by Abby Jimenez
I’d had a lot of time to think about that relationship since it ended, and I was coming to conclusions that I wasn’t thrilled about.
Part of me knew that Rachel had probably been purposely cagey about her real life, and that’s why I didn’t know her better or catch on to what she was doing. But the other part of me was starting to wonder how much of a role I had played in that. Because the reality was I didn’t care enough to dig.
I made no effort to meet her friends and family or to visit her in Seattle. If she didn’t text me for a few days or answer my calls, I barely noticed because I didn’t have time to talk to her anyway.
I wasn’t blaming myself for what Rachel did. But Vanessa was right about what she said all those weeks ago. I didn’t have balance. My life only allowed for a once-a-month girlfriend who was a stranger to me after almost a year of dating because that’s all I’d made room for. And that I did have to take ownership over.
And there was something else. A small but niggling voice that told me that maybe I liked it this way. That maybe Rachel was another manifestation of the control I seemed to need, a symptom of a bigger problem. That making work my number one focus was a way to protect myself from getting too close to someone who might end up hurting me. Leaving me, like Dad had. And the funny thing was Rachel did end up leaving me. But the more I really thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t care.
I was indignant and angry about it, but on principle, not because I’d been in love with her, or even close to it. Did I choose her by design? Because I knew somewhere buried in my subconscious that she couldn’t get near enough to my heart to damage it?
I couldn’t shake the thought. I didn’t like this. At all.
Vanessa said that childhood trauma always messes with your relationships. And I was starting to think she was right.
She was right about a lot of things.
Vanessa made me different. Better. She made me see the world through a new lens—or a lens that I’d forgotten existed.
It was like I was a kid again. We played like children. Had squirt gun fights in her living room, played the floor is lava. When it was negative five outside, we boiled water and threw it off the balcony to make fog. We blew bubbles to watch them freeze, made snow angels on the roof, had snowball fights that made me want to fall into a snow drift in our coats and kiss her.
I laughed until my stomach hurt, noticed the beauty around me, and marveled at the fact that I’d stopped seeing it in the first place. I felt like I’d been half-dead and I didn’t even know it, walking through my life in a sleepy fog until she’d woken me up.
Vanessa had said once that money can’t make you happy unless you know what you want. And it was becoming clearer and clearer to me by the moment what that was. With every day that I spent with Vanessa and Grace, I became more sure of it. But the thing that I wanted couldn’t be bought. I had to earn it.
I just didn’t know if I could.
I was still in the conference room scanning the Bueller police report when Becky made a shrieking noise from across the table. Becky being dramatic wasn’t usually cause for me to look up from what I was doing, so I didn’t see Vanessa come in with Grace in her stroller until she cleared her throat in the doorway.
“You must be Becky?” she said, smiling at my hypnotized paralegal over my shoulder.
My heart skipped at the unexpected sight of her.
She was beautiful. She was always beautiful, but I hadn’t been braced to see her.
She had on a purple sweater I’d never seen her wear before, and her hair was down and curled. It gave me a twinge of pride that this woman had just walked through my office to see me.
I got up, grinning. “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Since I’m not hanging out with you tonight, I thought I’d come down to surprise you and bring you lunch.” She held up a paper bag.
I stood there, just smiling at her like an idiot until Becky made a whimpering noise from behind me. “I’m gonna go have lunch at my desk,” she squeaked.
She clutched a jumbled pile of paperwork to her chest and grinned at Vanessa like a lunatic as she edged past her and closed the door.
Vanessa beamed at me. “You know, you’re even hotter in your office.”
I laughed.
Grace smiled at me from her stroller. She’d been doing that now for the last few days. Every time she had her pacifier in and I made her smile, it popped out and she’d beam up at me, all gums and twinkling eyes. And if I tickled her, she giggled. I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved playing with her.
I reached down to scoop her into my arms and nuzzled her with my nose. She had on a tiny blue fleece onesie with snowflakes on it and she smelled like baby powder and Vanessa’s perfume.
She smelled like home.
She put a fat little hand up, and I bit her fingers with my lips and she made happy giggling noises. I couldn’t stop smiling.
I suddenly understood what it felt like to have family come see you at work, like a wife and kids. I’d never had that jolt of happiness at seeing someone I cared about when I wasn’t expecting it. I wanted to hold Grace while I walked Vanessa around to show her my desk. Introduce her to Marcus. Revive Becky and formally introduce her too.
“What are we eating?” I asked, looking up at Vanessa.
She was watching me holding Grace. I couldn’t make out her expression, but there was something distant about it.
I nodded over to the table. “Come sit with me.” I moved some files with my free hand and cleared a spot for her.
“I got us Thai food,” she said, setting down the bag she’d brought. “Oh, and before I forget to tell you, I can’t hang out on Monday. I just found out.” She looked at me and put her bottom lip into a pout.
I felt my face fall. “Why not?”
“A work thing came up,” she said, reaching into the bag and pulling out to-go containers.
