by Sionna Fox
“Mouse? Are you okay?” Izzy’s worried voice came through the door. When I didn’t respond, she cracked the door. “Mouse? Are you hurt?”
I sobbed again.
“I’m coming in.” A blast of cold air followed her into the bathroom. The metal hooks rasped against the shower curtain rod as Izzy pulled it back and shut off the water, towel at the ready to wrap me up.
She dried me off, helped me into pajamas, and tucked me into bed. “Sweetie, what happened?”
I snuffled some more and shook my head. “I got fired.”
“Fired? What? Why?”
“Something about restructuring? I don’t know. I kind of blanked as soon as Doug said I was being let go.”
Izzy clambered up to the headboard and pulled me into her shoulder. “Oh, Mousy, I’m sorry.”
I sniffed and sat up. I didn’t want her comfort, her sympathy. If I gave in now, I’d never have the strength to do the right thing and leave. “I’m going home, Izzy.”
“Are you sure you want to go home for Christmas early? Extra time around your family sounds like a bad idea.”
“No, Izzy. I’m going home for good. I’m broke and now I’m unemployed. I-I’m glad I tried, but it’s not going to work.”
“No, you can’t go. Please stay. Let me talk to my dad; the company has offices here, I’m sure they could find something for you. Please.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks again. “You know I can’t do that. It’s bad enough that I live here practically rent-free. I tried to make it work, but I can’t. I’m not cut out for this. I’m going home.”
“What about Matt?”
“What about him?” I didn’t want to think about him. Cutting my losses there was for the best too. If I couldn’t trust that he wanted to be with me, there was nothing to save.
“Have you talked to him? What about his friend, Sarah? Didn’t she say she’d help you out?”
“You have to stop. I’m going home. I can’t fight about it with you.”
I got out of bed and pulled bags down from the closet. I opened my drawers, started piling clothes on the bed so I could pack them. “I’ll have to go get some boxes tomorrow.”
Izzy stared at me while I emptied the dresser. Without a word, she got up and left the room. I kept packing.
I’d bagged up my clothes and was working on making neat stacks of books and odds and ends to box up the next day, fueled by rage at myself and at Izzy for being so goddamn convinced that I was someone other than my stupid, mousy self when Matthew came in. “Jolene, what are you doing?”
“Izzy called you.” Of course she did.
“Yes.”
He tried to put his arms around me. I shrugged out of his grip and went to the other side of the room, desperate to keep enough space between us to do what I had to do.
“What’s going on, little mouse?”
“Don’t. Please.” I balled up my fists and dug my nails into my palms. “Izzy must have told you I lost my job. I’m going home.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.” I tried to make my voice sound cold and hard. It came out small and resigned.
“Why?”
I turned but kept my eyes down. I couldn’t bear to see his face and have all my resolve stripped away. “I don’t belong here, Matthew. I’m broke. I have no job. I can’t stay here.”
“Move in with me.” The words rushed out of his mouth, almost like he wasn’t completely aware they’d escaped.
“I can’t do that.” I couldn’t move in with him because he’d had some kneejerk reaction to having a currently favored toy taken away. He wouldn’t even refer to me as his girlfriend in public, to the people who mattered to him. He had already pulled away. Where would I be when he was truly done with me? Still broke, still unemployed, and beholden to someone who was bored with me and wanted me gone? Not going to happen.
“Why not?”
“How is moving in with you any different than staying here and letting Izzy pay my way?”
“Because you’re mine.”
“No. You said yourself you didn’t want a relationship.”
“That’s not what I said. I said I’m not great a being a boyfriend. But I want you in my life. Please.”
I couldn’t let him beg me to stay. I’d give in. I wanted to make this man happy with almost every fiber of my being, but I still had some small measure of stubborn pride in me. “I can’t, Matthew. Please go. I need to keep packing, and I can’t do it with you in the way.”
I might have slapped him in the face, for the look of shock and hurt he wore. “Okay.”
I saw the cracks in his control, the way he wanted to command me to stay. Part of me wanted him to refuse to let me go, wanted to make this a test he could pass or fail.
“Goodbye, Jolene.”
I didn’t look up until the door clicked shut. “Goodbye, Matthew,” I whispered as I burst into yet more tears.
Christmas came and went from my spot on my parents’ couch. I begged off from the holiday itself, claiming illness. I moped around, wearing a track in the carpet from couch to bed to fridge. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I couldn’t face my family after the humiliation of having to come home. I had been so pleased with myself for finally getting out, and four months later, here I was, back again. A failure.
I could only imagine what my aunts were saying behind my back—my poor mother, having to put up with her disappointment of a daughter, who couldn’t make it on her own. And I hadn’t even been on my own. I’d been subsidized the whole time by my wealthy best friend, and I still managed to fuck it all up.
I nursed my shame and my broken heart, both my own fault, but at least one of those hurts was mine alone. Thank god no one knew I’d lost both my job and a man.
I promised my mother I’d start looking for work as soon as the holidays were over, beginning with talking to the development office about getting my old job back. Once I had the cash, I’d rent my own place again and be out of their house. She offered to put up my security deposit if it would peel me off her couch sooner. I’d take it if it got me out from under her glaring disapproval every time she came home from work to find me in my pajamas. It’s not like I was proud of myself either. I was ashamed enough for both of us.
