Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The coffee machine grinding downstairs woke me, and I had two whole seconds of peace before yesterday punched me in the tits. If I thought I’d had a nimbostratus cloud over me before, the kind big enough to blanket Tokyo, now I had a whole crew of them. Enough to fill a black hole.
It was a strange sort of grief—an immense loss, but not for a person. It was for myself. Who even was I now? What was the point of putting my mismatched-socked feet on the floor when I was just a floating shell with no dock?
I pulled the covers over my head to block out the world.
“Good morning, sunshine! Oh my God, Ry!” Rick barged through the door and shook me under the blankets before tearing them off me.
I groaned, smirking as his free hand shot to cover his eyes. “Why are you here?”
“I think the better question is, why are you naked?”
“I’m not naked, I’ve got socks on.” I wiggled one orange and one purple foot at him. “Teaches you for barging in and manhandling me. What if I’d had a guy under here?”
“First, I know you’d never bring a guy to your own bed. That’s far too intimate for you. And second, I was worried you were dead.” He tilted his head dramatically towards the half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol on my bedside table.
“Oh, that,” I sighed, pulling the white blanket back over my chest. “I didn’t drink it. I stupidly Googled it first, and apparently you can die. I drowned my sorrows in chocolate caramel slice instead.”
Rick’s mouth hung open, eyes flicking between me and the bottle.
“But why were you going to drink it? Do you want to…?” He mimed choking and rolled his eyes back.
“Oh my God, no! I was not trying to kill myself, Rick. What is wrong with you?” I shoved his arm, causing him to spill the coffee he was holding in the process. “The house was dry, and it was the only alcohol I could find.”
“That sounds like a desperate cry for help if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Not that desperate,” I said, hugging my knees and sucking a bit of dried chocolate off my thumb.
Rick sat at the end of the bed and handed me a white takeaway cup from downstairs, his eyes reflecting my misery. My insides shrivelled. No one else needed to be aware of my despair.
“Did you tell her anything?” I narrowed my gaze at my well-dressed friend, who rolled his eyes.
“Tell her what? I don’t even know what happened. She seems to have assumed something is wrong, just from my presence. But she didn’t pry.”
I groaned. “She’s onto it like that.”
Rick folded his arms over his grey singlet, which matched his grey cardigan, grey rolled slacks, and grey fedora. “Now you know you’re going to have to tell me. So, where would you like to do it?”
“I can’t compete with that look,” I said, eyeing the black studded belt and high-top Chucks that only added to his appearance. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“No one can compete with this look,” he said seriously. “We don’t have to go anywhere. Is this a ‘not look at each other’ conversation or...?”
I bit my bottom lip before bobbing my head.
We’d figured out after Jared moved back to Canada and Rick had eventually found me laying in the empty bath of my flat with the water of the combined shower running over me, that my ability to tolerate being vulnerable increased when there was a shower curtain involved.
Plus, I liked how uncomfortable it made him feel being in the presence of my naked body.
He nodded back gravely. Mostly about the being in the bathroom with me naked part though I was sure and not about what it was I was going to tell him.
“What, do I have to carry you there?” Rick demanded, standing up.
“Hey, you can’t be mean to me today,” I sniffed dramatically, not fooling him.
“Fine,” he said, squeezing my hand. “But only because it’s like the time Jared left.”
Rick’s face was white when I peeked out from behind the shower curtain. He’d been silent for five minutes straight. I think he was taking the news harder than I had.
“You don’t even know who you are?” he said slowly as if he were focusing on putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle.
He sat on the closed toilet lid, elbows on knees, staring into the browning grout of the tiles.
I shook my head and closed the curtain again, not wanting to witness any sympathy his face was about to express.
“Have you told June?”
I shook my head again before remembering the curtain.
“No,” I squeaked.
Rick sucked air through his teeth. “I knew I was the favourite.”
“You forced it out of me. I’d have been happy to take this to my grave, or whatever it was that stupid Colin said.
She’s not even my sister anymore.” The realisation hit me harder than the earlier punch in the tits.
This one was deeper and made me appreciate even more that I hadn’t had a tipple with the rubbing-alcohol.