I had to force down my disappointment. That was two nights that I wasn’t seeing her.
“Do you want me to watch Grace?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t hear the letdown in my tone.
She opened a container of fried rice and scooped it onto a plate. “You don’t have to. I was going to ask Yoga Lady.”
“I can do it,” I said, putting Grace down in her stroller and taking the chair next to Vanessa’s.
She shrugged. “All right. If you want to. I didn’t want to assume.” She finished serving my food and slid it over to me.
I looked at her while she was making her own plate. She wasn’t paying attention.
She’d dyed the ends of her hair last week for a video. They were blue and purple to match her sweater. It looked exotic. She had a little dimple on her cheek that came out when she smiled. Soft freckles along the bridge of her nose, long lashes.
Beautiful.
I felt that thing happening, that urge to keep looking at her for longer than was appropriate. It was something that I’d been dealing with almost constantly for the last week or so.
I felt like a teenage boy panting over some girl in my gym class. I wanted to touch her. All the time. When she sat next to me on the couch, I wanted to put an arm around her. I wanted to hold her hand at the grocery store, pull her onto my lap when she’d come see what I was working on at my desk at home. It was ridiculous how strong the impulse was.
I knew I was probably just projecting my own shit onto this situation, but the space between us always felt unnatural. Like we were both pretending that we wanted it there and it was an effort for both of us to maintain it.
Vanessa made videos about me. I didn’t watch them—I didn’t have time to. And Becky regaled me with the dramatic recap every time one posted anyway. Mostly Vanessa talking about what we did that day and gushing about how attractive I was—not that any of this mattered. Besides being flattering, it didn’t change anything. We were still just friends and that’s how it was going to stay for the foreseeable future.
I forced my
eyes away from her and back to my food.
“So what am I supposed to wear on Sunday?” she asked, picking up her soda.
I was taking her out for her birthday. I had something pretty big planned.
She bit the end of her straw while she waited for my reply.
“Just wear something nice. Maybe the gray sweater dress,” I suggested, taking a bite of my noodles. I liked that dress on her.
I liked everything on her.
“Thanks for taking me out. I’d probably just be sitting at home if you didn’t.”
I found that very hard to believe. “What about your other friends? There’s nobody else who would have done anything?”
She shrugged. “Nobody local. I’ve got plenty of friends. It’s only exes I’m short on. I’m so single I don’t even have someone to drunk text,” she mumbled.
I smiled. “You can drunk text me.”
She snorted. “Good. It’s only a matter of time. Nice to have permission. I hope you like typos and crying emojis.”
I laughed.
“You know, you could have a boyfriend if you wanted one,” I said. “I still don’t understand why you don’t date.”
She scoffed. “Nobody wants to get involved with my kind of baggage. Trust me.”
“Your baggage is not as bad as you think it is,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “Any man would be lucky to have you.”
I’d have you…
She pointed her fork at me. “See, that’s exactly the kind of stuff people say to make you feel good, but isn’t it funny how the people who insist you’re a catch are never the ones who actually want to date you?”
There was something clipped about her tone.
She looked away from me and brushed her hair off her forehead in that way she did when she was frustrated.
I stared at the side of her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
She wouldn’t look at me.
I studied her. Her chin did the slightest quiver. I swiveled my chair until our knees touched, and I put a hand on her arm. “Hey, look at me.”
The second her eyes met mine, she burst into tears.
I leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. “What happened?” I smoothed her hair down. “Hey, shhhhhhh. Tell me.”
She just cried. Vanessa never cried—even in situations when she should.
A helplessness tore through me, an instant impulse to fix whatever was wrong.
“Vanessa, what is it?”
Tell me so I can make it better.
She shook her head. “Sometimes I feel like I’m spinning. Like I’m in a tornado and I can’t ever stop moving and the only time I feel still is when I’m with you.”
The comment took me so by surprise I didn’t know what to say.
She let me hold her for another moment. Then she pulled away, sniffed, and brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “Hey, let’s read our fortune cookies. If you say, ‘while in bed’ and then read it, it’s always funny.” She forced a smile at me.
Like a projector changing reels, one scene to the next in a split second.
I shook my head. “Don’t do that.”
Her forced grin got bigger, and she smiled at me with tears still in her eyes. “Do what?”
“That. That thing you do where you pretend to be happy. You change the subject and go do something distracting. It’s okay to be upset sometimes. You don’t have to fake it with me.”
She looked at me and she was suddenly so sad again I almost hated that I called her out on it.
“Adrian, if I don’t laugh, I’ll spend the rest of my life crying,” she whispered.
My eyes moved back and forth between hers. I reached out and gathered up her hands. Our knees were still touching. I could feel energy transferring between us like I was absorbing her sadness, making her calm down. I wanted to absorb it. I’d take all of it if it meant taking it from her. “What’s wrong?”
She looked at me for a long moment like she was debating whether to continue. “Adrian, I’m worried my hand isn’t just carpal tunnel.”
