Never Been Loved

by C.M. Kars

  “What will I run from? What’s so bad about you?” she asks, and the words feel like their bullet holes punched through my chest. She’s going to find out, but later. Much later.

  I freeze, pulling in a deep breath. “I’m screwed up, just like everybody else. I have demons, just like everybody else. But I’m going to show you the good, Sera, so when we get to the bad, you’ll stay – because you want to.”

  “You’re kinda freaking me out. This isn’t normal dating behaviour.”

  “Am I normal?”

  I’m expecting her to give me the truth, the actual truth of what she thinks of me, but her hands have somehow hit my scalp and it’s fucking doing things to my body, mainly making me lose my head.

  “Well, yeah. I don’t see horns sprouting out of your head, and your chompers don’t have any sharp edges to suck my blood with. Unless you’re a werewolf?”

  “I like how you make me laugh when I’m trying to be serious.” I don’t understand women. I can’t help smiling and kiss her cheek for it.

  “I like making people laugh. Still, I don’t know why you’re telling me this up front. Or why you want to date me. What about Alysha?”

  “I’ll deal with Aly. She and I were over last month, my mom just doesn’t know it yet,” I bite out, trying to calm myself down. No one’s going to ruin this for me. No one.

  “All you need to worry about is you and me. I don’t lie, Sera, but you don’t know that much about me to get that. You’ll learn, soon enough. I don’t cheat; my asshole father did enough of that. I don’t do drugs, or drink out of hand – I have Matty to look after.”

  I’m not good enough for you, baby. Please, take a chance on me.

  “I’m stubborn, you’ll get that soon enough. I have demons, too, which isn’t a surprise. So, I’m asking you to take this slow with me, to see where this goes. If it ends badly, I... I want us to be friends. I can be your friend, Hunt. I’m a good friend.”

  I couldn’t be able to look at her and think of her as my friend. That wouldn’t work for us. It’s all or nothing, and you’ve gambled on everything.

  “I haven’t had a friend in a long time, baby. I might have forgotten how to be one.” Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t’ve said that. Now I sound needy.

  Sera nods, like she gets it. “Like riding a bike, or swimming. You know how to do it. As a friend, wanna come over to my buddy’s housewarming on Saturday? Um, we can bring Matty along, but he might get bored-”

  “No. I’ll make arrangements.”

  Yes! I resist the urge to raise my first in the air. I need to win Sera over. The kid’s way ahead of me on that one. I move, without consultation from my brain, to land a kiss on her cheek, pushing my luck and placing it closer to the corner of her mouth. I don’t know how I do it without devouring her.

  This all needs to be for her, not you. This is going to be painful.

  “That was the last one, I swear. From now on, you call the shots. You want my arm off you?”

  “I-I kind of like it where it is,” she whispers. I keep my arm right where it is and grin at the screen. Fucking right.

  “I taped The Outsiders for you, if you want to watch that.”

  Feeling her move, I look down at a surprised look on her face. “How the frak did you know I love The Outsiders?”

  Oh, yeah, that. “Your shirt, ‘My heart belongs to Ponyboy Curtis’. I looked it up. Didn’t think I could be jealous of a guy in a book. But I was.”

  Pathetic, that I thought I could take on a fictional character. Not so pathetic when I catch the look on her face for recording a movie that she might own.

  And if I feel like I can tear down brick walls with my bare hands, and uniquely take on a gang of thirty rough-and-tough assholes without feeling my sugar drop for an instant, well, I’ve found my new drug of choice. Her name is Sera.

  Chapter 18

  The kid’s almost in full-tantrum mode. He’s usually good about me telling him that he can’t have certain things, like toys and shit because I just can’t pay for them, but when it comes to sticking to me like glue, he loves to get into it and it makes dirt look like a more suitable parent.

  Plus, this time around, it’s in front of Sera. I hate that, I hate that he’s trying to con me, like going to Mom’s place is worse than prison. So he’s bitching me out… in front of Sera. Yeah, he can’t do much damage strapped into the car seat the way he is, but I can’t just shut him up.

