Chapter 20
ROMAN
“Have you ever considered becoming a therapist?” I say, looking down at the cooing baby in my arms.
“My child is not going to be your therapist,” Denice says from next to me. I can hear the disapproval in her voice, but I don’t look at her. “Now or ever.”
“But she’s so good at it,” I say, and it’s true.
I haven’t said a word about what’s bothering me, obviously—not even to Denice—but somehow I can feel the tension and thorny nettles melting away.
They don’t disappear, but they seem less important when I have a tiny human being looking at me, her grayish-blue eyes wide and alert, her nose scrunching every now and then.
“I’m good at it too,” Denice says, and she nudges me gently.
I sigh and finally look at her.
Her living room is bathed in afternoon light, and the house is quiet. Louis is out, so it’s just the two of us and Nessa here; so far I’ve changed one diaper, made silly faces for thirty minutes so Denice could go shower, and practiced my swaddling technique.
Yeah. That’s a thing. Swaddling a baby requires technique. I’m not great at it.
I think Denice can do it in two seconds, in the dark, with both eyes closed. For that matter, she probably has.
She looks like herself today, and it’s worth noting, because sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she looks lost; not unhappy, necessarily, but not all there. I don’t know if it’s something to do with being tired or maybe adjusting to a new way of life.
“Babies suck all the life out of you,” she said when I asked last time, after we had dinner together and my dad had gone home.
Denice had an unidentified stain on her shirt and a vacant look in her eyes, and she was once again slumped on the couch, Nessa in her arms. “It’s not your fault,” she cooed to the baby, tickling her chubby cheeks.
“You’re just doing what biology programmed you to do. ”
Then she looked at me. “But it’s true. Maybe it sounds bad. But having a baby drains you. My body doesn’t just belong to me right now. My center of consciousness is now external. You can get lost if you’re not careful.” Then she passed Nessa to me and asked me to put her in her swing.
Today, though, right now, she’s more herself, especially after showering. She’s wearing her big sister expression, the one that’s currently inviting me to talk—but will later threaten if the invitation doesn’t work.
When she raises one brow at me, I sigh. “I asked Aurora out.”
Denice just blinks at me.
“And she said no.”
Another blink and more silence.
“And…that’s it.”
Except I’m lying. That’s not it—or, rather, that’s not all. I could deal with being rejected if Aurora simply didn’t like who I was.
But Aurora doesn’t seem to know who I am. That’s my concern. Or, an even deeper concern—what if I’m the one who doesn’t know myself?
She offered me a fling. A no-strings-attached relationship. But I don’t want that with her. With Aurora, I would want more.
I guess I hoped she would too. Instead, I’m left wondering what signals I’ve been giving off. Even my sister called me a “hit-it-and-quit-it” type.
“So you got rejected,” Denice says, and I nod.
“I got rejected.” Raising my brows at her, I say, “Are you surprised?”
“You know,” she says as her lips curl into a little frown, “I actually can’t tell. I could see it going both ways with the two of you. She doesn’t really seem interested in anything serious, but if you’re not either—”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I say. The words are sharper than I mean them to be, and I clear my throat at Denice’s look of censure. “Is there a sign on my forehead that everyone but me can see? Something like Call for a good time?”
“No,” she says slowly. “There’s not.” She pauses, and her voice is hesitant as she goes on. “But you treat everything like a joke, Roman. Whether that’s how you feel or not,” she adds quickly, cutting off my protest, “that’s how you come off. Are you aware of that?”
She’s speaking calmly, rationally, and I both love and resent her for it.
“I guess I’m becoming aware,” I say. Nessa’s eyes have drifted closed, her tiny, feathery lashes twitching every so often. “I don’t think everything is a joke. I know it’s not.”
We sit in silence for a moment, until Denice speaks.
“You seem really upset about this.”
A wave of exhaustion hits me. “Yes,” I say. “Because I am upset. Because I care about things, Denice, and apparently people think I’m not capable of that.”
