I hesitate a moment before I call my stepdad, if only to tell him to put my mom on the phone, but it seems like his phone is off. The call doesn’t even go through.
I call my dad, also no pick up. I hang up before it asks me to leave a message. I’m not sure I can explain what just happened coherently. I nearly chew through my lower lip trying to figure out if it’s worth it to call my half-siblings or stepmother, to get stuck trying to catch them up on history.
I give it a try, and it cuts off after the second ring.
At first, I think the call dropped, and try the number again, watching the screen. But it barely makes it through one ring beforeCALL REJECTEDflashes briefly across the screen.
Of course. None of them have time for me. Why would they?
A wave of feeling so potent it borders on dizzying moves through me. I drop my phone in the passenger seat and just lean my head against the steering wheel until it passes.
Shawn is still waiting outside, when I look up; he’s moved closer, actually, and somehow it still looks like he’s holding himself back. He’s not quite pressing his face to my car door window, just peering in a little too close. I can’t decide if that’s restraint from him or not.
I steel myself, ready to be angry with him for following me specifically when I said not to. But I’m so tired from the last ten minutes, I can’t bring myself to go through the emotions.
Once upon a time, I’d been charmed by the slight Boston accent and gray sweatpants always hanging off his hip bones. Now I’d lived in Massachusetts long enough that it didn’t have as much of an effect on me. Hopefully.
His eyebrows go through a number of reactions as I sigh and roll down the window. We’re going to have to talk eventually. He’s literally the last person on the planet I want to be near right now, but somehow, he’s the only person waiting to hear what I have to say.
I stare at him, rain dripping down his face like some kind of sad kicked puppy. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“You look . . . healthy?”
Feeling uncharitable, I reply, “That bad, huh?”
He startles back a step trying to recover from that conversational landmine. “No! No I just meant, like, I didn’t know if saying you looked good was ok or not, but I didn’t want it to sound like I didn’t think you—”
He rambles himself into a corner, gesturing with his hands until he decides to just stop talking and put his hands back in his pockets.
“It’s, uh. It’s been a while,” he tries again.
“Yeah.”
“Do you need to borrow a phone? Maybe we’ve got different providers if you need to call someone—”
“No, they were all busy.”
He crouches down, probably kneeling on the wet asphalt to get down to my car’s level. His chin still hangs just over the edge of the car door.
“Listen. I wasn’t actually invited back here for the wedding. I can leave. If that would make things better—”
I shake my head, unable to come up with the words. I don’t care. Him actually being present isn’t what I’m most upset about. It’s what it means. Instantly, the last few years I’ve lived here feel like a lie.
“I just...can’t believe you’re working for them. Of all places to find you...” He trails off, looking still somewhat shaken.
“It’s not like I realized this was your family when I took the job.” I sigh. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, they invite me to movie nights. They were my friends before they were your brothers.”
He looks incredulous. “That’s literally not how that works.”
“That’s not the point. It’s...my employer is now also your mom. And I don’t know how we’re going to come back from that little revelation.”
I end on a tired look that feels too familiar for these conversations. Now I have to figure myself out of this one. I look at him, expecting the same helpless expression he always wore when we got into serious conversations. I always had to clean up the disasters.
He shakes his head though, and something feels different. “We don’t have to. I didn’t tell them. I mean, they know we know each other clearly, because you ran out when I showed up. But we can keep that to ourselves. You can keep your job as long as you need.”
“I don’t need you to fix this,” I tell him pointedly. “Just stay away from me. I’ll figure it out from there.”