  “Crap car, crap seat! I want to come with you and Sera!” Matty yells. I look at him in the rear-view mirror, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring straight ahead, where Sera’s sitting in the passenger seat. She’s got him under her spell, too.

  “Enough, kid. You can’t come with us. You’re staying with Grandma and Eddie.” I lay down the law, but the kid is having none of it. He even has the balls to kick the back of Sera’s seat. I did not raise him like that, at least, I tried not to.

  Who am I kidding?

  “Hey! Stop it! Jesus, I need some alone time,” I blurt, until I get a look at Matty’s face in the mirror. Kid looks like he’s holding his breath underwater, or like I’ve sucked all the air out of his lungs. Fucking shit. Stop talking, MacLaine, you’ll do better that way.

  I do need time alone. I’m tired, I’m always fucking tired. I’m tired when I go to bed, and fucking exhausted when I wake up. The cycle just keeps going, over and over again, until I’m pretty sure years will pass me by and I’m still going to be so damn tired.

  He’s Jules’ kid – you can’t talk to him like that.

  Man, don’t I know it. Sometimes, I just need a break. I can’t keep looking at him and wondering what it would be like if he didn’t have diabetes, hell, if I didn’t have diabetes. Would I be such a shitty example of a father? Would I have more energy, more depth of will to give him the bright future he isn’t getting from me now?

  What kind of ghost of a future is he getting from me?

  Shut up, asshole. You just need to recharge, fuel up those batteries. You’re going to be fine. A few hours being ‘normal’, drinking beer, eating food, hanging out with people around your age, that’s going to be good for you. You need a little break, and that’s normal.

  Is it?

  I close the door, firmly, but not so much that my anger has dissipated. All of this is bullshit. Through the window, I see Sera’s hand sliding back in a weird twist of her elbow, reaching for Matty’s hand in the back seat. Watching his hand settle into hers has me feeling like that eighteen-wheeler is parked on my chest again.

  Why can’t I just say the right thing?

  You’re a piece of shit, MacLaine. You really are. If your sister could see how you treat her kid - fucking applause all around.

  I move around to my side of the car, and get in. Yanking on my seat belt I turn the car over, and just stare at the wheel between my hands.

  “Matty, I’m sorry.” God, kid, you have no idea how much. You need Jules, not me. I can barely take care of myself. I grip the wheel tightly, and catch a glimpse of him in the back seat. “We just need some grown-up time, okay? We’ll come get you when we’re done, and Sera will read to you when we get home.”

  “Yeah, little buddy. We need to find out what’s under that trap door, right?”

  Christ, she’s too good for the likes of me.

  “Fine, but I want a whole three chapters tonight! Even if I fall asleep, you have to wake me up so you can read!”

  I get us out of the garage, then spear Matty with another look in the rear-view mirror. “Kid- what did we say about asking and telling? Ask Sera nicely to read to you tonight. Please.”

  “I don’t want to! I want to come with you and Sera! Please? Why can’t I?” Jules’ eyes look at me through his face and I want to scream. I let out a breath, trying to think before I open my stupid mouth.

  “Stop it right now. You’re going to Grandma’s and that’s it. Deal.”

  People think having a kid is easy, and the kidless sure like to judge at the
earliest opportunity. So the way Sera’s kinda backing me up is noteworthy. Parenting is all just about forcing your own views and perceptions on a younger mind, trying to teach them about the world around them. Maybe Sera can help with that.

  When we get to Mom’s place, Matty starts going ballistic. He punches me and slaps at me until I get him out of his car seat and it takes everything in me not to yell. I carry him, a mass of flailing arms and legs, and the kid’s howling like he’s lost a limb as I climb up the stairs.

  Eddie opens the door, as usual.

  “What happened? Is he all right? Is he hurt?” Eddie asks, his eyebrows pinched tight. He’s also looking at me like I’m the cause of all this. Fuck, I’m always the cause. The man in front of me practically raised me. He’s staring at me like he’s ready for a fist fight over what I potentially did.

  “He’s pissed. Sera and I are going to her friend’s place. I’d like to take her alone.”

  Eddie’s got this twinkle in his eye. “Oh. All right, then. Matty, why on earth are you acting this way?”

