by Claire Adams
“I think that would be the American Psychological Association,” I tell him.
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll give up an hour a week if it’ll get you off my back, but I’m going to need something in return for all that money I’m giving up for you.”
“You’re not giving it up for me and it’s not your money,” I tell him. “I will let you stay here rent free for the first month, and after that, I expect you to have a job—a real, normal person job. We can figure out how much is going to be fair with rent after that.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” he says.
“Yeah, but I know you,” I tell him. “I’m not going to give up anything more than I’m already giving for this. If you don’t like the deal, there’s the door.”
He looks at me, then at the door and then back at me.
“Just know,” I tell him, “you walk out that door now, and I don’t ever want to see your face again, you understand me? You walk out that door and show up again, I call the cops. You walk out that door and I run into you out in public, I call the cops. You walk out that door now,” I tell him, “and we are done.”
“You don’t have to be so dramatic,” Chris says.
“Call it what you want,” I tell him. “If you don’t believe I mean what I’m saying, just try me. Go ahead,” I tell him. “There’s the door.”
Chris scratches his head and looks at the ground.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll give it up; will you get off of me about it now?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, handing back the remote control. “Over the next little bit, I’m probably going to need some further evidence that you’re not just going right back to it,” I say, “but for now, we’re good.”
“Okay,” Chris says, glaring at me as he throws one hand over the opposite shoulder and turns the television back on again. “Hey,” he says, walking back to his spot on the couch and sitting down, “this is a momentous occasion in my life. I think we should celebrate.”
“I’m not thirsty,” I tell him.
“Oh well,” he says, “more for me.”
He goes back to his liquor and his decades-old cartoons, and I’ve got to get out of here.
Chris promises to change more frequently than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’m not stupid enough to think things are going to be hunky-dory from here.
Still, on the off chance this is some kind of genuine breakthrough, I don’t want to stick around and let him see all of the doubt written across my face. He’d probably end up using that as an excuse to blow up his end of the bargain.
I’m walking now, no particular direction or destination in mind.
Chris said what he said to avoid getting kicked out, that’s plain. The biggest change is that this time, I’m not going to accept his excuses.
If he fails, he’s out and this time, I’m not just going to give him warning after warning.
This is the most ambitious I’ve ever been in trying to get Chris to stop doing what he’s doing before things take a turn that can’t be fixed by a drunken week or two at “little bro’s” house. That doesn’t mean anything if I’m not willing to follow through, though.
For now, I just walk and try to find something else to put my mind.
Immediately, my thoughts turn toward Ash. She’s at school right now, but we have plans to get together later.
As soon as I’ve got the image of Ash in my mind, though, the last half hour comes crashing back into my thoughts.
She knows about Chris, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair to drag her through all of this. If I know my brother, he’s going to try to weasel his way out of this every step of the way, and this is far from the last argument he and I are going to have about it.
Do I really want to ask Ash to deal with this when we’ve only been sort-of dating for a couple weeks? It doesn’t seem fair.
Conventional wisdom says it’s her choice whether or not to have this be a part of her life, but she doesn’t know Chris like I do and I don’t want to have him take off one day, only to find he’s sold her some kind of sob story and made off with her life’s savings.
Maybe the best thing for both of us right now is to break it off, but at the same time, I’m really starting to feel like those walls between us are beginning to come down, and I don’t want to miss out on knowing her better.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Chapter Eight
Reminiscing
Ash
I’m just leaving for class when I find Jana standing outside our building, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey,” she says as I come within speaking distance.
“I thought you quit,” I say, walking up to her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says.
“The apartment’s empty,” I say.
Jana looks down at her cigarette and then back at me with a smirk. “I am outside smoking,” she says.
“Where is she?” I ask nervously. If Starbright—I’m getting tired of even thinking the name—could push Jana to picking up the pack again, I’m not sure I even want to know what she’s done.
“Oh, she’s out at a cooking class with some people she met earlier today,” Jana answers, flicking her cigarette before taking another drag.
“That sounds uncharacteristically normal of her,” I say.
“Today,” Jana says, blowing out a cloud of smoke, “they’re making an herbal lube that’s supposed to enhance pleasure and stimulate—”
“Why do I ever ask for more information when it comes to your mom?” I interrupt, smiling.
“Yeah,” she says. “Anyway,” she flicks her cigarette and when she looks back, her demeanor has changed, “how’s it going with Mason?”
“Oh, could we not do this?” I ask.
“Do what?” she returns. “I’m just checking up on my roomie. Things not going so well?”
“Things are going fine,” I tell her. “We haven’t hung out in a couple of days, but we’ve both been pretty busy. We’ll get our schedules figured out.”
“That’s good,” Jana says. “You off to class now?”