It would be making last night’s sugar binge, which was threatening to erupt from my throat with my anxiety, a guarantee.
“Except you don’t mean that. I have questions, and it’s not even my life. Your mind must be like a circus right now.”
“It’s crickets in here,” I lied, holding my palms under the warm stream of water.
“Liar.”
Damn. “Stop acting like you know me so well.”
“I do know you so well,” Rick said, yanking open the shower curtain.
“Hey!” I cried, hands flying to my chest.
“I’ve seen those things a zillion times. They’re about as exciting as your armpit. For realsies though—you know the only thing you can do is go back and talk to your dad. He’s the only one who has answers. Who cares about the stupid house? You need to figure out who you are.”
“Did you just say ‘realsies’? I don’t think we can be friends anymore,” I wrinkled my nose. “Also, how exciting is my armpit out of ten?”
Rick groaned. “Two. And that’s only because of the magic of it always being hairless. Now out. We have places to be.”
“Eyes on the road,” I hissed as Rick flicked through messages every few minutes. I will end up taking all this to my grave if you crash us.”
The corner of his mouth curved, and he slid the phone back between his thighs.
“I read somewhere that phone radiation affects sperm count when you keep it near the goodies.”
“That sounds like a load of crap,” he muttered, but moved the phone to the cup holder.
“What is it?” I asked, watching a tiny line form between his brows.
He shook his head. “Another time.”
“Don’t do that!” I groaned. “You know hearing other people’s problems makes me feel better about having my own problems.”
He shook his head again, mashing his lips together.
“Rick!”
“Oh my god has anyone ever told you that you’re really annoying?”
“Said the man who burst into my room unannounced and showed up uninvited?”
He sighed and pursed his lips together again for a moment. “It’s not bad news.”
“So?”
“So, I can’t tell you not bad news on the worst day of your life.”
“You don’t know that this is the worst day of my life.
There could be a tyrannical stalker ready to cut me up into thirty-seven pieces and turn me into sausages while wearing my face skin.
That would be worse.” I joked, trying to cut the tension.
Really, I just didn’t want my friends thinking they couldn’t share things with me because I was going through my own stuff.
That included Breeze too. I hadn’t realised how self-absorbed I’d become.
“That was oddly specific.”
When his phone buzzed again, I lunged for it.
“Hey! Stay away from the driver!”
“Tell me, or next time I will get it—and I’ll throw it out the window. Then you’ll never be able to finish the equivalent of the you hang up, no you hang up conversation you’re having with Hot Wood Chopper man.”
“You can’t hang up over text,” he replied before exhaling and dropping his shoulders. “Fine. But you asked for it.”
I nodded, transforming my face into what I hoped was a genuine smile. He didn’t look convinced.
“Maybe I want to have kids one day,” he said each word slowly, throwing a glance at me to see my reaction before looking away again. “Maybe I’m talking about it.”
“May-be?” I asked slowly.
Rick blew out a slow breath. “Maybe we’re talking about it.”
My mouth bobbed open. “Shut the front door!” I turned in my seat to face my friend, my wide smile sincere now.
“Don’t look at me!” he snapped.
Noted. Shower curtain conversation rules applied.
I turned back to the road and held a hand to the side of my face. “We’re talking about it... as in you and Wood Chopper man?”
“I told you not to call him that. But yes. Maybe. What do you think?”
“I thought it was lesbians who U-Hauled?” I said.
I could feel his glare burning through my fingers.
“If we’d only been seeing each other a month, I’d agree. But it’s been over a year, on and off. I guess we’re exclusive now.”
“You guess?”
“We are,” he whispered.
Poor Rick was nearly as afraid of commitment as I was. This was huge.
“I think that’s incredible. I’m genuinely happy for you.” My heart was bursting for him.
“You are?” he asked, pulling my hand down from my face and squeezing it.
“Truly.” I looked him dead in the eye. “So happy for you.”
“Good,” he said, dipping his head and patting my hand as he pulled into Dad’s driveway. “Remember how happy you are with me.”
“For you,” I corrected.
“With me,” he nodded again, ignoring my words as he pulled up outside Dad's house.