Bubba hasn’t said a single word to them about us. He hasn’t cuddled me in his lap all afternoon, but that’s kind of my fault. He reached for me, but I got scared and backed away, afraid that if he felt my face, he might remember how much better his ex-wife felt.
He’s going to leave. They always leave. Dad and his trashy wife. All the men who claimed they loved me, only to send me away with twenty bucks and a sore asshole. Even my mom left, though that wasn’t her choice. It still feels like being abandoned, though. I know it isn’t rational, but she was supposed to be here forever, and now she’s not, and even though it’s been years, I still feel lost and broken and all alone.
Barbara pulses love through my heart, probably because she knows I need it. She always knows when I need her. I wish she was real, sometimes. Sometimes, I wish she was real so fucking bad, I can’t stand it. She’s a part of me, resting right here in my heart, always present, never fading.
Bubba still hasn’t told them about us, and it’s driving me crazy. To manage my unease, I’ve done what I do best. I’ve pouted like a petulant child, refusing to speak, because I have nothing to say to Bubba or his family. He actually held her fucking hand earlier. Yeah, he was painting her fingernails—something Johnny claims Bubba has done for as long as he’s known them—but that sounds like a mighty convenient story, if you ask me. It all feels icky.
If it wasn’t for Johnny, I think I’d probably be losing my mind, because I know I don’t stand a chance in hell against Faith. There’s no reason Bubba would choose me over his wife, aside from the fact he’s enamored with my cute face and perky ass. A nice ass can only get you so far, though. Bubba raised a son with her. They walked down theaisle already. She knows all his bad habits, and he knows hers, of which I’m sure there are many. I haven’t seen any yet, but I know they’re in there, and I know they’re probably godawful. I guess we’ll find out tonight.
Bubba’s going to kick my ass for this, but I don’t care. She needs to know she’s met her match.
It takes me twenty minutes to decorate the dining room like a psychic’s workspace. My fishbowl-turned-crystal-ball is its usual shade of gorgeous, glossy pink. l turn it upside down, resting it on the table, and the glitter-water the stones are submerged in creates these fabulous, swirly, twirly patterns on the wall when the light hits just right. The whorish Tarot deck Austin and Dallas gave me is resting right beside it. I’ve got a small mortar and pestle filled with crushed sage and various spices, ready to be set ablaze to cleanse this home of Bubba and Faith’s unintentionally hurtful behavior. Johnny is seated at my side, as I light tea candles and place them across the table. He’s been repeatedly reassuring me that everything will be okay. Bubba, Faith, and Jaden are having family time in the living room.
“She’s excluding me,” I quietly hiss, lighting the blood-red candles I bought special for the occasion. “Slowly but surely, he’s falling in love with her all over again.”
Johnny rolls his eyes, the same way he’s been doing each time I bring the subject up. “She said we could hang out with them if we wanted to, but you turned her down.”
“Yeah, because the last thing I want is to watch him mount her on our sofa.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he says, sighing.
“She’s not walking out of this kitchen unscathed. I will take her character and crush it down to dust, leaving nothing but humiliated rubble inmy wake.
“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t do that, if I were you. Besides, she ain’t done nothin’ wrong, bro. They’re just here visiting. She’s a good woman, Ez. Please try to give her a chance.”
“We’ll see. And, as for what you would or wouldn’t do if you were me—If you were me, you wouldn’t dress in a fucking potato sack for work every day, either, babe, but here the fuck you come, looking like a sexy Elmer Fudd.”
He blushes. “Elmer Fudd didn’t wear coveralls.”
“Correct, but I’m having a hard time thinking of other popular mechanic-esque pop culture icons, so we’ve made do with what we have.”
Johnny nods like it makes all the sense in the world, then, his eyes go wide, meeting mine. “Did you just call me babe?”
My heart stops beating for the very briefest of moments, and I quickly shake my head. “Fuck no. We need to set you up with an appointment to have your ears checked, because I think your hearing loss is advancing in your elderly age. We can stop by the store after, and we can pick you some work clothes that don’t look like you’ve tied a parachute around your body and said, ‘Fuck it. Yolo.’ We can make a whole day of it.” I nibble my bottom lip. “We could have lunch.”
“Like a date?” Johnny asks.
“Yes. But we’re throwing all those fucking jumpsuits into the yard first, and we’re setting them ablaze.”
He sighs. “They’re all we’re allowed to wear at the shop. They keep our skin safe when we’re welding. Have you ever had white-hot sparks rain down on your skin? I have. Is that what you want? For me to get hurt at work because you wanted me to look less like Elmer Fudd?”
“Obviously, I don’t want you to get harmed, but you didn’t have to purchase the ugliest outfit on the shelf. They show absolutely nothing,and the dark blue is fucking hideous. Couldn’t we get you a tighter set? Maybe in pink?”
“I ain’t wearing pink coveralls to work.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Why? Is someone struggling with the subtle sting of internalized homophobia? Do we need to have the it’s-okay-to-be-gay speech again? Because we can. I won’t do the it-gets-better speech, because, as we’ve learned over the last few months, it doesn’t always get better, and I feel like I’d just be wasting my breath with false promises. Sometimes it sucks, Johnny. Sometimes it sucks a lot.”
“I just don’t like pink,” he says, shrugging, ignoring the rest of my extremely important point.
I stab my finger into his chest, but not hard enough to hurt. “All I wear is pink. Is this your way of telling me you can’t stand the sight of me?”
“On me,” he quickly clarifies. “I don’t like pink on me. It don’t look good.” He eyes me up and down, drinking in the sight of my pink crop top with the wordsDaddy’s Little Whorescribbled across the fabric. He takes a step closer and toys with the tail of my shirt, only inches from my belly button. “I like when you wear it. A lot.”
I swallow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I kind of want to kiss him again, just to thank him for the kind words, but footsteps echo across the cabin’s hardwood floor behind us, and I shut my mouth, not wanting anyone to overhear us, because this moment is ours.
