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It’s me who can’t stomach the idea of peanut butter for another meal. I’m fucking starving from all that work yesterday; I need protein.
“Why don’t we get some real food while we’re in town?”
I’m sure we can afford a couple plates of bacon and scrambled eggs from the diner. Or in Jude’s case, pancakes and possibly a poached egg if I can convince him.
“Sure.” He shrugs.
“Don’t trip over your own feet in excitement.”
“Only one of us does that.” He ambles over to the back door and slips said feet into a pair of canvas boaters. Jude’s wardrobe would give you the impression he’s going yachting in the afternoon, or if he’s gloomy, he dresses like a cleric.
He’s been gloomy often since graduating from Newman. For all the trouble he got into, Jude loved that school. He had a pack of friends he’d roam around with, and I think it was easier for him to pretend we were still part of the upper crust, despite what our apartment looked like—and smelled like.
I’m hoping once he’s at college, he’ll find his feet again. Maybe start dating. He’s never had a girlfriend, or at least not one he told me about. I’ve wondered if he might be gay, but I haven’t noticed any particularly intense connections with his male friends, either.
I worry about him constantly because I’m always afraid it goes back to losing our parents, or worse, to the way I raised him afterward. I was barely more than a kid myself. I had no clue how to properly help him through his grief except for scrounging up the funds for a therapist Jude refused to see more than twice.
Fuck, maybeIshould see a therapist. I haven’t been dealing well lately, especially after all the shit with Gideon. My nightmares are back, and the pressure in my head is building. Sometimes I thought I was going insane—but I guess that’s what gaslighting does to you. Maybe I could have forgiven Gideon if he’d just been honest with me, but he wouldn’t even give me that closure.
Now he’s texting and calling non-stop after I asked him to leave me alone.
Blocking him solves that problem. I should have done it weeks ago like Jude said. I guess I wasn’t as ready to let go as I wanted to believe.
Thinking about my ex yanks my mood down several notches. Jude notices before we’ve even climbed in the Bronco and handles it with his usual grace.
“What’re you moping about all of a sudden?”
“I blocked Gideon last night.”
“Oh.” He glances over as I start the engine. “Well, that’s a good thing. He had too much power over you.”
“It’s called being in love. You wouldn’t get it—your most devoted relationship is with peanut butter.”
“After all the trouble I went to with movie night,” Jude sniffs.
“That was thoughtful.” I rest my hand on the nape of his neck, tickling the short hair back there, something that has relaxed him from the time we were kids. Our mom was hilarious and adventurous but not physically affectionate. It was me Jude came to for snuggles.
“Gideon was controlling.” Jude can’t resist taking a few more shots at my ex now that we’re on the topic. “Always telling you what to do and how to spend your money.”
“Well…I think he thought he had the right once we got engaged.”
Gideon seemed supportive when we were dating, but as soon as the ring was on my finger, he had some things to say about my future plans and budgeting. Most especially, my need to pay for Jude’s education, not that I’d ever tell Jude that.
He and Gideon already had a prickly relationship. They were polite, but I could tell they didn’t exactly adore each other, like two cats forced to live in the same house. And we didn’t even cohabit—Gideon and I planned to get our own place once Jude was at college.
Thank god we never did. It would have been a hell of a lot more difficult to untangle our lives.
All I had to do was drop off a box of the stuff Gideon left strewn around my place. Minus his DMX T-shirt.
The box looked so pathetic there on his porch. A three-year relationship and it all fit in three cubic feet.
“It’s over,” I promise Jude.
“We’ll see.” He gives me a look.
I know why he doesn’t trust me. Gideon and I have broken up before and gotten back together. He’s very convincing, and if I’m honest with myself, I’m too easily convinced. Sometimes I believe what I want to believe—that I have someone who loves me and will be there for me when I feel so goddamn alone.
Well, I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m going to believe the evidence in front of my face. And I have more than enough when it comes to Gideon.
