“You want to introduce a hypothetical box, I need to be able to picture it.”
“Fine,” he huffed. “It’s black. So in this box—”
He stopped when she took the box from his hands. Anyone else would have ignored her or carried on talking but Kevin had an odd imagination, so to him this box made of air was real.
“What are you doing?” he asked with exasperation.
“Black is a bit morbid. I’m just gonna paint some pink flowers on it.”
She started tracing flowers on the side of the box and he yanked it out of her hands again.
“Awww, Kevin. You smudged my flower.”
“No flowers! Right. So your ripped hymen, your menstrual cycle, it goes in the box.” He dropped in the topics one by one. “The actual size of my penis, the theoretical size of your penis, it goes in the box. While I’m at it, I’m gonna throw Dean in there, too.”
“What do you have against Dean? He’s a really nice guy and I’m sure if you just got to know him, you’d—”
“I don’t know why you’re still talking about him,” he said curtly. “He’s in the box. Oh, one more thing. Absolutely everything that happened at Rachel’s party goes in the box. All right?”
He put the imaginary lid on the imaginary box, looking very happy that these topics of discussion were now tightly locked away.
“What about you screaming like a girl because of that spider?” she teased. “Can we talk about that?”
His dimples sank in but he pulled his lips in to stop a smile. “That goes in the box, too.” Opening the lid a fraction, he dropped that in as well, then placed the box beside his thigh.
Jasmin shifted on the bench, lying down and resting her head on his lap. “What about you?” she asked, looking up at him. “Can we talk about you?”
He didn’t answer, just stared at the whirling drums of laundry in front of him.
“I think I figured out what’s going on here,” she said softly. “You don’t want anyone close to you. I’m guessing you pusheveryoneaway…but with me specifically, you’re not exactly sure at what distance you want to keep me, so it’s this constant push and pull.” She kept her eyes on him, but he continued to stare elsewhere. “I bother you, Kevin…and not for the reasons you keep saying.”
His jaw tightened and he gave his next words a lot of thought before looking down to say them. “What do you want to know?”
That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. It was probably because of what she’d told him yesterday about him getting off his high horse, but she didn’t know if his reasoning was because he wanted to prove that she didn’t bother him, or…confirm that she did. Either way, it was an opportunity she wasn’t going to waste.
“You’re in college?”
“Was.”
“Were you studying something in the science field?”
He was reluctant to answer and his response was short and to the point. “Engineering…Electrical.”
“You seem to love science, so why did you drop out?”
“Next question.”
His unwillingness to divulge everything made her change her line of questioning. She didn’t want to push for too much too quickly and she decided to ease him into it by not asking anything about him directly. “What’s your mom like?”
Although relieved, he sighed as if the topic was a heavy weight on his chest. “My mom…my mom is the best mother anyone could ever ask for. She loves with her whole heart. She forgives way too easily. She has this warmth about her that kinda…sucks you in. It’s suffocating and comforting at the sametime.” His eyes glazed over and he tried to appear emotionless. “She never knows when to give up…and I’m not sure if I love or hate that about her.”
“You’re very lucky to have her,” she said and she meant it.
Her mother had given up on her almost immediately and hearing all that just made her wonder what it would be like to have that, someone who loved her unconditionally. The thought was so foreign and distant, she couldn’t even imagine it. She looked up at him again and her open-book face must have told him everything she was feeling because his hand went to her forehead, gently brushing her hair back. He had an odd fascination with her hair and he generally looked for any excuse to touch it or undo her braid. At this moment, however, that gesture was just his small acknowledgement of her pain.
“What about the rest of your family?” she asked.
“You sure you wanna know?”
