As we walked down the concourse, Nathan talking about Vegas and meetings and sponsorships and how this event would play in the press, I let my head tilt toward his shoulder at theappropriate moment. I laughed when he tossed out a joke. I agreed when he told me what our next steps should be.
I played my part.
But somewhere beneath all that, like a quiet drumbeat under a loud song, another thought pulsed.
Friendsgiving.
I didn’t have to spend the holiday alone.
I could spend it with Maven and Grace, with the rest of the girls, with the team and a couple babies and pets.
And Shane.
That was the dangerous part. Not only had Nathan warned me to stay away from him, but I knew I walked a thin line when I was alone with him. It was too easy for the time between us to wane, for the young girl I was when I was with him to try to swim to the surface of my soul.
I knew he saw what so many others missed.
What scared me most was that Iwantedhim to see.
And I was starting to think I didn’t care what the consequences of that desire were.
Man Up
Ariana
2007
“Mom,please,” I begged, embarrassment boiling me from the inside out as Jay continued to make a complete ass of himself.
And of me.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do, honey,” Mom said. Her voice was just a sigh of dejection, her eyes hollowed out, skin so pale it might as well have been translucent.
It was Thanksgiving, I was hosting for the first time, and it was a complete disaster.
Shane’s grandparents hadn’t been able to make it, thanks to a crazy snowstorm that had flights canceled left and right. We decided to still move forward with just my family in attendance.
Only the first hour had gone smoothly.
Jay, my mom, and Georgie showed up on time, all of them smiling and hugging and ready to eat. Mom put on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for Georgie and then helped me in the kitchen. Shane was on turkey duty.
And Jay started drinking.
Things had gone straight to hell after that.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was barely an hour in when he planted himself in front of the TV with his third beer, heckling every float that drifted onto the screen. When the giantSnoopy balloon appeared, he barked, “Who the hell cares about a depressed dog?” and when the high school performers came out, he muttered something gross under his breath about the cheerleaders that made me want to crawl into the floorboards.
Georgie had been sitting cross-legged on the rug, wide-eyed and excited, but every time he tried to point something out — “Look, Ariana! It’s Pikachu!” — Jay talked right over him, yelling about how the whole thing was “a soft participation-trophy circus.” Eventually, Georgie just… stopped talking.
He curled in on himself, shrinking smaller with each slurred commentary Jay shouted at the screen.
And that was only the start.
Once the parade ended, Jay decided Georgie needed to learn how to throw a football. He grabbed one of my decorative pumpkins and chucked it across the apartment to demonstrate — where it exploded against the wall, seeds sliding down the paint. He only laughed, grabbing another beer as if this was all perfectly normal.
Then came the kitchen critiques. Jay stumbled around the kitchen assessing every aspect of my perfectly planned day. He lifted pot lids, stuck his fingers into the mashed potatoes, and started gagging after tasting the cranberry sauce. It was a nice touch when he called Shane “chef boy-ar-dumb” when he asked my mom how to make turkey gravy — which he’d only done to try to include her.
Through it all, I could see how hard Shane worked to restrain himself, to be kind to my asshole of a relative when I knew he wanted to throw him right out. He let me know he was with me every time he passed — a hand on my back, a kiss to my cheek, a smile from across the kitchen.
