You and Everything After

“Yeah? What’s that?” I ask.

“That you’re beautiful,” he says, and I lie down on my pillow, the phone pressed tightly to my cheek and ear.

“Thank you for saying that,” I say.

“It’s only the truth,” he says, and somehow, my face turns even redder.

“Do you think, maybe…you can just stay on the phone? You know, while I fall asleep? It’s been kind of a shitty day. And…I don’t know. I just sort of need you tonight,” I say. I feel vulnerable and helpless and foolish at first, but Ty annihilates those fears in an instant.

“I’ll be right here,” he says, and my breathing eases.

He reads some sports scores to me from his phone, then I listen to him watch Sports Center and oooh and ahhh over top plays. My eyelids grow heavy, and I only perk up to react when he speaks more than a few words as the half-hour show closes. The last words I remember his tender goodnight and the way he calls me baby.

Ty

Cass drifted off, and eventually so did I. But I never, not once, ended the call. She must have hit end before me, because she was gone from the other line when I woke up this morning.

I love Thanksgiving in our house. My mom hates turkey, and Dad doesn’t care enough to make a fuss. So we always eat things we really want, and my mom makes enough for a week’s worth of leftovers. This year is eggrolls and lasagna. The entire house stinks, but in a good way—mostly. It smells of onions and butter and maybe cabbage. I think that extra stench tacked on is from the cabbage for the eggrolls.

I treat myself to a handful of shredded mozzarella before my mom slides the lasagna tray back into the fridge, so she can time it with the eggrolls. She slaps my hand the first time, but when she starts washing her hands at the sink, I go in for one more pinch, smirking with pride that she can’t stop me.

“I need the keys,” I say, and Dad tosses them to me from his spot on the sofa. He’ll be there for most of the day.

“You make sure you’re home in an hour. You know your brother won’t want to wait to eat,” Mom says.

“I know. He’s such a pig,” I tease, and Nate reaches over the counter to the sink, flinging a handful of water at me, and then flipping me off.

“Can we have one finger-free holiday, for Pete’s sake?” Mom says.

“I don’t know who Pete is, but tell him I don’t like him fingering you,” I tease, my eyebrows high as I push backward out of my mom’s reach. She tries to fling water at me next, but it’s too late. So instead, she just flips me off. “Gosh, Mom. You’re such a hypocrite,” I joke.

“I’m serious. Be home in an hour,” she says.

“Okay, got it.” I cross my heart and leave the room, push through the front door and head down the ramp.

Driving the van is always easiest, because I can load my chair and lift myself to the driver’s seat. The hand controls are better on this than my mom’s Jeep, too.

Kelly’s waiting for me. She lives only a few miles from my parents’ house. Jared is home, and her parents are at the house. I had to promise her a thousand times that I wouldn’t start something today, but I’m not sure I can help myself. Jared is being selfish, even if he isn’t using. He’s being selfish with his time—he needs to spend that on his wife and son.

I get to their house quickly, but as I’m rounding the corner, I see Jared bound down the driveway, his keys dangling from a finger as he gets in his car. He’s probably running to the store to get something Kelly forgot. But maybe he’s going somewhere else.

Paused at the corner, I wait for him to back out of the driveway and speed down the street in the other direction before I turn and stop short of Kelly’s house. She won’t want me to do this. But I have to. Kelly deserves answers, and I’m her friend. I realized recently that I’m her best friend. And as that, I need to do this.

Instead of pulling in, I keep driving. I follow the path Jared took down the street to the end of the block. I catch his car making a left turn, so I speed around the corner to catch him. I get another glimpse of him turning right as I round the last corner he took, and I speed forward again, saying a silent prayer for the cops to be on my side today, to be lenient, and not to be anywhere I am driving.

I’m able to catch up to him at a stoplight on the busier road, and I position myself a car or two behind him so he won’t notice me. We drive for about ten minutes, several miles, to the next city over. We’ve passed a dozen grocery stores and convenience stores—all open for holiday hours. He’s not running an errand. Or, at least, that’s not his real reason for making this trip.