Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The Universe
With our backs against the wall, Sasha and I huddle on my bed while sharing the portable DVD player on our laps. We are working our way through a movie marathon chosen by her, since it’s her last week, and I appreciate the distraction as we avoid the subject of her leaving.
It has been a couple of weeks since I first realised my feelings for Joey, after coming back and burying it as best I could.
I made no further advances, and avoided talking about it at all costs, but there are still moments he has me melting.
When he brings me a cup of tea before the start of our shift, the proud smirk he releases when he makes me laugh, when he sings terribly, or when he tucks his hair behind his goddamn ears.
I call upon the voices of my fathers for reason, imagine them congratulating me on my restraint, but I’m only lying to myself.
I think about Joey far too often, and when I imagine leaving him, there’s that unsettling rush of fear in my chest, the sensation of falling, like when I was forced to leave the Wilds behind.
My whole life, I have only believed my fathers capable of being my heroes, and the concept of love was always tainted with desperate men trying to own a woman.
I thought it impossible for me, but Joey is that guy.
He has unknowingly become a hero to me, someone as substantial in my life as my fathers, and I don’t know what to do about it.
My mind offers alternative options, but Krick and rangers flash before every available path like a roadblock to my happiness.
I’m just waiting for these feelings to pass, but for now, I’ll keep busy, intensifying my exercise routine, spending any spare time with Sasha before she leaves—and at work, well, it has never been cleaner.
I’ve barely paid attention to the eighties romcom as the credits roll, but when Sasha gushes over the soppy ending, I find it hard to subdue my frustration about the plot line.
How easy they had it. How the colossal problems in their world are pitiful in this one.
But I fake it to match Sasha’s enthusiasm.
Ever since she accepted Forest’s proposal, she seems bewitched by the notion of Eden and becoming a wife.
But I’m worried about how quickly she’s dropped her defences, without an inkling of cynicism in sight.
I can only hope it is everything this once super-independent woman wishes it to be.
The idea of going to the bar and dealing with Joey weighs on my slovenly movements as I slump to the edge of the bed, rubbing my face to life.
She asks, “Hey, you okay? You’ve been quiet recently.”
“Yeah, I’m fine! I’m fine, actually. Absolutely fine.” I pull up a press-lipped smile.
“Yeahhhh. Sure. Normal people say ‘fine’ that many times. What gives?”
“I just… I’m not feeling work today.”
Her eyes narrow. “You practically skip to work when it’s weekends with Joey. What is it? What has he done?!”
“No! Nothing. He’s not… Mmmmm… Yeah, okay… Shit… I just don’t want to work with him at the moment.”
She looks at me, shocked by my admission or by my mood. “You’re sleeping with him?!”
“No! Oh my God, no. It’s not like—”
“Well, you like him?”
“Yeah. I do. It’s ju—”
“Does he know?”
“No, and he doesn’t need to—”
“Lee, quit messing around and tell the boy!”
I’m taken aback that she’s encouraging this—that she’s mad that I haven’t already acted on it. I cross my arms, tucking my hands away, whispering, “Sasha—”
“Don’t waste any time. If you like him, tell him,” she says with her hands on her hips and a sour scrunch of her face.
“I saw you together that night, giggling and smiling at each other. The guy is cute, and you know it. You come here and don’t stop talking about him.
In a few years, you’ll be carted off to Eden with a stranger.
” Her voice shakes with her wobbling chin.
“If you’ve found someone special, someone who knows you and cares about you, who clearly thinks about you all the time…
” She picks up the DVD player and waves it in my face while pointing at my red slippers.
“… then you’re a goddamn fool to ignore that! ”
With no words willing to pass my stuttering lips, I take the player from her and place it on the bed. I stand like a scolded child, with a little voice: “It’s more complicated than that, Sasha.”
“Yeah, you don’t think I know that? You can figure it out. If you love him, don’t ignore it, because it isn’t forever. You might as well enjoy it while you can.”
She softens, opening her arms, and embraces me, which I welcome in my shell-shocked state, but my mind wanders. Is she frustrated with me, or about her situation? Maybe she isn’t as happy as she’s letting on.
Now I’m running late, while my thoughts are as busy as the streets.
