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I willed time to rewind to the last moment I remembered with Rhys, my face pressed against his chest once I’d fallen asleep beneath the calming cloud of his voice, not even half embarrassed or mad at myself. I was in control then, these lunatics weren’t around, and it wasn’t about Sadie and her pity party tantrum.
“I wish you called before coming all the way out here,” I lied, “because I have to go to work this morning.”
I had three weeks left of break, but I prayed they wouldn’t question it. While they stood in the doorway, I opened my closet and reached for my coat. My stomach was betraying me, longing for every morsel Rhys brought me that morning.
“Then we’ll walk you out,” mom quietly replied. Her lack of persistence and guilt was disarming. I knew she wanted to probe about Tommy Esposito, likely crossing her fingers that he’d proposed during our blind date and she could die happy.
“We didn’t come out here just to walk Mia down some stairs, mom,” Sadie groaned. “Mia, you haven’t called since you told mom my news, and that’s really mean. I came home—”
“I paid for it,” I rebuked, glaring at her.
Sadie rolled her eyes, avoiding me. “Whatever. I came home, you totally spilled my news, and then you just disappear.”
“Sadie,” I looked between her and mom, who was muttering a prayer under her breath, “I will not relive Christmas, or Heathrow, or London. I’m late for work, you’re late for growing up, and I need to get going.”
Wondering what chapter of that stupid book contained the paragraph of support for sticking up for myself, I thought back to Rhys’s divulgence of the Sadie he knew overseas, and it felt empowering to not cave to her immature demands. Next, I needed to figure out how to not let mom guilt me into blind dates. Although, last night’s was actually… Wonderful.
“Why does that make you smile, Mia?” Mom pressed, shaking my shoulders. “Your sister’s distraught without you, she’s driving me insane at home, and this family needs you.”
“Mom,” I kissed her cheek and looked at her sad, round eyes, “I’ll come over for dinner on Friday. I’m sorry you guys didn’t catch me at a better time.” And I was sorry for not scarfing Rhys’s breakfast before pretending I had somewhere else to be.
Walking my mom and sister outside, I waited with them until I could shove them in a taxi and somehow found myself crammed between them in the backseat after my mom refused to let me walk to campus. I hoped to have gotten back upstairs for my breakfast, but I’d been dropped off too many blocks from home to walk on such a snowy day. A walk didn’t bug me last night with Rhys. Sadie mentioned him twice on our scrunched taxi ride, along with Matthew Matty Dreamington Bennett, her descriptions of whom made my eyes roll. Somewhere between the story of their proposal for one time too many and mom telling Sadie which Sunday would work best for a bridal shower, I promised mom we’d have dinner on Friday.
Tucking my face below the flipped collar of my wool coat, the remnants of Sadie’s perfume from the cab overwhelmed me. It made me think of Rhys telling me we needed to stop worrying about our siblings and move on with our lives. Easier said than done, but connecting with someone else about their dysfunctional siblings helped me feel less isolated, and it made me want to let her go, to try parenting myself and not my sister, to focus on me for once.
Sadie consumed our conversation in the cab, so our mom didn’t ask about Tommy. Being angry at Tommy Esposito wasn’t an option, and maybe it’s because I traded my embarrassment for gratitude. Alone in a crowd of pedestrians, I couldn’t stop the smile hiding behind the collar of my coat.
When a rude man bumped into me, demanding I watch where I went as I froze on the sidewalk, I snapped from a haze, grinning widely. He didn’t know I was repeating the conversation Rhys and I had on our date. This stranger didn’t know why I couldn’t stop smiling, even after my mom and sister ruined my morning. I wanted to run up to him, tap his shoulder, and tell him I was happy because a gorgeous man who fell asleep reading to me and brought me breakfast in the morning also rescued me from a blind date, after months of my cheeks forgetting how it felt to smile as wide as I was in that moment. But the grumpy stranger was long gone, blending into the crowd of people walking along the Fifth Avenue perimeter of Central Park while I mindlessly found myself not too far from the Sixty-Seventh Avenue apartment Rhys described to me last night.
