"Me. I doesn't care."
From that point on, the phrasedoesn't carelived on in the Brynn home."Lucy, you better get some sunscreen on before you head out. You’ll get a really bad sunburn if you don’t.”The response would be, rather affectionately while heeding my advice,“doesn’t care.”
I played along, too.“Mom, my window’s not all the way up,”one of them would say from the back seat as we entered the carwash tunnel.“Doesn’t care,”I’d say while, of course, sealing it up tight. Ross never got a laugh out of it the way the kids and I did, but that didn’t stop us from using the now-classic phrase.
A phrase that comes to mind as Ross rambles the same things he already lectured me about while working on my teeth. Just when I think he’s done, his pitch shifts, and his volume rises, and suddenly I let the words fly out of my mouth with a nonchalant dismissal that rivals Martin’s first delivery.
“Doesn't care," I belt.
Ross sucks in air and clears his throat. "I beg your pardon?" He sounds miffed.
Brenda, who’s still adjusting the seat to set me upright, looks at Ross with wide eyes. Amusement pulls at the corner of her lips; I think she likes it when Ross and I are at odds.
"You heard me,” I say, climbing out of the chair and turning to face him. “I already thanked you, so spare me the lecture and send me the bill."
I can barely believe the words coming out of my mouth. It's like I’ve turned into a whole new woman, a woman I like more than the one who bowed down to Ross without a thought.
In the next room, I dip a Q-tip in numbing cream and waltz into Ross’s office. I smear the cream amply over the flip straw of his Stanley mug and wave my hand over it to fan it dry.
As I work on my next patient, I picture Ross getting fresh with Brenda as he sucks from his bulky straw. As he babblesabout whatever he thinks will make him look smart, his lips will go tingly and slightly numb.
I love it already.
But by the time I’m done with my patient, guilt gets the best of me. As empowering as it might feel to take some sort of action, I know it’s not the type of action I’m supposed to take.
I race to Ross’s office to clean off the mug and stop short in the doorway at what I see. Brenda is standing there with her overfilled lips around the straw of Ross’s mug.
She looks up at me with wide eyes like she’s busted.
“You guys share the same mug?” I ask, caught between shock and amusement.
Brenda smacks her jumbo-sized lips and pulls a weird, foxlike face, eyes going sharp and accusing. She studies the straw for a bit, tipping it this way and that in the light.
I bite back a laugh.
Her eyes grow wide for a blink as if she’s just seen the light. And soon, she’s lifting her gaze suspiciously back on me.
“Never mind,” I say, and skip merrily back down the hall.
That night, Liam and I go out for the third time since the campout. He meets me halfway between my place and his—a short 15-minute drive for each of us. It's Tuesday, so we practically have the movie theater to ourselves. We hold hands —gosh, I love holding his hand—and even sneak in a few kisses during slow parts of the show.
He takes me to dinner afterward, and once we’re through, we grab gelato and chat while strolling around the park for nearly an hour. When we reluctantly walk back to where I’m parked, Liam kisses me in a way that makes me happy to be alive. We set up another date for Saturday. He’d like to cook for me while Martin and Lucy go to Ross’s and Cam is at his mom’s.
Part of me knows that we’re tiptoeing around something neither of us wants to address—our past—yet even as I think it, arumble of fear shudders through me. I should be over it by now, I know that, but I can't escape the common element between my issues with Ross and the way everything went wrong between me and Liam.
The smart part of me knows that Liam is nothing like Ross, but the crux of our breakup remains: he thought he knew what was best. That I was too young, too immature, too fill-in-the-blank to see for myself what he could so plainly see.
And while that doesn't keep me from fully enjoying Liam's company, it doesn’t encourage me to broach the unpleasant topic either.
Which leads to another topic I’m avoiding. I haven’t exactly followed through with thesay-yes-to-myselflist I made. In my defense, I've been busy enjoying the very life I hoped the whole yes-thing would bring me. I'm enjoying my time with the kids more than ever, and they even say they’ve noticed a positive change in me since Liam and I started dating.
This is good, I decide. Healthy, even. It’s probably best to space things out, not try to tackle everything all at once. I said yes to the campout, and it brought me to where I am now. More positive yeses are sure to follow.
I let that thought reign and decide I'll worry about the rest another day.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Liam