“Don’t use that tone with me,” she retorts, and I scoff.
“Then don’t say stupid things.” But a second later my shoulders slump. “No,” I say grudgingly. “Sorry. But—I’m serious.”
Denice sighs. “If people misunderstand you, you might just have to let them misunderstand you. Or, I don’t know.” She reaches over and touches the tip of Nessa’s nose. “Prove them wrong.”
Denice’s words stay with me for the rest of the weekend, and when Monday rolls around, they’re still there, marinating in my own soupy feelings.
The only person I’ve ever felt the need to impress or prove anything to is my father—not that it ever worked. Otherwise I’ve been content moving through life on my own, unconcerned by peoples’ perceptions.
But it bothers me that Aurora might see me as someone frivolous or shallow, and for the first time, I find myself wanting to change the way she thinks of me.
I’m just not sure I can, or even should. She’s rejected me. And in front of her I brushed it off, but it hurt more than I expected. A lot more. It was like a flame being snuffed out, a little balloon of hope being punctured.
Should I fight for someone who by all appearances doesn’t want me?
No, right? I need to cut my losses and move on.
Maybe I don’t even like her that much. Maybe she’s—what was it my grandfather said to Elabeth?
The only creature to have captured my attentions, which in the past have been so easily swayed.
Maybe she’s simply tamed me into something grudgingly complicit.
I snort with disgust. Knowing what my grandfather ended up doing, the words feel even worse now.
“Cut it out,” I mutter to myself, pushing my hand through my hair and staring down at my computer screen.
My résumé stares back up at me, full of choppy contradictions—fancy job titles but short durations, and very little related to my actual field of interest.
The clock on the wall ticks steadily into the silence, accompanied only by my stomach when it rumbles, and I finally push the computer aside and stand up. The cushions of my recently sanitized couch let me go with reluctance.
I trudge into the kitchen and slap together a sandwich—ham and cheese, because turkey is gross—eating it mindlessly as I stare out the window over the sink.
When my phone begins to buzz from my pocket, I startle and drop the sandwich. It falls apart in the air and lands with one slice of mayonnaise-slathered bread face down, the other slice landing on top of the ham and cheese and lettuce and tomato as they all splat on the floor.
I groan in annoyance and dig my phone out of my pocket, not bothering to look at the screen first.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
My body stills; it’s Aurora.
She should be coming over this evening after work, going by our usual schedule. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to make myself scarce, even though the debate has been on my mind all day.
She’s calling now, though, and I can’t hang up on her. It would be childish anyway.
“Hi,” I say, my eyes falling back to my ruined sandwich.
She can obviously hear in my voice that something’s wrong, because she pauses and then says, “Uh, is this a bad time?” The words are hesitant in a way I’m not used to from her.
“No,” I say glumly, still looking at my lunch on the floor. “I just dropped my sandwich.”
“Mmm. My condolences.”
“Fillings everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
“Mayonnaise splattered all over the floor.”
“Uh-huh…”
“Can barely walk through the sea of lettuce and ham and cheese and tomato—”
“All right,” she cuts me off, and a smile tugs at my lips despite the complicated feelings still brewing inside me. “I think there’s some exaggeration going on.”
I don’t respond to this, letting silence fall between us.
From the other end, Aurora clears her throat. “Uh, how is the house?”
“The house is fine,” I say, leaning back against the counter.
“Good,” she says. “And—” She breaks off, sounding almost awkward. “The job hunt? How is that?”
My shoulders twitch into a shrug. “Uneventful. Trying to make myself sound good on a résumé. The usual.”
“You’ll find something.” Her reassurance is hearty, forced.
But she’s right; I will find something. “Yeah, it’ll happen.”
And…more silence.
“So…did you call just to ask about the house and my job?” I say.
I know she didn’t.
“Oh,” she says. “Uh, no, actually.”