  “I want to go with Daddy and Sera! I want to goooooo!” The kid sobs in my arms and stops flailing around like a dying fish. His arms go around my neck and he cries against my shoulder. Crocodile tears, or real ones?

  I’ve never been good at telling the difference.

  “You’re going to stay with me and you’re going to see them both later on. Come on now, my boy, let’s go to the kitchen. I was just about to make something special just for you.”

  Matty looks up from my shoulder, his eyes red-rimmed, tears running down his face. I love this kid, I really do. I just wish everything were different, better. Jules shouldn’t be dead, and I should only be an uncle.

  “Check his sugar first, all right, Eddie? He’s been a little high today. Just… I’ll be by around eleven or something to come get him. Okay, Matty? I’ll be by later, and Sera can read to you after. All right?”

  Eddie has the tiniest smile on his face at the mention of Sera reading to him. If I didn’t know any better, the old man is rooting for her to be mine. Well, I need all the luck and help I can get.

  Taking the steps two at a time, I settle myself back in the driver’s seat. Sera’s looking at her hands in her lap and she’s quiet.

  “Sorry. He’s been wigging out all day long. I think he had a bad day at daycare or something,” I say, closing the door. Now that sounds something like an excuse. Hell, why do I have to explain everything? I turn over the engine and just sit there.

  I don’t know what I’m doing. She says she wants to be my friend, and I don’t know if I can do that.

  I’ve alienated myself from everyone I ever knew. Especially after what happened. It was too painful seeing them again, seeing who wasn’t there, a part of the group. I just… I don’t know how to act around Sera. Seems like she knows what’s going on, who she is, who she wants to be.

  She’s also some sort of kid-whisperer and she’s got my gut twisted in knots, and I have to meet her friends. That’s going to go over well. I hope my sugar doesn’t drop. I hope I sound coherent enough in a conversation.

  They’re probably all going to be smarter than me. Not like I’m going to tell them I only have my high school diploma and a few credits in CEGEP I did nothing with. They’re going to get technical, ask my opinion on politics or some shit like that, trying to feel me out. Whatever brain cells I was born with sure as shit aren’t hanging around from all my sugar highs and lows.

  This is going to be a disaster.

  Staring at the wheel, I feel like I have to prove myself, make sure Sera knows.

  “I’m not a bad dad.” I turn my head to look at her, only for her to give herself whiplash as our eyes lock for a split second.

  Christ, why am I even trying? No woman wants someone with this much baggage. I’m like a 747 jumbo jet weighed down with hundreds of problems not to mention cargo.

  “I never said you were.”

  My breath eases out slowly.

  “I can’t judge you, Hunt. You’re doing the best you can.”

  I let out another heavy breath, and put my head in gear. I start us moving, watching the road, and wondering how she gets what I need to hear.

  Sera gives me directions to her friend Alex’s place after I’ve turned the radio on low. I can’t stand the quiet – I feel like it’s going to strangle me with all the judgement in the world.

  Once we’re there, I follow behind Sera, because that ass, and watch her give a friend, hopefully Alex, an aluminum-covered cake tin. Just another thing I can’t lay my hands on.

  I watch Sera get hugged by four dudes, real hugs, except one looks skeevy to me. There’s a collective chorus of silence when they spot me. I get a lot of blinking stares and slow dawning comprehension as I follow in after Sera and close the door behind me.

  “Everyone, this is Hunter. My next door neighbour,” she introduces me, and even though we’re standing inches apart, I wish I could put my arm around her shoulder. She has no idea how amazing she is, and she can’t tell anything by the hugs her boys give her. Yeah, none of them tried to cop a feel, but a guy knows about these things.

  Sera’s the kind of girl you marry, the kind of girl you bring home to the parents. Her boys know this and so do I.

  I’ll say this: her boys aren’t hesitant about coming to meet me. I get a sick sense of satisfaction when I realize I’m taller than all of them, and even though I’m just wearing jeans and a t-shirt and them in fancy office wear, there’s an unseen pissing contest going on and I just won.

  I shake hands and meet all of them.