I’m racing to the bar, with the embers of a Unity Siren blaring into my back as I jog through the front door.
Each uncertain question shoulder-barges my train of thought off its tracks.
Joey is already here, and I was hoping for a moment to collect myself and calm my thoughts, but there he is, sweeping the floor with his headphones on, oblivious to the turmoil he’s created.
I fly past him as he takes his headphones off, greeting me with a smile, but I barely acknowledge him as I go behind the counter.
“Hey, you okay?” he says, tilting his head, and I give a curt nod. He asks with an incredulous laugh, “Are you mad at me?”
“Yeah. You know what, Joey? I am mad at you.” I didn’t realise how angry I was until I parted my lips and it barked from my throat sharply, without intention, but my blood is fresh as it rushes to my head.
He still hosts a slight smile. “Why?”
“I don’t know! I just am.” I shove my coat below the counter and march into the storeroom for a tray of washed glasses. They jingle with my pace, clattering as I rest them on the counter.
He squints at me. “Is this about the pinkie hand-holding thing?”
I freeze with widened eyes as he brings it up. I was half hoping he wouldn’t think anything of it, that it was so little a gesture that he hadn’t remembered it.
“Because I am cool with that. I thought we were on the same page, but then you came back the next day, pretending nothing happened.”
I roll my eyes, giving a dry laugh, and slam a glass onto the shelf. “Of course you’re cool with it, Joey. You’re a man. You’d date a potato if it were shaped like a woman.”
“Bit harsh, Lee, but whatever.” There’s no smile remaining as he goes to walk away, but spins on his heel, pointing the broom handle at me.
“You know what? I didn’t ask for this. My mum warned us we would never have wives.
I was prepared to choose my future, not to waste my life longing for something we could never have.
I moved to the city and have worked my butt off to open my own store.
It’s all I ever wanted—until you came along!
” His arms flap with slumping shoulders, and here I am, for the second time today, being shouted at.
“What do you want me to do?” I slam the final glass onto the shelf. “Apologise for being forced into this system? It’s not my fault you’re another man lusting after a woman. You’re all the same!”
He scoffs with a clamped jaw, looking up under his brow at me.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it!” He drops the broom and strides towards the counter, biting his lip.
His voice has a rumble as he forces himself to simmer, with a whisper: “You’re more than that to me.
You’re not just a woman. You’re my best friend. ”
Even though he’s calming down, I still feel scared—scared of where this conversation is going. I hold the empty tray before me like a shield, and he steps behind the counter with raised palms, as if approaching a cornered animal. This must be stopped before it escalates.
“Fine, Joey,” I say, with flared nostrils. “We’re friends, all right?”
“Yeah, we are—and for me, if that’s all I can ever have, that’s all I will ever need.
To stand beside you at this bar every day until the goddamn day you have to leave.
” His voice quivers as he stops a foot away from me.
He sweeps his hair back behind his ears and unknowingly quickens my breath while I hang on his words.
“But what do you want, Joey?”
“What do I want?!” He plants his hand on his chest before animating every word.
“I want to make you breakfast. I want to take you to see a band, watch you dance and sing along. I want you to have a day off! Take you to the cinema. Take you to the beach. Watch you watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time. And at no point—at no point—does any of that have to be romantic. Just to be with you… I guess what I really want… I want you to have choices, whether I’m involved in them or not.
That … that’s my new endgame.” He drops his head, and his hair falls, shielding his face.
I pause for a moment, taking in his words.
I’m breathless as my fingers itch to tuck his hair behind his ear.
My palm aches to cup his downcast face while I rub my thumb over his cheek.
And my heart yearns to entangle with his, like the hungry root of an oak tree, ready to settle for the long-term in a safe place, drawing strength from its support.
I hold my breath and widen my unblinking eyes as a queue of tears gathers on my lower lids, while the burning press of Krick’s cameras fires into the back of my head.
I look between their blinking red lights, and so does Joey, as he senses my hesitancy.
Since I cannot act on the beautiful words he has handed me, I can only reject them, and the force of the lie makes me blink a single tear down my cheek.
“Now, that sounds like bullshit!”
I hate how he flinches at my words, casting his gaze away as I push past and escape to the storeroom.