I hum, waiting.
“I just needed—” She takes a deep breath and exhales, a staticky rush of air down the line. “I needed to apologize.”
I blink in surprise.
“To you, I mean,” she goes on.
“I know what you meant.” I tilt my head and stand up straighter, curiosity unfurling inside me. “What are you apologizing for?”
“I—was rude,” she says. “Last week. When—”
But she doesn’t continue, and my lips quiver with a smile I try to suppress.
She can’t make herself say it. So I nudge her in the right direction.
“When I asked you out?” I supply.
A beat of silence. “Yes.”
“I wouldn’t say you were horribly rude.” I sidestep the mess of my sandwich on the floor and grab a rag from a drawer.
“Fine,” Aurora says. “I was inappropriate, then.”
“In what way?” I say, peeling the slices of bread and fillings up and tossing them into the sink. Then get the rag wet and wipe the spot several times, until I can no longer see the greasy residue of ham or mayo.
I can practically hear Aurora’s struggle as she forces herself to speak, probably through a clenched jaw or gritted teeth—not because she’s angry but because she’s infernally bad at conversations like this.
“I was wrong,” she says finally, the words stiff. “I shouldn’t have asked you for—”
I listen more intently, waiting for her to go on. Is she going to say it?
“For no strings attached,” she finishes. “I incorrectly assumed that you might be interested in that arrangement, and you were offended.”
Satisfaction trickles through me, and I hum. “Would you have been interested in that arrangement?” I say. “Really, truly interested?”
Silence.
“I’ve wanted those things in the past,” I go on.
There’s no point in lying; Denice’s confirmation from Saturday wouldn’t let me anyway.
I wipe my hands and trail out of the kitchen, back to the living room, where I settle on the couch that still smells faintly of lemony disinfectant.
“And apparently I still exude those vibes,” I go on. “So—”
“You don’t.”
Once again, though, Aurora surprises me, and I blink. I’m not sure I’ve heard her correctly.
“What?”
She sighs, and she finally begins to sound more normal when she continues. “You don’t come off that way—casual or superficial or whatever you want to call it.”
I raise my eyebrows, running my fingers over the fraying thread of the couch as I wait.
“I mean, I guess at first you do,” Aurora admits, reluctant but not stilted or uncomfortable like before. “Because you flirt a lot. But I’ve gotten to know you a little better. And I know you’re not really like that. So…I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Apology accepted,” I say promptly. Hope tries to rise in my chest, but it’s not the bright, blossoming flame it’s been in the past—it’s tinged with pain now, and apprehension, as I remind myself that this doesn’t mean anything.
This doesn’t mean anything, as much as I wish it did.
Even so, I know—I can’t deny—that Aurora isn’t just a pretty face or someone who’s swayed my grudging interest, the way Goddard described Elabeth. I like her.
“I will, however, need you to tone down your shameless flirting,” I tell her, because I think the best, most pain-free option I can hope for is a shallower version of what we were before. “I know you’re desperate for me, little vandal, but it’s simply not going to happen, all right?”
The words hurt, and what’s worse, they don’t have their intended effect; Aurora doesn’t laugh. The sound that trails down the line is one of weak amusement at best.
“Got it,” she says as I strain to listen better, trying to figure out exactly what I’m hearing in her voice. But I get nothing. She adopts a businesslike tone as she goes on. “I need to go eat a quick lunch, so I’ll let you go. I’ll be by later to do some finishing touches on your place.”
She doesn’t ask whether I’ll be here, and I don’t offer the information, because I don’t know myself. I have a feeling spending time with her will just make things worse for me right now.
“All right” is all I say. “Thanks for calling.”
“Mm-hmm. Bye,” she says, and then she’s gone.
I pull the phone slowly away from my ear, looking at it even though she’s already hung up.
By the time I’ve stopped replaying the conversation in my head, I’m not even hungry anymore.