Back To Us

by Roman, Teresa

  “I’m going to pretend you did not just say that.” The anger in Justin’s voice was impossible to miss, even through the closed door.

  “What do you even know about that girl? For all you know she could be planning on sending our money back to her family in whatever country she’s from.”

  “What I know is that she’ll be back any second now and I don’t want her hearing any more bullshit from you.”

  How was I going to face Justin’s mother after those words? Sure, she hadn’t said them to me, but I’d heard them, and there was no taking that back.

  I ran back towards the elevator and when it opened I got on and rode it back downstairs, then all the way back to Justin’s floor. I did that two more times and even though I was still hurt and angry I knew I had to go back to Justin’s. If Jeff came back without me, Justin would demand to know where I’d been, and I wasn’t ready to talk about what I’d heard his mother say.

  I had no idea how things between me and Justin were ever going to work out when his mother hated me as much as she did. I knew she wasn’t my biggest fan, but I never thought she took me for a gold digger. It was so crazy, too, because Justin was always insisting on taking me to fancy places and buying me beautiful presents, and I was always telling him it was too much. If anything I wished Justin had less money, so I didn’t always feel so inadequate around him.

  I knocked on the door to Justin’s apartment. He opened it with a smile, not a trace of the anger I’d heard in his voice earlier remained. It was as if the conversation he’d had with his mother hadn’t taken place, except that it had.

  “I made you some hot chocolate,” Justin said as he helped me out of my coat. He craned his neck as if he were looking for something. “Where’s Jeff?”

  “Jeff?” I asked before I remembered that the two of us were supposed to be walking together. “I was getting cold so I came back without him. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  We made our way to the living room. I took the mug Justin handed to me, but couldn’t bring myself to take even a sip. I felt sick to my stomach. Mrs. Lambert’s insults rang in my ears. The last time someone’s words had stung me so much was when they’d come from my father, and he was the last person I liked to be reminded of.

  A few minutes passed, though it felt like hours. “You know what?” I said, standing up from the couch. “It’s getting late.”

  “Already?” Justin asked.

  “Yeah well, I’m kind of tired.”

  “Let me bring you home.”

  “No need. I can take the train. It’ll be hard to find a taxi on Christmas Eve.” Justin followed me to the doorway. He grabbed my arm as I reached for my coat.

  “What’s going on? “

  “I’m just not feeling that well.”

  “I’m going with you then.”

  “No!” I said it a little too loudly. I lowered my voice to just above a whisper. “Your mother is going to hate me even more than she already does. I’ll text you when I get home.”

  “Is everything all right?” Justin’s mother strolled into the foyer.

  “Yes, everything’s fine. I’m going to bring Jess home and then I’ll be back.”

  “It’s not a good night to be out Justin. You know people like to get drunk on the holidays.”

  “I told him I can get home on my own just fine.” I was still trying to extend an olive branch even after what I heard her say earlier.

  “Well, I suppose you do have an incentive to make sure he’s all right.” Her tone was acerbic and again I was left to wonder exactly what she meant by her words.

  “I’ll see you later.” I kissed Justin on his cheek and headed for the elevator. He stood in the doorway staring at me like he wasn’t sure what to do. I waved as the elevator arrived and opened its doors.

  When I made it to the lobby I practically ran outside of Justin’s building. Despite how fast I was walking I barely made it halfway down the block when I heard Justin calling my name. I didn’t feel like talking, but I didn’t want to make him run after me, so I stopped and turned and waited for him.

  “You should be with your family,” I said after he caught up to me.

  “I want to be with you.”

  “Please, Justin. Just go back home.” I felt tears bubbling inside me and wanted to get as far away from Justin as I could before I let them out.

  Justin reached into his coat and pulled out a small box and handed it to me. “You forgot your present.”

  “I don’t need any more presents from you, you’ve already given me too much.”

  “For God’s sake, Jess, it’s Christmas. Take the present.”

  I reached for it and held it in my hand. Justin and I were supposed to be exchanging presents privately later so my sudden announcement that I was going home had probably come as a big surprise.

  “Thank you.” I tucked the present into my coat pocket. “It’s cold out here, you should get back inside.” I turned around, but as I walked away I could feel Justin’s eyes on me. He didn’t try to stop me, but I knew him well enough to realize that he was probably worried and upset so I texted him just before I got back home to let him know I was all right.

  My apartment was freezing and painfully quiet. I turned my space heater up to high, took a hot shower and crawled into bed feeling numb. I never had been very good at letting things people said about me roll off my back. Mike and some of my friends told me I was too sensitive, and I knew they were right, but I couldn’t help it. After the life I’d had, I should have built a tougher shell, but I hadn’t.

  In the morning I still felt awful. Justin had already called and left a message. I stared at the box he’d given me the night before, it lay unopened on my dresser. Finally, I picked up my phone to call him.

  “Can I come see you?” Justin asked.

  “Did you open your present?” I’d left it in his apartment.

