19. Lara
”Don”t you like your burger?” I ask.
Parker looks at his plate. He”s taken maybe two bites of the greasy bacon cheeseburger and barely touched the fries.
I reach over and snag a few.
”Hmm?” He looks up. ”Oh, yeah.” He picks up the burger and takes a bite. ”How about you?”
I look at my empty plate. ”Already finished my turkey club… I guess I was hungrier than I thought. Especially since I finished before you.” I grab another French fry from his plate.
He pushes his plate toward me. ”Here, have them.”
”Sorry.” I give him a look. ”I”ll stop.”
He shrugs. ”You ready to get out of here?” He pulls out his wallet and picks up the bill the waiter left on the table.
”Kinda early to end the night,” I say and try to giggle.
Parker looks at his phone. ”It”s almost ten. We went to the movies. We grabbed dinner. What more is there?”
Wow.
”You”re right.” I grab my coat and slide out of the booth. ”We completed the components of a date night. Time to clock out.”
Parker scoffs as he slides out of his side at the booth and goes to the register. I look around the diner and spot a few truckers sitting at the counter and a table of kids wearing letter jackets. Other than that, it”s a quiet evening in Wind Dance.
”Okay, you ready to go?” Parker asks as he comes up behind me.
We walk to his car and get in.
”You sure you don”t want to do anything else tonight?” I ask him.
”What else can we do?” He sighs. ”It”s Wind Dance.”
I think fast. I don”t want to go home. ”I don”t know… we could… drive around? Or park and watch the stars?”
”It”s freezing out,” he says. ”Why would you want to stay out in the cold?”
I buckle my seat belt. ”Okay… we could go to your house.”
”I”ve got an early morning.” Parker pulls out of the parking lot. ”Have to pack for school.”
”You have to get up early for that?” I ask, but he doesn”t answer. ”I thought you”d want to spend time together.”
He turns onto the road, and there”s a full minute of silence between us.
”What is it, Parker?”
”Nothing.”
”Come on. There”s been something eating you all night. What is it?”
”I don”t want to talk about it,” he tells me.
I stare at him. ”What”s that supposed to mean?”
”Doesn”t mean anything.” He groans. ”Can you just drop it?”
I toss my hands up. ”What the hell is going on with you?”
”God damn it.” He slams on the brakes and pulls to the side of the road.
I shove my hair out of my face. ”What the hell are you doing?”
He turns off the ignition and looks at me with his jaw clenched for several seconds. ”You said you wanted to talk. So, talk.”
I gesture to the window. ”In the middle of nowhere?”
He shrugs sarcastically. ”In the middle of nowhere… because I can”t do this anymore.”
I get a queasy sensation in my stomach. ”Do what?”
He gestures to me, then to him. ”This. Us. It”s too much.”
My mouth falls open. ”You can”t be serious.”
He grips the steering wheel and looks straight ahead. ”We”ve been seeing too much of each other.”
”We”ve barely seen each other with your school and everything. And now you”re going away again?—”
”And you”re not.” He stares at me. ”Look, I”m sorry about Amanda. It hasn”t been easy for you. I know that. But it”s gotten too hard for me to deal with. You”ve… gotten too hard to deal with.”
The nausea is quickly replaced with a flash of hot anger. ”Oh, it”s hard for you? I lost my sister, asshole. I”ve had a lot to process.”
”You have?” He looks dramatically at me. ”Because that”s news to me, babe. You don”t talk about anything. Maybe if you did open up occasionally, things may”ve been easier.”
I sit back in my seat, wide-eyed, and look straight ahead. ”Take me home.”
He scoffs and turns on the ignition. ”There you go again.”
I don”t say anything more, and the ride back to my house is silent.
I want to cry and knock his teeth out at the same time.
Does he want to break up?
Where the hell is this coming from? I know things haven”t been perfect, and it”s even worse with me not going to college this semester, but now he wants to spring this on me.
