Chapter 8
Dear July,
My dad’s been a fucking asshole my whole life. Sorry for my language. I love you and hope you’re okay. I’ll get home to you as soon as I can.
Joe
I can’t stand the sight of that fucking love seat. It’s the first thing I see when I step back into the apartment.
I grab it, hearing myself growl like a wild animal, and drag it, bumping, downstairs. Leave it by the curb of the still-dark street. If there’s a merciful god, it’ll be gone by noon.
Back upstairs, I avoid the area where the love seat was, afraid if I look too hard, I’ll see the shards of my stupid dreams lying there where they crashed.
I don’t know how long I stand at the window, staring out over the deserted street, before I realize July’s scent is on me. Part of me wants to crawl into that fucking bathtub and scrub it away. Another part wants to curl around it so it won’t disappear like my hope.
I’m a fool. I am every bit as stupid as my dad used to say I was.
What kind of dipshit drops his whole life to move sixteen hundred miles on the basis of an old memory? What kind of functioning adult believes that two lovestruck teenagers can be separated for twenty years and still be compatible when they meet again?
Why did I even trust that my memories of July were accurate? Sure, she’d been the one sweet thing in my life…for exactly two months. Yeah, maybe she did love me with her sixteen-year-old heart, but the adult woman is a stranger to me.
And I am—was—a distraction to her. Worse—I was something so bad I had to be driven out like a demon. My reappearance was wrecking her great life.
A teenage crush can’t overcome that.
For her, this night wasn’t a new beginning or a reason for hope. It was a means to an end. And sex wouldn’t have been making love—it would’ve been her using my dick like a barge pole to push me away. To get the dipshit with the messy feelings away.
Christ. I’d handed her those feelings—my heart—in an old shoebox.
I gag and barely make it into the bathroom before throwing up what little I’d had to eat.
Afterward, I slump down to the cracked tiles and just lie there. Not sure for how long. Maybe I doze. A siren somewhere jerks me back to alertness. I’m still shaky and queasy, but I can’t stay here, and I don’t have any place else to be. I pull on running gear and hit the predawn streets, walking at first, then picking up speed until I’m running flat-out.
My feet take me to the outskirts of town, up the road into the mountains, and onto the narrow turnoff for the lake spot that was once mine and July’s. I don’t want to be there, don’t want to see it, don’t want to remember, but my legs churn faster and faster until I burst into the clearing, gasping for breath.
Hands on my knees, it takes me a minute to register the flurry of movement from the direction of the picnic table. A wild-haired young guy is on the table, struggling to get out of a sleeping bag, his eyes wide on me.
“Oh, shit! I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve never seen anybody else up here.” I back away, pointing to the rock at the water’s edge. “I was just going to sit there and look at the lake. Will that bother you?”
He stops struggling. “No…that’s okay. I must’ve fallen asleep here. I need to go home anyway.”
Yeah, dude. You accidentally fell asleep in your sleeping bag. This is a kid in trouble. He’s bigger than me but looks like a young teenager with his baby face.
I nod and head to the rock, sitting so that my back is to him. Behind me I hear rustling and crinkling, as if he’s shoving his bedroll into a plastic bag. Then footsteps retreating into the woods, then nothing.
Takes the edge off my pity party. Yeah, I’m a thirty-six-year-old dumbass with no firm future plans and an ugly-ass, older-than-shit building, but at least I’ve got a roof over my head.
I scour my mind for the information Rose Barnes had given me on Galway-area organizations serving at-risk kids. Can’t for the life of me think how I could help him— if I ever see him again—without scaring him or making him think I’m some kind of predator.
Not that I’m likely to see him again. It’s time for me to get the fuck out of this town.
***
My much slower run home ends with me sweating and exhausted, unfit for human company, so of course Angus and Rose are leaning on his work van outside my building.
Rose smiles. “There he is! Still got time for us this morning?”
I’d completely forgotten we set a date. Can’t remember what it’s for. My head the day I met them had been too full of my fool dreams about July. But what the hell. Got nothing better to do, except for packing my truck to move to Cullowhee.
I ignore the question and unlock the door. “Sorry. I should’ve gotten home in time to take a bath before you got here.”
“That was one of the things you said you needed, right? A real shower?” Rose flips open the notebook she’s holding and turns it to a fresh page.