  “Not yet. I was still sort of hoping we could open our presents together.”

  “I’d like that. Mine’s still unopened, too.” I still hated spending time in my apartment with Justin, but it was Christmas and even in New York most places were closed, and it was too cold to be outside. I wasn’t about to go back to his house, so that left only one option. “You can come over, if you like.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Which meant I needed to get myself out of bed and into the shower and then find something to wear. “My place is a mess,” I said as I opened the door and let him in less than an hour later. It was always a mess, even after I cleaned, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

  “You know I don’t care.”

  “I bet your mother would care. She’d probably have a heart attack if she saw my apartment.”

  “She’d have a heart attack if she saw a lot of things, but I’m not my mother.” Justin had brought coffee and croissants with him. He took a bite of his breakfast and looked at me. “Is that why you practically ran out of my apartment yesterday? Did my mother say something to you?”

  “She hates me.” I bit the inside of my cheek and tried not to think about the hateful words I’d overheard her say.

  “The way she acts has nothing to do with you, Jess. She thinks she’s protecting me.”

  “It must be nice,” I said, hearing the bitter in my voice. “Of course I wouldn’t really know since I’ve never had anyone care enough to want to protect me.”

  “I care.” When I didn’t respond Justin reached for my hand. “You believe that, don’t you?”

  “You’re my boyfriend, it’s different.”

  “I’m not enough?”

  Of course Justin didn’t get it, why would he? He might have gone through a lot in Afghanistan and after he got home, but it was different than what I’d struggled with my whole life. His scars you could see, mine weren’t visible, but they were still there.

  “It’s not that you’re not enough, it’s just that. . .well I already told you, Christmas is hard.”


  “But you’re not alone anymore. We’re together now, and last night. . .”

  “Last night was a disaster, Justin. It was Christmas Eve and your mother made me feel like she didn’t even want me in her home.”

  “Because she doesn’t know the real you. Once she does things will be different.”

  “No. I don’t think so. In fact I’m pretty sure if she knew the real me, she’d lock you in your bedroom and never let you come out.”

  “That’s not true.”

  There was no point in arguing with Justin. He didn’t want to see the truth, and I wasn’t going to be able to make him. It was Christmas and the last thing I felt like doing was getting into an argument with Justin about his mother so I buried what I was feeling.

  Justin had brought the present I’d left at his house with him. It rested on the table. I pushed the box towards him. “I want you to open your present first.”

  He reached for it hesitantly, held it to his ear and shook it.

  I laughed. “Just open it.”

  Justin smiled and tore the wrapping paper off. As I watched him I couldn’t help but think that even in the way we opened presents we were different. I never tore wrapping paper off gifts, I always opened them carefully so I could save the paper for another time. When you had as much money as Justin did, that was probably not even a consideration.

  “Do you like it?” I asked as Justin took the top off the box and reached inside for the long sleeved tee and fleece workout pants I’d bought. “I know it’s not much, but you look real nice in blue, and I thought for work these would be perfect.”

  “They are perfect, and I love them.” Justin leaned towards me and kissed me.

  “You’re sure? Because I still have the receipt and you can exchange them for something you like better if you want.”

  “No. I’m not exchanging them, I love them,” Justin said. “Now it’s your turn to open your present.”

  I headed to my bedroom to retrieve the box Justin had given me the night before and then rejoined him in the kitchen.

  “Open it.”

  Inside the box was a platinum linked watch. I held it in my hands, my mouth open in awe as I took notice of the designer’s name etched onto the face of the watch.

  “It’s so. . .nice.” My description was woefully inadequate. “You shouldn’t. . .”

  “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have. Just tell me you love it, that’s all I want to hear.”

  “I love it.” I leaped into his arms. It wasn’t even the gift, it was knowing that Justin cared so much about making me happy that meant the most.

  “I actually have one more thing for you.” Justin eased me off his lap and got up to pull another box out of the inside pocket of his coat. He handed it to me, it was unwrapped so I knew right away what it was. “Justin! This is too much,” I said as I stared at the box. He knew I loved to read and he’d bought me a mini tablet. I’d wanted one for a long time, but it wasn’t something I would have ever been able to afford.

  “You can bring it with you everywhere, because it’s got a data plan.”

  “Oh my God, Justin. I can’t believe this.” I hugged him again.

  “Just tell me you’re happy, Jess.”

  I held Justin’s chin in one hand and then kissed him hard and deep. “I’m happy.”

  “I felt so bad after you went home last night, because I knew you were upset, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I wasn’t mad at you.”

  “I knew why you were mad. After I got home, I talked to my mother again. So did my dad and my brothers.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that anymore.” I kissed Justin again and again.

  “Oh, Jess. You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  Mike had proposed to Mel or at least he was about to. If there was ever a time I was sure he wasn’t going to walk in on me and Justin it was now. Justin kissed me back. He grabbed my hair with his hands and pressed me closer to him until I felt myself melt the way I always did when Justin had his hands on me. Somehow the two of us wound our way into my bed. I climbed on top of Justin and made love to him until his body shook with pleasure.

