Chapter Seventeen #3
By the time thirty minutes had ticked away, I couldn’t stop the thoughts from flooding my head.
She probably got the text and is ghosting me.
She’s pissed about Sunday. It’s over. I shouldn’t have been so stupid as to think my first draft was a big deal.
Surely she’d gotten the message. Either she was trying to find a way to say it or she’d just pretend to move out of the fucking state like Veronica.
I was pacing by then. Maybe she was in some hideous car crash on the way home.
Maybe the preschool building was on fire.
Maybe I should just shut up and be rational for a change.
I sat back down and considered a new project, but my brain was spinning. Maybe I could use this somehow. Maybe I could channel this into something decent.
My phone buzzed and I leapt across the room toward it, heart pounding. It was probably someone offering me cash for my house. It was probably a reminder for my haircut two weeks from now.
Hey sorry sweetie…I’m going out with June and Elaine and Michael again tonight. That’s great news, though…Maybe tomorrow?
All the adrenaline, everything I’d built up crashed, and my mood bottomed out.
It was hard to breathe. Fuck them. Fuck June and Elaine and furry Michael.
Fuck cute June especially, cute June that Lisa thought was so hot.
Why did she tell me that, anyway? Just to mess with my head?
I didn’t care if she was a jerk. If she was such a jerk why was Lisa going out with her again anyway?
They were probably dating. They were probably fucking.
They were probably laughing at me behind my back.
Jesus Christ, stop it. I lay back on my sofa, trying to settle down. Everything’s fine. Even if it wasn’t, I knew this wasn’t worth losing my shit over. I had worked so hard, and I wasn’t going to mess this up.
I just needed to clear my head. I called Ollie and pulled his harness and leash off the wall. He gave a happy yip and jumped up on me, panting and grinning and nipping at his harness just like that. I wished something could make me that happy right that minute.
We walked for longer than usual. Although my brain didn’t stop coming up with stupid ass scenarios involving Lisa and June, the chilly air felt good on my cheeks and Ollie followed amicably, exploring new angles on the same old fire hydrants and bushes.
I knew we shouldn’t overdo it, though, so I finally brought him home, past Lisa’s house.
I almost expected her car to be in the drive and the lights to be on, just hiding out there avoiding me, but even the outside light was dark.
It looked like she had indeed stayed late at work and gone straight out with her friends. Her friends that weren’t my friends.
Back at home, I filled Ollie’s water bowl and sat back on my sofa, listening to him slurp. I was going to have to do it. I knew she didn’t want to be with me anymore, but I wasn’t going to wait around to get dumped or ghosted. I was going to take the initiative and end things.
I typed out several texts but didn’t hit send. Then I decided it was a shitty thing to break up with someone via text anyway. I thought about how impossible it would be to walk past her house every day and see her. I’d have to come up with a new route. I’d have to move.
It was nearly nine and I’d gone through every possible thing I could say when there was a knock on the door.
Ollie jumped up from a dead sleep, barking his head off, then stopped and sat down, tail wagging.
I was sure I was lucky enough that it was a serial killer or at least a Jehovah’s Witness, but when I opened the door, Lisa was standing there holding a Styrofoam take-out box.
“Hey.” She hung shyly outside the threshold as if she somehow knew everything I’d been thinking for the past hours. “I thought we could maybe share dessert to celebrate.”
All of the words that had been blustering through my head disappeared. “Thanks. How was dinner?”
Lisa shrugged. She handed me the box and left her coat on my sofa.
“Fine. June has yet another new boyfriend so we had to hear about that for a while, but it’s nice to just vent about stuff.
You can come too, you know. I just figured you wouldn’t want to listen to us bitch about preschoolers for three hours. ”
I looked down, feeling awful about everything I’d thought. “Maybe some time. You deserve some you time.”
“I have plenty of me time,” she said, sliding her arm around my waist. “I miss you during my me time. What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, embarrassed she could tell. “Nothing. My head was just in fucked up places tonight.”
“How come?”
“Beats me.” I accepted her kiss, all the tension melting away, our bodies meshing graciously.
