Page 40 of Just This Once

All three of us freeze.

My jaw hits the floor, my brain shutting down for a moment as Holden yanks his hand off Jake’s thigh, both of them jumping away from each other. Jake stands, face bright red. “It’s not… It’s not what it looks like.”

“I, uh, was coming to see if you wanted to stay for dinner, Holden.”

Jake’s best friend shoves his feet into his sneakers and snatches his coat from the floor. “I don’t think so. I’m gonna go.”

I open my mouth, but no words come out. I’m not sure what to say, what to do. I’m not even sure what I’m feeling, but I chase him down the hall. “Hold, it’s okay. You can stay. I?—”

I’m not sure I know what words are anymore, but I know I don’t want either one of these boys to think I’m mad. Because I’m not. Only surprised.

“No. I should go,” he says, barely audible as he races down the steps to the front door.

“Do you need a ride home?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You’re wearing shorts.”

“It’s cool.” He refuses to look at me. “Bye.”

The door shuts, and Maddie’s eyebrows rise to her hairline while I hear Jake come to stand behind me. “Mom?”

I turn to my son, his eyes filled with a mixture of fear and defiance, clearly at war with himself. I am wholly unprepared for a conversation about what just happened, so I skip over it and place my hand on his shoulder, hoping to reassure him. “Maddie wants Benny’s for dinner. You okay with that?”

He nods silently, seeming relieved with the way his body droops.

“Okay. I’ll order it in a little bit, and, maybe, we can talk after?”

He nods again and spins around, jogging up the stairs. I glance to Maddie, but she’s focused on her phone, unaware of what’s going on.

Not that there is anything going on.

And yet…I can’t ignore what happened. Jake and I will have to talk, although I’m not sure what about.

I absently reach for my cell phone and open my text thread with Marianne. We’ve been best friends since grade school, and I spent a lot of nights at her house, reveling in the wholesome vibes of her home. While my mother was amazing, and I would never have wanted her to be any different, it wasn’t easy growing up with an absentee alcoholic father and a mother who took on part-time jobs after her full-time work of teaching to provide for my brothers and me. Marianne’s parents were different. They didn’t struggle like my mom and are still alive and well. They’ve always been supportive of everything their daughter has done, from switching majors multiple times to bringing home girlfriends to marrying a white woman a lot younger than her.

Marianne confided in me during college that she had feelings for another woman in one of her classes. It didn’t change our relationship one bit, nor did it make me curious about my own sexuality. Maybe because I’m straight as an arrow, or I’m so stuck in my heteronormative world view, but I never considered one of my children might be queer.

I love Jake. I love both of my kids so much, nothing they could ever do would make me not love them.

Yet I worry about him. About his confidence and turning sixteen and learning to drive. I worry about his mental and physical health. I worry about what my divorce did and continues to do to him. I worry about him growing up into a kind and caring person, and standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

Above all else, I want him to be happy.

Slipping on my coat, I step out to the backyard, intent on dialing Marianne to download all of this, but I stop in my tracks, having forgotten about Dante in my flood of thoughts.

“Oh, hi,” I say when he pivots to me with his pencil between his teeth.

He pulls it out and tucks it behind his ear to brush off sawdust from his hands and sweatshirt. “Hey. How—what’s wrong?”

I don’t know how he does it. How he always knows when I’m upset. But I’m not sure where exactly to begin, and I shake my head to try to clear it of the jumble of thoughts as well as the tears from my eyes.

Dante immediately closes the short distance between us. “You’re all right. Come here. Come here.” He wraps his arms around me, pulling me into a hug, and I go willingly, taking comfort in his warm breath against my temple and the way he locks his hands at my back. “Came charging out of here like abat outta hell, so do I need to beat somebody up or get some tissues?”

A reluctant laugh unfurls from the knot in my throat, and I hate that he can calm me down so easily. I’ve spent the last ten years building meticulous defenses to make sure no one can ever hurt me again—not my father or my ex-husband or the world, for that matter. I’ve hardened myself to the cuts and slights women experience every single day, and I think I’ve started to believe that made me better somehow. I could crush a needle of emotion at the earliest prick. I didn’t need to feel things. I had risen above all that bullshit.

And yet a man with an eager smile dragged me back down to earth. Showed me I’m no better than anyone else for supposedly being above it all. That, maybe, I do need a hug and someone to tell me they have my back before even hearing the problem.

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