I was overreacting, Wade always said. I was being too antisocial. Too introverted. Too picky. Too dramatic. Everyone gets anxious sometimes. Couldn’t I just take some drugs or something? Go to a shrink? Didn’t I like getting laid?
My response was usually something along the lines of, That’s not how it works, asshole.
I’d tried the meds, but they gave me headaches. Therapists just wanted to explain the fight or flight response to me again, as if I didn’t understand it.
And of course I liked getting laid.
I was good at sex. It was a relief to let my body take over, to let it hijack my brain and call the shots. Also, I was an excellent student of female pleasure, and as a high achiever, I was deeply gratified by a woman’s orgasm—the louder the better.
But sex wasn’t a miracle fix for everything that was wrong with me.
I might have been worthy of love, but I wasn’t wired for it.
Simple as that.
After my parents left for their walk, I took the kids to the park. There were no Prancin’ Grannies in sight, but there were a few stroller moms who gave me the usual looks that made me feel like they were all talking shit about me.
I did my best to keep my head down and enjoy the time with the kids—I pushed Keely on the swings, watched Jonas jump off the slide instead of slide down it, and scored Zosia’s cherry drop off the bar a perfect ten. We stayed for over an hour before the kids’ faces started to get pink and I realized I’d forgotten to put sunscreen on them like Allie had asked.
“Come on, guys,” I said. “Your faces are getting red, and your mom is going to get mad at me about it.”
Back at my sister’s house, I heated up a couple cans of SpaghettiO’s for lunch, which was the extent of my cooking skills. When they were done eating, I smeared sunscreen on their faces, and we went out to the backyard.
My sister pulled into the garage as I was filling a small plastic pool on the lawn with water from the hose. The kids stood with their feet in it and sucked on bright green popsicles that were melting fast in the July heat, dripping down their chins and hands onto their shirts, which already had orange spots from the SpaghettiO’s.
Allie smiled at the kids as she approached. “Wow. Look at you guys.”
“I said I’d watch them. I didn’t say I’d keep them clean.”
She shook her hair like she was in a shampoo commercial. “Do you like the new cut?”
I squinted at her. “Looks the same to me.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Hey, someone in the chair next to me at the salon mentioned she was going to her ten-year reunion tonight. Is it yours?”
“Probably.”
“You’re not going?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I focused on the water pouring from the hose. “I already have plans.”
“Poker night? Those are your big plans?”
“I didn’t say they were big. I just said they were plans.”
She tilted her head, the way I imagined she did in therapy sessions before she pushed on an emotional bruise. “Is Felicity going?”
“I think so.” And in a dumbass move that I can only blame on sun poisoning, I said, “She asked me to go with her, but I said no.”
My sister’s glare was fierce, and she thumped me on the shoulder. “Hutton! How could you say no? She was your best friend in high school. She was your prom date.”
“I remember.”
She stuck a hand on one hip. “And do you remember what you went through before asking her?”
Of course I did.
“Because I do. You agonized over it for weeks. It got so bad, you came to me for advice. I had to talk you into it.”
“Because it was scary. I didn’t know what she was going to say.”
“But she said yes, and you had a good time.”
For a moment, I was back in that hotel ballroom, working up the nerve to ask her to dance to a slow song, forcing myself to do it, even though I was positive she’d only said yes to going with me because she hadn’t wanted to hurt my feelings.
But her face lit up, she took my hand, and I held her in my arms as we swayed awkwardly on the floor. It was heaven and hell at the same time. I was torn between wanting that song to go on forever, and wanting it to stop so I could quit freaking out over how I smelled and whether I’d worn the right shirt with my suit or whether she really liked the red wrist corsage I’d given her or would have preferred white. When the song ended, I said something stupid, which I spent days agonizing over, although now I couldn’t even recall what it was. At the end of the night, instead of kissing her like I wanted to, I shook her hand.