Page 68 of Doing It for Love

Okay…one Hurdle sort of down.

Landon’s phone buzzes from his nightstand, and I reach over and answer it before I can register that it said “Mom.”

“Hell…Oh…I mean…hi!” Oy. Face meet palm.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Lord help me. “Yeah. Sorry, Landon just left for work. He must’ve forgotten his cell.”

She makes a noise like I’m stupid for stating the obvious. I control my defenses and try to go for calm and cool.And like she doesn’t make me feel like a tiny field mouse standing in front of a feral cat.

“Anything I can help you with, Julie?” Oh, I hope I got her name right.

“Just let him know I called.” Then her voice drops and I swear I hear her call me a bitch. Abitch! I’m being polite, damn it.

I grit my teeth and say, “Sure.” Then hang up and mutter, “I didn’t want to talk to you anyway. Evil wench.”

Hurdle “make in-laws love like tolerate me” is now so high it’s practically a pole vault.

I switch from my list to my bank account. Landon said that even with the cut hours he’s still getting his Christmas bonus, and when I see that it’s been deposited I get to my feet, jump on the bed, and slam my head on the ceiling.

Serious bruised brain, buthell yes!There’s our honeymoon money. I quickly stick it into savings and mentally forbid Landon or myself to use it for anything but that.

Now I’m on a high—despite the throbbing in my crown—so I roll out of bed and into my cleaning clothes and switch the music to loud-as-allowed Hanson. I don’t work until noon, so I’ve got all morning to scrub and surprise Landon with already made dinner for when he gets home.

We’ve got one stick of butter, about a quarter gallon of milk, and a half brick of cheese in the fridge. Mac and cheese is getting old, but it’s helping us get by without diving into the honeymoon fund.

I set everything on the counter, grate the cheese, and start the water boiling. Every “mmmbop!” from my music player I wiggle my ass and press the cheese down on the grater. After I set the bowl of cheese and the butter down on the counter between the stove and the fridge, I reach up for the giant tin of macaroni we keep on top of the freezer.

And it happens in a flash of macaroni and butter. The tin slips through my fingers, slamming into the bowl on the counter, into the stick of butter, then rolls to the floor and the lid pops off. I jump back with a yelp and watch the only food we have in the house scatter across the tile.

“No no no no no no,” I say in a panic. The water continues to boil on the stove, the boy band mix keeps playing in the background…as if the whole entire world didn’t crash with the macaroni. But my stomach crumples, my heart dumps to my butt, and my knees drop to the floor as ifmyentire world had just crashed.

I try to scrounge up the raw noodles, but the butter has made most of them gooey, and every piece of fuzz and dirt on my kitchen floor clings to the macaroni. Skating across the tile on all fours, I try to find any of it that isn’t ruined, but my vision is blurring as my eyes water. And I keep thinking how we still have a week and half till payday, and now that I’ve transferred Landon’s bonus into savings, we have $19.28 in checking and we need gas in the car.

We were set. We were scraping by, but now we’re not even that. And I have to use the honeymoon money. No way around it. Will we ever be able to justsave?

With my heart heavy in my throat, eyes finally so blurry there’s no point in searching for non-germy food, I sit back on my butt. My back slams against the oven door, and I cover my face and cry. I cry so hard I can’t breathe. I can’t stop crying and I know it’s stupid and we have money but we don’t at the same time, and somethingalwayscomes up and I feel so clumsy and hopeless that we can’t have even a day without something going to shit.

A click registers in my ears and I drop my hands.

“Hey, I forgot my phone.” Landon hurries through the door, and he makes it down the hallway before he backs up, brow furrowed as he sees me in the middle of butter, cheese, and raw noodles.

“I…I spilled,” I tell him.

Another fit of sobs rip through me, and I want to smack myself for reacting this way. Landon cautiously steps into the kitchen and turns off the stove. He slides down next to me, resting his feet against the cupboard under the sink.

“It’s no use crying over spilled…macaroni.”

“Nice try.”

He gives me his sort-of-a-smile and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “What’s going on?”

My nose pushes into his jacket, my hair gets stuck to the scruff on his chin, and every stroke of his fingers through my hair somehow makes the whole situation worse rather than better.

“It’s the only food we have left till payday.”

His body tenses under me, and I wish I could turn back time and make sure he grabbed his phone this morning so he didn’t have to witness my complete breakdown.

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