“Hello?” It wasn’t like I didn’t know it was him, but my feelings were a little hurt regardless of knowing better.
“Aww, darlin’, I’m so damn sorry,” the voice that was only still familiar because I’d heard it on television piped up over the line just as I set my vanilla creamer onto the conveyor belt.
I made a face to myself and glanced up to see the cashier watching me. I forced a smile.
“Are you close? Can you come back?”
Go back to his house?
Some part of me was tempted to say yes. I would have liked to talk to him. Listen to that voice that had felt like a warm hug back in the day. Watch a face that had smiled at me what felt like a hundred thousand times. Maybe hear a laugh that I’d heard almost as much. And say I was sorry for being so weird at dinner.
But what would you really have to talk about? What’s the point? My brain tried to whisper… and I couldn’t exactly ignore it.
My heart gave this painful little twist I tried to ignore, but failed at doing so.
He’d left me downstairs alone for almost an hour. After inviting me over. I had shit to do.
I smiled at the employee behind the register once more as I finished loading the rest of my heavy stuff: milk and a bag of potatoes. “I’m not by there anymore.” I wasn’t bitter he was barely getting around to noticing I’d left. “And I’m checking out at the grocery store now. Can I call you when I’m done?” I had to blink my eyes as another swell of disappointment went through my chest at having been forgotten. Again.
It was my own fault for feeling this way, and it was up to me to dig my way out of it. I had gone over there with the best of intentions, wanting to make up for how I’d behaved, and goddamn it, I was going to go through with it. To an extent.
“By the way,” I said, “I left some scones on the counter for you. They aren’t full-sized, but… if you don’t like them, just give them to CJ.”
There, no pressure on him. If he didn’t like them, at least his roommate had. He wouldn’t have to feel bad about not enjoying them. Also, I told him about them instead of letting them rot away on the counter. Look at me trying to be mature.
There was a beat of silence, and then another, and I frowned as I handed over my grocery bags to the bagger and asked, “You there?”
“Yeah,” my old friend replied after a second. “I’m real sorry, honey. You sure you can’t make it back? You can put your things in the fridge….”
I didn’t want to be this person, did I? The one who got all upset when I knew better, when he didn’t owe me a freaking thing. I could be polite and still watch out for myself. Do what was best for me. I had tried, and that had to be enough. If anything, this was all just another sign of how this friendship between us hadn’t been meant to be.
I could read the signs. I’d closed my eyes to them a bunch of times in my life, but I’d learned my lesson by now. Just because you close your eyes and pretend something isn’t there, doesn’t make it go away.
“Thanks, but I have something I need to do.” Make dinner and watch TV. I hesitated for a second. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
There was another pause, then, “I thought you were gonna call me when you got home?”
Yeah, I’d been lying out of my ass when I offered to. But it was for the best. For me, and probably for him too. He didn’t need to be wasting time. From the sounds of it, he had enough shit to deal with.
So even though I didn’t want to, even though it hurt a little, I still said it because I was going to be nice, because I didn’t harbor resentment over the past anymore. “I’ll talk to you later, Zac.”
Later. Right. Maybe we both knew what I really meant.
There was a soft exhale I only barely managed to hear before, “I’m sorry, Peewee.”
Peewee.
There came that squeeze again, and that time, it did hurt. Just a little, but more than enough. “I know. It’s all right. See ya.”
There was a sound in the background I didn’t know what to do with before I heard, “Bye, Bianca,” and then, I hung up.
There wasn’t much else for us to say to each other, was there?
We’d both tried. Some things just really weren’t meant to be.
* * *
“You did what?”
On the screen of my phone, I could see my sister lean into her camera and flash her teeth at me. “I got some of those whitening strips. What do you think?”
What I really thought was that Connie’s mouth could now light up a glow-in-the-dark mini golf course. “Con, I think that stuff wears away at your enamel, but your teeth look nice,” I told her as I finished chopping the white onion I’d bought about an hour ago. “They’re not going to be as nice as the dentures you’re going to end up having to get though if you keep using those things.”
“That’s what I said!” my brother-in-law, who had been sitting beside her on the couch, right on the edge of the screen, piped in. I could barely see his knee right then, but earlier he’d leaned into the camera and asked when I was planning on visiting.
I watched as my sister’s head turned slowly to the right, to where he was. She stared at him.
“Punkin, we’re just watching out for you,” the man who had married my sister fourteen years ago—the father of their two children—tried to backtrack. I already knew exactly what placating face he was giving her; I’d seen
