Like You Mean It

by Jillian Liota

  So, truthfully, I didn’t like partying. But I did like going to parties because Andrew and I would stand together and drink and he would chat with friends. And I watched couples make out on the couches or in the pool or against the stair railing. It’s fascinating to me, how differently people demonstrate their interest – their love, if you will – in such a simple, physical way.

  There were the new kissers, who struggled to open their mouths for fear of not knowing how to use their tongue. The people who should really just go straight to a bedroom, because their tongues were mimicking sex in the most explicit way possible. And then there was everyone in between. Bird kisses and tongue licks, lip sucks and little bites, soft moans, hands roaming both tentatively and aggressively.

  And the best part is that they’re so absorbed in themselves, in what’s going on between them, with their eyes closed and their senses focused on each other, that they barely notice drunk people shouting and dancing ridiculously around them. Let alone someone watching quietly in a corner.

  It’s beautiful.

  At least to me.

  Andrew caught me watching people a few different times and told me it was gross. I was so embarrassed and tried to stop being so obvious about it.

  But as I’m standing there stirring the tiniest bit of honey into my tea, I realize something. Andrew isn’t here to tell me I’m disgusting. And while that’s absolutely sad, it’s also incredibly freeing.

  I take a quick few steps to my right and raise my eyes out the window.

  They’re still dripping water, likely having just gotten out of the pool or jacuzzi. I can only tell because there’s a low light hitting Cole’s backyard coming from somewhere inside his house, and the light is catching the droplets in his hair and on his arms.

  Her face is mostly in shadow, since her back is to the house, but I can see him clearly. His hands cradle her jaw, and her long, long hair is wet and cascading down her back.

  Cole looks like he’s a deep kisser. No little nibbles or bird kisses or pecks. His mouth opens and he uses his tongue, one of his hands leaving Jess’ face and trails along her back and down where he grips her ass.

  He pulls his mouth away and looks at her, and my stomach swoops. Because I don’t think I’ve ever had someone look at me with that kind of focused lust in my entire life. And then he pushes her backwards and they disappear into his house.

  I dart back to my room, careful not to spill my tea. And instead of flipping on the light and reading, I sip it in the relative darkness of a bedroom with no curtains and the moon shining outside, staring at myself in the $10 mirror that I hung on my closet door directly across from my bed.

  I’m thankful he went back inside with her instead of continuing to kiss out on his back patio. Because tonight, I felt something for the first time when watching other people kiss that I didn’t like.

  Jealousy.

  And it wasn’t pleasant at all.

  «««« »»»»

  The next morning, I take Jones out to grab breakfast with my mom, who has been nagging us to do a family brunch since the moment we moved to Rosemead.

  We settle on a place called FlappyJacks, which was a favorite of mine in high school, and only a few miles away from where we live now.

  When my mom arrives and joins us at the table, Jones launches into an explanation of all of the really cool stuff he’s been doing all week, like playing at daycare and meeting his new best friend Tyler, and eating at McDonald’s.

  That gets me a glare from my mother, but I just shrug at her. So I’m not a granola mom who feeds her kid sugar-free, non-GMO, sterilized, organic, vegetables all day. Sue me.

  “And then I helped Cole fix his motorcycle!” Jones shouts at my mom.

  At the mention of Cole, my mom’s face morphs into a cat-like grin. “And how is your sweet, handsome, friendly neighbor?” she asks, opening her menu but still looking straight at me.

  “He’s fine,” I say, looking at my own menu but feeling the blood rush to my cheeks at the memory of him and Jess kissing last night.

  “What’s that face for?”

  “What face?”

  Silence.

  “Annie.”

  “What?”

  “Annie.”

  I finally look at my mother and glare at her. “What?”

  But before she can say anything, our server walks up to the table.

  “How are you guys doing toda… Annie?”

  My eyes fly up to the server at the sound of my name, and a huge smile breaks out on my face.

  “Oh my gosh. Lindsey?”

  I hop up out of my seat – well, I guess hop is an over exaggeration – and launch myself at the one friend I had in high school. Lindsey Morris.

  She gives me a tight squeeze, then pulls back to look at my face, and then stomach, her hands tight on my shoulders.

  “It’s so good to see you! Look at this tummy! Oh my gosh and look at this guy!” she exclaims, looking over at Jones. Her eyes do a glance at the only other person at the table, then start flicking around the restaurant, and I immediately know what’s coming.

  “Where’s Andrew? Are you guys in town visiting, or…?” she trails off, and I can see my mom dramatically shaking her head and doing a slice across her neck motion out of the corner of my eye.

  “Mom!” I say with exasperation. “Stop it!” Then I look back at Lindsey with a pained expression. “Andrew actually… well, he passed away, a few months ago. Jones and I just moved back.”

  Her mouth drops open, and she looks absolutely mortified. “Oh my god. Honey, I am so, so sorry.”

  I shrug. “Hey, you didn’t know.” I give her arm a squeeze. “It’s not your fault and it’s something I’ve been learning to deal with.”

