Do I know that? No. The thought hadn't even occurred to me. All of my adult life, I’ve just gone about my business, done my own thing. I like it that way. No one to answer to, no one to worry about.
But if I tell Holly any of this, she’ll want to dive deep into my hyper-independence, and I’ve been to therapy. I'm well aware where it’s rooted.
“I like solo road trips,” I say as casually as I can. “They give me time to think.”
“You live alone. And you run your one-woman business from the comforts of your home. You have plenty of time to think.” She shakes her head at me, falling back a step. “Do you seriously not want me to come?”
“I mean, you brought coffee.” I muster a grin. I guess this is happening. “I’m not going to turn you away.”
Satisfied with my surrender, she lets out another laugh and moves for the passenger side. It takes a bit of rearranging to clear the seat, but another fifteen minutes later, we’re finally on the road.
Headed home.
No.
Not home.
The unknown. A strange twist in irony, returning to the place I spent most of my life only to fear it will be unrecognizable.
And I do.
Without my father and sister there, nothing will look like it once did.
“Tell me more about this Jovi,” Holly says when we’ve survived the downtown traffic and made our way past the city limits. “Is he hot?”
My brow crinkles. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before. I mean, I knew he’d come up sooner or later on the drive. After our initial phone call about my move ended, an infinite thread of text messages ensued.
Holly had a shit ton of questions. Jovi came up. I knew the moment I mentioned him, Holly would obsess over him. Well, at least how he pertains to me.
You’re going to live with a man? You’ve never lived with a man!
That was her big takeaway there.
Despite the fact that I assured her emphatically we would not be living together, that we’d simply be neighbors, with the same address, she obviously hasn’t let it go yet. Hence, the interest in his looks.
“I can’t tell you if he’s hot or not.” My lip curls with disgust. Then it slacks again a second later. “I personally have never seen him that way, but I guess most women do seem to be under the impression that he’s attractive.”
“Wow. That was a longwinded way of saying ‘yes, he’s hot’.” Brow cocked curiously, Holly turns in her seat to get a better look at me. “What’s your aversion to his good looks?”
“No aversion,” I insist, careful not to protest too intensely. “I met him when he was a sophomore and I was a junior. And though I’ve been unable to escape him since, we’ve only ever spent time together by default. And it wasn’t like we had fun despite being thrust together. Quite the opposite. He was annoying as all hell.”
I squeeze my steering wheel a little harder than necessary. Thinking about his asshole teenage self still pisses me off.
“Here I had successfully gotten Lena to high school without incident. She was a freshman on the honor roll, member of the student government, volunteered at a rescue farm, and spent the rest of her free time involved with the local theater. Everything was great.”
Then she met Trent and Jovi at that farm. And shit went ahead and hit the fan.
“Her and Trent were puppy love for life from the start. It was gross, but even I had a hard time denying they were likely headed for forever.” I shake my head. It still sounds impossible, and it's what actually happened.
I know. I watched the entire unfolding of their relationship. I was the maid of honor at their wedding.
“Trent was a good enough kid, Jovi not so much.”
“High school bad boy, huh?” Holly wiggles her eyebrows at me, looking amused. She might be missing the point of my tale.
“Worse,” I scoff. “It was like every time he came around, he went into overdrive trying to blow off steam by doing the most reckless shit he could think of. Any harebrained idea you might see come to pass on that show Jackass, and he was giving it the good ol’ Jovi whirl.”
Holly doesn’t look like she’s understanding the level of destruction I was dealing with. “Come on, you’re exaggerating.”
