“Me next.” Jillian rapped on the table to pull our attention away from the awesomely romantic soldier’s homecoming.
“Go for it,” I said.
“So I’ve been dating this guy, off and on. He travels a lot...he’s not even from here, but this weekend, he asked me to be his girlfriend.”
Krista grabbed for Jill’s phone. “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
Shoving her away, Jillian flipped through her gallery until she found the right shot. “Here, it’s a selfie but you can see more of Ben’s face than mine.”
Avery leaned over to check him out. “Wow, he’s hot.”
He was blond and tan, what I’d call a surfer guy, but if he traveled for work, and he was wearing a suit, the look must be misleading. Mentally I rated him as cute, but nowhere near Rob’s level. Of course, I was biased. I hadn’t looked at a guy sexually since we broke up. A few dealership customers had hinted they’d take me out if I gave the go-ahead, but I always shut them down. Mentally and emotionally, I was a mess.
“Definitely.” But there was just no way I could resist. “So does this mean we get to call you Billian? I don’t think I can stop myself, the train has left the smush-name station.”
“Whatever.” Jillian flipped me off but she was smiling.
“Tell us about him,” Avery ordered.
Apparently Ben was a regional salesman of office equipment, not terribly fascinating, but I wasn’t the one who’d have to talk about his job with him. As Jill ran out of steam, Naomi decided she had been ignored long enough and pitched a fit. Sighing, Krista took her to the restroom to change her diaper. I so couldn’t imagine myself in her situation, and for a moment, I entertained the idea that Nadia might have grabbed the smart end of the stick by coming into a kid’s life after he stopped crapping his pants.
Avery paid the check while Jillian and Krista were gone. I narrowed my eyes at her but I didn’t argue. It was her way of trying to make it up to Jill, the fact that she was keeping secrets. Maybe pancakes weren’t a magical fix, but her heart was in the right place. Krista hurried out first, baby cuddled against her.
“This has been awesome, but I need to go. I try not to disrupt her routine too much. So how much do I owe? Are we splitting four ways?”
I hugged her. “Don’t worry about it. Just take Naomi home. Text us when you get there.”
“Okay, I’ll get it next time. Say bye to Jillian for me!” Krista hurried out into a night that was rapidly getting snowier.
“I guess the party’s ending early,” Jillian said, coming back in time to see Krista back out of her parking space.
“Babies ruin everything,” I mumbled.
Avery smiled with a melancholy air. “That’s definitely the message in every teen drama I’ve ever watched. ‘Don’t do sex, girls, you’ll get pregnant and die.’”
I nodded. “Harsh but true.”
“I’m off, too,” Jillian said. “Not to interrupt this depressing convo, but y’know.”
She didn’t offer to pay, which made me wonder if this was how Avery and Jillian operated. Like Nadia and I didn’t always talk like we should, but sometimes we made other gestures full of subtext. Maybe friendship didn’t have one concrete definition, one certain way to be; maybe it was enough to love somebody however they let you and for the pieces to click in, however felt right.
They hugged as I went on out to the car. Avery caught up with me a few minutes later, seeming to be in a better mood. “All good?”
She nodded. “I think so. Better anyway. Sometimes that’s all you can manage.”
“With Dr. Reid’s help, our scope will improve.” I said it like I believed it, not just for her but for me, too.
Maybe I wasn’t in a hurry to tell people I was getting help, but I wasn’t ashamed of it. On the way home, I drove slowly, avoiding the worst of the billowing gusts. I was a little worried about Happy, but when I parked in our driveway, she was bouncing up and down in front of the door. Thank goodness she had the sense to come in from the cold, if she was playing in the backyard earlier.
Inside, I knelt and hugged her, rubbing my hands over her sides. “Who’s a good girl, huh? Who’s a good girl?”
“Is it me?” Avery poked the back of my head.
“Obviously. People in Sharon may not agree, about you or me, but we’re fucking wonderful, better all the time.”
“Would it freak you out if I said I love you?” She crouched down on the other side of Happy, smiling at me with such vulnerability that I couldn’t joke.
“Not if I’m allowed to say it back. I couldn’t go down this road with anyone but you.”
She pushed out a breath as I hugged her. “I’m scared, but I want to feel better.”
“Me, too.” I wanted to be someone who didn’t melt down over small things. Deep in my heart, I imagined seeing Rob again, rebuilt like The Bionic Woman: stronger, faster, smarter. Well, I’d settle for stronger. To follow where he’d gone—to live in his world—I couldn’t spackle over my problems and call it good. Before, I couldn’t even imagine doing that. But now that I’d taken the first steps, I wanted Rob back, no matter what it took. First I had to ID my triggers and learn how to defuse the fear. Dr. Reid could get me there in time. With her history, Avery might have more work to do, but I wouldn’t let her quit before she healed.
Our future might not be assured, but like a true video game geek, I was ready to buckle on my armor, take up my +5 vorpal sword, and do battle.
Too bad the dragon I have to slay lives inside my head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The holidays completely sucked without Rob. I missed him more with every passing day. But I had a nice Christmas with Stuart and Mom, who cooked a full-on feast for the first time in years. I sang carols and drank eggnog, opened presents and pretended I didn’t have a hole where my heart should be. When classes started in January, I didn’t even care about the rampant sexism anymore. I just quietly turned in projects and ignored everything else.
Over time, my sessions with Dr. Reid helped.
Every two weeks, I shared a little more and she responded with constructive techniques to help manage my emotions. Breathing helped; so did relabeling my responses—like instead of thinking, Crap, I’m freaking out, I substituted, Wow, I’m really excited about this. She also reminded me that anxiety was natural, and that I wasn’t abnormal for feeling this way. Dr. Reid also pointed out that I needed to make realistic corrections to my expectations and stop creating exaggerated mental failure scenarios.