My phone vibrates in my hand again.
I’m glad you made it home safely
Having her call my place home feels … right. I know it’s ridiculous. I know I said that my proposal is just a business arrangement. And I meant it. I did. But also … I want her here. I want her with me. I want to have this kind of banter in person.
Spending the last few days with her was more fun than I would’ve believed if someone had told me I’d be spending three days with Hailey MacKay. My memories of her are all over a decade old, so of course she’s nothing like that goofy kid I used to know. Probably I’ve changed a lot from her perspective, too, even though I still feel pretty much like the same guy from a tiny Wisconsin town that I was as a teenager.
I just … I really want her to say yes.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hailey
I put my phone down.Then pick it up again, checking to see if Jason texted back.
But he hasn’t. And after several minutes, I blow out a breath and decide I need to focus on something else.
It’s not good that I’m this caught up in a silly text conversation with him. But I feel … I don’t know. What is this, exactly?
Giddy?
That’s the best word I can come up with.
But I’m supposed to be getting space from him. From this feeling, specifically, so I can analyze my situation without Jason short-circuiting my brain.
When I pick up my phone again, all that giddiness has passed. This time I’m going to call my mom. The light, happy feelings I had just a moment ago all coalesce in my gut, forming a tight, heavy ball.
Tapping my mom’s name, I press the phone to my ear, my breath coming faster as my heart rate picks up. It rings enoughtimes that I’m convinced it’ll go to voicemail—which wouldn’t be entirely unusual—but then Mom answers.
“Hi, Hailey,” she says. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. How are you?”
“Uh, I’m okay. How about you and Dad?”
“Oh, you know. We’re muddling through.” That’s her standard answer. “Any concerts coming up soon that we should know about?”
“Oh, uh, well, I haven’t gotten the schedule for the next season yet, but there’s the free Labor Day concert in the park, as usual.”
“Right. You’ve done that a few times before. I’ll see if your father and I can make it.”
I make a noncommittal noise. There’s about a fifty-fifty chance they’ll come. It’s free, so there’s that. But it’s over an hour away and outside, so they’ll have to pack lawn chairs or a blanket or something to sit on. And bring food if they want that. Sometimes that’s more effort than they’re willing to put in. They usually do come to my regular season concerts, though. It helps that I can give them comp tickets. But they’re physically present, which is as supportive as they’re really able to be.
When I was in college and still had health insurance, I saw a therapist through the university for a while, and she helped me come to terms with the way my parents show up for me. “The best thing you can do for yourself,” she told me, “is learn to accept what they’re able to offer at face value. And with that information, you get to decide how you respond. If you want to maintain a relationship, this is all they’re able to offer. Expecting more just sets you up for disappointment. And if you can’t stop yourself from expecting more, you can choose to limit contact so you don’t keep hurting your own feelings again and again.”
I told one of my friends about that, and she’d reacted poorly, like my therapist was blaming me. But I never took it that way.It was never about blame. Just accepting them for who and what they are—what they’ve become. It doesn’t mean I don’t get to mourn the loss of who they might’ve been if Hunter hadn’t died. But it frames it in a way where I get to be in the driver’s seat instead of letting them control our whole relationship. If this is the best they can offer me—lukewarm presence and a surface-level relationship—then knowing and accepting that makes it easier to look for the emotional depth I need somewhere else.
Of course, now that I’ve lost my old friend group, I’m back to my old hyper-independent habits.
Maybe that’s why texting with Jason feels so good—it’s the first real amount of strong human connection I’ve had in quite a while.
I clear my throat, pulling myself back to the present and the conversation with my mom. “I had some car trouble recently.”
“Oh, that’s too bad, honey. I’m sorry to hear that.” She says all the right things, but her voice is soft, barely any inflection. When I was younger and desperately wanting some kind of emotional response so I knew that I mattered, I might’ve asked, “Are you?”
But this version of me just hums acknowledgment and continues. “Yeah. My transmission went out, and the cost to fix it is more than the car is worth.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. Here’s where things get hard. Sure, I can accept the lack of emotion. I can accept them coming to my concerts, staying long enough to say good job afterward, and then leaving almost immediately. I can even handle the stilted conversations at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it’s the asking for actual help that brings up all my teenage worries. “I can’t afford the cost to replace the transmission, and I can’t afford a new car either. I was wondering if you and Dad might be able to help me out?”