Izzy kept calling from her parents’ house in Florida to check on me. I stopped answering when she wouldn’t stop asking me to come back. Even Sarah tried to talk to me. Matthew never did. That was one small, perverse mercy. I knew I had hurt him and I hated it, but there was nothing left to say and we both knew it.
I’d asked myself for years why I thought I deserved something better, something different, than spending my life in the confines of this small town. It turned out, I didn’t.
I ventured out to the Penalty Box on New Year’s Eve with a grim sort of determination to accept that this place was my lot in life. Will was behind the bar. It was crowded, but I parked in a corner and Will kept my glass full.
I watched him the whole night. Why didn’t I want him? Will had always been cute, a freckle-faced, red-headed, round-cheeked boy who’d grown into a tall, solid, slightly less freckly, red-headed man. He was good-humored, kind. A teddy bear whose full, bushy beard never hid his wide smile or booming laugh. He’d been my best friend for almost my whole life. I loved his family. And it was no big secret between us he’d had a crush on me. What the hell was wrong with me?
I was tipsy heading to drunk when the ball dropped. Amid the cheering Will came around the bar, presumably to hug me. I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him instead. He kissed me back, but only briefly. His beard was softer than I would have thought, and he smelled good. Under the scents of beer and fried food that clung to his clothes, I got a whiff of faint woodsy cologne and basic soap. He smelled wholesome, and completely different than Matthew.
If he was shocked, he hid it well. He pushed me firmly onto the stool and held me at arms’ length. “You’re drunk, Jo.”
“I should have done
that years ago.” My voice sounded slurred even to me.
“I’m gonna need your keys.”
I fished my keys out of my bag and dropped them into his waiting hand. “Does this mean you’re gonna take me home?” I tried to smile suggestively. I suspect it looked more like a drunken leer.
“Water.” He ducked behind the bar and filled a glass. “You’re going to have water and you’re going to sit there until I close up, then I’ll drop you off at home.”
“Yes, sir.” I tried it out on Will. It almost fit. He could be stern and imposing when he needed to. Like when drunk girls were hitting on him. Shit.
Will kept refilling my water as the bar slowly cleared out. I was sobering up, though not nearly enough to drive, when he flicked off the neon open sign and the outdoor lights. I stayed put while he wiped down tables and swept up the debris of another busy night. He looked exhausted. He should have been able to finish cleaning up and go around the corner to his place, but he was going to have to take my ass home. God, I was such an asshole.
“I’m sorry, Will.”
He looked up from his sweeping. “It’s all right. You’re not the first drunk I’ve given a ride home.”
“I’m sorry I…did that.” I couldn’t say the words. It would make it too real.
“I wish you weren’t,” he said to the pile of dust and napkins on the floor.
“I know. That makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
Will leaned the broom against a table and plopped onto the stool next to mine. “It’s all right, Jo. I never thought I’d get the girl in the end.”
His resignation killed me. The back of my throat burned and tears threatened to spill. I grabbed his hand. “You will. You will get the girl. She’s just going to be someone else. Okay?”
He stared at me like I’d grown a new head and put an arm around me. “Christ, since when were you a weepy drunk?”
I pulled my face from his flannel-clad shoulder and gave him a watery smile. “I know, right?”
“You miss him.”
“Yeah.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” How could I tell Will, who’d basically admitted he loved me and was resigned to never having me, that I missed Matthew so much it hurt?
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
Will squeezed my shoulder and went back to his broom. I went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face while I waited for him to finish closing up and take me home. He bundled me into his truck and drove across town to my parents’ house.
Parked at the end of their driveway, Will turned to me in the dark. “You should go back, Jo, if you miss it that much.”
“I can’t. I’m broke. I have no job. It’s over.”
“I don’t think you believe that. Go home, Jolene.”
“I am home.” Was I really going to get this from him?
“Bullshit. I’ve never seen you happier than you were at Thanksgiving. Not even when we were kids. Wherever you felt that good, that’s home, that’s where you belong.”
But I didn’t belong in Matthew’s bed anymore. That place was gone. It was probably being warmed by some other newbie sub as we spoke. I was jealous of her, whoever she was. I pressed my lips together in a grim line. “Goodnight, Will.”
I climbed down from the cab of his truck and gently closed the door. I let myself into the house as quietly as possible and flopped face-first onto my bed. Embarrassment, regret, and frustration were going to make for lovely bedfellows with my hangover in a few hours. And I’d have to get a ride into town to pick up my car. Happy New Year.
My dad drove me to the Box the next afternoon. I still had a splitting headache and was more than grateful for my dad’s silence during the short trip. I’d hidden in my room most of the morning, avoiding my mother’s judgmental glares. I knew it was embarrassing for a twenty-eight-year-old woman to be so incapable of judging her alcohol tolerance that she needed a ride home from the bartender, thanks.
When I got into my car, I didn’t want to go back to their house. Home. Their house was home. Or it should have been. But Will was right. This wasn’t home anymore. It had never felt like home. I’d always been waiting for the day I would stop feeling out of place.
