Page 84 of Something Like That

“We ordered the pizza.” Em thrust the tablet into Alex’s hands. “The total was like eighty-eight dollars. I hope that’s okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine, honey,” Alex said, and tried to smile. It felt forced and phony. “Oh, umm, Nick left this for you.” She handed the envelope to Em.

“Thanks.” Em scrunched up one side of her mouth. “Are you sure I didn’t do something wrong? With Nick, I mean?”

“Oh, baby, no.” Alex pulled Em in for another quick hug. “The stuff with Nick is between him and me. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“Did you guys break up, or something? Is that why you’re not with him right now?”

“Yes. I mean, no.”

Em cocked her head and gave Alex her patented why-is-my-mother-so-dense looks, complete with pursed lips and slow blinks. God, Alex loved her so much. It was clear she wasn’t getting out of here without an explanation, however.

“We weren’t really dating, so we couldn’t actually break up.”

Em continued with her dense-mother look, but didn’t say anything.

The urge to defend herself welled up inside Alex, but she was not explaining her actions to her fourteen—no, fifteen—year old daughter. She had her reasons for breaking things off with Nick. Like she’d said, end of story. “Go and finish watching the game and come and get me when the pizza gets here.”

She kissed Em on the forehead and turned back toward the kitchen. After she paid for the pizza, she was probably going to head upstairs and take a nice, long bubble bath. Maybe she’d listen to an audio book to drown out her thoughts.

“This one has your name on it, Mom.”

She turned back around. Em held out an envelope. Alex hadn’t realized there were two of them.

“Thanks,” she said and took it. She wandered back into the kitchen and sat down at the table. The white envelope had her name across the front in Nick’s chicken scratch scrawl.

Part of her wanted to rip the envelope open and see what was inside. The other part of her was terrified to see what it contained. She opened it with trembling fingers.

Inside there was a card.

On the front of the card were two cartoon robots holding hands. The phrase ‘you compute me’ was written above them. It was silly and sweet and so bloody cute, her throat clogged. That he would pick out something like it made her chest ache. She knew, without a doubt, he’d never picked out something like this for anyone else in his life.

Don’t go there, don’t go there. Right. She couldn’t think about what that meant because she was afraid her heart would shatter into millions of tiny pieces, and she’d never be able to put it back together again.

Besides, if she thought too much about it, she was going to burst into tears. That was the last thing she wanted with a houseful of teenage girls. Once she escaped upstairs, she’d maybe let some of her emotions out. Preferably before they strangled her.

She opened the card and some papers slipped out and onto the table. Nick’s chicken scratch was the only writing in the otherwise blank card.

Alex,

I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, both now and back when we were in high school. You don’t know how much it means that you’ve always been willing to take a chance on me. And when I’ve screwed things up, you’ve never judged me for it. I’ll always be grateful for your kind and generous heart, even though most of the time I doubt I deserve it.

While I will always have fond memories of your little car, I hope this makes things easier and safer for you and Em.

Nick

PS (I know at this point you’re probably ready to tear all of this up because you have this idea in your head that you need to do everything yourself. While I have no doubt you could take on the world and win, please reconsider. After everything you’ve done for me, that you’ve given me, it’s the very least I can do. I know we’re in no way even, but it makes me feel better to know I can give you this one small thing)

Tears welled in her eyes, spilled over. She brushed them away with the back of her hand. Tilted her head back, as if gravity would somehow stop them from falling. It took far too many seconds for the implications of the last part of his note to sink in. He couldn’t mean that he…?

She picked up the papers that had slipped out of the card. They were the title of a vehicle, transfer papers from the dealership, and insurance, all in her name.

It was basically a one stop new car purchase, where she didn’t have to leave the house.

She stared at the papers for a minute, her mind blank, except for the one single, solitary thought; he’d bought her a new car.

And then the implications of what that actually meant slammed into her. He bought her a new car.