Page 98 of Robbin’ the Rich

The offer caught me completely off guard.

My brother shrugged. “If you just want to leave. I’ll cover for you.”

I nodded. "Thanks."

For all his flaws, and there were many, he'd always been the family member most willing to acknowledge reality when it was standing directly in front of him. And the reality standing in front of him was a man who had just lost the best thing in his life.

He looked toward the restaurant before looking back at me one last time.

“You sure?” he asked.

"Nobody in there wants to hear what I actually think either."

“Okay, take care of yourself.”

The earnest expression on his face almost brought the tears back to my eyes, but I took a breath and pushed them back.

“Thanks.”

I headed to my car. Once I was in, I let my forehead hit the steering wheel and those tears I’d been fighting came freely. For a while, I let myself be angry. This was entirely my fault. The worst part was if I wasn’t such a coward, it would have been preventable.

I thought back through the last several weeks and found enough opportunities to tell her the truth that it was almost embarrassing. The first dinner date. The pumpkin patch. The telescope date. The dozens of phone calls that stretched late into the evening. Hell, even the first morning after we hooked up, I could have brought it up, but I’d been too scared she would take it badly.

I had always found a reason to wait. Looking back, every excuse sounded exactly like what it was. Fear. Because I was so afraid of losing her, I'd created the exact circumstances that guaranteed it. And in that silence, everything I'd been too busy to process finally caught up with me.

I thought about the first time I'd seen her sitting at Trixie's in that ridiculous nun costume. The way she'd looked completely unimpressed by me despite the fact that most people found musicians at least mildly interesting. But instead, she took every opportunity to laugh at me, from the Tattoos to my terrible axe throwing skills.

Most of all, I thought about the quiet moments. The moments that never made good stories but made a good relationship. Robin half asleep on my couch while a movie played in the background. Or stealing food directly off my plate after claiming she wasn't hungry. Those were the moments that hurt, because that kind of ordinary only becomes extraordinary after it's gone.

At some point I'd stopped thinking about Robin as a person I was dating and started thinking about her as part of my life. She had slipped into the spaces between everything else so naturally that I hadn't noticed it happening until it already had. Every future plan automatically included her. Every story I wanted to tell had her as the audience. Every good day felt a little better because I knew I'd get to talk to her about it later.

I loved her. I’d been carrying those words around for weeks too scared to tell her, and this was why.

My phone buzzed against the center console. I glanced down. Mom. Of course. The call rang until voicemail picked up.

A moment later, a text appeared.

Mom: Please come back inside.

I stared at the message. Another followed almost immediately.

Mom: Everyone is asking where you are.

My phone began ringing again. I silenced it and set the device face down on the passenger seat.

Outside, the sun had begun to disappear below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. Thanksgiving dinner was continuing without me. My family was probably explaining away my absence. My mother was almost certainly composing another text. I couldn’t find it in me to care. They could handle it however they saw fit. I was done.

I started the engine. The familiar rumble filled the car. Then I pulled out of the parking lot and headed home as one thought solidified in my head, I wasn’t going to give up.

By the time I got home, my phone had become an instrument of psychological warfare. I tossed my keys onto the kitchen counter and watched the screen light up for what felt like the hundredth time that evening.

Mom.

Ignored.

Thirty seconds later:

Dad.