Page 93 of Back for Seconds

“She never wore it.” Then, quietly, I added, “It didn’t fit her.” But it fits you, I thought.

“Oh.” She held it with her hands, pinching the thin gold band between her fingers. “You…should take it back?”

I didn’t reach for it. “I…have no idea how it ended up here. In this house.”

Neither one of us could look at each other. It was too much. Too weird. Too unexplainable and yet so perfectly obvious what was happening.

I knew all of my grandmother’s personality quirks—how argumentative and insistent she could be, how much she loved to gamble and win. I knew she loved love. True love. Romantic love. Grand gestures and red roses. She’d lost her husband when she was fifty, and she had never remarried. I knew when she used to stand at the kitchen sink right next to me, in this very house, and sing, she was singing love songs to him.

I squeezed my eyes shut, all at once too hot and too cold.

Here she was: her stubbornness, her confidence. Embarrassment crept through me spiraling up my limbs, coursing through my veins until I was sure my face was beet red.

“You should take it,” she said again.

“Sorry, I-I should go,” I said in a quick, desperate whisper. I waved her hand away, like she was offering me a slice of cake and I was beyond full. I stepped around June, slipped through the narrow hallway, and made for the front door.

I had to get out of here before humiliation melted me into a puddle.

“Joey, wait—” Her footfall was close behind me, but the house wasn’t big, and I was at the front door before June could grab a jacket. “Let’s talk about this. Please.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said quietly, grabbing my jacket and pulling it on. I knew I wanted June. But I needed June to want me too. And this…this meddling force wasn’t going to do anything other than drive her further away. “If there’s smoke, call nine-one-one, ok?”

June watched me with those big dark eyes thrown open wider than usual. Her cheeks were pink with emotion. “You seem really fucking freaked out.”

I tore my eyes away. We were being ridiculous. This wasn’t what we agreed on. “You asked me to…stay away. I should have stayed away.” I reached for the doorknob. “You didn’t ask me to come and help you. This wasn’t supposed to happen—”

“I’m happy you came! I don’t want things to be different—”

“Everything’s fine. You’re fine.” I tossed her half look before I pulled open the door. Cold air drenched my face and neck. In the reflection of the storm door, I caught a glint of something in June’s eyes—exhaustion, sadness. A flatness. A look that said, this again. I looked away.

“Don’t go, Joey. I didn’t mean to hurt you—”

“I’m not hurt. Not about the ring.” I cleared my throat, keeping my shoulders to her.

“You don’t have to lie to me.” She didn’t want to answer my question. I drew in a breath. “You don’t have to always do the right thing. You can tell me how you feel—”

“Can I?” I turned back to face her. There she was, even more beautiful than the mental image I could conjure of her. Her dark eyes glistening in the soft lights from her Christmas tree, long hair swept over her shoulder in a tumbling inky wave. “Can I really tell you how this is all making me feel right now or will…will it just seem like I’m being a dick because I didn’t get my way?”

“Of course you can!” She hesitated, then took another step toward me. “We’ve never been perfect together. We’ve never been anything less than real. You’re my friend—”

“That’s the problem, June. I don’t wanna be your friend. I want to be with you. And anything less than that is just… It sucks, ok? A-and apparently I want you so fucking bad, I can make my grandmother’s fucking heirloom ring materialize out of thin air, into your house. It’s…” I laughed and shook my head. “It’s embarrassing. You need time and space and you deserve that. But I can’t pretend. I just can’t.” I tore my eyes away from her. “Not when it feels like everything in this fucking house is pulling me back to you.”

I hoped my grandmother’s spirit or ghost or whatever was listening. I hope she heard this—this boundary. I turned away from June and pressed my fingers into the icy glass door. “I’m gonna go.”

“I didn’t realize,” she said, finally. “I didn’t realize this would be so hard and different. I miss you.”

After a moment of heavy silence passed between us, I said, “You need time and space, June.” I pushed the door open. “Maybe I do too.”

Chapter 30 June

My throat had gone way too dry to force out even an ok.

I watched Joey get in his car and pull out of my driveway, and before I could even fully process what had happened, my eyes were burning.

I stared down at the ring in the palm of my hand, tears swimming into my vision, blurring the shapes of my fingers into one big beige blob.

Was this how I lost Joey forever?