  Then I sit back down in my booth next to Jones. “But really, it’s so good to see you. How long have you been working here?”

  She rolls her eyes and they nearly roll right out of her head. One of the things I always loved about Lindsey back in high school was how dramatic she was. Dramatically happy, dramatically mad or sad. It made being friends with her quite the up and down of emotions, for sure. But she’s actually a really solid person at heart. She might be a roller coaster, but she comes around every single time, like clockwork. She just has a big personality, which was both overwhelming and exciting to a 14-year-old me. I struggled to make friends and she took me under her wing.

  Well, until I started dating Andrew. Then everything was always about him, and Lindsey wasn’t cool enough. Of course, I didn’t realize that was his issue until he’d effectively cut her out of my life.

  But Lindsey and I spent one amazing summer before high school and then most of my freshman year becoming really close. I’d spend the night at her house and we’d laugh and talk about boys and stupid teachers and the girls at school that thought the theatre geeks like Lindsey were worthless. You know, high school stuff.

  And right now, a genuine, kind, straight-shooting girlfriend is exactly what I need.

  “Only about a month,” she responds. “And I’m pretty sure I won’t be here very long. The manager is boning the girl who trained me, and she hated me on sight. I’m sure I’ll be let go once the holidays pass and they don’t need runts to work the crappy shifts.”

  I let out a laugh. “Oh, girl. I missed you.” And then, before I can think any better of it, it all pours out. “Things suck right now, and I could really use a friend. Can we get coffee or something soon?”

  I don’t think I’ve ever said something like that before. Declared verbally that I might need someone else. It wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be.

  If I didn’t know for sure that Lindsey has never cried about anything in her life, I would have said I saw her eyes mist up just slightly. But I’m sure I didn’t see that.

  “Oh, Annie. You have no idea how much I needed you to say that.” She lets out a laugh, then lifts her pad of paper and pen. “Now, what are we having this morning?”

  ««�
�« »»»»

  Once we finish breakfast, we take Jones across the street to a playground to let him run out some of his energy and play with other kids.

  Before we’ve even gotten settled on a bench, she starts in again.

  “So, tell me about Cole.”

  I roll my eyes and take a sip of the decaf coffee I took to-go from Flappy’s.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I say, keeping my eyes firmly on where Jones dangles from a high bar.

  There’s a pause that I wish meant we were moving on in topics, but I know it’s just her taking the time to form her argument.

  “Have I ever told you about when I met your father?”

  Her comment nearly bowls me over, coming completely out of left field. I turn my head to look at her, unsure if I heard her correctly. I just shake my head.

  Because no, my mom has never even talked about my dad to me in a casual sense, let alone told me the beginnings of her relationship with him. He was completely off limits. A total dickweed, according to her, and that was all I ever knew.

  “I’m sure it isn’t a surprise to you to know that I would have been the girl from the wrong side of the tracks,” she says, her eyes taking a far off look as she recalls memories from her youth. “Growing up in Lancaster, there is a very clear line between the shitty side and the not-so-shitty side. There’s this weird way people ask you about where you went to school, because when you tell someone where you went, it tells them everything they need to know about you. Because there was definitely a rich school and a poor one.

  “When I was a senior in high school, I met a guy named Jeremy at a house party that I went to with a friend from church.” She rolls her eyes, but my heart tumbles over itself at finally having my dad’s name. “She went to the other school, but was one of the few people who were nice to me. She said her parents were out of town and she was throwing a big thing. The minute I walked in the door, I felt like a fish out of water. I could just feel that I was different.”

  She twists slightly, taking the coffee from my hand and taking a sip, then passing it back.

  “But Jeremy seemed smitten with me the moment he saw me. I’d never gotten attention like that from a man before. Just blatant interest. And he didn’t seem to care that I wasn’t from his area. We started spending time together pretty regularly. We slept together within a few weeks. He told me he loved me. It felt like a fairytale.”

  Her expression clouds just slightly.

  “It wasn’t until we were nearing graduation that I realized we only ever spent time just the two of us. I was so overwhelmed by him that it never occurred to me that he’d never introduced me to his family. Or his friends. I’d never been over to his house, and we always did things together just the two of us. Going on drives. Hooking up. Drive in movies. Dinners at little places on the edge of town. I didn’t think anything of it, until one day when I went to the mall with a friend of mine and I saw him with a group of his friends, sitting at a table, his arm wrapped around a girl that looked very put together.”

  “Oh mom,” I say, my breath a whisper. I wouldn’t want to share this story either.

  “Turns out, he’d been dating her since his sophomore year. They were going to college together. When I confronted him about it, he said that someone like me would always be an embarrassment. That I’d always be someone’s side piece, because the only time men stoop low enough to get into a space where I exist, is when they want to fuck a whore.”

  I gasp, pressing my hand into my chest as if to protect my heart from the pain I know my mother is feeling, and that I can’t help but feel for her. This clearly has never left her mind. This wound has never healed over. And that my father said it to her. I could throw up right now.

