Patrick hadn’t texted me much yet, but I liked having his number in my phone when neither Matt, Frankie, or Maya knew about it.
At Frankie’s house, Maya revealed to me that her parents did not know Patrick was the father of their baby. She had told them the baby was from a one-night stand. I asked why. Maya waited until Patrick went outside to smoke a cigarette and then told me that they were first cousins.
I hadn’t guessed that they looked so much alike because they were related. Maya had three sisters and a tight relationship with her mother, something I envied. Maya wanted Patrick to live with her. I wondered why they didn’t just run away. I didn’t understand that family was a thing that kept people rooted. It must have been hard to keep those kinds of secrets.
I watched both babies as they played, taking toys from one or the other, throwing things, sharing. If Maya and Patrick stayed in the city, the kids would grow up together like siblings.
I couldn’t imagine staying in the Springs for my mom, who was the only real family I had. Maybe if I’d met someone and started a family. Even then, I wasn’t sure if I could ever be a mother. I was an only child and selfish and inside of myself a lot, and I liked being that way. The way Jett spilled his food and then reached for Frankie, crying for someone to clean up his messes. The way he reached up when she walked by.
Jett was a thing that needed her. Jett was a thing that clung to her clothes and skin, clung to her hips, deeper than a tattoo. The way her body was shaped, her hips careened outward, the place where the child sat. He shook his plastic toys violently, threw them, broke things, tore paper. A chaotic animal. I used to think babies were fragile and weird and that you had to talk to them like they were something else, something dumber than you. They know when you think they’re dumb or different, they pick that kind of stuff up. They unfold the way people do. It was too much, to take care of a thing like that.
Matt came home from work. Frankie and I sat on the living room floor cross-legged, Patrick and Maya on the couch. Jett was in Frankie’s lap. I had a tiny basketball that squeaked. Jett squealed and tried to crawl toward me. He looked up as Daddy walked into the living room. I rolled the tiny basketball toward Jett, and as it stopped right in from him, he picked it up with his cherub fingers and stretched his arms out wide into a V, the muscles locking up so hard from excitement they shook. I laughed. I wanted to show Matt and Frankie that I could be useful, I could fit into their lives.
Matt stopped in the doorway. For a second, it felt like we were playing house—like Jett had two mothers and this father who worked. I wonder if in the past, people did live like this. Sometimes it felt tribal to be this way, as if we were a group of degenerates, isolated but entwined.
Jenny told me I was crazy to believe that I could ever be part of their family, some permanent fixture, the same way she said it was crazy to think Maya and Patrick would ever run away together.
I wanted to say she was wrong. For a time, being with the three of them was the only way I wanted to exist. I told Jenny that because I positioned myself as an expendable person, I never got jealous. I never allowed myself to feel jealous, to feel what it would be like to be number one.
I was an object in her eyes. I was a tool. Every time I heard the name Lilith, pieces of me slipped and gave way underneath her perception of me. I didn’t need to prove I was better or more deserving because I knew I was expendable and let it be. Girl from the dirt.
At first.
It’s inviting. It’s inviting to a man who struggles with his spouse, latent loneliness, to a man who doesn’t think long-term. A man who is obsessed with immediate satisfaction. Maybe I am projecting. The ultimate prize is someone who is unattached, who is not going to ask you to do menial tasks or subject you to their near-constant depression. It’s inviting to spend time with someone who asks nothing of you but your presence, who does not ask you to invest anything other than your time. A girl who only wants your company, who is “down to fuck.”
But it wasn’t real. Which I guess we should have been used to, me and him.
THE WAY TO SURVIVE THE WORLD IS BY MANIPULATING EVERYONE AROUND YOU
IT HAD BEEN ABOUT six months since we’d started “dating.” I was at Matt and Frankie’s house almost every night I wasn’t working at Radioshack. And when I was, I came over after my shift. The relationship had grown from me as a sexual object to me as something more useful, multifaceted. I helped with dishes, cleaned or watched Jett if Frankie needed to shower. As they became more comfortable with me, they began to fight. Or maybe they had always fought this much, but they were no longer afraid to reveal their flaws in front of me.
Sometimes, their fights looked like harmless bickering, but soon their comments became more pointed and hurtful.
One night, I arrived at about eight, coming over after a shift. I hadn’t eaten yet, but knowing their schedule, I assumed they’d either have eaten already or just be sitting down before putting the baby to bed. I put my hand on the cold knob to turn it, but I heard faint yelling from the other side of the door and decided to wait. I stilled every muscle in my
