Chapter 23 – Josie
chapter
twenty-three
Josie
I needed to not think for approximately three hours, and Kimmy had volunteered to make that happen with retail therapy and a birthday gift for somebody else.
The mall smelled like pretzels and floor cleaner.
Kimmy was already three stores deep before I’d finished my coffee, which was fine, because that was the point.
I needed her pulling me through crowds and arguing about candles and being loud enough to drown out everything else.
Because the alternative was sitting alone in my apartment replaying the party on a loop, and I could not do that for one more night.
Lena found a hand-blown ceramic mug at an artisan booth near the east entrance and held it up with both hands. “This is it.”
We got it wrapped. While the girl was folding tissue paper around it, I leaned over the counter. “When’s her birthday?”
“November eleventh.”
I blinked. “Oh my gosh, that’s the same day as mine.”
“Seriously?” Kimmy grabbed my arm hard enough that I stumbled. “That’s a sign. Lena, your mom and our girl are cosmically linked.”
Lena smiled and tucked the bag under her arm. “I’ll tell her. She’ll love that.”
We got smoothies at the food court because Kimmy decided we needed them, and I was two sips in when she dropped into the seat across from me, put both elbows on the table, and gave me the look, the one where her jaw set and her eyes went soft at the same time, which meant she was done pretending this was a casual trip to the mall.
“So.” She stirred. “Are we going to talk about trivia night?”
There it is.
“What about it?”
“He called you a prude. In front of everyone. Trace had to tell him to sit down.”
“I know what happened. I was there.”
“Which is why I’m asking how you’re doing.” Her voice dropped, and that was worse. I could handle Kimmy at full volume. Kimmy being careful with me made my chest ache.
Lena sat quietly beside me with both hands wrapped around her smoothie, watching my face, not pushing but not looking away either.
“I’m tired,” I said. It came out before I could clean it up.
“I’m so tired of the cycle, Kimmy. He’s sweet, then he’s cruel, then he’s sorry, then he’s sweet again.
I keep waiting for the sweet version to stick, and it never does.
I’m exhausted from the roller coaster, and I don’t know how to get off it. ”
Kimmy put her hand over mine on the table and just held it.
“You don’t deserve that.” Lena kept her voice low.
“I know.” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat and took a drink. “I know that. I’m working on it.”
Kimmy let the silence sit for exactly as long as Kimmy was physically capable of letting a silence sit, which was about four seconds.
“Can I ask you something?”
Here we go.
“You’re going to ask anyway.”
“At trivia night. When Marcus was going off.” She chewed on her straw and pulled it out of her mouth and pointed it at me.
“He said something about Waylon. About how Waylon looks at you.” She paused.
“And I’m not saying Marcus is right about anything, ever, because that man has the emotional intelligence of a parking meter.
But is he right about that part? Is something happening between you and Waylon? ”
My face went so hot I could feel it in my ears.
“No.”
Kimmy and Lena both just looked at me.
I wanted to disappear through the food court floor.
“We run together, sometimes,” I said. “Mornings. He shows up at the trailhead, and we run, and that’s it.
” I grabbed my smoothie and took a long drink because my mouth had gone completely dry.
“He’s my friend. He’s been a good friend to me since I got here, and I don’t have a lot of those, so yeah. We run.”
Kimmy’s eyebrow went up about half an inch. “Every morning?”
“We run most mornings, which you know,” I said.
I cleared my throat and added, “And he kissed me once. But I’m not a cheater, and I need to untangle myself from this mess of a relationship and get my head on straight first. Plus I’m not trying to jump out of the pan into the fire, you know?
So that’s it. We’re friends. I’m not kissing him again, and he knows that. ”
I did feel lighter after saying it out loud.
To my surprise, neither Lena nor Kimmy looked shocked at all. If anything, Kimmy looked like she was trying not to smirk.
“Does Marcus know?”
I didn’t answer, and that told them everything.
Lena set her smoothie down and turned toward me on the bench, tucking one leg under her.
“Look. Waylon’s solid. He doesn’t do the girlfriend thing, but he’s honest, and he’s a good guy.
Trace has known him since freshman year and trusts him with everything.
” She picked her words. “Whatever is or isn’t happening, you’re safe with him. That’s all I’m saying.”
I nodded because I couldn’t talk right then.
“We’re just friends,” I managed after a second.
Kimmy squeezed my hand and let go. “Then we love that for you. And if it ever turns into more than that, we love that for you too.”
I kept my mouth shut, because if I opened it, I was going to lose it in a food court, and I absolutely refused to do that.
We ended up in a novelty gift shop twenty minutes later because Kimmy needed a birthday card for her brother.
Lena drifted toward a rack of enamel pins by the door.
I wandered to the back, past a shelf of mugs with slogans that should not have been printed on anything, and a rack of keychains, and then I stopped.
The bobblehead was maybe five inches tall, with a white coat, a stethoscope around its neck, and a plastic head that wobbled when I picked it up. Dr. Bob, World’s Greatest Doctor.
I thought of Waylon immediately. His mom was pulling ER night rotations with some asshole attending and running on almost no sleep, and he’d told me about it with that careful voice he used when something was eating at him before he changed the subject like he always did.
I could picture exactly what his face would do if I handed him this stupid thing. The laugh would come before he could catch it, and then that dimple on the left side would show up, the one that only showed up when something really got to him. I knew his face that well now.
Put it down.
I didn’t put it down. My fingers tightened around it instead, and my stomach twisted because I knew exactly what I was doing.
I was standing in a gift shop buying something for a man who was not my boyfriend because I wanted to see him smile, and there was no way to make that sound like something a friend would do.
Girl, you are lying to yourself, and you know it.
I did know it. It was the same lie I told myself every morning when I laced up my running shoes and said I just liked the company. I’d been telling it for so long that I’d almost started to believe it.
I took it to the register and paid for it.
I was sliding it into the outer pocket of my bag when Lena showed up next to me holding two enamel pins she couldn’t decide between.
“What’s that?”
I zipped the pocket. “A bobblehead.”
“Cute. Who’s it for?”
“My cousin. He’s starting his residency, so it’s a congratulations thing.”
The lie came out so smoothly it startled me. After three years with Marcus, I could dodge a question without blinking. It was a useful skill, and an ugly one, and I didn’t let myself think about that.
Lena just smiled. “That’s sweet. Which pin?” She held up both. One said “I paused my book for this,” and the other was a little embroidered earth with the word “Tired” underneath it.
“The second one.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She headed to the front of the store. I stood there with my bag zipped and my pulse hammering.
The lie had been easy. The problem was that I was already planning Monday morning, how I’d hand it to him, when I’d do it, which joke he’d crack, which side of his mouth would move first. I had been studying this man’s face for weeks, and I could not make myself stop.