Me:
I dare you to do it.
nineteen
Lexi
I sit here in the middle of the bed, my legs folded, the television playing in the background. My hands shake and my stomach flutters as I read the text thread over and over again.
Me:
I have…
Kirby:
What does that … mean?
Me:
I think you want to give me the job because you feel sorry for me.
Kirby:
Trust me, I feel a lot of things for you but sorry isn’t one of them.
I close my eyes and lean back on my pillows before stretching out my legs in front of me. The phone in my hand feels like it’s a fifty-pound dead weight.
“You have to answer him,” I mumble to myself when the phone vibrates again in my hand and I look down at it.
Kirby:
I dare you to do it.
My fingers move before I can think, and the next thing I know, I’m putting the phone to my ear and listening to the sound of it ringing. It feels like it’s been ringing for five hours when not even one whole ring goes by when he picks it up midway. “Yes?” he says, not even bothering with hello.
“You can’t dare me to take a job,” I huff out at him.
“Why can’t I?” he asks and I hear him moving on his end, and I wonder what his house looks like. “Is there some rule somewhere that I don’t know about that says I can’t dare you when it comes to a job offer?”
“Kirby,” I say his name softly and then close my eyes.
“Lexi,” he says my name back in the same tone, and I don’t answer him. Both of us just sit here listening to the other person breathe. “Why don’t you want to take help from your parents?”
“Because it’s embarrassing,” I finally admit. “I’m almost thirty and my parents have to buy my house.”
“Did you ask them to buy your house?” he asks me and I don’t answer him, because he knows full well I would never. “Are you sitting at home doing nothing but wasting the day away, not bothering to work or taking the steps to get a job?”
“Okay, I get it.”
“I don’t think you do. Accepting help doesn’t mean you failed.”
“I know that also, but I just should have had things organized before.”
“What would you have done differently?” I listen to his question and I seriously have to think about it. “Would you have stayed longer, just so you could save up money?”
“I don’t think so.” My voice trails off. “I didn’t even know I was going to leave him that night.” I close my eyes.
“What was it that made you want to break free?”
