Not long after, we’re sitting side by side in my living room, polishing off the remains of some damn good General Tso’s and watching the cultiest of cult classics.
“The fact you can quote this movie by heart…” Jack says, shaking his head and tucking back into his bowl.
“What? I’m a cinephile. I’d say that’s one of my better qualities.”
“You’ve got better qualities?”
I hold up my chopsticks. “I have a weapon.”
“Tough talk. What are you going to do? Wait until I fall asleep and handle my… What was that again?” He deploys the dimples. Oh, he has to know what he’s doing. Those are military-grade, surface-to-lady-bits missiles.
I nearly choke.
I fold my napkin demurely on my lap. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Jack laughs.
We settle into a cozy kind of silence while we watch the movie, interrupted only by the occasional verbal jab, and later by Anna’s departure. About halfway through, when he’s returning from a snack break, I murmur, “You know, you’re a lot like Frank here.” I gesture toward the frozen Van Damme on the screen. “Protector. At least from what I know of your work and what Anna said.”
Jack’s smile fades, and he flops down onto the sofa. I instantly regret saying anything, and I’m about to press play on the remote when he says, “That make you my Ray Jackson?” The levity in his voice sounds forced as he compares me to the main character’s friend.
“More like your Chong Li,” I say, referencing the primary antagonist. “This apartment is our Kumite.”
Jack’s lip quirks as he surveys me. Then his gaze drops to the bowl of chips in his hands, and he sets it down on my end table. “Maybe life is a Kumite. And when you’ve had to be strong for a really long time—to fight for the people around you—it’s hard to stop.”
He clears his throat. “Give that to me.” He playfully grabs at the remote and presses play before shifting so that he’s lying down. His head rests on a pillow pressed against my thigh, and I fight an animal urge to push his hair off his forehead.
He’s revealed something profound. I can feel it, but I don’t know the right way to react. So I say nothing. We watch the movie, the companionable silence tinged with a little something extra, an edge of disquiet radiating off him. At least for a little while.
When I realize that he’s fallen asleep, I only just resist combing my fingers through his thick locks. Even an innocent touch without consent feels like a huge no-no—especially after the debacle in my bedroom. So I content myself with just watching him.
When he’s asleep, he really doesn’t look much like a gremlin after all.
27
“Your analogy with the chicken sandwich, how you stood up for yourself and didn’t beat yourself up for it afterward,” Wendy says, adjusting her long skirt over her legs as she shifts position. “That was really wonderful, Penny.”
“I’m not going to lie, it feltgood. Like there was a Penny I didn’t know about, hiding out inside this shell, and when she comes out, she will fuck your shitup. Sorry about the cursing.”
“Not at all. You should say what you feel. Your awareness of yourself is growing, which is exactly what we want to see. But let’s pivot for a second, because I think this is related. Let’s talk about your mom. Last time, we touched on your father leaving because she confronted him about his affair…”
I shift uncomfortably. I just got an A+ in therapy, basically, and here Wendy is, about to give me a pop quiz I haven’t studied for. “Yeah.”
“Do you see any correlation between that discussion and this one?”
“I—” I pause, frowning. Mom demanded her chicken sandwich, didn’t she, when she told Dad she wasn’t going to take his cheating anymore? When she told him she was embarrassed to show her face in town because of him. And that chicken sandwich upended our lives. Mom, bedridden. Me, fourteen, food shopping, cleaning the house, keeping Dad’s plants alive, telling the school they needed a substitute again because Mom wouldn’t be in. Why was the chicken sandwich so awful for her but so good for me? Unless…
“Foryearsnow, I’ve heard from my mother about how terrible it was that she confronted my dad. About her regrets.” I brush a tear from my eye, roughly. “And maybe hearing it so much, hearing how it ruined her life, as shitty as that life was… Maybe that made it so that I never wanted to stick up for myself, either.”
Wendy’s close-lipped smile and slight nod tell me I’ve gotten a hole-in-one.
I set the plant I just bought—my new emotional support plant—on my end table, plumping the orange and gold leaves. It perfectly complements the new throw pillows I ordered and the anticipation-of-autumn decorations I’ve busted out for the mantel of my faux fireplace. Just because I’m living in a construction zone doesn’t mean I can’t be festive. And basic. Festively basic!
Jack looks up from the counter, where he’s eating a bowl of cereal. “Won summary judgment, by the way. Case goes forward. Sophie is ecstatic.”
“That’s amazing! I’m so happy!” A warmth spreads through me. There’s something strangely intimate about the way he casually shared something about his day as if we were mid-conversation.
His brow furrows. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying.”
