Page 62 of Like Home
“You don’t deserve to be happy!” he explodes, standing in a rage. He paces back and forth, “All you do is take, and take, and take, Summer. With no care for the people around you!”
I rear back so far that my head bumps the wall with a dull thud, “What are you talking about?”
“First you take my friend, then you take his future, making sure you get pregnant. Then, when you’re sick of that little life, you drop him on his ass and move on to a new guy you can use.”
I stand and take a step forward. Jared grabs my wrist and tugs so I can’t go any further. “I didn’t take your friend! Last time I checked, you and Jared are stillclose, which is why I’m sitting here in this apartment that stinks like beer and piss to make sure you get nowhere near my kid! You’re fucking deranged to act like this over something that happened almost ten years ago now.” I pull my wrist out of Jared’s grip and cross my arms.
Duncan shouts, “I was in love with you!” And then it's so quiet, I can hear his upstairs neighbor’s TV running through a local commercial. My arms drop to my sides and I freeze.
“What?” Jared asks dumbly. I drop onto the couch beside him, disgusting cushions forgotten.
“I was in love with Summer,” he says more quietly, looking down.
“When?” Jared and I ask at the same time, twin expressions of shock on our faces.
Duncan stalks to the small kitchen to the right of us and opens the fridge. He pops open a can of beer, chugging half of it down in one glug that would have been impressive if we were twenty-one in a frat house. He belches and turns the stink eye on us, “Don’t judge, okay? I need this.”
He leans against the counter that divides the room from the kitchen and stares at us. His eyes meet mine briefly, and for a second I can see the pain behind the dislike that he’s worn like armor. “Do you remember when we first met?” he asks me quietly.
I think back through the years and try to pinpoint it. In a small town like Lakeland, it’s easy to feel like you’ve know everyone forever. “I don’t know, maybe fifth grade?”
“Second. I sat next to you in Mr. Juarez’s class. On the first day of class, my notebook got ruined because my water bottle lid wasn’t screwed on right, and it spilled inside my backpack. It soaked through all the pages and the paper couldn’t be used because it got so warped. When Mr. Juarez asked us to take out a piece of paper for writing practice, I started to cry because I didn’t have one that wasn’t ruined. I took out my messed up notebook, trying to use what I could save. I knew my parents wouldn’t buy me another one because they would want to teach me a lesson, and I thought Mr. Juarez would get mad at me.
You saw me crying and gave me a piece of your own paper. The next day, you set a brand new notebook on my desk without saying a word. It had some weird rainbow animals on it, but I didn’t even care because it meant that I wouldn’t get in trouble with my parents for ruining my own. I kept that stupid notebook until you got pregnant.”
“Are you saying you’ve been in love with Summer since the second grade?” Jared asks quietly. Duncan looks down at his feet, not saying anything.
To be honest, I don’t remember the interaction at all. We must not have talked after that until much later. Ididhave a Lisa Frank obsession all through grade school though.
Finally, he looks up at me and says, “Yes.” I am so completely floored that I feel like I’m watching this play out from above.
He seems to be waiting for some sort of reaction and I finally mutter, “I don’t know what to say. So when you said that Ijust take and take, and that I would break Ryan’s heart, you were thinking about yourself?” He nods once, jaw ticking under the day and a half’s growth of stubble. I am completely flabbergasted.
Jared, who has morphed from shock to rage, says, “So all the time you spent trying to convince me to leave her was really becauseyouwanted her?” Duncan says nothing, just takes another large gulp of beer. “You know that if you had mentioned it atany pointleading up to us dating, I would have backed off, right? Why would you not have said anything?”
“I could see the way she looked at you! She had spent the last ten years at the time hardly looking at me, but when you started showing interest, she went all gaga. She would just throw me little crumbs of kindness every once in a while to string me along. What would have been the point?” he finishes dully. I stiffen at the implication that my being kindto him was me stringing him along.
Fucking men.
I blow an unamused laugh through my nose, “I don’t know, it may have saved us all from this gigantic mess.” I don’t think there was ever a possibility that I wouldn’t have dated Jared, no matter what he says to Duncan. We were crazy for each other at the time in a way that only hormonal teenagers can be. I just wonder if Duncan had ever told me and I was able to let him down gently, maybe he could have moved on in a healthy way instead of letting his pining turn into a sickness that rotted something fundamental inside him.
“Well, I didn’t. So, here we are,” he says glibly, crushing the now empty can of beer and setting it beside others on the scuffed counter.
“Here we are,” Jared echoes with a faraway look in his eyes. Finally, he turns to me, “Summer, can I talk to Duncan alone? Here are my keys. I’ll only be a minute.” He drops his truck keys into my hand and I stand.
I look at Duncan and nod, I have nothing left to say to him.Nothing excuses his behavior, and honestly, it almost makes it worse that he thought he was in love with me. Maybe he was once, but it twisted into something sinister. He started to view me as an object. If he couldn’t have me, no one could. And if I didn’t want him, then he wanted me to suffer.
Before I walk out the door, I pause, finding I do have one last thing to say to him, “Whatever your relationship is with Jared after this is none of my business. But I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter. I am sorry you were hurting. It’s no excuse for the constant bullying you subjected me to over the years and the way you’ve tried to interfere with my happiness over and over again, though. I really hope you get help, Duncan, but please, stay away from me and my daughter.”
With that, I leave the small, dingy apartment and walk dazedly to the truck. I feel emotionally spent as I turn it on and get the air conditioning going. The sun is high in the sky, and I feel it baking through the windows of the truck.
Would Jared and I have had a better relationship if we didn’t have someone constantly poisoning the well? Jared’s actions are his own, but no one is free from the influence of their closest friends. He always thought that Duncan had his best interest in mind. I feel sorry for him that he’s learning that that hasn’t been true for a long time.
Within a few minutes, Jared leaves the apartment, shutting the door gently behind him. He walks toward the truck and hops in the driver’s side. Without a word, he starts reversing out of the parking spot and driving me home. We say nothing the whole way, both processing what just happened. When he parks in front of my house, neither of us moves.
Finally, he says, “I told him I couldn’t be close with him anymore. Not until he got help anyway. I feel like shit saying that when he obviously needs someone, but I just can’t do it anymore. Not after—” He pauses, inhaling sharply.
“Summer,” he says brokenly, “I’m so sorry. I listened to himfor years telling me over and over that you were bad for me and that you baby trapped me. I think part of me started to believe it, even though I knew it wasn’t true. It’s no excuse, I know, but maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so bad if I hadn’t had him in my ear.” He swipes at his eye with a fist.