I drew my brows down. “What do you think it is?”
She pulled her face back and looked at me, tears in her eyes. “What do you think I think it is?”
I shook my head at her. “Listen to me, you are not dying. Okay? And it’s normal for you to be afraid of that. Especially after losing Melanie. But that’s not what that is.”
Her eyes searched mine. “And what if it is?”
I gazed back at her steadily. “It’s not. And if you’re that worried, let’s go have it looked at—”
She shook her head quickly.
I could see the fear in her eyes.
I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to watch her sister die the way she did. Having something random like that happen to someone you love must make it difficult to ever feel safe again. And her birthday was Sunday. Her sister and her mom hadn’t made it to thirty. Vanessa was turning twenty-nine. That had to be frightening.
I squeezed her hands tighter. “You’ll just have to take my word for it, then. You’re a beautiful, healthy young woman and you’re going to live for a very long time, Vanessa.” I put a hand on her cheek. “Everything is going to be okay,” I said gently.
Her sad eyes canvassed my face, almost as if they were searching me for the truth. She turned her cheek a little into my palm, like she was chasing the warmth from it, and her lips accidentally grazed my skin.
I wanted to kiss her.
The urge was so intense I had to physically restrain myself from leaning in.
What would it be like? To lean down and kiss away whatever was going on in that beautiful, brilliant head?
But she didn’t want me kissing her. She didn’t want anyone kissing her.
At least there was that.
She reached for her napkin and pressed it under her eyes, and I let my hand fall away from her face, disappointed that the excuse to touch her was over.
“I’m sorry to dump all this on you at work.” She sniffed. “You don’t like me like this. You like me when I’m fun.”
“I like it when you’re happy,” I said honestly. “Fun is just the lucky by-product.”
She changed the subject. “Are you ready for my dad’s tomorrow?” She wiped under her eyes. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I’m going.”
“Are you sure? I know the house really grossed you out.”
I wasn’t particularly excited to spend more time at Vanessa’s dad’s house—or with Vanessa’s dad. The apple had fallen in a completely different orchard with that one. But I wanted to check in and make sure Sonja was doing her job.
And the other thing.
I wouldn’t give up a night with Vanessa. Not for anything.
She was a light that I saw behind my eyelids now, long after I’d stopped looking at it—and I wanted to keep looking at it. All the time. And if that meant I had to have dinner in a hoarded house tomorrow night, then that’s what I was doing.
Vanessa peered at me from where she sat. She was calmer now.
I realized that she’d come here today because showing up to have lunch with me was one of her distractions. One of the things she did to keep her mind off whatever was bothering her.
I wondered how often she did this. How many times she showed up to hang out with me as her way of cheering herself up instead of succumbing to whatever sadness she was battling. She came here because I made her feel better or because she wanted to talk to me about it.
Because she was spinning in a tornado and the only time she feels still is when she’s with me.
And then it occurred to me.
I was her person. Me.
I couldn’t adequately put into words the way this made me feel.
It wasn’t in her DNA to let someone else take care of her. I knew because it wasn’t in mine either. We were the rocks in our family, always putting the needs of everyone else before our own, so I knew what i
t meant that she let me be there for her.
It was a privilege I didn’t take lightly. An honor to be the one she ran to when she needed someone to catch her. By some random stroke of luck, some geographical coincidence, I got to know her and be something to her.
And I’d be lying if I said being something to her wasn’t suddenly all I felt like doing.
CHAPTER 13
HE LAUGHED AT MY BODY
WHEN WE WENT TO
SECOND BASE!
VANESSA
Adrian looked up at me, pure amusement on his face. “And you thought this was advisable why?”
I did my best to look indignant, which was hard with my head stuck the way it was. “You know what? I don’t need your judgment right now. Not all of us are giants, some people need to use ladders.”
“The ladder part I get. It’s the ceiling fan proximity I have questions about.” He was laughing now. “It’s a good thing you gave me a key.”
He was in a tuxedo.
I thought Adrian had maxed out his ability to look attractive, but my imagination had failed me once again.
He had that gala tonight. I’d called him with my little emergency hoping I’d catch him before he left. I hadn’t. He was already at the venue. When I tried to hang up with him, he insisted I tell him what was wrong. I did and he immediately walked out to come rescue me—or to see it for himself. It was a crapshoot.
He started to climb the ladder to help me, and I braced myself against the wobble.
“What were you doing up here?” he asked.
“Something. I’ll show you later.”
The something was glow-in-the-dark stars I was sticking to my ceiling. I was putting some in the spot above the fan and I somehow managed to get my hair stuck in one of the votive lamps. I could not figure out how to undo it, and one of my hands was half-numb, which wasn’t helping. I finally gave up and sat on top of the ladder to wait for Adrian to get home, which mercifully was only fifteen minutes into my captivity.
There was no room on this ladder for two grown adults. He stopped when my knees hit his chest. “I can’t get up there unless…”