Page 84 of When Stars Collide
“Kudos on keeping your shit together, by the way.”
“I’ve had years of practicing keeping my shit together around her, and also years of losing it.” I flopped down on the couch, happy to get off my feet. My leg was still stiff from surgery, and my incision sites had become sore again.
“You know, when I opened the door and I realized they weren’t here on accident or to talk to me about saving the speckled Ecuadorian garden slug, I was kind of excited to meet your family. I guess I figured I would get some more insight into you, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Because even though you sprang forth from that woman’s womb, the two of you couldn’t be more different.”
“That has to be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Jo.”
Jo giggled. “It’s the truth. No wonder you moved to New York. If I would have been you, I would have been on the next bus out of town the moment I turned eighteen.”
“I pretty much was.”
“So, I must hear more about this big letdown of a night of yours.”
By this point, I’d lost all interest in rehashing the events of the evening. Jo, I knew, wouldn’t let me get away without at least expanding upon some of my earlier commentary, so I decided to give her the abbreviated version of events.
“Long story short, Phineas and I kissed and then he told me that he thought it would be best if we kept our relationship strictly professional, so I left and came home to an even more awkward situation.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Ouch.”
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, contemplating her question. Honestly, I wasn’t certain whether I was okay. Phineas’s rejection of me had been just one ofmany from a person I thought had cared for me. Before Peter and I broke up, I’d blown off such dismissals of me with sarcasm and feigning indifference. But since Peter, the one person in my life I trusted besides Elle, decided I wasn’t fit enough to be in his life, I’d found myself more sensitive to each blow. It was like I was being smacked repeatedly in the same spot. The first few times smarted, but then each subsequent slap thereafter became more and more painful, until it was excruciating. Tonight, my skin had been ripped open. I was bleeding, and I didn’t know when it would stop.
“Mena? Are you sure you’re all right?”
I looked up, meeting Jo’s concerned eyes. “I’m fine.”
*****
I walked the ten blocks to the Mexican restaurant I’d chosen mainly because I knew my mother wasn’t a fan of Mexican cuisine. Petty much? Yes, I was. Pearls of snow fell to the ground around me, melting on the sidewalk. After the events of last night and, well, my childhood, I’d tossed around the notion of calling the whole thing off. But I knew that wouldn’t deter my mother. Once Marilyn Straszewski got an idea in her head, she became hellbent and determined to see it through. She reminded me a bit of Elle’s mother, Betsy Sloan. Both had seemed to make it their mission to screw up their daughters’ lives, except my mother honestly thought she was helping me, and she had the means by which to travel, which arguably made her even more dangerous. The only thing that was missing with her was the substance abuse Betsy had perfected, but I had faith that she’d pick up on that sooner or later.
The walk to the restaurant was a welcome respite from my thoughts. Before I’d gone to bed the night before, I checked my phone to find, among the eleven missed calls from my mother and Jo, a text from Phineas that simply read:
Phineas: Did you make it home okay?
After much contemplation on my part, including tossing around the decision to not even respond at all, I settled for the simplest, most unfeeling, straightforward response possible:
Me: Yes.
That was that. A return to a professional relationship, where we wouldn’t even be able to trade jabs at each other anymore. Everything would be so … formal. A part of me wished I hadn’t gone out at all last night, but that part paled in comparison to the part of me that couldn’t quit replaying the events of the night over repeatedly in my head. The part that couldn’t—or wouldn’t—allow me to erase the memory of Phineas’s skin against mine. Erase it I must if I was to have any hope of working with him without it being weird. But I had a full week before I had to return to work, meaning I could try to wipe my mind clean in increments. Baby steps. Right now, I was still learning to crawl, and I had a to work up totaking those steps. Consumed in thought, I completely passed the door to the restaurant and had to backtrack about a block.
“I see your punctuality hasn’t improved,” my mother greeted me as soon as I arrived.
“Mom,” Melissa muttered under her breath.
“Good evening to you, too,” I responded, taking a seat next to Melissa in the booth.
“It’s so good to see the two of you together in the same place.” Mom picked up her menu, her eyes scanning its contents. I smirked as her lips pursed together and her eyes glared at it as though it had just asked her whether she’d purchased her blouse from Target.
“Are we ready to order?” Our waitress appeared at the table. From the presence of the drinks in front of my mom and Melissa, she’d already been there long before I’d arrived.
“Start with them,” Mom said, motioning to us with a flick of her hand. “I’m still … deciding.”
“Steak fajita, please,” Melissa said, handing the menu back to the waitress.
“I’ll take the vegetarian meal—the number six, I guess—with an iced tea, please.”I handed my menu back to the waitress.