  We spent the rest of the day in bed and by the time Justin left later that evening my Christmas had turned out to be the best I’d ever remembered having.

  Chapter 18

  I didn’t see my brother again until a few days after New Year. He came home one afternoon while I was busy sweeping the kitchen. He walked inside and I stood there staring at him, waiting for him to say something while he filled the freezer with a few quarts of his favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavors.

  “What?” he said after noticing me staring.

  “Don’t what me.” I put my hands on my hips. “I want to know what Mel said, and don’t leave anything out.”

  “She says a lot of things,” Mike replied. He was smiling so I knew he was toying with me. I swatted him with the broom. “Hey, careful with that broom. You sweep that over my feet and I’ll never get married.”

  “I didn’t sweep it over your feet. And stop changing the subject,” I said. “I want to know everything.”

  “Everything?” My brother cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “No.” I groaned. “I don’t want to know about that. But I want to know everything else.”

  “Okay, okay.” My brother sat down and I took the empty chair next to him.

  “On Christmas Eve I took Mel out to dinner, somewhere really nice. You know how she likes Italian, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway, I asked her while we were eating dessert. Tiramisu. And I’m pretty sure she had no idea. She acted really surprised.”

  “Did she like the ring?”

  “She loved it. And she said yes.”

  “Of course she did.” Mike had shown me the ring about two weeks before Christmas. It was perfect. My brother, who seemed to have friends everywhere, knew someone who worked in the Diamond District. He got a good deal on an emerald cut stone and then just took it somewhere to be set. It looked as nice as anything I’d ever seen in the windows at Tiffany, but he’d paid a lot less than what they charged. I hugged Mike. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks, J.” Mike got up from the table after I released him from my embrace. “I feel like I can finally breathe again.”

  “You didn’t really think she’d say no, did you?”

  “I was a little worried,” Mike admitted.

  “Have you guys set a date yet?” I asked, trying to hide the worry from my voice. Once Mike and Mel were married I was out a roommate and trying to find another would be hard. I couldn’t afford the rent on my own so I didn’t have many options.

  “Not yet. I know you can’t pay for a place on your own yet, and you’ll be done with school in a year and a half. I think we’ll wait until then,” my brother replied, as if he’d just read my mind.

  “I don’t want you to put your life on hold for me.”

  “A year and a half isn’t that long. Mel and I can wait. Unless you think you might be able to move out sooner.”

  “I don’t see that happening.”

  “What about you and Justin?”

  “We’ve been going out for four months, it’s a little too soon to be thinking about moving in together.”

  “He can’t live with his parents forever, and the two of you are pretty serious aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “It’s the ideal situation then. He’s afraid to be on his own, but now he has you. You can’t afford an apartment by yourself, so now you have him.”

  “It’s not that simple, Mike.” Besides I hardly wanted to move in with someone because neither of us had any other good options.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Besides the fact that Justin’s mom hates me? She’d probably put a hit out on me if Justin told her we were moving in together.”

  Mike looked at me like I was exaggerating unt
il I told him what I’d overheard Mrs. Lambert say to Justin about me on Christmas Eve. His eyes grew wide and he exclaimed, “That bitch!”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s some fucked up shit right there.” Just great, I thought. If Mike had no advice to offer, I was basically screwed. He always seemed to know how to figure out a way around things. “And you’re telling me Justin doesn’t know you heard what his mother said about you?”

  “No. I didn’t see any point in bringing it up. The situation is what it is.”

  Justin and I never discussed his mother anymore. Whenever I thought about the way she felt about me, it was like a cloud hanging over my head, and I chose to ignore it in the hopes that somehow the problem would magically vanish.

  But Justin’s birthday was approaching. In March he’d turn twenty-six, and we’d already planned to spend his birthday weekend together, until Justin’s mother decided she wanted to throw a party for him.

  “I don’t think I should go,” I said after Justin told me about it. “We can just meet afterwards.”

  “You’re my girlfriend, Jess. You can’t not come.”

  “I’m pretty sure your mother would prefer if I didn’t.” Even though we hadn’t talked about her since Christmas, I knew a conversation about her was inevitable.

  “Are you just never going to come to my apartment again?” Justin asked.

  I nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  Justin sighed. “I know she hasn’t been the friendliest, but she’ll never come around if you hide from her.”

  “I’m not hiding. And I really don’t think it’s fair for you to basically ask me to kiss her ass until she decides I’m good enough for you.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m not going, and that’s final. If you don’t want to spend the weekend with me, that’s fine.” I hated that Justin didn’t even try to see my point of view.

  “C’mon, Jess. Don’t be like that.”

  I felt embarrassed about my little outburst, especially because we were in a public place and there were people around that could possibly overhear the two of us arguing. It was an unseasonably warm March day and after months of cold, gray weather I was grateful for some warmth and sunshine so the two of us were enjoying a spring picnic in the park.