Chapter 14
Sophie
I crept in the back door of the shop, the old wood floors loudly announcing my return home.
Thankfully, Grandma was helping a customer, so I was able to sneak upstairs and into my room.
I drew the blackout curtains closed, watching my toes before the last rays of the sun were swallowed up by the darkness. I turned on the noise machine and climbed under my weighted blanket with a sigh.
I didn’t cry. Distantly, I was proud of that fact. I was so tired. Too tired to do anything but let the darkness swallow me up whole. I let my muscles relax, and a deep sigh escaped me as I instantly fell asleep.
I had no idea how much time had passed when a gentle knocking woke me up. It felt like I had just barely lain down.
I sat up and rubbed sleep from my eyes.
“Come in,” I said with a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Hey, doll. Doing okay?” Grandma’s voice was too gentle. I shouldn’t be surprised by how fast gossip works.
“Yeah. Just sleepy.”
“It’s dinnertime. Have you eaten anything?”
“Oh, wow.” I tapped the screen of my phone. It read almost seven, and no new notifications.
I thought of how I’d been too anxious to eat before meeting Pace, and then after that, there was only sleep.
I shook my head.
“You know, not eating makes it all so much worse,” she said softly.
I nodded.
“Come down and eat?”
Again, I felt like a coddled child. If she hadn’t known what specifically was wrong, she knew by my six-hour afternoon nap that something was up.
“’Kay.”
I shuffled after her to the kitchen. When the smell of broth and vegetables reached my nose, my stomach growled loudly as if suddenly remembering that food existed. Where would I be without Grandma? What was I even doing but being a burden? How would she ever rely on me to take care of her?
The darkness threatened to take me back, and I took a deep breath in and out.
Grandma loved me. I wasn’t a burden. These were lies powered by everything that happened today.
The fears desperate to prove to me just how right they were about everything.
Thankfully, I could at least recognize those scary thoughts for what they were now.
I ate some hearty soup that had big chunks of veggies, noodles, and chicken. Grandma must have ordered it from the diner. For all my and Grandma’s shared love of hobbies, cooking was not one of them.
After I pushed back the bowl with a sigh, I said, “Thank you. I do feel better.”
“You’re welcome. You have to remember to eat.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“So.” She tapped her nails along the counter, tilting her head with a coy smile. “You were out with Pace Leigh this morning? Getting pedicures?”
“That has to be a world record for gossip.” Although it had been hours since I’d been home, she probably knew before we even left the salon.
“You know Betsy is always here for spin a yarn night.”
I lifted my chin, remembering that I spotted her.
“I’m not hiding it.”
“How did you two even hook up?” she asked.
I coughed as an errant carrot lodged itself in my throat.
I knew she hadn’t meant “hook up” in the biblical sense, she meant like our paths crossing.
It was like when she told me to “go wipe my puss” in front of a group of fellow middle schoolers, meaning my face.
Sometimes having a two-generation gap was a challenge to the current vernacular.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Are you seeing each other or was this just . . .”
I snorted loudly. “No. Pace Leigh, Cozy Creek resident hottie hero, is not dating me.”
“I don’t see what’s funny about that.” She sat up straighter, looking down her nose at me.
“I’m just . . . we aren’t in the same circles. There are certain laws of nature that can’t be ignored.”
Grandma, who had been sitting for two minutes too long, got up and began spritzing the counter with cleaner before aggressively wiping it off.
“Please tell me, in the year of our lord twenty-whatever—I don’t keep track of the years anymore.
Time is a construct developed by corporations to make us feel bad about our aging bodies.
” She shook her head and moved on when I gave her a pointed look.
“Just tell me that as a modern woman, you are not still concerned about being good enough for a man.” She all but held back a gag at that last word.
“It’s not that.” At least not all of it. But I kept that to myself.
“I raised you on Gloria Steinem, made you follow Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on that one app. I brought you to rallies and lectures. You know the dangers of conforming yourself to appease the likes of the patriarchy.”
I held up my hand before she really got going. “I know. I know. Trust me. I am an independent woman. I don’t need a man. Rah. Rah.”
“But you do want a partner?”
“I want to be less alone,” I confessed, honestly. Had that been what this was really about? I told myself I needed to be able to help Grandma and finally live my life, but maybe it was more than that.
“I can understand that. I know that I can’t be everything for you, try as I might.” She came around the counter to squeeze my shoulder with her free hand. “Just make sure you’re not trying to change yourself for him. You just slept for six hours in the middle of the day.”
“That wasn’t because of him. He was trying to help. I told him I’m trying to be better about getting out. And he’s helping.”
