“He’s never hateful or mean to us. This behavior from him is unusual and disturbing. He’s still healing, inside and out.” Ellion tried to explain his boss and friend’s behavior without giving too much of his storyaway.
“I understand that you’re both dedicated. And I can appreciate the need to take time to recover after a major trauma like a fire.” I didn’t continue. I didn’t want to say, again, that his behavior wasstillinexcusable. I was a stranger to him, and he had no right to be so rude. “So, what’s he doing in the garage anyway?” I tried to shift the subject abit.
“Working on one of the cars or another. He loves to tinker away on them,” said Chandler from thestove.
One of my brothers was a gear-head. I knew my way around an engine, somewhat. Enough to change my own oil anyway. Maybe not on one of those fancy things he had out there, but on my Ford back home I was good to go. I could even change thebrakes.
“Maybe I could go try to talk to him about the cars? Connect a little that way? I know some aboutengines.”
Ellion and Chandler gave each other longglances.
“Maybe in a day or two. Let him get used to you being in the house,” saidEllion.
If I had my way, I wouldn’t be in the house another day or two, so that was fine with me. If I couldn’t make nice with him, I’d leave. “That works,” I said. I stepped up to the stove and stirred the soup. “Do you mind if Itaste?”
Chandler chuckled and looked back at Ellion. “Be our guest. We want you to feel comfortablehere.”
Canned soup was repulsive to some people, but to me it made me think about winters spent playing board games in the cozy kitchen, followed by tomato soup and definitelynotgourmet grilled cheeses. I took a sip and smiled at Ellion. Chandler went to set the table. I took the opportunity to lean against Ellion. His arm was rock hard. I put my hand on it to feel how big it was. The little computer nerd was hiding some big guns under his long-sleeved t-shirt.
When the soup was warm and the cheese melty in its grilled bread, I helped dish it up for the three of us. I’d taken my first sip of soup when Griffin came through the door. I saw my chance to get a few brownie points or extend the olive branch, so I got up before anyone else could, dished out another bowl of soup, and grabbed the remaining two sandwiches for him. “Here you go, Griffin,” I said, the epitome ofperkiness.
He stopped with a surprised attitude. At least he was finally acknowledging my existence. “Thank you,” he said as he sat at the table, opposite mychair.
“You’re very welcome.” I sat and sipped my soup and pretended not to notice the meaningful glances the guys were giving eachother.
“So,” Ellion chirped with wide eyes. “You’re from a bigfamily?”
I looked up from my soup, confused. I’d told him that before, when I was having my anxietyattack.
“Yeah,huge.”
Chandler and Ellion seemed intrigued, Griffin stared at hisbowl.
“Griffin comes from a large family,” saidChandler.
Griffingrunted.
“It has its good points and its bad,” I said, trying to keep the conversation going while Griffin was actually in the room and not yelling. “I have too many brothers who like to put their nose in my business, but I wouldn’t give them up for theworld.”
“What about sisters?” asked Chandler, licking his full lips. There was a bead of soup left in the corner of hismouth.
I cleared my throat, pulling my focus away from the lips I wanted to kiss. The room was tense. Griffin’s shoulders were set. He resembled a wild animal getting ready tobolt.
“I have a plethora of sisters,” I said with a strangled chuckle. “Griffin, do you havesisters?”
The fink. He flinched. He flinched before looking up at me. Heflinchedat the thought of having to converse with me. I was geared up to yell at him, really let him have it. Then our eyes met, and the bottom dropped out of my world. The raw pain in his eyes—how’d he function? How’d he get out of bed every morning? His eyes told a story of grief. He lived with it constantly. I might as well have been watching a movie called The Pain of GriffinBell.
I took in a deep breath. I didn’t need him to like me. I didn’t even need him to stop yelling at me. But I wished, in that moment, more than I’d ever wished anything in my entire life, I wished that I could alleviate some of his pain, and that—I sucked in another breath—that was a responsibility I wasn’t in the marketfor.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do this.” Normally, I’d never leave my dishes sitting at the table, especially as a guest. We were raised to clean up after ourselves. But I left my dishes and half my dinner on the table and walked quickly to my frilly, girlyroom.
After my hasty exit and near jog to my room, my ribs were screaming at me for relief. I popped a couple of ibuprofen and eased myself back onto the bed to try to fall asleep. Griffin’s eyes haunted me until I finally fell into a dream-filled slumber. I dreamed about fire and something chasing me through a crowded city street. It wasn’tpleasant.
A few hours later, I gave up trying to sleep. I’d been halfway aware of time passing, even aware that someone tapped softly on my door at one point. But at the same time I was also still asleep and dreaming. I hated nights like that, as I never truly rested when ithappened.
The clock on the wall said it was ten after one in the morning. My stomach rumbled a reminder I’d barely eaten anything at dinner. I cracked my door and listened to the silence of a dreaminghouse.
Guilt ate at me as I crept toward the kitchen. I shouldn’t have run away. Griffin’s pain had nothing to do with me, and I didn’t need to be overwhelmed by it. I could feel bad for him without taking him on as my own problem. I resolved to apologize to him the next time I sawhim.
