“I’m sorry. Words gotten out that you’re here, and everyone is fucking nosy, I guess.”
A few of the club women are not hiding their indignation at the rumor I might no longer be on the market. Little do they know I was never on the market. I was prepared to do the rest of this life solo.
It was a depressing thought, sure, but I knew no one could live up to the two loves of my life.
Jenny doesn’t seem to pay much attention to those women. It’s the old ladies that have her focus. Every now and then one of them turns and glances at us.
“Are you doing okay?”
She sighs and spins her chair around, turning her back to them. “They’re talking about me.”
“Your mom is over there with them. I doubt they’re saying anything bad.”
Jenny bites her nails, her knee bouncing like she’s fixing to run.
“I don’t think they’re even looking at you. It’s me they’re looking at. I’ve aged like fine wine,” I say, spinning my chair so we’re facing the same way.
“Haha.”
She rolls her eyes, and it makes my foolish heart rejoice. I know she’s feeling anxious, but at least she’s talking to me like we’ve known each other for as long as we have. She’s slowly letting her guard down and being herself.
“What if they think I’m … oh, I don’t know.”
“It’s not your job to worry about what other people think of you,” I say lazily, running my finger up and down her arm. “I know what we should do.” I stand up, pulling her with me. “We should go find you a tree.”
“Raffe,” she begins to whine.
“You know you’ll feel better when you have a tree to talk to.”
She gives in, hugging herself around the waist. The sun is low on the horizon, and there’s a chill in the air. “I can’t believe summer is almost over,” she says, sighing as we walk.
“It just means we’ll be snuggled up watching the snow fall over the lake soon.”
This lightens her mood. “Bill told me that sometimes the lake freezes over enough to ice skate on it. Oh and I’ll be here for Christmas!” she says excitedly. “Bill said the club brings in a big tree every year. Do you still do that?”
“We do.”
She touches the trunk of every tree we pass. When we get to the kids’ play area, her smile widens. “Bill helped build this too,” she says, ducking under one of the low branches.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you speak very fondly of Bill.”
Jenny tucks her hair behind her ear and turns to walk away from me. “He was all I had, and he was my only connection to Jackson.”
“Did you like him … or did you love him? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you. He was a handsome guy. Shit, even I had a crush on him when I first got here.”
Her steps slow, and she looks at me over her shoulder. Then she stops completely. I can see her heart beating at the pulse in her neck. “Did …” Her head falls between her shoulders. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No. Ask the question.”
“Youhad a crush on him?”
“Well, not near as bad as the one I had on Dirk, but yeah.” I shrug.
The way her brows pull together reminds me that there’s a lot she doesn’t know about me. She’s missing huge parts of my life. Especially the part where I liked men, or at least I thought I did.
She backs away from me, and at first I think it’s because she’s disgusted by me. “It’s because they made you do things … with men.” Her hands rest on her head, and her whole body begins to tremble.
“Jenny,” I try to soothe her, but I can’t deny her words. They fucked me up. I didn’t know who or what I was.
