Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Walker fixed dinner again. Which was very kind of him. And she felt exposed from the encounter that had just happened. She wasn’t sure if he realized how exposing it was, wasn’t sure if he understood just how much of herself he had seen when she had jumped him on the landing.
But he hadn’t said anything. Maybe that was perfectly normal for him. Perfectly normal for him to get accosted by women at any time of the day.
It wasn’t normal for her to feel like this. She’d thought she didn’t like to give blow jobs, but she was surprised to found out that wasn’t true. Not with Walker. But then, with Walker she liked everything.
She was sitting out on the porch by the river, brooding just slightly when he came out with two plates laden with food. Roast chicken and mashed potatoes.
“Do you always cook?”
“No. In fact, I rarely cook. Tomorrow... tomorrow my brother is barbecuing. We should go. It would be normal to go.”
It would be normal. Implying that nothing they were doing was normal, which was fair enough. This wasn’t normal for either of them.
“But you cook really well.”
“I have the best kitchen gadgets that you can possibly find. So yeah, I cook well. With assistance.”
“Is it to impress women?”
“No. That’s what my ability to give multiple orgasms is for. Thank you for asking, though.”
Her cheeks got hot, and she couldn’t lie. She felt just a little bit disgruntled by that.
“Okay. So you don’t cook for other women?”
“I have. Dinner. Never breakfast.”
So it was all sex and then a direct shove out the door.
“Okay.”
“What about you? You said you slept with a couple other guys. What was that?”
“The first one was my attempt at letting loose a little bit. I only went on two dates with him before we had sex. But then we had a whole six-month relationship because I felt like I had to.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s sad.”
“Only if you didn’t enjoy it.”
“I didn’t. Not really. I mean, I didn’t dislike him, but I just mean it ended for a reason.
That reason being that it felt like a chore to have to see him.
And there was a point where I realized that was kind of a silly way to conduct a relationship.
The other guy was... I actually thought maybe I really liked him.
I hoped that I did. I was really attracted to him at first, and then the sex was kind of a letdown.
And I waited like a month into dating him because I didn’t want to end up stuck in another relationship.
At that point, I kind of accepted that the sex thing was me. ”
“Well, that’s some bullshit.”
“It’s really not. It’s not because I...I was scared of that part of myself. So even though I had relationships, even though I had sex, I was so worried about doing it right, doing it appropriately, doing it in a way that wasn’t...I don’t know, unfettered and...”
“Good?”
“I don’t know. I guess. I was really afraid of wanting more, actually, than what I was getting because that was what my mom did. She wanted more than what she was getting, and then when she got it, she wanted that more than she wanted our family.”
Walker was quiet for a moment. “I know exactly what it’s like to be handed the reputation that your parents have.
I’m not saying that it isn’t real. I guess it was easy for me to assume that because you got to be part of the social elite in Mustang River that you weren’t actually all that affected by your mother’s reputation.
Because it was different for me. I never wanted to be like my mother either.
I never wanted to be longing after somebody who didn’t want anything to do with me.
I never wanted to have kids and ignore them.
And then, finding out that the person I thought was my dad was just a different deadbeat, finding out that I couldn’t know what I was actually trying to avoid, because I didn’t really know who my father was, that was pretty upsetting, actually.
I get it. I get being tied up in not becoming your parents. ”
“I just feel weird now. And bad. I talked to my mom earlier today, and she apologized to me. It’s just so clear that the situation is so much more complicated than I could have ever appreciated.
Because I lived with my dad, so he was the good guy.
He was the superhero. What else could he be?
He’s my dad. And everybody in town loved him, and he was a great mayor.
It isn’t like there’s anything dark. I asked my mom outright.
I never thought there was, but I also realized that a lot of times men that have power and influence have unearned reputations for being good.
Because people just want them to be. But my dad is good.
But there’s something about that goodness...
It’s so hard to live up to. It is such a high bar, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to not just meet it, but exceed it.
