“But she has things that make her an interesting person too. Things that I don't have. She's prettier than me.”
“She is not prettier than you.”
“You don't have to say that.”
“I don't think she's prettier than you.”
“Okay, well she's taller than me.”
He laughs a little. “Yes, she is taller than you.”
And I don't think she's afraid of everything, either, and even if it's true I kind of don't like that he said that. What does he say about me when I'm not around?
Now I'm pissy about him not being a perfect boyfriend to her. I am seriously deranged.
“You can love two people for different reasons, Taylor,” he says. I think that's the only time he's ever called me Taylor, since that first night we met. “You don't love, I don't know, me and your mom for the same reasons.”
He wouldn't say love if he didn't love me too, right? He wouldn't ascribe that to just me. Right?
I do not ask, because I have already made myself desperate for approval enough in this conversation, and because apparently I am not a person who latches on to every word.
So I try to continue with my already-set level of desperation and word-latching. “Okay, but I think I'm now someone's mom in this metaphor.”
“How?”
“I don't..feel the same way about my mom as I feel about you. It's a totally different emotion. Do I really have to spell this out? You're not banging your mother, are you?”
“Blegh.”
“You get my point, though.”
“There isn't a good comparison,” he says. “You can't look at it as only one person gets one type of love if you want this to make sense.”
“I'm working on it.”
He reaches over and squeezes my hand, his eyes still on the road. “I know.”
I sigh because I don't know what else to do.
“Love isn't finite,” he says.
“I know.”
“So does that help at all?”
“What am I supposed to do, just not get jealous? I can't just make myself not do that.”
“You can get jealous. I think that's pretty normal. I mean, I could be jealous of how much you love your mom.”
“Seriously, you gotta stop with that.”
He smiles. I watch. He says, “Okay, so my grandparents live in New Hampshire.”
“That's...cool?”
“Shh, let me talk.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I go up and visit them every once in a while, and last time I was there I had to drive my grandma to her doctor's appointment. And the roads were all gross and icy, and I'm, you know, from Florida, so my granddad gave me all this advice for how to drive on bad roads before I left.”
“Why didn't he just drive her?”
“He only has one eye, so his depth perception's not good.”
“Your granddad only has one eye?”
“Save that for later, it's a good story. There's a horse involved.”
“I don't want to talk about something else when your granddad is eyeless!”
“Hey,” he says, fake-sternly. “He is not eyeless.”
“He is if you look at him from the side.”
Theo blurts out a laugh, hard and unflattering, and claps a hand over his mouth. And I feel triumphant as hell, because he and Josey banter all the time, and he always manages to keep a straight face for it. And here I am, making him crack up about his eyeless-from-some-angles grandfather.
“God damn you, Cipriano,” he says, when he's recovered. “I am trying to tell you something serious.”
“Okay, okay, I'm listening.”
He takes a deep breath, still laughing a little, and says, “So he warns me about skidding on the road, and how if you lose control the natural urge is to try to slam on the brakes and steer back to where you were.”
“Right.”
“But you don't do that. You press the brake really gently and you steer into the skid.”
“...why does that work?”
“I don't know, Google it. But we're not actually talking about driving, here. You see what I'm saying?”
He's saying that when I feel jealous, I shouldn't fight it. I shouldn't try to jerk myself out of it or shut down because of it. I slow down, I acknowledge it, I let it exist until it's over.
“I do,” I say. “You know what helps me see it?”
“What?”
“Having two eyes.”
“I am going to find a skid and steer out of it just to murder you,” he says, and I laugh for a mile.
12
I've cut my butterfly time by three seconds, down to a minute and four seconds for a hundred meter, which is somewhat fantastic. I haven't had an improvement like that since before my boobs started getting in the way. My coach is rightfully impressed, and since we have our first divisional meet in two weeks, this is a very good time to be impressing my coach.
Everything's coming up Taylor, which is why obviously the universe throws me a curve ball. I get out of the pool just a week or so after my date with Theo and there's Josey, by herself, holding my purple towel.
“Hi,” I say. “Thanks.”
“You're very welcome. Are you going straight home?”
“Yeah, movie night with the parent and stepparent.”
“Ahh, that's a shame.”
“Yeah. But...they won't be home from work for a few more hours.”
She smiles. “That's the spirit. Tech's on break right now, I'm gonna go get some fries and a milkshake to illegally eat on the catwalk for the second half of rehearsal, aaaand I was wondering if you'd like to come. Get some fries, watch some actors, judge Theo's singing...”
She didn't have to come get me.
