“Logan, we’re supposed to work on this!”
Turning to face me, his eyes narrowed as he shook his head slightly. He drew in a full breath before talking, clearly working hard to rein in his emotions.
“I think you’re right, Tink. I think it’s late, and you’re tired.”
Spinning on his heels, he bound for the stairs without another word.
And left me.
Alone.
But I think I deserved it.
About an hour later,I heard voices downstairs and people moving around in the kitchen. I was holed up in my room since Logan ran out on me, too embarrassed to see him around the house. I hoped it was Macie. Since this morning, when I decided to let her in on some of my past, I’d been anxious to do it.
Me: You home? Is that you in the kitchen
Macie: yep, I’ll be right up
She came barginginto my room, complete with two bowls of ice cream for us. Crawling into my bed, we got comfortable and put on an episode ofNew Girl.
“Thank you for the double chocolate chip ice cream,” I told her. “Did you stop for this?”
I caught her with a mouthful of her plain old vanilla with sprinkles as she nodded her answer.
“I thought we might need it. You made it sound pretty serious this morning.”
I was glad she remembered. It was easier to start talking about it with her bringing it up. However, now that the time had come, I was nervous and second-guessing telling her anything.
“Where were you tonight? I didn’t know you had plans.”
My way of deflecting.
“Oh, yeah, I had a meeting with a group from a class. It went hours longer than I expected, mostly because people were talking a lot of the time instead of doing what we needed to.”
Hoping we could eat and watch TV in a comfortable silence, I turned my attention back to the wide screen on my wall. Macie obliged and we sat back, bowls in hand, and enjoyed some Jessica, Nick, and the Winstons.
But then the show ended.
And our bowls were empty.
Macie turned her attention to me.
“Do you still want to talk?”
“Yeah, I do,” I told her. “There’s something about my childhood that might explain why I’ve been acting the way I am.”
She turned herself completely toward me, giving me her undivided attention. It was usually the opposite, me giving her advice or her needing to talk to me. This was an anomaly. But it felt good to have her here, by my side.
“Well,” I started. “You know that it’s just me, my mom, and my sister at home.”
She nodded.
And I blurted out the entire story about why my mom left my dad.
The fact was he started beating her when she was pregnant with me.
And it didn’t stop once she gave birth.