Out of nowhere, I felt a twinge of excitement, and really, really wanted to go with it.
I wanted everything I’d thought about and felt for the past several hours to disappear in it.
I ran my hand up her back, pulled her closer, and kissed along her neck.
That was when there was a thunk on the table next to me.
“Get down,” I said. “No table surfing.” The box was near the edge, and it was a wonder Ollie hadn’t just grabbed it and run.
I knew I should at least push it to the center, but I didn’t want to let go. I could feel my pulse everywhere.
Lisa paused, her hand up my shirt. “We should probably put that in the fridge.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
“Me either,” she whispered. “Here. Just hit pause, okay?” Before I could react, I heard the refrigerator door close.
“That was quick.”
Lisa grinned. “Where were we?”
I pulled her hand back where it had been. “Here.” I slid her shirt over her head and undid her bra, moved my mouth onto her breast, worked to unbutton her jeans. Ollie disappeared. Good boy. “What is it?”
“What is what?”
“Dessert.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Lisa said, running her hand over my ass and kissing harder. “You’re in the mood and I’m not going to lose that opportunity.”
I felt her squeeze there and could barely breathe. “You’re in the mood too.”
“I’m always in the mood.” In a beautifully slick move, she hoisted me up onto the table. “Tiramisu.”
Saturday came, and then Sunday. I still had not heard from my mother. If she’d lived alone, I would have reported her missing. Since she did not, though, I assumed I wasn’t being dramatic after all when I thought I’d been disowned. I wondered if I’d even be welcome for Christmas.
I felt totally out of sorts. The strangest thing was, it didn’t feel like it was all about my mother. As I sat with Lisa that evening, paging through my notes from previous years, I found nothing worthy of recycling in class. It sucked. I wouldn’t want to study with me.
Lisa hadn’t been working for a long time. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
To my shock, I almost told her to shut up. I swallowed hard and shook my head. I knew I wasn’t fine, I knew I was so not fine. I knew exactly what was happening, and it was my fault. “I’m just having a fucked in the head day.”
“That’s what you said the other day. I think this shit with your mom is really wearing on you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lisa’s eyebrows jumped. “Understood. If you change your mind, I’m over here contemplating the letter J.”
I normally would have laughed at that, but it didn’t happen. My stomach ached in an insolent, raw sort of way, and it worked its way upward, my throat tightening with it. I wasn’t going to cry. I really wasn’t. “Shit.” The word came out before I knew it was there.
“C’mere.” Lisa held out an arm. “I’ve got you.”
I didn’t move. This was my pattern. I could feel the anger closing in, and no matter how loud I could scream, how hard I clawed at the walls trying to get away from it, it was going to burn everything to the ground in minutes.
I did this every goddamn time. Things got so right, so perfect, and then some tiny part of my subconscious started doubting everything.
I couldn’t possibly have something so good.
I couldn’t possibly deserve it. If we got too deep into this, I’d ruin her life.
I had to get away before she could hate me for it.
Anyone else would have run into her arms, would have let her make everything all right, but I sat there and I made everything all wrong.
I could see Lisa swallow and she lowered her arm to her side.
God damn it, here we go. I’d hurt her. “You deserve better than this.”
Lisa looked away. I could see her eyes growing larger as if sharing with the coffee table what a case I was. “Where did that come from?”
“You don’t want to be with someone who is so monumentally fucked up. I drove my own mother away, Lisa. You don’t want to be part of this.”
“What the fuck did I do to start this?”
“Nothing.” I held my head, trying to keep it from exploding. “You haven’t done anything except be wonderful. You don’t deserve to have me drag you down. You deserve so much better than I can give you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand. If I did I’d stop it but I don’t and I can’t and God, I just can’t do this anymore.”
Lisa straightened up and took a breath. “You’re actually serious.”
“I can’t do this.”
She nodded briefly and gathered her things. “I’ve never been broken up with for being wonderful before.”
Was that what I was doing? Shit. Shit shit shit. “I’m sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.” With that, Lisa gave Ollie the tiniest scritch and let herself out the door.