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thirteen
. . .
LIV
I French braid Rory’s light brown hair as she sits in front of me on the floor. Frozen plays for the third time today in my living room and I’m caught in my own head instead of listening to “Let It Go” for the millionth time.
Rory tries to get me to sing it at the top of my lungs each and every single time because I’m Elsa apparently with my blonde hair, and my daughter loves being Anna who gets to go on all the adventures.
Meanwhile, like Elsa, I’m trapped in my own head. This whole arrangement with Hudson was like quicksand, suffocating me with my mother’s phone calls and text messages when I should’ve just stuck to what I was doing before and only heard from her every few days.
Now, it’s every hour.
Therapy has been suggested for my lack of commitment. Then a sit-down where we could talk it out. And, my favorite, a blind date set up by Norah.
All three suggestions I shut down.
“Mommy, can I have some popcorn?”
I blink, mindlessly braiding Rory’s hair without paying much attention. “Yeah, when I’m done.”
“Can I call Daddy?”
“Sure.”
She reaches behind her, leaning forward and almost making me lose all her hair when she says, “You have messages.”
I hadn’t even heard my phone go off but I’m not in the mood to speak with anyone right now. No one has anything cool to say or anything that is constructive at all, so I’d rather not and say I did.
“We’ll call your dad in a second, babe,” I tell her. “I’m almost done.”
“Mommy, who’s H-U-D-S—” I snatch my cell phone out of my daughter’s hand and glance down at it, immediately seeing red at the text message from Hudson on my screen.
I didn’t mean to do it, but the mention of my boss and how I’ve been straight-up avoiding him at all costs has been my mission all week.
HUDSON: I need you in early tomorrow.
HUDSON: And I’m starving.
I see red.
I know what I agreed to—Hudson only reminds me of it every time I don’t want to do something or I give him a little push back, but it’s eight o’clock at night and I never said anything about dropping what I was doing to serve him food.
Who said anything about personally hand-delivering?
LIV: I’ll have something DoorDashed to you. What do you want?
HUDSON: And miss your pissy-ass expression? Not on your life, Opie.
LIV: I’m busy.
HUDSON: That sounds like a personal problem.
LIV: That means I’m unavailable. However, I can still have you fed.
HUDSON: What could be more important than feeding me? Are you cheating on me?
LIV: That would be in the realm of us still dating.
