It’s as if he’s laid his mind bare for me, all the complexities, the struggles. I exhale a shaky breath. ‘How long has it been like this?’
‘If I didn’t take the Zoloft, all the time since Tali was born. Maybe even since before that. Playing, the pressure, feeling like I was letting Dad down all the time. With the Zoloft, it usually fades into the background. But …’ A twinge of guilt enters his face, flickers like one of my mother’s lavender candles fighting a strong breeze through the bedroom window. ‘Recently, it startedSaturday. Just got worse all week. It’s just … it’s too much, Jordan.’
My heart crumples when it sees the guilt unfold into full-on wrenched sadness on Rod’s face. ‘I know.’
‘I can’t even call it overwhelming, because I don’tfeelthat.’ He braces his hands against the counter, head lowered, arms extended. Defeated. ‘And whatever it is, it’s not doing you justice.’
‘Rod …’ I’ve left and been left before. It’s a part of life, at least I’ve convinced myself it is. A part of being young: people will leave. But now, when the feeling starts to dawn on me that things are going to go far, far south right here, right now, it’s a pit of dread. My throat suddenly turns to sandpaper. Devil-may-care goes out the door. I do care. Maybe more than just care.
‘It’s not gonna work, Jordan.’ Rod’s eyes meet mine, and some shred of his gaze screams at me, reminds me that itcanwork. But I’m too shocked to register. He brushes a hand over his face, still wrenched, still sad. A furrow forms between his eyebrows as he shakes his head. ‘And it’s on me. Just … I got too ambitious, and I thought everything would iron itself out. I’m just so lost, Jordan, I don’t know what …’
Twin teardrops trickle down his cheeks and hang onto his jaw. He looks away, but despite everything, I place my hand over his. Our arms are flush against one another. I thumb one tear from his jaw, and then the other. His skin is rough with stubble that is just slightly longer than usual.
‘I hate that there’s a part of me that’s still afraid of everything,’ he whispers, squeezing my hand. ‘Scared to risk it all. And I’m not going to make you live with my fear.’
I shake my head, fighting back my own glassy vision. ‘Whatkind of person would I be if I let you live with my fear, and then refused to accept yours? That’s not how it works. This is not give-and-take. This is not a bargain. We look our fears in the eyes together, remember? This is unconditional.’
‘When I’m still afraid everything will collapse and break my daughter’s heart,’ says Rod quietly, almost shamefully, ‘it becomes conditional. Doesn’t it?’
I know there’s a tangled web in Rod’s head, all the time. I know that he may feel almost nothing at times, and a whole lot of something at others. It doesn’t change the way his statement hurts me, driving a knife through my ribs and cutting straight into my heart. He’s afraid of me. Afraid of Charlotte and what she could do, yes, but afraid of what I could do, too.
It becomes conditional on the spot.
‘I won’t … I wouldn’t …’ I fish for words, as if they can turn to a safety rope and pull Rod out of this pit he’s dug himself into, but nothing quite comes. Nothing that can undo the damage, at least.
‘When you leave,’ he says, guilt tingeing his voice, ‘is it for good? What happens then?’ Cause I just … I don’t want to be left picking up the pieces again. Starting over again. And I don’t want Tali to have to see that.’
What pieces? My heart feels like it’s cracking into a million of them. Those are the pieces I’ll have to pick up. What is that even supposed to mean? That the fact that Icarehas become dangerous in some way? And that he thinks I would leave? Leave, after he, too, did so much for me? Maybe we should have kept whatever this was casual. The issue was it was never going to be. And apparently, he was never bound to understand that. The sadness, I understand. The coldness, I don’t.
‘Don’t you want to take achance, Rodney?’ I manage. ‘Isn’t that the whole point of things?’
Rod gently lets go of me and takes a step back. My hands fall away.
His voice is almost silent, and I watch him practically mouth the words. ‘I’m sorry, Jor, I … I don’t think I can take that chance. I don’t think I’m strong enough to give you what you’re looking for.’
‘Youidiot,’ I want to blurt as I hold back tears, ‘I didn’t knowwhatI was looking for until I met you.’
Instead, I mirror his detachedness, retreating until I’m back around the corner of the hall. I can’t read what I see on his face. A twinge of regret, a sea of emptiness. Eventually, I turn around, and I rush out of the house faster than I had the gas station. My work boots slap the hardwood floor, I push through the front door, and it slams behind me as a wave of humid heat washes over me.
The heat is far from cleansing. It feels acrid and awful, festering around me as Genny meets me at the bottom of the porch stairs, saying something with a whole bunch of hand gestures to it, big, concerned eyes. None of it really registers.
‘… did he say anything? Talk to you about what’s going on?’ she says.
My family’s not really made for stickin’ around, I’d told May once when she asked me if I saw myself settling down, having kids. I hadn’t hesitated to give her full honesty. In fact, there was a time where I was sickeningly proud of it. Who the hell’s proud of daddy issues? It’s a twisted thing that happens when you learn to live with all your baggage. I’d pretty much accepted that this was the way life was going to go. I would carry ongiving May and everyone else phenomenal relationship advice, but the lucky star that had shone on her would never find me. At least, not until this, not until now. Although I should have realized sooner that what looked like a lucky star was just one of those lightning bugs that shows up in the yards during summer. Glows one moment, gone the next.
‘No,’ I tell Genny. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with this.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Counting Losses
Jordan
Genny steps aside, and I beeline straight for my car. The drive home is an unsteady mess of frantic blinking to keep burgeoning tears at bay. I want to get right on the phone with May and tell her everything, but it’s Rod’s awful state that holds me back. I’m beyond confused right now, and if I say anything about him to anyone else the way I am in this moment, it might come out much, much more accusatory than I intend or he deserves.
Instead, I turn on my usual sob-song playlist, carefully curated for maximum emotional screaming, and decide to embrace the tears bit of the unsteady mess. It’s usually much easier than this. In the past, it’s taken anywhere from zero crying to five minutes of crying to get over it. Occasionally, a tall glass of iced chaiwill cure it on the spot. But I get the feeling I could drink chai all day and not be able to patch this up.
Two hours later, I’m slumped on the couch watchingToo Hot to Handlewith a bottle of wine not far off. Reality TV has never really been my style, but if there were ever a moment for it, that might be now. I’ve had enough alcohol that I stick an arm out from under my blanket every so often and yell at one of the contestants for making incredibly poor and horny decisions.