I stopped for a coffee and drove up to campus. The music building sat at the top of a hill, looking out over the whole valley spread out below. It was freezing cold, but I parked in the faculty lot, got out, and sat on the stone retaining wall at the crest of the hill.
The day was cloudy and gray, not much of a view swept out in front of me, which was fine by my headache. I sat, getting colder by the minute, and waited for some sort of inspiration to strike, like I was waiting for god or the universe to tell me what the hell to do. But the universe didn’t have any answers for me. Just Ted, the daytime security guard.
“Jolene Whitman? What are you doing up here, kid?”
Ted was wiry, with a bit of a beer gut giving away how he preferred to spend his days off. He had on his signature earmuffs, which never failed to make me smile. He never wore a hat, no matter how cold it got, in deference to the gray hair he wore slicked into a sort of rockabilly pompadour. He’d been on nights when I was a student, but had since stepped down to days after years of patrolling the houses and keeping drunk undergrads from doing themselves any real harm.
“Hey, Ted.” I hopped down from my perch and walked to the window of the little SUV the officers used to tool around campus. My ass was numb and my gait was stiff from sitting on the wall for so long.
“How long you been up here? It’s freezing.”
“I know. I needed to get out of the house.”
“Come on down to the office, I’ll get you a fresh cup.” He pointed at the long-since cold coffee in my hand.
Hot coffee and catching up with Ted sounded like an excellent idea. “Okay. I’ll meet you there.”
The office was a hut that sat at the entrance to the main campus. Two rooms with desks, a mini fridge, a coffee pot, and a bathroom made up the entire headquarters of campus security.
Ted started a fresh pot as I came in. I emptied my cold cup in the sink and rinsed it while the ancient coffeemaker dripped and sputtered.
“How you doing, kid? Your dad said you’re back home for a while?”
I bristled. He’s just making small talk. “Yeah, something like that. I’m going to see if I can get my job back.”
Ted pursed his lips. “They turned that over to work study last semester,” he said with a don’t shoot the messenger shrug.
“Oh.” There went that plan. It made sense; they could easily pay a student minimum wage and no benefits to do my old job. They’d probably been waiting for me to get bored and move on so they could rewrite the budget. “I’ll figure something out.”
“I’m sure you will. Not much going on around here for work, but you’ll come up with something.”
Ted filled my cup and I slapped on a brave face. I’d been lucky, beyond lucky, to have a job on campus for as long as I did. There wasn’t a lot of work around town. Most of the manufacturing plants had been shut down and their jobs moved out of the country. There were a handful of restaurants, but they did most of their business in the fall with leaf-peepers and parents’ weekend. People who got jobs on campus hung on to them with an iron grip. My stomach turned over at how utterly foolish I had been.
“Thanks for the coffee, Ted. I should get going.”
“No problem, kid. Tell your folks I said hello.”
I went back to my parents’ house, but didn’t go inside. I didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting in the driveway and ruminating until my dad got into the passenger seat.
“Everything all right, kiddo?”
“Ted told me that my old job is work study now.” My dad nodded. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You’ve been awfully depressed.” He sighed and looked through the sunroof. “I didn’t want to give you more bad news.”
“I f
ucked up, didn’t I?” I tipped my head back and bounced it off the seat a couple of times.
“How so?”
“I shouldn’t have left. It’s not the most exciting place in the world, but it was secure, right?”
“No, sweetie, you needed to go. You’re only going to screw up if you stay here wallowing around feeling sad.”
Great, not even my own father wanted me around. A lump started forming in my throat for the thousandth time since I’d left Doug’s office. My dad leaned over and put an arm around me.
“It’s not that we don’t love you, kiddo, but you need to get off our couch. For everyone’s sake.”
The lump forced a sob from me. Where was I supposed to go? My dad kept his arm around me and rubbed my biceps while I cried myself out again. I hiccupped and sniffed and honked my nose in his proffered handkerchief. “What am I going to do?”
“I can’t answer that for you, kiddo. Call Izzy. Go back to Boston.”
“I can’t ask her to take me in like a stray cat, Dad.”
“You’re allowed to ask people for help, Jolene. Especially when those people offer to help you in the first place.”
“It feels wrong to take advantage of her.”
“Is that how she sees it?”
I shook my head. Of course it wasn’t. She’d been saying as much since August.
“Then you can swallow your pride and accept help where it’s offered. Be grateful you have people who believe in you enough to risk their own reputations for you.” He patted me on the arm and let me go. The door creaked open and he unfolded himself out into the frigid air. “Call Izzy, Jolene. Before your mom files to evict you from the couch.”
He was only half joking. “Wait. Does Mom know about my old job?”
“No.” He shut the door, leaving me alone in my cold car with my breath fogging up the windows.
I was just as screwed here as I was in Boston. Maybe more. And my parents were in much less of a position to support their adult child than Izzy was. I’d probably only had that job on campus for as long as I had because I was an alum. I was only an alum because my dad worked there. If I could accept that, I should be able to accept that my best friend wanted to help me. I should be able to ask for help. I had to.