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“I was raised in a single-parent family, believe me, I know what it’s like. Huge benefits let me tell you. No parental fights, ever. My mother was always too distracted to know what we were up to, so we had loads of freedom to watch porn or launch drug dealing schemes, whatever. Zoë will realize this before you know it.”
She pulled away and wiped her face.
“I love you, you know. I know the word freaks you out, like some kind of big fluffy elephant in the room. But that elephant is here, and it’s real.”
Nikki laughed. “I know. That bloody elephant stares at me at night.”
“With neon pink eyes?”
“Yes!”
We were both laughing now and sitting on the bed.
“If you need to take a break, take it,” I said. “Zoë can be with Jade on Saturday, but I will make it clear that I have other plans and they’re on their own. This was never the idea, that she disrupts our lives.”
Nikki nodded.
I wanted to tell Nikki what it was like back in college, when I occasionally slept with Jade and wondered what was going on, if we were together or not, if it meant anything. Sometimes, I’d ask her for her number, and she’d ask why, staring at me with such a lack of emotion that I could not even come up with an answer. In time, I realized that her issues with intimacy and commitment were such that whenever she came too close to anyone, she had to screw it up. She didn’t want to be vulnerable or in a position where anyone could hurt her.
For a while, I thought I liked her, that we could have a shot at being together. Then one day, after class, I came back to find her in bed, my bed, with some guy she’d picked up at a bar. The look she gave me, the challenge in her eyes, daring me to yell at her told me everything I needed to know about damaged people and how far they’d go to avoid dealing with their problems.
I would never trust her again.
“Being with you these last couple of months has made me really happy,” I said. “I was used to being by myself, being alone. But since you came into my life, I keep thinking of things I want to do with you, places I never even wanted to go to. I have no idea what is going on.”
“Maybe it’s a virus,” Nikki said, leaning in and kissing me.
“Maybe, a love bug?”
“Yeah,” she smiled. “Oh, and Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you too.”
I helped her finish packing her bag and we slept together in the same bed. In the middle of the night, she got up to catch a cab to her friend’s house, from which they were all leaving.
I would not see her for three days.
I watched her get into the car and drive off, feeling curiously abandoned and left behind. It was not a pleasant feeling. I reminded myself that Zoë was upstairs, and I got onto the bed, lying next to her, wide awake.
I remembered what it was like when my father left all those years ago. The fight they’d had and him slamming the door behind him and me just knowing, he wouldn’t be back. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, like a hunger or punch, it was a physical sensation. When I looked at my mother, the expression of her face was gut-wrenching to see. I went over to hug her, and we stood like that for a long time.
Then she’d said. “Let’s get busy, let’s do something.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Let’s make pancakes.”
We’d just had dinner, she had only minutes before finished cleaning up.
“Pancakes?”
“You don’t feel like pancakes?” she asked.
“No…” you always had space for pancakes, didn’t you?
So, I helped her make pancakes. She put the radio on, we listened to music and when my sister came in and asked what we were doing, my mother and I said “pancakes” at the same time and laughed.
