I march to the bookstore door, pull it open, and don’t have to go far. I all but run into Ben, who is standing on the other side with a spray bottle in his hand. “Whoa there, little lady,” he drawls, backing up a few steps to allow me room to breathe and tipping his cowboy hat back a bit. The idea that he’s wearing it while in the store at night, alone, is a little weird anyway. “The store is closed,” he adds.
“But the dance club is not, apparently,” I murmur beneath the volume of the music that is, ironically, “Cold Heart” all over again. I used to like that song. Can someone please turn it off, though?Please.
I reach in my bag and produce my earbuds. “I have a gift for you.” I step closer to him again and offer him the earbuds. “The music plays right in your ears and not in mine.”
He glances at them and then at me. “I don’t like things in my ears.”
“I don’t like your music in my loft while I’m trying to sleep.”
“No way it comes through the ceiling,” he says, as if we have not had this conversation before now.
“Have you tried earbuds?”
“Never.”
“They’re comfortable and expensive, and they’re my gift to you.”
He smirks, giving me a dubious look. “You aren’t too good at flirting, are you?”
My cheeks heat red. “I’m not flirting.”
“Okay,” he says. “Can you step aside so I can finish cleaning the glass on the door while you’re not flirting with me?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “I’m not flirting with you.”
“Because everyone offers some guy downstairs a hundred-dollar pair of earbuds?”
“I’m desperate for quiet.”
He smirks, and I can almost hear his thoughts.Desperate all right.
“Okay,” he says.
And just like that, I’m done. I could say more. I could push back. I could defend my honor, so to speak, but to what end? Another one of his snarky remarks? The landlord has not listened to my concerns; therefore Ben feels untouchable. More so, he seems to enjoy taunting me, and if that’s true, I’ve likely only fueled his tank with my visit.
There is no solution to this problem that doesn’t include me moving.
Without another word, I rotate on my heels and exit the bookstore. When the door shuts between me and Ben, the air in my lungs is thinner.
Once I’m in my apartment, I deal with Ben as I usually deal with Ben. I turn on my own music, a mix of yesterday’s and today’s tunes. I shower, hoping to wash away the new me and find the old version, the one that used to feel lost and alone. Turns out, being seen kind of sucks.So does being ignored,I think, now dressed in my long johns and sitting on the bed. My father knows this. That’s why his efforts to be ignored were all about being seen again, but on his terms.
Or that’s what I think is going on.
With him on my mind, I text Jess and confirm what time I’m supposed to meet her at Coffee Cats early Friday morning, then curl onto my mattress and open my laptop, aware that I owe her support on her dating-app project. Jess will help my father. In fact, she’ll go out of her way to help my father. She adores him. He is a father to her, when her father was more monster, with wandering hands and lips that seemed to find all the wrong parts of her body. Or so Jess has told me, in those specific words. I haven’t asked a lot of questions. I just listen when the tidbits of her pained childhood find a way to rear their ugly head, even in tiny bits, after she is triggered. Of course, she pretends she is not triggered and does so with the ease of practice. Quite skilled at such avoidance, she elegantly swoops whatever topic has taken us to her bad place aside and away. I can almost envision her as a magnificent white dove lifting her wings and flying high above the trees that shelter the beast lurking below.
The app loads, and my message box lights up. I now have eleven messages to what is most likely a hundred for Jess, but this isn’t about comparing. Okay, maybe it is with her article in play, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Uncomfortable, I decide, but I do believe that’s about my own insecurity and sense of inferiority. An unimpressive, inappropriate reason to avoid helping Jess with her project.
I open the list of messages and find nothing from the ex, Kevin. But what I do find surprises me. I begin pulling up profiles, focusing on the ones that left messages after I changed my profile photos. One stands out. The photo is of a cartoon emoji man named Adam, and the message reads:You looked beautiful and natural in the first photo. In the new photo you just put up, you look guarded and awkward. As if you’re afraid to be the woman in the first photo.
While it’s possible there is truth to that observation, my defenses bristle and bristle loud and proud. I quickly write back and say:This from a person who’s afraid to even post his real photo?
With that, I shut my computer screen, already done with this dating app, at least until Jess convinces me otherwise.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wake with a jolt Friday morning, eye the clock, and panic with the realization I’ve overslept. I all but bolt to the closet, only to realize my dry cleaning is still at the cleaners.
Unfortunately my “basic” wardrobe of “basic” black is off the table. Well, not completely. I have one black skirt. My blouse options include white, green, and red—apparently my closet is the interesting combination of goth plus Christmas. Of course, I didn’t buy the random rainbow-colored items. Jess and my mother did.
