Page 31 of Mostly My Boss
I tried not to think too much about what that meant.
* * *
A few weeks later
“Mom, no. It doesn’t make sense. A ticket is going to cost too much, and no one has the time to drive across country to both pick me up then bring me back.” I sighed into the phone and simultaneous kicked Ethan, who was sitting on the edge of my bed trying to doodle on the top of my foot.
Nicki was hanging out in the room, too. Although I knew it was just because Ethan had chosen to stay in with me this Friday night as I was currently dealing with the head cold from hell. Thanksgiving was long over (Ethan nearly went spastic over my green bean casserole, which was the same recipe everyone who bought a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup had, but whatever) and now the long holiday break was ahead of us after a few more finals.
Mom wanted me to come home for Christmas, which meant it was up to me to be the adult and explain why that couldn’t happen.
“Fine, you can look into it, but you’re not going to find anything for less than three hundred dollars round trip. I don’t have that kind of money and neither do you.”
I glanced at Ethan who had lost interest in his doodle and looked at me with speculation.
I listened to my mom talk about how she was doing really well with the budgeting, then I said the ugly thing. The thing she didn’t want to acknowledge because it meant she wasn’t going to see her youngest child at Christmas.
“If you have extra money, you know where it needs to go, Mom. The bank is being patient. It won’t be patient forever. If they see you’re making an effort, that will help.”
She wanted to know if I was going to be lonely.
“I’m not Harry Potter left behind at Hogwarts, okay? There are going to be a ton of people here doing what I’m going to be doing, which is getting a head start on the next semester.”
I could hear the tears in her voice, but I could not let myself be moved by them. This was the smart thing. The responsible thing to do.
“I’ll FaceTime on Christmas day. I’ll send you guys a package. It will almost be like we’re together. You’ll see. You have to the embrace the technology.”
After a few hiccups and a few more promises to call more often she let me go.
“That sucks that you can’t go home, Julia,” Nicki said, not even pretending she hadn’t eavesdropped.
“It’s fine. It’s no big deal. I’m not even a little bothered by it.”
Ethan looked at me with that expression I was coming to really hate. Like he could see through all my bullshit and knew every lie I told. But he glanced over at Nicki and I could tell whatever point he wanted to make, he wasn’t going to do it in her presence.
“You guys are really just going to hang out here tonight?” she asked us.
“I am,” I said, reaching over to my nightstand to grab another tissue. I was at that stage where it hurt to blow my nose because I hadn’t sprung for the extra-soft tissue brand but I’d had no choice. “You guys should go out, though.”
“Ethan, Dara’s pulling a bunch of people to go see that old black-and-white retro movie playing at O’Neil’s. We should go.”
“Casablanca,” I supplied. “It’s a classic.”
“No, thanks. I’m going to hang here. I’m taking care of Jules.”
“Do not use me as an excuse. It will make me feel guilty,” I said, blowing what felt like was an endless amount of snot into my tissue. Seriously, who could possibly want to be around me when I was like this?
Nicki got up and waved her phone at us. “Text if change your mind, Ethan.”
“Yep.”
She left and I looked down at my foot to see what he’d drawn. “Your name? Seriously? I have your name on the top of my foot in black magic marker.”
“Some might call it my signature,” he insisted, then blew on it so it would dry.
I yanked my foot away from him. “Some might not!”
“Why aren’t you going home for Christmas?”