  “I was mortified. He and his girlfriend moved away for school and I started taking classes at the community college, not really sure what I wanted to do. But I started to get interested in the idea of real estate, and the school had a program that provided you with internships and interior design and all of these really cool classes. I took an internship and was placed shadowing someone who worked in a property management company. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but I figured beggars couldn’t be choosers. So I made the trek over twice a week to LA to work for this guy. Shawn.”

  Her eyes warm up as she mentions him. I’m surprised, since I’ve never seen my mom light up at the mention of a man. She never had boyfriends when I was growing up – at least none that I knew of. And she’s rarely even mentioned my dad. I asked her about him a lot when I was a kid, and she just wouldn’t speak about him. Today is the first time I’ve even heard her utter his name.

  “Shawn was only a few years older than me, and boy did he make my heart flutter. Once my internship was over, he asked me on a date. I told him no, and I think he’d never been turned down before, because he was pretty shocked.”

  “Why did you say no?” I ask.

  “Shawn was the owner’s son. He came from a pretty comfortable life, and I just couldn’t get what Jeremy had said out of my mind. I worried it was a game. Or that he just wanted to get laid. But he persisted. He called and left sweet messages, and had flowers sent to my house. I finally said yes two months later. We dated for a few months before he introduced me to his family.”

  Her face falls again.

  “They pretty much treated me like Jeremy had. So I broke up with Shawn, because I couldn’t imagine having people who thought I was worthless in my life on a regular basis.”

  She looks at me, then, and I know whatever she is going to say next will change my life. I don’t know how I know it, but I can just feel it in my stomach.

  “I found out I was pregnant two months later. I never told Shawn, because I was worried his family would try to take you away from me.”

  I let out a gasp, loud and painful, my hand clutching the seat of the bench as I hunch over.

  She never told my dad about me.

  “I thought you were going to say Jeremy was my dad,” I say, tears beginning to track down my face as my mind catches up with my heart. “But my dad was a nice guy? And you never even told him I existed?”

  When I look up at my mom, I see she’s crying too. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I really am.”

  “Why now? Why are you telling me now? What’s different about today than any other day before when you could have told me?”

  She scoots closer and reaches out for my hands, but I tug them away, feeling so betrayed that even the idea of her touching me lights a fire in my veins. She winces, and I instantly feel like shit. But I don’t apologize.

  “I’m telling you now, because I don’t want you to believe you’re not worth it.” Her eyes look at me so deeply, as if she’s trying to crawl inside of me to make sure I understand what she’s saying. “You, my amazing daughter, deserve everything this life can offer you. You deserve a happy family, a healthy child, a job that makes you feel good about yourself. And you deserve a man who treats you like a fucking goddess.”

  I choke out a sob.

  “What happened to Andrew is sad, but he treated you like trash. And I’m telling you about Shawn now, I have to tell you about him now, because I can see that you don’t believe you deserve someone like Cole. Someone who treats you right, and respects you. But you do. You absolutely do.”

  “He has a girlfriend,” I whisper, focusing my tear-filled eyes on the ground so she can’t see the very sudden and surprising disappointment that I’m feeling. “So it doesn’t even matter.”

  She scoots closer again and takes one of my hands into hers. “It matters, sweetie. Maybe not about Cole. But it matters if you think a man like him wouldn’t be interested in you, or that you don’t deserve it. It matters if you push people away who want to help and love you in life because you think you’re unworthy. I don’t want you to be an island, trying to do everything by yourself. I want you to trust other people, and let them in, because it’s something I regret every day.”

  I look up at her t
hen, and see the tears on her cheeks, and the sadness in her eyes.

  “I love you,” she says.

  And then I cry. I ugly cry. In a way I haven’t allowed myself to do before, even when grieving Andrew.

  My mom wraps her arms around me, the only pair of arms that have held me with the desire to be nothing but a form of protection. Even though I’m in pain, I feel safe and loved, and that’s what matters.

  “I love you, too.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  COLE

  Me: I know Jess mentioned having you over for dinner this weekend. Are you free tonight?

  I’m sure my text will be read, but not sure if it will be answered. I’d been hoping to avoid the dinner with both Jess and Annie. Even though I originally wanted them to meet, I don’t know if them spending time together is the best idea anymore.

  But Jess woke up this morning and reminded me that she is taking Monday off to balance out some big audit that will keep her at work on Saturday and Sunday next week. So she’ll be here until Monday afternoon.

  Then she promptly asked if today would be the day to invite Annie and Jones over for dinner.

  So I went with it. Because it’s easier to go with the flow.

  Annie: Actually, that sounds great. I’ve been over here staring at my empty cupboard for at least 15 minutes wondering what I’m going to cook. Now I can pretend like this was my plan all along (insert evil chuckle and maniacal fingers).

  I can’t help but laugh.

  Me: Awesome. We’ll grill out. Bring the little man over around 6 and I’ll chuck him into the pool.

  Annie: He’s going to shoot through the roof when I tell him. We’ll see you in a few hours.