“You’ve cleaned the place up.” Angus is standing in the middle of the main downstairs room. Light actually comes in through the big front windows now, illuminating the damaged walls, but at least nothing grits or crackles when we walk across the floor.
“Yeah. That’s all I’ve done so far.” Guess I ought to be honest with them. “What were we going to do today again?”
Angus snorts and Rose rolls her eyes. He nudges her with one elbow. “Told ya.”
Rose purses her lips, her brown eyes crinkling at me. “Angus said you wouldn’t remember. Said you had your attention…elsewhere.”
Seems like centuries ago.
“Yeah, well. Today I’m all yours.”
Apparently we’d arranged for them to come over to discuss what needs doing in the building. At this moment I could not possibly care less. We can burn it to the fucking ground for all I care.
“So show us around.” Rose gestures with her notebook. “Tell us what you want and Angus can work up an estimate. If you don’t hire him for the work, you’ll know what a fair price would be from whoever you do hire.”
“That’s…really nice. Thanks.” I should’ve remembered. Should’ve given this some thought. “I guess…I need to have the place rewired. Add more outlets.” I scan the downstairs. “Not sure how I’ll be using this area yet. Don’t want to do much to it yet except patch and paint. I can do that.”
Angus makes notes on a spiral pad he’s pulled out of his back pocket. “Talk to us about upstairs, then.”
We go up and look around.
“Geez, Joe, this is depressing as shit.” Rose is gazing at my open suitcase and inflatable air mattress, the only two things in the bedroom. “And that kitchenette looks like a fire hazard.”
I can almost laugh.
Angus grins. Reaches out a big hand to squeeze the back of her neck. “Damn, Rosie, tell him what you really think.”
There’s pure adoration on both their faces as they gaze at each other.
I blink away. Squint at the wood floor. “So replace the tub with a shower. Redo the kitchenette. Uh…” I’m drawing a blank. Who gives a shit what else I do to the damn place?
We stand in silence while they wait for me to say more. I got nothing.
“Building was on the market a long time,” Angus says finally. “Updates will help it if you ever decide to resell.”
I shoot a glance at him, wondering if he can tell I’ve already got one foot out the door, but his beard hides half his face, and his eyes are unreadable. “True. Sorry I’m not more help. Got any suggestions?”
They exchange a look and Rose lifts her notebook. “How about I ask you some questions about what you like? Angus and I can come up with some simple ideas for how to make the place nicer to live in now and easier to sell later.”
“Okay.”
She spends twenty minutes firing questions at me—color and style and lighting preferences, how I plan to use the front room of the apartment, what kind of mood I’d like for each area—and scribbling notes, and then I walk them back downstairs.
Angus pauses at the front door, his big body filling the frame. “Rosie’s real good at this. I’ll get back with you in a couple of days with an estimate and her ideas. Call if you have any questions.” He fishes a business card from his wallet.
Then they’re gone and I’m alone again.
***
July
“This explains so much.” Rose stares toward me from across my little dining table, but I think she’s seeing something else. “He seemed so different this morning…” Her eyes dart to mine and she clamps her mouth shut. I don’t think she’d meant to say that out loud.
Beside her, Andi is quiet, looking back and forth between the two of us.
I’d invited them over for dinner. Rose agreed immediately, as did Andi. The kitchen crew downstairs laughed and shooed me away earlier when I told them to holler if they needed me. Disrespectful, the lot of them.
Today the loveliness of pretty much everybody in my life makes me ache with awareness of just how alone Joe is.
“Different how, Rose?” I’m afraid to hear it, but I’ve got to.
“Different like…dull.” She waves a hand vaguely. “He seemed…dulled. Even his eyes. Not that he looked us in the eye much. Angus noticed too.”
Andi frowns. “Joe’s got bright eyes. Like a mischievous kid.”
I always loved that about him.
Rose shakes her head. “Not this morning.”
It’s all I can do not to let my head thump face-first into my pasta. Not to wail.
Andi studies me. “So when you say you hurt him, what do you mean exactly?”
I’m going to throw up. No. No, I won’t. I have to be accountable. “I asked him out. Took him to Woollybooger’s, then invited myself back to his place to seduce him.”