“Bio chemistry,” I tell her.
“Ooh,” she says, “that sounds like my idea of hell. Have fun!”
With that, she flicks her cigarette into the street and walks back into the building.
When I get to bio chemistry, I can’t focus.
The professor is going on about valence electrons, and I can’t stop thinking about Mason. It’s true that we’ve both been busy, but it’s really starting to feel like he’s actively avoiding me.
He’s got that tournament coming up, and I know he’s got to focus a lot on his training; I just wish he’d pick up a phone and call every once in a while.
None of this would be an issue if it weren’t for Jana. At first, I had to deal with the mental image of my longtime friend with my new boyfriend, but she doesn’t talk about that so much anymore.
Actually, for a little while there, Jana was really great about everything. I asked her to maybe ease up on the fond remembrances of their past sexual dalliances and she did.
The problem is that she’s developed this strange habit where she feels it necessary to inform me every time she remembers yet another woman in town she’s heard Mason’s been with.
The list, at this point, is still manageable, but every time she adds a new name, I start feeling a bit less secure in my relationship.
Stupid Jana.
The last time I did talk to Mason, he told me that he’d dated a lot of women, but hadn’t slept with all of them. He said that a lot of what people spread about him isn’t true.
I don’t know whether to believe him.
One could argue that a person who’s sewn such wild oats would say he hadn’t in this situation, every time the question comes up. One could also argue, though, that a person who’s innocent would say the exact same thing.
It’s not the end of the world; it’s just harder now to feel like
this is something that has the potential to last.
The professor takes a detour from the regularly scheduled lecture to answer a question about Breaking Bad. You wouldn’t believe how often this still happens.
I wish I could just skip class today, but this isn’t an elective. Bio chem is required for my major and I’m not going to jeopardize my perfect attendance because I’m having relationship worries.
The closest I’ve come to convincing myself Mason’s sexual history, whether Jana’s version of it is true or not, doesn’t matter is by speculating that so much experience may be to thank for his uncanny ability to make a woman achieve climax.
That is pretty cool.
I don’t know. It’s in the past and I guess it doesn’t really matter from an objective standpoint. Mason’s not the first man I’ve been with, and while I don’t think my own history, even were it to be exaggerated, would hold a candle to his, I also don’t think it would be fair for him to judge me by the people I’ve been with in the past.
At least I know he’s clean.
Mason’s got a fight coming up, the first one of the tournament, and so he had to go in for a blood test before they’d let him enter the ring. I went with him and the guy’s clean as a whistle. I got one too, just for the hell of it. No surprises: I’m clean, too.
Still, if he does have the kind of past it sounds like he did, is he really going to be able to handle a real, serious relationship?
I almost don’t notice when class ends.
“Hey, Ash,” Nyla, one of my acquaintances from class says, walking over to me. “Got anything going right now?”
I’m so lost in my thoughts it takes me a few seconds to process that I’m being talked to, a few more to process what she’s asking.
“Uh,” I say, pulling out my phone to check the time. “No, I’m free. What’s up?”
I don’t know why I had to check my watch. I know what time my class gets out. I’ve really got to figure out a way through the clutter.
“Wanna grab some lunch?” she asks. “We haven’t really gotten a chance to talk over the last little while. You’ve been pretty busy with your boyfriend.”
Not in the last week or so.
“Sure,” I tell her. “I could eat.”
“Great!” she beams.
Nyla and I don’t know each other very well, but after we hit it off in a class we had together last year, we’ve tried to get together every once in a while for food and a chat.
We chat a bit about classes and professors and current events on campus at first, but once we’ve gotten our food and we’re sitting down, the conversation stalls.
I’m eating my watery penne pasta with its flavorless marinara sauce on top and Nyla’s looking away every time I glance in her direction.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No,” she says. “Well, kinda.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You just look like you’re totally somewhere else,” she says.
Yeah. I suppose I am.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “So, what’s new with you?”
She starts talking about a new boyfriend and I’m tuned out again. I start to get a little nervous as it sounds like she’s in the middle of asking me a question I wasn’t listening to, but an incoming text saves me.
“Sorry,” I tell her. “I really have to check this.”
“It’s fine,” she says, and I check the message.
It’s from Mason.
It says, “We need to talk.”
Okay.
Everyone knows that phrase only means one thing. It’s the pre-breakup breakup that kind of softens the blow when the axe comes down.
“Nyla, I’m sorry,” I tell my classmate. “I’ve got to go. Something’s come up, and I—”
“It’s all right,” she says. “I hope you find the answer to your problem.”
I smile. “Thanks,” I say.
I get to my car in a daze.
