Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
I was a closet nerd, until Reese found out.
He kept asking for a pic of me in a skirt and wire-rimmed glasses. I’d succumbed once as I walked past an eyeglasses kiosk in the mall, but I itched my nose with my middle finger in the photo. The sales guy thought it was hilarious—until I handed him back the glasses and tossed a “thank you” over my shoulder. He’d been dropping hints about when he got off work and asking what kind of food I liked. I booked it before the proposition could happen.
The text I’d gotten back from Reese was an image of him pulling his shorts away from his waist.
Reese: Are we doing this?
Me: Is that growing? Can’t tell. Your boxer briefs are in the way.
Reese: I have a game tonight or I’d be buying you a plane ticket right now.
That was the typical back-and-forth with us.
My friends had spent the rest of the weekend at my place, and they’d even talked me into having lunch with Janet and her new husband. I’d sworn each of them to silence about Reese. If Janet found that out, friends from when I’d gone to camp as a child would come out of the woodwork. I also made sure they were tight-lipped about Damian. I was better about talking about that situation, but I still didn’t care to go there with Janet.
I’d also returned to my therapist.
She was surprised by my willingness to open up, but we were peeling away one painful layer at a time. Turns out I suffered from something called caregiver’s toxic guilt.
It was a mouthful to type and say, so I kept that to myself as well. Just easier. My friends knew I was going through a level of guilt they couldn’t understand, so they had refrained from asking too many questions.
Reese was the only one who brought Damian up these days, and it was just every so often and always a roundabout question—like what other teams Damian had liked. He was never direct or demanding, but he’d bring Damian’s name up until I peeled another layer back and gave him some details about the past. Once I’d done that, he’d change the topic.
Touch and go. That’s what we were.
But it’d been two weeks of that: texting, phone calls, pictures, jokes, memes, crude gifs.
Until today. Today was game day. The Seattle Thunder was in town to play the Coyotes for the regular season.
Trent was flying in, and he’d said he was bringing a date with him. Owen and Hadley had already arrived, and we were in the car to go pick them up.
When it had slipped at Janet’s two weeks ago that they were coming back for the game, she and her husband mentioned they were going to try to get tickets. I’d looked down at my lap because I knew a few pointed looks were likely coming my way, but nope—I wasn’t interested in assisting with that in any way. Janet had never made my life any easier, and she hadn’t kept in contact with me. She’d been the easiest to stop talking to because we’d never really talked in the first place. So no, I wasn’t going to ask Reese for another set of tickets. It burned my ego to allow the ones he had offered up in the first place. I kept wanting to pay him back, but he hadn’t paid for them. He said each player had a few they could use each game, but he never used them so he had a surplus.
We were all supposed to do dinner together later tonight, though, and I wasn’t sure how I’d handle that situation.
Reese had to travel back with the team, but they weren’t flying back till the morning. That was also a touchy subject I was putting off until later. Trent and his date were going to sleep at my place. Grant, Sophia, Owen, and Hadley were all staying at Janet’s.
Where I was sleeping, I wasn’t sure yet.
“What’s holding you back?” Grant asked as we pulled up to Arrivals.
He meant what was holding me back from taking the job offer at the camp. Lack of money was one, but also, I wasn’t sure I wanted to upend everything and move there. The only place to live near camp was a small town. It was a whole different culture.
I could’ve said all those words, but there was another reason. Damian.
Fuck it. What’d it matter if I told them the truth?
“Damian is here.”
Cue the nerves now.
But the car went quiet.
Finally, Grant cleared his throat. “We don’t know what to say to you. It’s obvious you don’t want to talk about him. We get that, but we have no clue how to handle this. Do we ask questions? Do we not? What do we say to make you feel like we’re here for you, but not pry because we know it’s a touchy subject. You loved the guy, and his mind was slipping, but we have no clue what even transpired. So…”