“We did that last week! Well, I mean, it would be hard to say who was seducing who, but Woollybooger’s was really fun and—”
I don’t know whether Andi kicked Rose under the table or Rose saw something in my expression, but she cuts off abruptly. Says with a completely straight face, “Sorry. I mean, oh my, yes, that does sound awful for poor Joe.”
I sigh. “I went to kiss him and accidentally poked him in the eye with my nose. And then accidentally kneed him in the crotch when he ducked away.”
Andi winces and leans back in her chair. “Damn, girl. You’re usually more coordinated than that.”
Rose stares at me like I’ve taken leave of my senses. “Joe doesn’t seem like he’d hold an accident against you. And he seemed physically fine this morning.”
I shove my plate away so I can rest my elbows on the table. Drop my head into my hands. “No, that’s not what upset him. He’s hurt and pissed—understandably—because I was trying to do it for bad reasons, with no regard for him. He was trying to talk to me. To get to know me again. And I was trying to use him.”
I pick up my napkin and place it on the table. “I’d been so stressed over how much I’d been thinking about him and how much I was messing everything up everywhere…I was afraid I was backsliding.”
Andi knows what I mean, but Rose cocks her head. “Backsliding?”
I hate having to talk about That Time again. “When he disappeared in high school, I lost it, Rose. For a whole year. I questioned everything I thought I knew. I lost faith in myself, couldn’t handle basic everyday things. I was depressed, stopped eating…almost had to be hospitalized.” I’d been the girl with the blessed, easy life full of love and support and privilege. Everything had always gone my way. And when Joe disappeared, I broke. I’d only known him for two months, and I broke.
Rose cups my arm and squeezes. “I’m so sorry.”
A tear drips to the table when I blink down. Pathetic. I don’t deserve to cry. “Last night, he tried to get me to tell him what was going on. He was holding me so nice. He sounded so confused. Concerned. For me .” The urge to vomit is back. I straighten, push my hair out of my eyes, and look my friends full in the face. “I told him it was a sexorcism.”
Silence.
“Pardon?” “A what?” They speak over each other.
“I told him I’d thought sex might help me get him out of my head so I could stop screwing up.”
Andi winces again and Rose leans back in her chair, closing her eyes for a few seconds.
We sit in silence as they digest that. Then Andi puts her hands palms down on the table in front of her. “Okay, well, I can see how that would hurt. Is it possible you’re overreacting a bit though?”
I meet her dark eyes. “If it were anybody but Joe, maybe.”
“Why’s Joe different?”
“Because I’m the only person he really knew when he came back here. And I just tried to use him. I was so wrapped up in myself, I didn’t think about him at all until it was too late.”
They sit looking at me, waiting for me to explain more or better. Jesus, isn’t that enough?
“Because he seemed so alone . And now I’ve hurt him and he’s even more alone, in a town that might as well be new to him. Not a soul who loves him. He’s always been alone. I’m afraid he’s going to go off into the world and be even more alone than ever. His folks are dead. He sold his business. He came back here for some reason—maybe because he’d liked this town and felt like he could belong here—and I just made it awful for him.”
Rose and Andi both have experience with being alone, so I try again. “What if he leaves town for good and goes off somewhere? Who’s going to care about him? He’s alone .”
Andi’s lips quirk in a tiny smile. “Yeah, I’m picking up on that theme.” She turns to Rose. “You saw him this morning. Did he say anything about leaving town?”
Rose shakes her head. “Not in so many words. But he didn’t seem very interested in making that god-awful building any more livable.”
Andi faces me again. “So maybe he’s thinking about leaving, maybe not. We don’t know. We’ve got our first game tomorrow. Let’s see if he shows up. See if he says anything then.”
“I’m doing some sketches for him tonight.” Rose tells us about her ideas for Joe’s place as they get up and help me clear away the dishes.
I stop them as they head for the stairs a few minutes later. “Why aren’t y’all telling me how bad I suck?”
Rose’s eyes are warm. “I’ve got no personal experience of you sucking.”
Andi shrugs. “To be honest, I’m kind of relieved you have some human flaws. The whole Wonder Woman thing wears pretty thin after a decade or two.”
Before I can think of a reply to that, they’re gone. But their friendship and support and honesty keep me from being alone, even though the restaurant crew waves me away when I go down to see if they need me. So I change my clothes and go for a run to see if I can outdistance my guilt and shame.