Two and a half hours later, I wake up sprawled across Jamie, apparently having no concept of personal space. Head on his chest and one leg over his pelvis, I try to carefully slide my body off of his, but his arm immediately tightens around me. That’s when I feel his opposite hand grasping my hair, which is no longer in a messy bun. Jamie’s body is turned slightly toward me, his nose against my hair, and a large chunk of it is wrapped around his fist. “I’ve never been attracted to hair before, but I’m absolutely obsessed with yours.”
I can’t help the giddy smile that covers my face as I snuggle deeper into his chest. My hair is almost always in a bun. My mother forced me to keep it shoulder-length all throughout childhood, and once I was able to control its length, I rarely cut it. It’s down to my waist, but I obviously have to keep it up at work. I choose to wear it up whenever I’m around my parents, because it’s easier than fighting all the time about it. Apparently, according to my mother, respectable women don’t have super long hair.
It seems that I’m uncovering more and more trauma, courtesy of my upbringing, as I get older. I only recently realized painting my nails anything other than pastel pinks, shades of white, or a ‘classic’ style like a French manicure wasn’t really a sign that I was a whore. Lipsticks were to be in neutral shades, and definitely never ‘whore red.’ All skirts and shorts were to be longer than the tips of my fingers when my arms were hanging straight, and no heels over two-point-five inches. Three inch heels were only allowed if I happened to be escorted by a man over six feet tall. Other than that, I’d be called a whore. A whore, for three inch heels and red lipstick. It appears my mother’s favorite word for explaining anything about womanhood was the word ‘whore.’
And my mother wonders why I stopped allowing her to play matchmaker. I quickly learned her ideals were virtually interchangeable with those of her friends, which meant any of the men they’d match with me would expect the same thing. No, thank you.
“My mother hates long hair,” I murmur as I trace the letters of his Colorado Coyotes tee shirt.
“And since she hated it, you rebelled,” he muses.
“There wasn’t much I could have power over when I was in college, because I was still living at home part of the year. But I could definitely control the length of my hair.”
“Your parents sound like they’re barrels of fun.”
“Not by a long shot. It might have been nice to have a closer family, but I don’t regret growing up like I did. They paid for my college, even though they hated my major. They put up with some of my more unique extracurricular activities. It could have been so much worse.”
“That’s how I view my parents as well. I know everything they did was out of love for me, but they began living vicariously through me. They wanted me to go to the same university as theydid, and pushed for me to look at the same fraternity my dad was in. I didn’t even want to be in a fraternity! So I picked the farthest college I could go to that wanted me for their football team.”
“That’s how you ended up at Oregon?”
He nods. “They wanted me to stay in Florida. I knew it would mean they’d show up every weekend. They’d want to tailgate, push me into that fraternity, and hover over everything that I did. It wasn’t that I wanted independence so I could party or be out of control. I just wanted to get out from under their thumbs.”
“Did it work?”
“For the most part, yeah. My dad had an epiphany my freshman year of college, but my mom took much longer to understand. It became a really big sore point between the three of us. My dad cheated on her a lot, and I think she threw herself into raising me as a coping mechanism. It all became too much. So much so, in fact, they ended up getting a divorce. My junior year, my mom showed up in Oregon right before the second game of the year, and told me she was moving there.”
“What?” I gasp, tilting my head up to gaze at him. “I hope she didn’t!”
He shakes his head sadly. “She did. I was in an off-campus apartment, and she slept on the couch for a few weeks. I didn’t have the heart to kick her out. But then she began showing up at practices, and the coaching staff was pissed. They encouraged me to kick her out, and if she didn’t leave, they wanted me to file a restraining order against her.”
“Oh, wow,” I say quietly. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you to think about. Regardless of her actions, she’s your mom. It’s difficult to view a parent-child relationship objectively when you’re one of the participants.”
Jamie is quiet for a moment, twirling a lock of my hair around his finger. “I think I’m the opposite. It wasn’t difficultfor me to comprehendwhymy mom was struggling. I’m their only child, and I’d moved three thousand miles away. She’d been a housewife for my entire childhood, and didn’t know how to remove that aspect of her life. She had no career aspirations, and didn’t know how to survive without depending on someone else. She took her dependence on my dad and transferred it to me.”
I don’t reply. In some ways, our moms are similar. My mother certainly has no professional skills to speak of, unless you count designing floral centerpieces, setting an extravagant table full of fine china, or convincing rich people to bid on absurd items at a silent auction. She still won’t tell me who donated the full-size taxidermy black bear, and what stupidly rich person won it.
“My mom had an affair with one of my coaches,” Jamie blurts out suddenly. “Broke up a family. I cut all ties with her after that.”
“When you were in college?”
“Yeah. It was a big story because the wife of my coach was previously an athlete herself, and she wasn’t shy about telling everyone what happened. I still get tagged occasionally in some text message screenshots.” His face is devoid of any emotion. “I haven’t spoken to her in close to fifteen years. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
“Do you want to talk to her?” I ask carefully.
He sighs. “No. I spent a lot of time in therapy after college, and it helped me to realize what a toxic person she is. When I told her about my autism diagnosis, because I wasn’t actually diagnosed until I was twenty, she made it about her. Honestly, I’m surprised my dad didn’t leave years before he finally did. I think me being away at college forced him to see her for what she truly was, because I wasn’t there as a buffer.”
“Do you still talk to your dad?”
“Occasionally. He comes out once a year for a home game, and we always have a game somewhere near him, so I usually see him then as well. I’ve talked him into coming out for Christmas once or twice, but he doesn’t like to travel. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess. He has his area that he’s happy in, and he doesn’t enjoy deviating from it.”
“I’m the same way. I like schedules. Expectations. I know what I want, what I like, and I don’t go off to do things differently. The only thing I do enjoy is trying new food, but even that is within limits.”
“Oh yeah? What are your limits for food?” Jamie asks as he pushes up onto his side. Removing his arm from around me, he props his head on his hand and looks at me.
“I don’t want to see it alive before I eat it.”
“I support this,” he says with an exaggerated shudder. “Did you know when you boil a lobster, it screams?”