Clear it. I don’t know my dad. He doesn’t know me.
I don’t know me. I don’t know my mom. All I know is... ”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I do have anxiety, don’t I?”
“Yeah. But you know, I do too.”
She looked up at him, her heart slamming against her breastbone. “You do?”
“If I didn’t have any of that, then I suppose I wouldn’t work so hard at making myself look like I have it all together, would I? Keeping myself from being my dad. I don’t worry about my reputation in the same way. I don’t think it’s as high-pressure of a situation. But something has to drive you.”
“Well. I suppose that is true.”
“Mainly, I’m driven by my spite. Just being honest. Resentment.
Anger. To show people that I’m not what they thought I was.
To show them that I’m better than whatever they wrote me off as.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to heal because it’s the thing that’s keeping me... me. I don’t know who I am without it.”
She looked at him, her heart feeling sore.
She wanted to tell him that he didn’t need that.
Didn’t need to carry all that anger and resentment around with him like a backpack of potentially useful supplies, but she couldn’t.
Because it was what her shame had been for her.
What it still was. Just because she had managed to get rid of it in a few specific situations didn’t mean that it was gone forever.
And part of her was afraid of who she would be without it.
They were issues fashioned into leashes, designed to keep them...
tethered. Designed to make sure they did exactly what they wanted to do.
Because neither of them knew how to operate with positive reinforcement, apparently.
They only knew how to make themselves do things based on the fear that they might become something they didn’t like or respect.
She hadn’t expected to find out she had something so profound in common with Walker, and she didn’t know how she felt about it.
“Do you not realize how messed up that sounds?”
“Sure. But so what? Everybody’s messed up.
Everybody. I don’t care how great your life was.
Something got in your head and tweaked it just a little bit, because that’s human nature.
It’s how things work. Even if you have great parents, they mess you up.
Because you can’t build a whole human from scratch without causing some damage.
At least, if you can, I’ve never seen it.
Not that I’m an expert, mind you, but this is my observation.
So everybody’s running around with something just a little bit crooked inside of them, and they’ve got to figure out how to walk straight anyway.
Yeah, some of us are more messed up than others.
But if not wanting to be my dad is the thing that makes me a success, is the thing that keeps me off of drugs, is the thing that keeps me from littering the earth with love children, then isn’t that a good thing? ”
“I guess. Until it circles around to the point that it keeps you from having things that you do want.”
“Haven’t had that experience yet.”
She wasn’t even sure if she had. It felt like it. Right now, she felt like she was pulling against something. Trying to break free. Right now, it felt like she was trying to build a new image of herself. Trying so hard to be a more untethered version of herself.
“I just feel like I woke up from a trance. And I built this whole life all around me and I’m not even sure how I got there.” She looked at him, conviction burning in her chest. “I know how I got here. With you. I wanted you, and so I had you. Well, and you had me too. Pretty thoroughly.”
“Yeah, I’m good at that.”
His tone was dry, and he was making light of it, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“Because I wanted you back then.”
“So you’ve said.”
“But I need you to understand, I wanted you back then, and I constructed this whole... awful mean girl thing because I wanted you. It was all you, Walker. I wasn’t scared of anybody else.
I wasn’t scared of anybody else turning me into something that I didn’t recognize.
I wasn’t afraid of anybody else making me into my mother. Only you. It was just you.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered by that?”
“I don’t know. You can choose to be flattered by it or not. I’m not going to say that it’s an exceptionally flattering thing. It’s just that... it just is. And I want to know who I am if I... if I didn’t do that. What would have happened if I had given in then?”
“We would have fucked, but I would have been the seventeen-year-old virgin version of myself, and the sex would have been terrible. And very fast. You probably still would have decided that sex wasn’t worth all that, and you never would have told anybody that we did it.”
She didn’t really like his characterization of that. Or her. But to be fair, particularly the teenage version of herself had not earned any better.
What other characterization did she deserve? There wasn’t one.