Page 66 of Break Me
Twenty
Friday night comes too quickly.Mom is still hanging on. Dad seems to be losing his mind, walking around our house pulling on his hair. He’s got responsibilities for the town piling up and refuses to acknowledge them. When Mom is awake, he’s glued to her side, and I wonder if she’s worried about him, too scared to let him go.
But he needs to let go.
Because the moments she’s awake are getting fewer and further between, and a nurse is here around the clock now, even though Dad takes care of her in every way he can.
I haven’t spoken to Benji since he took me home, after we landed in the afternoon from Toronto. He actually picked up the phone and learned how to type on it because he’s sent me two texts, both single words.
Hey
Ava…
And that’s all I got. I’ve made it a point to go to Dumont’s class early and leave late, so I don’t see him or Riley. Riley has text me a few times herself, and I’ve responded, but avoided her attempts to hang out.
Tess is busy this weekend, away on a fall trip to Virginia with her mom and her boyfriend of the week. Which means there’s no real reason I can’t see Dumont tonight. Especially since I can’t bear to be in the house with Dad how he is and Mom barely more than a ghost.
I hate myself for being a fucking coward. But when Dumont asks me to go with him to downtown Raleigh, I go, wondering if I’ll regret it. Wondering which time I avoid Mom is the time she leaves for good.
I tell Dad I’m headed out with friends—which isn’t exactly a lie and besides that, he doesn’t even acknowledge that I spoke, so I don’t feel too guilty when I pull up to Dumont’s house. He lives in a cookie cutter subdivision with a white house with blue shutters and he drives a blue Tesla. He’s already out the door when I get out of my car and he grins at me across from the roof of his.
“Ready?” he asks me.
I can’t help but to think that Benji really knows how to open doors for a woman while Dumont, older though he is, doesn’t really seem to think about it. Fuck, usually I don’t either. I don’t even begrudge him the fact, it’s just…interesting.
Interesting that Benji is still in my brain.
I don’t talk much on the way to Raleigh, but Dumont doesn’t seem to care. His fingers are laced in mine and he’s got some classical music playing through the speakers, and he talks about how he’s up for tenure soon, which is great for him, but I can’t really muster up the excitement to care.
I know that’s wrong.
I know I should be happy for him, even if we aren’t meant to be or anything stupid like that. But Dumont has never really been a friend. He’s just been…someone to fuck.
He glances over at me as he exits off the highway.
“Wanna drink or dance?” he asks me with a smile. And then I think about the fact that Benji doesn’t dance, and this makes me happy. At least Dumont, 38-year-old English professor that he is, is willing to give it a try.
“Both,” I answer, and he squeezes my hand.
He parallel parks expertly on the street across from Cat Liquor Bar, and we cross at the lights, despite my attempt to jaywalk.
“That’s how people get run over, Ava,” he scolds me mildly as we turn down the street. We take a flight of stairs down to the bar. When he gets to the doorman, he flashes a keychain on his car keys, and the man lets him pass but IDs me before I’m allowed in.
Dumont rolls his eyes which makes me laugh. He’s wearing a silver blazer, dark, slim pants, and his hair is gelled back, his glasses lined with black. He looks every inch the hot professor that he is, and I take his hand as we descend another set of stairs to the dim bar.
There’s no dance floor here, but I assume this night will be a long one. I told Dumont I didn’t have to be home ‘til morning. I have my phone on vibrate in case Dad calls, but I try not to think about that.
About Mom.
To assuage my guilt, I start off with two shots of vodka, which Dumont, surprising me, seems happy about. He sips a beer, and when I knock back a third shot, I get up from the slouchy black couch we’re sitting together on in a corner.
“Gotta pee,” I murmur.
He laughs and waves me away. I scoot between him and the coffee table, bumping my shins against it. I’m wearing a midnight blue dress that grazes my ankles, one Mom picked out for me when I was debating between two at Saks, back when she actually could go shopping with me, and black ankle boots she handed down to me. I’ve got my phone in hand, my ID in my phone case, and nothing else. Dumont always pays, even though we both know I could, too.
I let him.
I’m not fussing over a bill.