Brushing snow from a bench, I sat down and watched traffic fuse with the steady blur of yellow cabs. There was a flutter in my chest, leaving me excited and scared. I hadn’t felt it in such a long time, but its presence was a betrayal because the mere fact my heart responded so against my rational judgment would only get me in trouble. Better I get myself in trouble and suffer the consequences than just suffer double consequences for Sadie’s problems.
Sadie’s biggest problem became the focus of positive attention, just the way she liked to live at the center of a spotlight that blacked out the rest of us in her audience. Between sending me on a blind date and being upset with Sadie’s pregnancy, our mom found time to plan a bridal shower.
There were several stores along Fifth Avenue with their large windows set as a stage with mannequins in designer wedding gowns, and I ignored them all as I walked by earlier. Except one that caught my eye, with the taffeta gown that overwhelmed most of the window, reminding me of a childhood expecting a prince to take me away. He’d be the one, and we’d live happily ever after the moment I walked down the aisle in that beautiful dress.
Now, sitting on a frozen bench, I knew the dreams of my youth were a farce, as was mom’s book. The only one out there for me was me and, with my legs freezing against the cold metal seat, that reality settled in. In the end, it’s me, and I liked that.
Even so, there was a buzz in my fluttering chest, knowing I was blocks away from Rhys’s apartment. Maybe the feeling was carefree, something without consequence, because I wasn’t planning for or expecting anything in return. Although, he rescued me last night and spent the night talking to me… And he bought breakfast. The least I could do was thank him. It took a moment to get up from the bench after my coat adhered to the ice, but I reached for my phone and sent a message.
Me: Thank you for breakfast, and for everything last night.
He responded while I began walking away from his part of town, crossing through the park toward home.
Rhys: I’m the one who owes you gratitude, Mia. I woke up next to you on that couch feeling like a new person.
I’m not sure how to respond to that.I felt the same way.
Rhys: Will you come for dinner at my house before I go? I can send a cab on Friday night.
I promised mom I’d come for dinner on Friday, but I texted Rhys once I walked to the other side of the park, warring the nervous tickle in my fingertips as I told him I’d be happy to come over. It wasn’t until I’d settled into the back of a stale cab, suffocating on the warm recycled air, that I considered what I agreed to. It was a huge holiday season in the city, and Rhys had a social circle, and it’d be right back to me in the corner mistaken for a server like at Sadie and Matthew’s brunch.
It didn’t take long for me to get home, throw every outfit I owned in a heap of disregard on my bedroom floor, unable to find something that worked for Friday. Making my mental to-do list, I put calling mom at the top so I could get cancelling dinner out of the way. When she finally answered, I could hear her soaps and Sadie blabbering on in the background.
“Mom,” I spoke while pacing the floor in front of my fireplace, “I have to talk to you about this weekend.”
“You need to talk to me about Tommy Esposito,” she rebuked, her tone cold. “Iris tells me you stood him up. Why didn’t you tell me this morning?” She continued scolding me, not giving a chance for my response. “Iris said Tommy looked for you and you were with another man. Mia, what’s gotten into you?”
“Tommy stood me up, mom. I waited for an hour for him. I’m not going on another blind date for you. Do you know how mortifying that was?”
“Couldn’t have been too bad if you found some other man to keep you company,” she scoffed. She didn’t know how right she was, but whatever this friendship was with Rhys put me on the defensive. I wanted to protect it, him, whoever I was becoming after our conversation and epiphanies about our siblings.
Sadie was laughing, and I heard her repeat Matthew’s name, his obnoxious nickname, and her endearments while mom waited for me to prove I wasn’t a jezebel. Instead, I cancelled our dinner on Friday and told her I was giving myself a break from family, because her book said loving myself would be how I let love in. Not finding the humor in it, she grumbled something in Italian and hung up. For the first time, I wasn’t a knot of guilt. Boundaries with them were becoming my new high. And so was thinking about Friday.