With everything going on with his brother and with the extra training he’s doing, I know Mason’s been having a difficult time balancing everything, but things were starting to go so well.
By the time I’m pulling up to Mason’s house, I’m about as prepared as I can be for what’s to come.
I get to the door and lift my arm, though I hesitate a moment before I let the motion complete itself, knocking on the door.
I’m consciously taking slow, deep breaths.
Mason is a deceptively nice guy, so I don’t expect any screaming or rending of garments, but then again, you never know.
The door opens to Mason, standing there smiling.
“Hey,” he says. “Come on in.”
“I got your message,” I tell him as I come through the doorway. “You said we needed to talk.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Notice anything different?”
I look around and the difference is obvious.
Where once there were beer bottles and tortilla chip bags, now there is a clean, well-kept home.
“What happened?” I ask.
Mason laughs. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”
“It was getting there,” I tell him.
“Care for a drink?” he asks. “I don’t have anything too exciting: I think just water and orange juice.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Well,” he says, sitting down on the couch, “I think I’ve asked for a lot of understanding without giving you a lot of candor on my part.”
“Okay, you’re kind of talking like a lawyer right now,” I tell him. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” he says, “nothing like that. I just wanted to let you know that it’s almost over.”
“What is?” I ask, leaning forward a little too far, my hands on my knees as I wait impatiently for his answer.
“The whole situation with Chris,” he says. “I’m done trying to clean up after him, and just as soon as he comes back—whenever that’s going to be—I’m going to tell him he’s got to go.”
“What happened?” I ask. “I thought things were going better with you two?”
“I thought they were,” Mason says. “Well, I hoped they were. As much as I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, just one more time, I wasn’t surprised when it happened.”
“What did he do, though?” I ask, finally leaning back a little in my seat.
“He’d spent the day out looking for a job—I know because I made him take me with him—and after we got home, we got to talking,” he starts. “He hadn’t been hired, but he’d had a couple of successful interviews and things were really starting to look up for once. He told me we should go out drinking to celebrate his new chapter or whatever, but I’m not too into that. When I convinced him that I wasn’t going to go, he convinced me to fund his little celebration. It was a hundred bucks. I don’t know why I expected to get it back.”
“He stole your money?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I haven’t seen him or heard from him since he left for the club that night. It’s only a hundred bucks, but at the same time, it’s a hundred bucks.”
“That’s screwed up,” I respond, still waiting for the conversational turn.
“I’ve been distant with you since Chris showed up,” Mason says. “In some ways we’ve been moving forward, but in others… All my life, I’ve just gotten so used to ignoring my past and trying to minimize it when it shows up passed out on my couch in the middle of the night. The problem with that is that I really like you, Ash,” he says. “I’d love to see where things with you can go, and I just want to let you know that I’m not going to try to hide my past by pulling away from you anymore. That’s not fair, and I’m sorry.”
“Hmm,” I respond. “Thanks. To be honest with you, I was expecting a very different kind of conversation.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Well, you sent the relationship killer text
,” I answer. “Next time you use that phrase, I expect you to be breaking up with me, because that false alarm crap isn’t going to work for me.”
“Okay, okay,” he laughs. “Next time, I’ll put it differently.”
“So?” I ask.
“So what?” he returns.
“You said you were going to stop trying to hide your past,” I say. “So, what have you been hiding that I should know about?”
“What do you wanna know?” he asks. “From here on, I’m an open book. I want to make this work.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “When did Chris start with the whole con man business?”
“I’ve tried to figure that out,” he says. “I really can’t remember a time when he wasn’t pulling some kind of confidence game. When it started out, it was hardly ever about money; I think he did it as a survival instinct. There was a certain way to talk to mom, and if you couldn’t figure out what to say in any situation with her beforehand, chances were, things were going to go bad.”
“Where was your father?” I ask. This is the most he’s ever told me about his family. He’s never even mentioned his mother before.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think my mom knew, or if she did, she didn’t want him around. I never really met the guy.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“Not much anyone can do about it,” he says. “That’s just the way it is. I hope you can forgive me for being so distant when we’ve been trying to get closer.”
“I wish I could be mad at you,” I tell him, “but I can’t. I haven’t really gone into my past, either. I’ve been telling myself it doesn’t really matter, that where I come from isn’t who I am, but I can’t sit here and judge you when I’m doing the same thing.”
“Okay,” he says. “What have you got?”
“Do you know that rich couple, they’re always in the news,” I tell him.
“There are a lot of rich couples in the news on a pretty constant basis,” he says.
“Chuck Butcher and May Weese,” I say.
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “They’re the kind of people who are rich because they’re rich, right? What about them?”
“Well,” I say, fidgeting with my hands, “I don’t call them Chuck Butcher and May Weese.”