Maybe I will knock his teeth out.
As he approaches my house, I see a light in one of the upstairs front windows. It”s the room my mother stays in now that she has stopped sleeping in the master bedroom with my father.
The rest of the house is dark except for a faint blue light coming from one of the windows downstairs.
Papa is probably watching TV in his den.
Happy family.
The car is still running. ”You going to turn that off?” I ask. ”Or are you ready to just speed out of here the minute I get out?”
He turns the car off and slumps in his seat, licking his lips. ”I said what I needed to say. I”m sorry I had to do it like this when I”m about to leave, but I didn”t see any other way.”
”Is this just about wanting to sleep with girls at school?” I ask. ”You want to be free so you can fuck anything and everything in sight?”
”You think I”m like that?” he snaps. ”You think I”m just some horndog ready to sleep around? Who”s to say that”s not the pot calling the kettle black?”
”If I didn”t know better, I”d think you were accusing me of being a slut who sleeps around on you, Parker.”
”I”m not saying that… damn!” He rams his fist on the steering wheel. ”You just… you piss me off. You know that? And it”s not in a cute way. It”s frustrating as hell.”
I open my mouth to speak but shut it quickly.
I”m difficult.
And I know he”s got good reason to get pissed at me sometimes, but he knew who I was when we started dating.
”And when it”s good—when I feel like we”re connecting, you close up. It”s like talking to a wall.”
I let out a groan. ”Do you need to know everything I”m thinking and feeling at every moment?” I massage my forehead. A headache is coming on. ”I”m sorry, I”m not like those girls who carry a bag of drama and emotions with them wherever I go. I don”t always know what you”re thinking… so why do you need to know my thoughts?”
”We”re in a relationship. We”re supposed to tell each how we”re feeling and… and… show a little emotion, for fuck”s sake. You act like you”re the goddamn ice queen most of the time.”
My hands ball into fists. ”You did not just call me that.”
He winces. ”I”m sorry. But sometimes, you know… if you could”ve just told me what was on your mind. Even at Amanda”s funeral… I didn”t see you cry once. Don”t you think that”s a little weird? That you didn”t cry for your sister?”
”You weren”t sitting next to me, asshole,” I spit back at him. ”Maybe I wasn”t blubbering away like some people, but I grieved. More than you think I did.”
Parker lets out a defeated sigh. ”I can”t do this. I”m done. I”m sorry, but I”m done.”
I blink a few times, letting his words sink in. ”After everything, you”re just done? I mean that little to you?”
He shakes his head. ”It”s not about that. I care for you a lot, but I need to move on. You need to move on, too.”
I feel like a knife has been shoved into my heart. I always knew Parker and I weren”t destined for a grand love affair, but I did like him. Some. It was always going to end down the road, but not now. I”m not ready for it to be now.
”Maybe we can talk about this.” I take a deep breath. ”Maybe if you… sleep on it tonight, we can get together tomorrow and?—”
”Are you ready to open up to me?” he asks. ”Be completely honest about what you”re about to say.”
”I”m—I”m not like that,” I whisper.
”Then get out of my car.”
I feel like I”ve just been slapped in the face. ”Excuse me?”
He visibly swallows. ”You heard what I said. It”s time for you to get out of my car.”
I grab the handle and swing the door open. ”You”re the biggest asshole right now.”
”If that”s what you need.” He nods, his face defeated. ”That”s fine.”
After I get out, he slams the door shut. I step back just in time for him to peel out of the driveway, sending gravel flying.
”What an asshole!” Letting out a huff, I spin and walk to the front porch.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the tears from coming. The last thing I want to do right now is cry over that jerk.
As I reach for the handle, the front door opens.
Mother is standing with a tumbler in her hand. The glass contains a few ice cubes and some brown liquid.
”What was that all about?” she asks.
”Nothing.” I walk past her and go down the hallway.
The front door closes, and footsteps sound behind me.
