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Anika completes our circle. “And I’m fine, guys. I can’t talk about it, but my career is perfectly on track.”
“I’m sorry,” Harper says, squeezing us tight.
Emotion wells inside me. I’m sorry, too. I kept things from them. I didn’t allow them to help me or take care of me, and I’m starting to learn that is not fair to the people we love, to the ones who love us. “I won’t keep things from you again. I was just so ashamed.”
Harper’s head shakes. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
And then we’re a mass of crying women, hugging and promising things are going to be fine because we won’t ever leave each other.
“I liked it better when I thought they were going to fight.” Darnell stands. “This is…this is a lot of estrogen, man. You wanna play some Call of Duty while they do whatever rituals they need to do?”
Heath looks my way, and it’s so clear that’s exactly what he wants to do. I’ve put him through a lot of roiling emotional turmoil this evening, so I nod and he and Darnell are in Darnell’s room shooting people before I know it.
“We ran off the guys,” Anika says with a laugh.
“Do you want to go somewhere and talk?” Harper asks. “Or should we stay here at Ivy’s friend who she’s sleeping exclusively with and has warm feelings for’s place. That’s a lot.”
“Let’s just call him Heath.” I move to the kitchen. “And we’re going to steal his beer, too.”
I grab three cold bottles and realize the night has been a good one.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s early the next morning when I quietly let myself into my mother’s apartment.
“I was wondering if you would come home.” Mom is sitting in her favorite chair, a mug of coffee to her side. “Your friends are worried about you. Whose shirt are you wearing? I wasn’t aware you were seeing anyone.”
“It’s mine.” Heath has slipped in behind me. I’d thought we’d agreed he would stay outside while I grabbed a few things, but I should have known he would stay close. He moves toward her, a hand out like the polite man he’d been raised to be. “Ivy got caught in the rain yesterday and needed to borrow something. Hello again, Mrs. Jensen.”
She gets to her feet. She’s dressed but hasn’t put on the makeup she wears most days even if she doesn’t go out. “Hello, young man from my fire escape. Ivy didn’t mention you were seeing each other in that fashion. I believe she told me you were business partners.”
He nods. “Yeah. She struggles when it comes to defining relationships. I think any way you look at it you’ll probably be seeing more of me.”
“Well, I hope you’re nothing like the last one. He should be in jail.”
“Mom,” I whisper under my breath.
Heath gives her a bright smile guaranteed to melt the heart of any woman in a two-mile radius. “She’s right. He was an asshole. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll use your bathroom if that’s okay. I took Ivy out for donuts and drank way too much coffee.”
She nods and shows him which hall to go down. It’s the only hall, really, so he shouldn’t have too much trouble.
She looks tired in the early morning light, and I don’t really want to fight with her. Talking things through with my friends last night made me realize how often in the last few years I’d gone into fight-or-flight mode.
“I’m picking up some things and then we’re going back to his place, so don’t worry. I won’t bother you this weekend. I’ll send you money on Monday for the month. Is it only rent you want? I know I ate some stuff you bought last week. And drank some of the milk.”
She’s watching the hall, studying Heath as he disappears. “Just the rent is fine. I suspect you’ll be out of the place more than in it now that you’re…working again.”
I do not understand her, and I’m worried I never will. I don’t know how everyone else in my life can be supportive and she simply can’t. But I’m tired of fighting her, and I told Heath I wouldn’t be long. “All right then.”
She looks my way. “You’re not even going to apologize for not checking in last night?”
“Checking in with you?” I’m surprised at the inference. “I didn’t think you were watching when I come and go. Mom, I’m honestly surprised you would be worried.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I wasn’t aware that you would care if I didn’t come home at all.”
“So now I don’t care about you?”
This is the part where the me before yesterday would have started fighting, would have taken this chance to lash out.
If Heath had done that to me last night, I would be on a bus ready to start a new life someplace where I would be miserable. Instead, he’d wanted to know why I was saying the things I’d said, and he’d asked me patiently to explain.
