I get up to the counter and slam the onesie down. I don’t have a card. I don’t have a floral arrangement. Hell, I don’t even have a gift bag to put it all into. Without looking at me, Ava goes over to the card stand and picks one out, as I watch her, glaring, and then she grabs an artificial flower, blue, from one of the buckets, tucks it into some green foamy shit, and does a whole bunch of things, as I watch her put together a simple little centrepiece, with a small blue teddy bear sticking out the top.
“This is on me.” she says.
Yeah, you bet your ass it is.
“What are you even doing here?” I blurt, not sure why.
“Working.” She answers, only looking up at me for a second.
“I thought your folks didn’t let you work.” I snarl.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. A lot of things have been let go since she removed me from her life permanently. I hope she lives a long, boring, lonely little life here. She doesn’t even live around here from what I remember, anyway. I guess a lot of things have changed. She sure got what she wanted.
Ava rings in the onesie and I toss her my bank card, struggling to get the goddamn thing out with one hand. Usually my brothers pay for anything I need. This is fucking humiliating to say the least. I leave my wallet on the counter, and she takes it upon herself to put the card back in for me, while I glare at her. I watch her place the items into a paper gift bag, being careful to staple the top shut, anchoring the centerpiece, and affixing a tiny little card on the outside, indicating ‘congratulations, it’s a boy!’. “Do they have a name for him yet?” she asks me.
“Tucker.” I answer, even though what I want to say is, ‘none of your fucking business’.
She wiggles the mouse on the counter, and starts typing into the computer. “If you have an email address, we send special offers, and a birthday wish each year to the baby, or to your sister-in-law or brother, whatever you wish.”
“No, thanks.” I say crossly. And she looks at me with these fucking puppy dog eyes. The same ones she looked at me with before, when I told her I loved her. And goddamn it if it doesn’t make me feel guilty as sin for feeling the wrath I’m feeling right now. Before I can stop myself, I try to smooth it over. “So, are you still in Houston?” I ask, knowing full well that she’s coming here to Dallas in the fall. But I don’t tell her that I creeped through her Facebook profile page. Figuring out her Facebook name from something she mentioned in passing.
“No.” She answers. “I’m…going to Dallas in the fall.” She nods. “Are you still in Houston?”
NowIcan’t look at her. “No. I…I flunked out last year.” What the fuck did I tell her that for? “I’m going to Dallas in the fall, too.” Shut up! Shut up, now! You idiot!
I expect her to say something cheesy, like, ‘well, maybe I’ll see you around there’, or something, but she doesn’t. And then I figure out why. Because she knows. She knows that she crushed my fucking heart in two. She knows that underneath all this hatred is the same kid that fell so hard and fast for her, that my head was spinning. She also knows that I hate her for it. I didn’t realize how much I hated her until now. But I also didn’t realize how much I still love her until now. I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I just walk out the second that I saw her? I shouldn’t have stayed. I shouldn’t have laid eyes on her again, after all these months of not seeing her, only inside my own head.
“Good luck in Dallas.” Is all I manage to say after a beat.
“You too.” She says, pushing the back closer to me on the counter, so that I can pull it into my arms with little effort.
And just when I think that she’s going to walk away from me, she comes around the counter, lifts the package into my arms for me, grazing my skin with her fingers, giving me a mighty thrill up my spine that I hate myself for feeling, and then she gives me those fucking puppy dog eyes again. “I hope your arm feels better.”
Yeah…and I hope my heart feels better, too.
***
Ava
“Whatsa matter, love? Y’all not enjoying your job anymore?” Felicia asks me, as we sit down to breakfast together. I didn’t sleep a wink all night after seeing Gunner today.
“No, I love it. I love both my jobs, actually.” I say honestly. I’m not sure how much about Gunner I should share. I don’t want to bring back memories of her first love and hurt her, making us two sad broken hearts, but the look on her face says that she’s worried about me. I love her for it. As much as it pains me to see her looking at me like that, I love it, too. Nobody has ever looked at me like that, with all the care in the world for me, and it feels wonderful.
“Then, what’s eating you, doll?”
She brings me a cup of tea, as we sit at the breakfast table, eating our favorite: fresh bagels from the bakery up the street, toasted, with cream cheese. I borrowed her car this morning to go pick it up. “I…um…I ran into Gunner yesterday…at the gift shop.”
“Oh…gosh, I hope everyone is okay. How come he was in the hospital.”
I lift a hand. “Oh, no, his sister-in-law had a baby is all.”
A hand goes to her chest. “Oh, thank the lord.” She draws in a breath and releases it. “And how did it go, darlin’?”
“Awkward.” I say after a beat. “He hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you, darlin’.” She tuts.
“Oh, no. He hates me with a passion.” I chuckle without a trace of mirth. “I could see it in his eyes.”