”It was Parker, wasn”t it?” Mother enters the kitchen and sits on one of the barstools.
”Yeah,” I tell her. ”He dropped me off.”
”Why”s your face so red?” she asks. ”You need to wear better makeup.” She takes a sip from her glass.
I grab a bottle of water from the fridge. ”My makeup is fine.”
”Did something happen?”
She”ll find out sooner or later, so I might as well tell her.
”We broke up. Just now.”
”He broke up with you?” Her eyes widen. ”What did you do?”
I take a sip of water, trying not to cringe. ”Why do you think it was something I did? Why can”t it be something he did?”
She empties the contents of her tumbler. ”You were always messing up with that boy.”
I sneer. ”What”s that supposed to mean?”
”He had to put up with a lot… You”re not an easy girl to deal with.”
”Thanks for that. I tell you I broke up with my boyfriend, and you tell me it”s my fault.”
She gets up, opens the liquor cabinet, and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. ”I”m just being honest. You don”t have to make it sound like I”m attacking you.”
She pours herself a glass and takes another sip.
No wonder Papa is always avoiding her and hiding in his den. Her drinking has picked up lately.
I roll my eyes. ”I”m going to bed.”
”No, no.” She points to the kitchen table. ”Come and sit with me. Tell me about the breakup.”
I give her a strange look.
Is she going to pretend to be a caring person suddenly?
Out of dumb curiosity, I sit. ”What do you want me to tell you?”
She takes a healthy sip of her drink. ”How did it happen? Did you fight?”
I shake my head. ”We saw a movie. It was one of those action war movies… something he wanted to see. Then we stopped at the diner. And then… he just told me he was done in the car on the way home.”
”But you must”ve done something to make him break up.” She raises her eyebrows.
”I didn”t say anything. I was trying to think of things we could do so we didn”t have to end the evening early, and that was it. I didn”t say anything to make him say what he said.”
”Perhaps you don”t know how to read a man, Lara. If you”re going to date, you need to learn.”
My mouth drops open for a second. ”What”re you talking about? Why do I have to learn how to read a man?”
”To make him happy. If you want your relationships to last, you have to ensure the man gets what he needs. And I don”t think you know how. Maybe dating isn”t for you.”
I jump out of my seat, forcing the chair to fall backward on the tile floor. ”This isn”t my fault. And I don”t know why you”re making it out like it is.”
She takes another sip from her glass. ”Maybe it”s time for you to go to bed. You”re going to get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that. And then you”ll look much older than you are.”
My mother is a psychopath!
There”s no other explanation for it. And even with the raised voice and the sound of the crashing chair, Papa still hasn”t come out of the den.
I could say that Mother has some relationship troubles of her own. But I don”t. She”d probably slap me if I said something like that.
Taking a breath, I leave the kitchen, leaving her to her drink.
As I head up the stairs and enter my room, I close the door and lock it behind me. Glancing at the mirror above my vanity, I groan. Pictures of Parker and I are pasted all over it, along with mementos of our relationship… a ticket stub from our first movie, the corsage he gave me for a school dance and other things.
I grab the wastebasket next to my door and walk to the vanity.
All of it has to go. Right now.
I”m not going to wake up tomorrow and see all of this crap.
I pull the pictures down and everything else.
The mirror looks strangely bare, but I don”t care. The sooner I get all this stuff out of my life and thoughts, the better. I don”t know why I kept it all in the first place.
I place the full wastebasket next to the door, pull the bag out, and tie it. I don”t need to see all of that. After opening my door, I put the bag in the hall and tell myself I”ll take it out in the morning. No way am I going downstairs and running into my mother again.
I relock my bedroom door and lay on my bed.
Tears form as I stare at the ceiling, and I don”t bother blinking them back. I feel the streaks run down my face and dampen the bedspread beneath me.
It”s not supposed to happen like this.
I”m supposed to be in control of things. Go to college and?—
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I curl up on my bed and let the tears flow.