Page 104 of Really Truly Yours

Gray’s been talking. “No, that’s Sam. Max is older. He and I never had a good relationship. He’s…” I look down. Up again. I’m not the one who did something criminal. “He’s in prison now. Drugs, burglary. Identity theft.”

Tripp nods me on.

“I didn’t mind Sam continuing to live with me, but Max was a different story. There wasn’t much I could do, though. He refused to leave, and Sam didn’t support me formally evicting him. Anyway, eventually Max decided to move in with a couple friends. I rarely saw him, and I thought my problems with him were over. Then, one afternoon, he showed up. Walked right in, didn’t knock or anything. He and one of his buddies.”

Concern grooves Tripp’s forehead.

“He was edgy and jittery, clearly in need of a fix, and he got furious when I asked them to go. I went back to my bedroom, locked the door, and tried to call Sam.” The flimsy lock was all I had. “But only a few minutes later, I heard the front door and Max’s car start up and drive away. I was so relieved. I came out of my room. But Wade was still there.”

Tripp’s wedding band, a symbol of forever love and commitment, throws off shimmers from the pool. He waits patiently. His silence draws the rest of the story from the depths where I hide it.

“Wade was the worst of Max’s friends. A dealer and plain mean. Every time he came around, he hit on me.” I take a deep breath. “This time was worse.” I let my gaze and my thoughts drift along with the water gently rippled by the running pump. Flirting is too nice a word for Wade’s behavior that day. He was crass and crude and unwilling to take no for an answer.

As in the past, my eyes, part of the present, fill.

“You can stop, Sydnee. I shouldn’t have asked.”

I flick away tears. “No, you couldn’t have known the answer to your question, and the thing is, the story sort of has a happy ending. You know, I spent years dodging my dad’s creepy friends, and then Max’s, but that afternoon, I figured my time had run out.” I bat at another bead of moisture, one whose existence I deeply resent. “Anyway, I did what I could, but about the time I lost hope, I heard a knock. I guess I screamed…and then Donny came busting through the front door. A minute later, Wade was trailing blood across my yard and up the street, cursing Donny and Max all the way.”

A breeze whips through the patio, then calms, allowing my words settle. Tripp puffs out a full breath. “I am so sorry you went through that.”

The story has yet another twist, one that’s not relevant to Tripp’s question, so I see no need to go there. “Even back then, before he was sick and confined to that recliner in front of the window, Donny was a one-man neighborhood-watch committee. He knew every person on our street, every vehicle, and everything that went on. He’d somehow figured out Max was unwanted at my house, and he told me once that he’d picked Wade out as trouble for me from day one.”

Tripp’s nod is slow, his jaw like granite. “I’m glad Donny was there for you.”

Extra and telling emphasis on you.

I understand. I really, really do. My own father failed me countless ways. “The funny thing is, I continued to ignore him after that. I was so embarrassed.”

Tripp’s eyes turn somber and compassionate. “You had no reason to be, Sydnee.”

“I know.” I fiddle with a thread at the cuff of my shirt. “A few weeks later was when Donny collapsed in the yard. After that was when we became friends.”

Tripp sighs as if he physically aches. He sends a glance toward the bright lights on the other side of the windows. The big game rolls on, plastered across the giant screen above the fireplace. Donny snoozes away. Avery has emerged from her phone call, clapping her hands, and Gray is pumping his fist at another run scored.

Tripp’s throat grates like scraping metal. “They have no idea what it’s like, do they?”

Buried experiences, still raw to the core if they’re anything like my own archived catalogue, play across his face like a social media reel.

“No.” I, too, take in the idyllic scene through the window. “No, they don’t.”

∞∞∞

“So. Another shot at the championship, huh?”

“Yep.”

We step off Avery’s pumpkin-bedecked porch. “Congratulations.”

Gray huffs as we traverse the curved sidewalk to my car along the curb. Floodlights on a motion sensor over the garage click on. “I’m not the one who deserves congratulations.”

“It’s your team.”

He throws me a look, playful but with shadows. “I didn’t play half the season, Sydnee.”

I stop, and so does he. “You were also there for half of it.”

He tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I guess.”

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