Page 31 of Ravaged With You

I hesitate, then tell myself to go for it. The worst that happens is that he shuts me out, and he’s going to do that anyway. “So, um,” I begin. “What’s the deal with my shampoo?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, but I see his hands tighten on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white.

“Never mind,” I say. “It’s no big deal. I only wondered why—”

“Bad memories,” he says, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to glance at me. “And we’re going to leave it at that.”

“Sure. No problem.”

We drive in silence some more, slightly less awkward this time, and I almost smile when we stop at a red light and he asks me, “So why’d you stop using the strawberry stuff anyway?”

“I didn’t. Well, yeah, I did, but only yesterday. Crazy timing, huh?”

“And the why?”

I have no idea why this fascinates him so much, but maybe he’s just making conversation to get past the awkwardness, too, and if that’s the case, I’m all in. “A friend is a rep for an organic beauty supply company. She gave me a sample.”

“Hmm. Well, don’t use it. Go back to the strawberries.”

“I will.” What I really want to say is that he needs to open up, if not to me, then to somebody. I mean, when a shampoo triggers that kind of a response, there’s some serious shit going on.

I don’t tell him any of that, though. Instead, I say, “You can talk to me, you know.”

He doesn’t look my direction, but he does say, “Yeah. I know.”

I wait for him to elaborate, and that doesn’t happen either. I consider pushing, but that won’t end well. So instead, I sit back in my seat, resigned to driving in silence.

“Why did you marry Mel?”

The question comes completely out of the blue, and my instinctive response rests right there on the tip of my tongue. Practical words about friendship and love and building a life.

Instead, I hear myself saying, “I didn’t want to be alone.”

He glances sideways at me. “Your mom.”

It’s a statement, not a question, because of course Red knows me well. I shrug. “Probably.”

“You’re not alone, Jo. You never have been.”

He may be right about that, but that’s because I’ve worked so damn hard after those early years. I’d been seven when my father walked away, and I haven’t heard or seen from him since. I barely remember him, and I assume he’s dead. At the very least, he’s dead to me.

From that day, it was just my mom and me struggling to get by. Her a single mom with no family, me a little kid terrified that she was going to leave one day, too.

And then, of course, she did.

I know it wasn’t her fault. It’s not like she asked for leukemia. But she’s gone all the same, and at twelve I really didn’t understand that. Intellectually, sure. I was a bright enough kid. But emotionally? I was a wreck, and I blamed her for leaving. For the fact that I ended up in foster care. Some families were okay, and a couple were terrible. But I never felt like I belonged. I was the outsider. The one who had to be taken care of.

Which was why I graduated early and started college. I’d thrown my pain and my grief into my grades, as if getting straight-As would somehow make me worthy. Could help me find a real family.

In a way, I guess it did. I found Mel and Red, after all.

The truth is, if Red had stayed in town, I might not have married Mel. I loved him—I did. In the same way I loved Red. They were my best friends, my closest confidants. And when it was the three of us, I felt like I did have a family.

But then things started to shift. My attraction to Red that I’d always managed to shove to the background kept teasing me. And then that night when we kissed—well, it mattered to me.

So much that when he pushed me away, I felt more alone than ever. And Mel, bless him, was always so sweet to me. Our friendship had always been intense, and when he confessed that he wanted to shift what we had toward something romantic, it made sense to me. I already loved him, after all.

It had been a mistake, of course. We were meant to be friends, he and I, and although I almost believed our lie, over time, the illusion shattered. I craved what we used to have, and I think Mel did too.