?”
“My fists were balled up in front of me, ready to throw the fuck down. Mr. Thompson calmly got up from his desk, walked across the room, and stood in front of me. He said, ‘Hit me if you need to. If that’s what you think will make you feel better.’ Then he said, and I will never forget this, ‘Son, aren’t you tired of fighting? ’”
“What’d you do?”
Bailey laughs. “I cried like a baby. And Mr. Thompson sat next to me and rubbed my back until I was done.” He pauses, and when he starts speaking again, I can hear the smile in his voice.
“That was the first time anyone had ever shown me that it was okay to be soft. I didn’t always have to be made of all sharp edges. It was okay for me to feel.”
The smile on my face matches the one in his voice. “What happened after that?”
“Honestly, my whole life changed. I went from failing everything to passing all my classes, because I started to give a shit. My mom had always loved me, but she was trapped in survival mode, and my behavior didn’t help.
Mr. Thompson became the man in my life who I looked up to.
Hell, he’s the reason I joined the Army.
That, and to take care of my mom. He was a Vietnam veteran, and during many of the lunches where I found myself in his room, he would tell me stories about his time in the Army.
Some of them probably weren’t appropriate for a teenager to hear, but I always felt like that made them that much better. ”
“I get that. My students like to think they’re grown, so I can only imagine. Are you still in contact with Mr. Thompson?” I hold my breath, praying his answer doesn’t lead to more heartache.
“Yeah, I am. He retired again a couple of years ago, and now he and his wife travel around the world sightseeing and doing something they haven’t done before with each stop.
” Bailey laughs. “When I graduated, I actually made him promise that he would be my stand-in dad when I get married, so every time we catch-up, he’s always pestering me about how he’s not getting any younger, and if I don’t hurry up and get on with it, that it’ll be his casket standing in instead. ”
The silence that passes between us is awkward. Weddings and marriage aren’t exactly on the list of approved topics for non-committal sex. I’m the first to break it when I say, “It sounds like he was exactly what you needed.”
“He really was. Palmer?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Thank you. You know, for listening and not judging or anything. It feels good to tell someone. Actually, no. Not someone. You.”
His words make me smile. “Anytime, Bailey. Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“But if you tell anyone, I’ll have to take you out, and not on a date,” he jokes.
“My lips are sealed.”
He quickly changes the subject. “You know, it’s, uh, it’s getting kind of late, and I know you have to work tomorrow.”
“So do you.”
“Yeah, but I’m used to functioning on little to no sleep. You, however, are not.”
“How do you know?” I quip.
“Have you forgotten that I babysat your naked ass?” Bailey teases.
I whine. “No fair! I was drunk, so that’s not even a fair comparison.”
“Well, are you good with no sleep?”
“No, absolutely not. I’m a raging bitch. Why would you suggest otherwise?” I act shocked by his question. “But you’re right. It is getting late.”
Bailey chuckles. “Sounds good. Good night, old lady. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
I roll my eyes and can’t help but smile. “I’ll try, you shithead. And, Bailey?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For completely derailing the conversation and taking it down a deep, dark path that nobody asked for? My pleasure!”
“For trusting me.”
He pauses for a moment before he speaks again, his voice soft. “Good night, Palmer.”
“Good night, Bailey.”