“So are you… Going to meet with him?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he responded. “I don’t really want to. I guess it depends on if he keeps pushing me or not.”
He changed the subject to stuff about the final exams we’d be taking after winter break, and I let him. It wasn’t my place to push him about family stuff, anyway.
When we finally arrived to my neighborhood, pulling into the entrance to the trailer park, a lick of anxiety curled up in my stomach as Caelyx looked around at everything.
It was vile, the nerves that came from waiting for his reaction to where I’d come from and what my lifestyle was, then the wave of shame crashing over me as I realized how worried I was about his opinion. I’d never had to feel like that before. I hated it.
Slipping into the slim space reserved for parking in front of our trailer, I pulled in close to my mom’s car.
“Do you mind waiting out here?” I asked. “I’m only going to be, like, five minutes.”
“Really?” Caelyx asked, his eyebrows drawing together. “I don’t care what the inside of your house looks like, Aspen. You don’t have t-”
“Please,” I cut him off. “It’ll be quick.”
“Okay,” he agreed softly. I could tell he wasn’t thrilled by it, but he wasn’t giving me any real pushback, to my relief. I felt like the biggest asshole in the world, but it was better than the alternative of him walking in with me to find it filthy. He opened his door and got out, though he hung back, leaning his hip onto the door of the Porsche. “It’s fine,” he promised me. “You don’t need to worry, Cupcake.”
“I’ll be quick,” I repeated, before dashing up the rickety steps and unlocking the front door before slipping inside and hurriedly closing it.
It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but it wasn’t great. A bottle of whiskey, thankfully empty, seemed to have fallen off the counter and shattered on the kitchen floor. There were some dishes in the sink, but nothing that seemed to have food stuck on it to attract bugs or mold, so I made quick work of picking up the larger glass pieces and then sweeping up the debris.
Working my way into the living room, I scooped up empty cans and beer bottles, trashing them as well as snack foodwrappers. Back in the kitchen, I turned on the hot water, scrubbing the dishes with a soapy sponge and setting them on the dish rack to dry. As I washed them, I glanced out of the kitchen window, which looked right out onto the driveway.
Caelyx was still standing by his car, his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, but one of my neighbors, Frank, had walked up to talk to him. I watched as he nodded and smiled, gesturing to the car as they talked. Fuck. That wasn’t good, and certainly wasn’t serving my goal of Caelyx obtaining as little knowledge about my home life as humanly possible.
Groaning, I scrubbed with a little more speed and intensity, and the moment the last dish was set on the rack, I raced to the front door and ripped it open. Both of them turned to me, Caelyx giving me a cocky little grin.
“You all finished?” He asked.
“No,” I responded automatically. “I mean, almost.”
I’d forgotten I’d even said I needed to pick something up, so now I’d need to stuff some random crap in a bag and bring it back for no reason.
“You really drive this thing up here, Aspen?” Frank asked, looking impressed. He was sort of the stereotype of a middle-aged, straight, white guy- beer, cars, and sports. But he was nice. He’d been dragging my mom’s trash cans out to the road since I’d been gone, and picking up her mail and leaving it on the porch under a flowerpot for her.
“Yeah. My other car is kind of on the fritz,” I explained, vaguely embarrassed for some reason.
“A pretty damn good replacement,” he remarked.
“It’s not mine,” I explained quickly.
“Oh, Cupcake,” Caelyx cooed, wrapping an arm around my waist like a snake and yanking me in close to him so he could smack the top of my head with a loud kiss. “You know what’s mine is yours.”
“Oh,” Frank said, blinking as his gaze darted back and forth between Caelyx and I a couple times. “You guys are…” To my absolute horror, he raised both his hands in front of him and tapped his two index fingers together to simulate… What I guess he thought was gay sex.
Squeezing my eyes closed and pinching the bridge of my nose tightly to prevent my head from exploding and pretending I didn’t hear Caelyx choking with laughter, I gave a few slow nods.
“H-hey, that’s cool!” He said quickly, and when I finally managed to pry my eyelids open to look at him, he was smiling encouragingly. “I think people should live how they want, you know.”
“Thanks for your support, Frank,” I said, forcing a tight smile across my mouth before slowly turning toward Caelyx. “Get in the house,” I ordered, from between my clenched teeth.
He smirked, his eyes flashing me a brief but amused apology, but he scampered up the steps. I walked up behind him, ready to shove him the rest of the way through.
“I’m just grabbing a couple things and then we’re headed out,” I informed Frank, and he nodded, backing up a few steps as he gave me a friendly wave.
“Hey, no problem. See you when school’s out!” He said. “And, uh, I sure hope Rochelle’s feeling better soon. Tell her I said so, okay?”