  Alex is the new owner of this place, and I tell him congratulations on it since I have manners. He nods his thanks, and a guy named Josh comes into my view, the shortest of the bunch, but probably the loudest if the way he just laughed at something another guy just said is any indication.

  A dude named Eli comes next, the guy’s already holding a glass of some of the hard stuff, and his smile is nonchalant. Next comes Tommy, he gives me a firm handshake and a casual up and down appraisal that takes in my ratty jeans and Hanes t-shirt that I’ve owned since Matty was born.

  Let them make their judgements. Only one of them matters to me.

  Sera’s friend, Katie, comes up and kisses both my cheeks, some weird European-descendant thing that these guys do. Just something else to mark me as an outsider, I guess.

  Eli points at me with his glass. I blink at him. “So, you’re her next door neighbour, huh?”

  There’s always an asshole. Always.

  I nod, wondering if someone’s gonna offer me a beer or I have to search it out myself. Alex appears beside me with a red cup that looks like it has beer in it, and gives it to me, ready-to-drink.

  “Here, man. Enjoy. Food’s being laid out on the table there, so help yourself. I’m waiting for the rest.”

  “Thanks.” I’m hoping he didn’t spit it in it, or worse, but I take a swallow of my beer, and think about how I’m going to answer Eli’s question. To be a dick or not? Then I think of Sera, and I want her to be proud of me.

  “Yeah. I’m actually her next door neighbour. Do you need to see my licence?”

  Eli laughs, but it stutters out fast. Josh comes back to the group and knocks his beer against mine.

  They’re all looking at me like I’m some zoo animal and they’re expecting me to do something cool.

  Yeah, no. Not going to happen. I’m only going to jump through flaming hoops for Sera.

  “What my esteemed friend here is trying to say is, are you with our friend?” Tommy asks, and I’m getting a douchey vibe off of him. I narrow my eyes and take in the Mafioso chunk of a ring he has on his right hand. He’s wearing his button-down shirt with some khakis like he’s got someone to impress. Maybe he does have someone to impress.

  Katie or Sera?

  The guy doesn’t even let me answer as he moves away from our sausage circle and moves to Sera. I catch him putting his arm around her out of the corner of my e
ye.

  I don’t like that guy.

  “Thanks for having me,” I say to Alex, because manners.

  “Any friend of Sera’s is a friend of ours,” Josh says, nodding at me. “But seriously, if you hurt her, I’ll break your fucking legs.” He stills smiles when he says it and I think it’s a joke.

  “I’m not a tool.”

  Josh nods, keeping his voice low so the ladies don’t hear. “Doesn’t matter. She comes crying to me, I’ll give you what you deserve.”

  “True that,” Eli chimes in, taking a swallow from his liquor.

  Alex nods at this homicidal promise.

  “I do whatever she wants me to do,” I say, realizing it’s true and not just a line. “I’m here because she invited me.” My head’s starting to feel… fuzzy, and it feels lost, like its floating somewhere outside of my skull.

  No. Not here, not now. You need to prove yourself. Why does this have to happen now?

  I lick my dry lips, and try to appear normal. Funny thing with diabetes is, nobody really notices how bad you’re feeling unless they’re attuned to it, unless they know what signs to be looking for.

  These guys have no idea I’m going to be at my weakest.

  You can tell them you need something to eat. You can tell them you can’t have this conversation right now because you need some food.

  Yeah, and I’d never live it down.

  These guys smell a drop of blood, and I’m toast. They’re protective of Sera, I get that, but they should know that Sera has all the power in this relationship. Or whatever we have going on between us.

  I watch that guy Tommy give Sera a kiss on the cheek, not in greeting, but just because and that feels like it’s directed at me, a quarter-life crisis kind of look what I have and you don’t. He comes over to our conversation and looks at everyone else but at me.

  Doesn’t fucking matter right now. I’m trying to listen to what Eli has to say, something about markets or some shit, but the world is starting spin or it’s me doing the swaying. Just ask for some food. No one has to know.

  Everyone’s going to know soon enough. I’m nodding like an idiot, letting the words pass over me without taking the time to process them. The world’s a bubble that’s keeping everything around moving light years ahead of me and I’m stuck in place, watching in confusion as it all happens.