She paused to look at me closely, trying to suss out some hidden facts.
“I feel like you’re still keeping something from me, and that’s okay. Lord knows you’re a grown woman. I’m always going to have your back.” She put the bottle down to rest a hand on my head. “And I worried after today, and hearing that you were out together. I thought maybe something happened.”
I shook my head sadly. A nap and a full stomach had given me some perspective, but not enough to make me overlook how today had gone.
He had tried to help, and I’d be forever grateful for him doing that.
A few minutes couldn’t accurately explain what a lifetime of being trapped in this brain felt like.
But even when I told him I needed to stop, he kept pushing.
It wasn’t entirely his fault, but it was still exhausting.
Another sign that this friendship, or whatever it was, was actually doomed from the get-go.
Sometimes I felt like I had the mind of someone really intelligent stuck in a broken physical body. And I couldn’t tell if I would rather have the mind to match the body or the ability to clearly convey what happened in my mind. I never felt like I was on the same page with myself.
“But the thing with Pace is that I don’t think he’s too good or anything like that.
It’s more like, I don’t see how it would work.
He’s all—” Here I did a dramatic pantomime of a happy puppy, complete with my hands under my chin, tongue lolling.
“And I’m like womp womp.” I curved my hands in and rounded my shoulders.
“I don’t get that one. What are you doing now?” Grandma El asked.
“It’s like a sad sloth or something. These are my claws.” My fingers curved in to help demonstrate. “I don’t know.”
“Ah. Wait, so you’re too slow?” She held her chin in thought, head tilted.
“No. I just mean.” I flattened my hands along the cool tile countertops, enjoying how they felt on my heated palms. “How would it work going out? I have to fight from having a panic attack every time a creepy man looks at me at the gas station. Pace is always active, meeting people, and doing things. I’d just be hovering around him like a gnat.
Or more like a silent shadow in the space behind him.
” I scrunched up my face. “All this is moot. We aren’t dating.
I guarantee he doesn’t see me as anything more than a hapless charity case. ”
Grandma made a sound. “Men don’t usually have a habit of hanging around young, beautiful women just out of the goodness of their hearts. I’m just saying.”
“Men like Pace Leigh do. Trust me. He’s a helper.”
She shook her head at once in a little dance shoulder-shake thing.
“I agree that he’s a helper, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also looking for something more.
Everybody has their demons. Maybe he’s lonely too and just wants to be around you?
Being surrounded by people doesn’t mean you aren’t lonely, you know. ”
I looked at my grandma, and my heart tugged guiltily.
I had been so self-absorbed. That was the thing with this type of anxiety: it made it nearly impossible to see outside your own worldview.
Was she trying to tell me that she was lonely?
Should I make more of an effort to check on her and spend time with her? I leaned forward to squeeze her hand.
“Grandma, are you lonely?” I asked.
There was a beat as she gave me a blank stare.
Then loudly she said, “Oh, hell no.” She put her hand on mine, threw her head back, and laughed.
“I spent forty years being the live-in help of a man.” (My grandpa had passed away shortly after I came to live with her.
I didn’t remember much about him except the stale smell of cigars and an awkward tension in the room whenever he was in it.) “No. Love, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.
But Pace. He seems like he is always trying to prove just how helpful he is.
Ever since that girl broke his heart. He’s been chasing something. ”
Ah, yes, the other big fat elephant in the room. The ex that broke his heart. Even if I thought there was a chance that Pace was attracted to me, it would only ever be surface. Everybody knew he would forever be hung up on his first love.
“I think I know what you mean. I sort of have the feeling when I’m with him, he’s only half there.
Like, I’m getting a version of him like everyone else.
I am more myself with him than I am with anybody besides you.
That’s really scary as I say it out loud.
I don’t want to go and form an attachment to someone who is still hung up on their ex or emotionally unavailable.
So. This is just fun.” I sighed and dropped my head.
“Just give him time. And make sure you’re clear about what you need too. It doesn’t have to be some big thing.”
I nodded.
“Whatever this is. You two let yourselves enjoy it. It’s okay if it’s just a little fun. I am proud of you today. And if that’s all you can do all week, then so be it. Progress is still progress even if it isn’t always sprinting forward.”
“That’s a good one,” I said, referring to the inspirational quote.
Did being the good-time guy ever get old? If I wasn’t mistaken, there had been just a flash of something when I thanked him for being a distraction. Not hurt, but maybe a little sting?
It felt impossible to think that Pace lacked anything in his life, but then again, everybody hides their pain, and maybe I’d been holding on to some of my own prejudices.