"Your objection to grains is that strong, huh?" He drew his hand away from my towel and grabbed his arm brace off the lid of a hamper. His gaze was fixed on the brace as he adjusted it but I could tell the glowy glint had left his eyes. The smile was gone too and in its place was a firm, emotionless expression betrayed only by the sharp set of his jaw.
Wearing nothing more than a towel was a real inconvenience right now. I couldn't dispose of this uncomfortable moment by walking out and driving away and filing this experience under "fun night, no future." At best, I had a full minute of dressing ahead of me, two if I bothered with socks and the vest. Fucking vests. Why was I so enamored with those fucking vests? Oh, right. They showed off my narrow waist. I always knew my vanity was bound to bite me in the ass.
Two minutes to dress, another two to collect my food storage dishes—no, fuck the Pyrex. It was replaceable, even if those specific lid colors were impossible to find. Everything was replaceable. Unless, of course, leaving those things behind looked like I was preening for a follow-up invite, which I wasn't.
Goddamn, I wanted to come back. I shouldn't want it and I couldn't want it but I did, I fucking did. I knew it but I couldn't admit it, not with words, not with actions.
Two minutes to dress, zero minutes on the Pyrex but several pained thoughts, one minute down the stairs to the driveway, another minute to the street. I could be out of here in four minutes, and thirty minutes after that I could be circling the South End for a parking spot. Sixty minutes from now, I could be at home, under my weighted blanket with a true crime doc queued on my screen.
I wanted it like that—leaving and driving and circling-circling-circling and just waiting, waiting for something I didn't know if I'd recognize when I found it. I wanted it like that and I was going to leave here in four minutes because I didn't cuddle on the first—second?—date and all those pinprick stabs to my heart were hormones and loneliness and Valentine's Day, and that was it.
"It's cool. Whatever it is," Wes said, his words tinted with indifference I didn't believe. "I just thought you might want to hang out and kill some time but you've got other things going on. Like I said, it's cool. Thanks for your help with everything." He glanced up at me, his lips folded in on each other like I didn't deserve to see his real reaction. "I mean that sincerely. My back was driving me crazy. Thank you."
"Wes, I—" I, what? I wanted to prepare a glaze while he pawed at my ingredients again? I wanted to watch that movie while substituting seaweed for popcorn? I wanted to climb into his lap and sleep with his heartbeat under my ear? "Don't let your skin get to that point again. Call me if you need, you know, help or something."
"Thanks for the offer. You know, you're welcome to stop by. I'm here most of the time. If I'm not here, I'm at the main house. If you ever want to come over and eat fish without rice, even without the burden of scrubbing dead skin off my back, you know where I am. And that's all it has to be."
"Yeah, okay, maybe," I lied, bobbing my head as I backed out of the bathroom. It wasn't okay. I wasn't built for pop-ins, for quickies,for all it has to be.I wasn't in the market for a friends-with-benefits fixup and I didn't do flings. "Good night."
Wes didn't respond. He closed the bathroom door behind me.
* * *
My weekends,much like my weeknights, followed a strict routine. But this structure wasn't about aggressively controlling every inch of my life to cope with the things I couldn't control.
Not anymore, at least.
These days, the predictable Saturday morning cycle of laundry and cleaning saved me from staying up all hours on a random Thursday because I'd realized the inside of the refrigerator hadn't been washed—ever. Or discovering I had no clean socks on a Monday morning. Saturday morning housekeeping allowed me to focus on those specific chores at that specific time, and gave me a moment to unwind from the week and feed my need for order.
My Sunday afternoon cycle of grocery shopping and meal prepping fed the same need while also helping me focus on the week ahead. Some people stumbled into work on Monday morning without previewing their calendar or any other preparation. I wasn't one of them. Life handed out more than enough surprises without adding the disaster of cooking a new meal each night to the equation.
There was a time, a couple of years back, when routines were the tool I used to punish myself. There was no real strategy or logic but self-harm wasn't a linear behavior. Ninety minutes of exercise daily, four and a half hours of sleep, eating fewer than twelve hundred calories, saving sixty percent of my take-home pay, working through illnesses and injuries and emotional black holes, all in the name of checking off boxes and staying on track. I didn't offer myself much mercy back then.
I was better now. I listened to my body and my mind. Even when I struggled against those old, creeping feelings of worthlessness and disposability, I knew them for what they were—liars. That didn't make them vanish but I knew how to talk myself out of that downward spiral.
But there was one shameful routine I hadn't managed to quit. Every few weeks, I opened my laptop and pulled up my mother's and sister's social media accounts. I hated that I did this. That I wanted to know about their lives without me. Every time I stalked them, I promised myself I wouldn't do it again.
But I couldn't help it. I went back, month after month, as if I'd find some sign I existed in their consciousness. The truth was no different now than it was fourteen years ago, when my mother informed me I was dead to her. No different than sixteen years ago, when I was sent away to a boarding school that favored hard labor, hours of forced prayer, starvation, and solitary confinement as conversion therapy methods. No different than seventeen years ago when I told her I thought I could be gay and she told me I was wrong because her god wouldn't allow the devil to send "one of them" to destroy her family.
I could look back on that without the flames of panic and shame burning me from the inside out. I could separate my mother's intolerance and my older sister's complicity from my self-worth. But I couldn't completely separate myself from them. They'd cut me off but I couldn't return the favor in full.
I'd spent years interrogating those emotions and I knew they didn't stem from a desire to reunite with my biological family. I'd abdicated all connection to them. But I wanted them to know they'd failed. All the effort they'd put into "fixing" me and reshaping me and rejecting me was in vain. They'd failed.
I visited my sister's Facebook profile first. Joy was married with two children and worked as a real estate agent. There was some irony associated with my sister choosing a career in such close proximity to mine. I didn't sell houses but I managed the process and the money that led to homes being restored before Shannon sold them for top dollar.
Joy frequently posted her listings on her profile. Since I was petty as fuck, I always scrolled through the photos, mentally critiquing the camera angles, staging, and lighting. Our listings were so much cleaner. When I was feeling cruel, I pulled up the property records to see how far below asking price her listings sold.
Her most recent post featured an old photo of her on our father's lap, her small body tucked under his arm. She always posted this photo around this time of year. It was at least twenty-five years old and exquisitely cropped. The image seemed to center on Joy but that wasn't the truth. Only the most careful observer would notice the knobby knee peeking out from under our father's hand.
That grainy bump of skin was all that remained of me in her world.
The text of the post was equally remarkable in its ability to delete me from her history.
Daddy,it's been twenty-four years without you but I remember your laugh like I heard it this morning. Sometimes, out of the blue, I think I can smell your cigars. It's been so hard without you, Daddy, but Ma and I have been strong. We've helped each other through the lowest, darkest times. In our hearts, you're still away on that business trip and we're still waiting by the window for you to come home.
You'd be proud of the woman I've become and the grandchildren I've given you and Ma. I tell Clara and CJ about you every chance I get. I know you're watching over us and lighting the path for us.
Your little girl always,
