Of course, I couldn’t explain any of this to Jane. It still was a struggle for her not to mention Jack, so I couldn’t either.
Milo had seemed to return to his normal self, much to my relief. When we got home, he started talking rapidly about this new recipe he wanted to try out.
Somehow last night, I’d managed to forget to eat anything, and at lunch, I had still felt too tired and out-of-it to really eat. But once I was in the safety of my apartment listening to Milo rattle of a list of ridiculously tasty ingredients, my appetite came back full swing.
We went to the grocery store to get his recommended supplies, but I was too hungry to wait, so I ate a pear in the store. Milo looked embarrassed, even though I insisted that I’d pay for it (and I did). Taking the groceries home was always a project because we had to take the bus with arm loads of bags. I wished Mom would spring and buy a decent car, but it didn’t seem like it was in the cards.
Jack hadn’t text messaged me yet, and I tried to pretend like that didn’t bother me. All through supper, while I attempted to help Milo cook, I had to constantly fight the urge to check my cell phone in my pocket to make sure it was on or I hadn’t missed a message. After my incident cutting my finger (which apparently hadn’t been that minor since I still required a Boba Fett Band-Aid), Milo left me with all the easy jobs, like washing vegetables, measuring ingredients, and buttering bread.
His supper was something ridiculously good. We sat at the table, where I promptly devoured everything. Mom woke up, and we offered her a plate, but she just shook her head and hurried out the door. We’d seen her for a total of ten minutes that day, but I imagined that if we were to add it up, we saw her an average of an hour a week.
“You should really go to culinary school,” I told Milo. We were still sitting at the table, and I had one knee pulled up to my chest, which was getting more uncomfortable the more I ate. I had already cleaned one plate and had started on a second, but I was starting realize that my eyes were larger than my stomach. “You’re amazing. This is definitely something you should do for a living.”
“I’ve kind of looked into it.” He shrugged modestly, and he didn’t have a clue what an amazing cook he was. Milo never believed he was good at anything, no matter what I told him. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you still have a few years to think about it, but you’re too good to keep this hidden from the world.” I took another bite, but my stomach screamed in protest. I forced myself to push my plate away, knowing that I would explode if I continued eating.
“What about you? You’re graduating before I am. What did you have in mind?” Milo turned the tables on me, and I squirmed a little. He knew my grades at school, and he was constantly trying to talk to me about my future, but I avoided it as much as possible.
“I don’t know.” Lately, with everything that had been going on with Jack, I had a new found appreciation for paranormal studies and biology. “Maybe I’ll go to med school.” I had meant it as a joke, but Milo just nodded, like it would make any sense.
“I could see you as a psychiatrist,” Milo commented. “I mean, not anything that had to do with blood or surgery.”
“No, that would definitely be out,” I agreed readily. When I had seen all the blood on Jack’s nonexistent wound, I had to fight the urge to vomit. “But I can’t imagine me being a psychiatrist.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, as if it seemed like a really obvious choice to him. “You’re a pretty good listener, and you love figuring people out.
Everyone is like a puzzle to you, and you’re trying to put all the pieces fit together.”
“I guess that is true.” Essentially, that’s all I’d been doing for the last few weeks, but until Milo had said it like that, I didn’t realize that’s what I did. That it was a part of who I was, even when bizarre behavior wasn’t involved.
“I mean, you figured out that I was gay.” Milo spoke quietly and kept his eyes down, so I knew it was still something that was uncomfortable for him to talk about.
“When did you know?” I had pulled my plate back over to me, but I just pushed the food around on my plate. My stomach was still much too full to take a bite, but when I felt awkward, I wanted to keep my hands busy with something, and this was better than biting my nails.
“I don’t know.” He sighed a little, and I wondered if I should change the subject, but then he went on. “I suspected for… ever, I guess. I mean, as soon as I learned what gay was, I thought, ‘maybe.’ But really, it was when I met Jack.” He blushed deeply, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. “I’d just never been so attracted to anyone like that before.”
“Yeah, Jack does that.” I had meant to comfort him with that statement, but I ended up sounding exasperated.
“But you’re not attracted to him.” Milo looked up at me, looking both confused and disbelieving. “How is that even possible?”
“I’m attracted to him, definitely,” I explained the best I could. “I just don’t want to have sex with him.” Then I remembered what he looked like last night, sliding shirtless into the hot tub, and realized that wasn’t entirely true either.
“But…” Milo shifted uncomfortably, and he sounded unsure of himself. “I don’t mean to sound gross, but that was all I could think about.”
“That’s not gross,” I replied quickly, but then recanted. “Okay. It’s a little gross, but only cause you’re my little brother. Not cause of the whole guy thing.”
“Even Jane went crazy about him, and she’s never crazy about anyone, except for herself.” He was waiting for an explanation, but I didn’t have one. I’d spent hours trying to sort it all out, but I had yet to come up with an answer that made any sense.
“I don’t get it either,” I told him finally. “I don’t see what you guys see in him, even. I mean, he’s attractive and funny and everything…” I trailed off, realizing that maybe I did feel the way they did about Jack, then suddenly, I remembered Peter. “I met his brother last night.”
“And?” Milo leaned in closer to me, his eyes shining brightly.
“And nothing. He’s gorgeous, like unbelievably so, but he hates me.” I shrugged, trying to make it look like it didn’t bother me as much as it did, and went back to picking at my plate of food.
“He hates you? Why?” At least he was incredulous at the idea of anyone hating me. Maybe I was more likable than I gave myself credit for.
“I honestly couldn’t tell you.” It physically hurt just thinking about the way that Peter had glared at me when I was by the hot tub. I would gladly throw myself under a bus than endure another look like that. “I don’t think I even spoke to him.”
“Then how do you know he hates you?”
“If you had seen the way he looked at me…” I shuddered at the thought of it and decided that that was enough of talking about Peter and Jack. I stood up and started to clear off the table.
“I don’t get you, Alice,” Milo muttered when I took his plate.
“There’s nothing to get,” I replied glibly.
Since he had cooked, that usually meant that I would do the dishes, but he helped me out tonight. He had just started doing his homework when I decided that a nice long, hot shower was in order. But when I went into the bathroom, the hamper was overflowing, and we were completely out of clean towels. Milo had tons of homework, and he actually planned on doing it, so I offered to go to the laundromat. I loaded up as much clothes as I could into three massive laundry bags, and then made the excruciating trek the block and a half down to the laundromat. The superintendent kept promising he’d put one in the basement of the building, but he’d yet to follow through.
I filled four washers with clothes (the maximum amount allotted to one person), then settled back in the hard plastic chairs to watch clothes spin around for an hour. I had just started doing a quiz in Cosmo (“Are You Pleasing Your Man in Bed?” — the perfect quiz for a single virgin) when my pocket started to vibrate. When I’d been making supper with Milo, it had been rather loud, and I thought I’d be more inclined to notice a vibrate than a ring, and I’d forgotten to switch it back.
What are you doing? Jack text messaged me.
Laundry. That one little word could never encompass the monumental hassle that laundry was. It would probably be easier if I did it more than once a month, but if it was easier, I would probably do it more often. It was a vicious cycle, really.
