Page 13 of Like Home
“Listen,” I tell the one ear he’s graciously left out from under the headset, “I really need to talk to you and we only have, like, ten minutes until Emma is ready for bed. I told her I’d tuck her in with you.”
To my surprise, he sighs, presses a button on his headphones, and says, “Sorry guys, duty calls. I’ll be back on in thirty.” Then, he exits the game and swivels to me. “What’s up?”
“On the way home, Emma asked me if I thought you and I would get back together,” I say, gauging his reaction.
He laughs, his foot that he had crossed over the other coming up to nudge me on the thigh, “She’s been asking that all the time. So what? It’s a normal question for a kid in her situation.”
“I know that, Jared.Itold her that I didn’t think we would be getting back together. Do you know what she told me you said?” He gestures at me to go on. “She said that you told her ‘maybe.’ You can’t give her false hope like that. You and I have talked about this. When she asks those questions, we’re on the same page. No wishy-washy language or deviating from what we talked about. This is already so confusing for her, I don’t want to make it worse.” I sit on the nearby couch, crossing my arms and legs, frustrated that he doesn’t understand the gravity of these conversations.
He moves to sit on the worn coffee table in front of me, “Okay, but it is a ‘maybe.’”
“It’s not. I’m done, Jared. We’ve been done for way longer than just the last month. We just finally made it official.”
“Well, what if I’m not done?” He rests his hands on the outside of my thighs, his palms ghosting up and down the soft fabric of my pants.
My heart jumps at the contact. An old, sad part of me is desperate for affection that he never willingly gave. I take a steadying breath. “This,” I say, as I gently remove his hands, “might have worked a year ago, but I’m not a dog begging for treats anymore. You’ll be affectionate with me for a week, and then you stop. We go back to the way things were and it repeats. I can’t anymore. I need you to understand that.”
“Is this because of Supermarket Guy?” he asks, leaning back out of my personal space and removing his hands.
“Oh my god. I’m truly going to murder Anthony. I don’t care if he sends me a gift basket for Christmas every year,” I throw my hands up in exasperation, “Ryan, ‘Supermarket Guy,’ is just the contractor I hired to fix the leak. We bumped into each other after I saw you and Emma and he walked me out because it was getting dark.”
“I would have walked you out if you wanted me to,” he says, arms crossing defensively.
“No, you wouldn’t have. You haven’t walked me to my car since our first anniversary, Jared.” I shake my head because he always chooses a random detail to focus on in an argument rather than trying to fix what’s actually wrong.
He has nothing to say to that, so instead he switches tactics, “You have to run the guys you date by me first.”
I release an incredulous, “Excuse me?” I sit up a little straighter, my brows shooting toward my hairline.
He clears his throat uncrossing and recrossing his arms, “Well, I don’t want random guys around Emma.”
I work to keep my voice down, “You know damn well I would never bring ‘random guys’ around Emma,” I use air quotes around the offending language. “If and when I date, that is my business—” he tries to interrupt, but I hold up a silencing hand, “If it gets serious enough that I would want Emma to meet him, I would of course introduce you to him first. I expect the same courtesy from you for any woman you date. But I won’t be telling you about any and every guy who might show interest in me.”
He deflates, “Fine. Okay.” He waits for a beat and then, “So, Supermarket Guy is showing interest?”
I try to find my patience while I close my eyes briefly. “One man does something nice for me and suddenly the whole town thinks he’s down on one knee.”
“Well, that is kind of what happened with us, remember? I started carrying your books to class for you, and that was after two months of trying to get you to talk to me about anything not school-related. When you let me, that’s how I knew you were into me. You don’t let anyone in. You never accept any help. When you do, that means you care, whether that’s friendship or something else.”
The bathroom door opens and I stand. “I guess. Doesn’t mean anything is going on though.”When did he get so observant?He’s right, of course. I struggle to let anyone in because I’m so afraid of the pain of losing them. I don’t accept help because one of the earliest lessons I learned is that you can only truly count on yourself.
Before I forget, I take Jared’s key out of my pocket and set it on the coffee table. I don’t want any part of what keeping it would insinuate.
“I’m ready for bed!” Emma calls down the hallway.
“We good?” Jared asks as we head towards her room. I give his shoulder a squeeze and nod.
After I leave Jared’s, I rush back to my car and get on the road. The rain is coming down so hard, I have my windshield wipers on the highest setting and they still hardly clear my vision.
As I make it to the outskirts of town near my neighborhood, I see a white lump in the middle of the road. Just as I’m about to swerve around it, the lump moves and I see a head turn toward the headlights of my car.
“Oh shit, dog!” Thankfully, I manage to swerve around it. I pull to the side of the road, turn on my hazards, and get out of mycar. The rain instantly drenches me. I cautiously approach the large dog and put a hand out to show I’m not a threat. Its tail gives a feeble thump and I approach quicker, seeing that it’s friendly. “Hey, pup, why are you out in the middle of the road?”
The poor thing whines and as I get closer, I see that their back leg is twisted at an odd angle. My stomach heaves and it takes everything in me to keep my lasagna down. I avert my gaze from the leg and look the rest of the dog over, quickly noticing that it’s asheand appears to be otherwise uninjured, apart from some scrapes making her white fur rust-colored in some spots.
“Oh no, you poor thing!” Tears slip down my cheeks and burn my throat. I’ve never been able to hold it together when I see an animal in pain. I gently pet her head, and she licks my palm, eliciting another sob from my throat. I quickly get myself as composed as I can, and try to lift her but stop when the struggling makes her let out a yelp of pain.
“Okay, pup. We’re going to figure this out.” I pull off my raincoat and drape it over her so she warms up a little. I shield my phone with my upper body, but when I press the button to wake my phone, nothing happens. My phone is dead. “Oh, come on!”Why does this shit always happen to me?I put the useless hunk of glass and metal back in my pocket and go back to stroking the dog’s head, hoping a better idea comes to me soon, because we’re both freezing.
