by Ella Fields
Smirking down at her, I watched her slowly turn to her mom when Terry said, “I invited him. The poor boy was going to spend Thanksgiving alone.”
“Poor boy?” Pippa asked incredulously. “He’s twenty!”
“Well, I …” I shut my mouth because I had nothing.
“Cool, more crazy for Thanksgiving. Can I invite Cindy and her parents too?”
“Drew,” Terry scolded. “I don’t have enough wine to get through the kind of disaster that would be.”
“Not fair,” Drew said, waving a finger in Terry’s direction. Mitch looked like he wanted to say something but shook his head and left the kitchen.
“Toby,” I said, offering him my hand. Drew had a large build, like his dad. Hockey, I thought I remembered Pippa saying.
“Drew. Welcome to the nuthouse, dude. You’ll fit right in.” With those departing words, he stalked out of the kitchen.
“Pippa, why don’t you stop balking and show Toby to the guest room.” Terry started rummaging through the fridge. “If you’re not going to help prepare the feast, get.”
“What? He’s staying the night?”
Terry hauled a bunch of ingredients to the counter. “You can’t expect him to drive home after he’s come all this way.”
Pippa blinked at the ground, then cleared her throat. “Fine. Let’s get out of here before she makes me cook something I’ll undoubtedly mess up.”
I left my soda behind and went outside to grab my bag. “You’re okay with this?”
Pippa, leaning against the front door as I locked the car, tilted a shoulder. “Not really but yes. Ugh, I don’t even know.”
“Fair enough.”
I followed her upstairs, stopping near the top to take in the sight of her with pigtails, two missing front teeth, and rosy, chubby cheeks. “Jesus.” I laughed.
“Shush, I was a chubby kid. Right up until I hit puberty.”
I reached out, as if to touch the photo, theories about what our kids might look like dancing on my tongue. I swallowed them, picked up my bag, and continued up the stairs.
Their home was large, four or five bedrooms, with an extra living area upstairs. It was a little outdated but was impeccably clean, and everything had a place. I liked it and could easily see where Pippa and her cleaning ways had stemmed from.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked, opening the door to what I guessed was the guest room and walking inside.
“Many, many things.” I tucked my duffel in the corner next to a desk with an old printer sitting atop it.
“Care to share?”
I knew it pained her to even ask, so I divulged a little. “Just had a thought. I wondered if one day, if we ever had kids, if they’d look as cute as you.” Her silence slam dunked me in the nuts, and I scratched at my brow. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have but you asked.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “Want me to show you around some more?”
What I wanted was her face in my hands and my lips all over hers, but I nodded.
“Drew’s room, also known as the dungeon of germs,” she said, opening the door to a pigsty.
“Holy shit,” I said without meaning to, gaping at the chip packets on the floor, cans on the dresser, magazines, textbooks, clothes, and some hockey gear littering the floor and bed.
Drew looked up from where he was lying on said bed playing a video game. He waggled his brows. “Best room in the house.”
Pippa shut the door, continuing down the short hall. “Bathroom, study, my parents, I mean my mom’s room.” I didn’t comment on her slip but frowned, pondering what was going on there. “And my room,” she said, flinging open the last door.
Walking by her, I inhaled deeply through my nose. Her minty scent was everywhere, and spying her green checkered duvet, I forced away the urge to face plant onto it and sniff her pillows.
Posters lined the walls; some bands I recognized, and others I didn’t. Tiny skulls and candles lined her bookshelves, everything neatly stacked away without a layer of dust in sight. “You dusted when you got home?”
“I, ah … had some time to kill.”
Smiling at her, I tilted my head as she bit her thumbnail. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She looked like I’d just slapped her, her cheeks turning pink. “Toby …”
“No,” I said, chuckling a bit. “Not about us.” Although I’d love to discuss that, I knew she didn’t want the same. “Go on, let it out.”
I picked up a photo of her and her mom. They both looked younger. If I had to guess, it was taken about four or five years ago.
“I walked in on my parents, you know, um, yeah.”
Carefully, I set the frame down on the shelf, biting my tongue to keep my laughter in check. Some of it bubbled out as I said, “Seriously?”
She huffed, dropping on her twin bed. “Would I joke about such a traumatizing thing?”
Stepping over to her white desk, I counted three pens and five lead pencils in the pale blue mason jar. “You poor thing.”
“I’ll say. Drew saw it too. They were doing it in the kitchen. Who does that?”
I looked over my shoulder at her then, and her cheeks reddened further. “Okay, so I know loads of people do that. But my parents? My separated, should’ve divorced years ago, and I don’t know why they didn’t parents?”
“They’re back together,” I said, sitting down on the edge of her bed and staring at her purple painted toenails. Don’t touch.
“They are fucking not.” She paused, a gasp flying out of her as she sat up, eyes wide. “They’re back together, and they didn’t think to tell us?”
Lifting a shoulder, I said, “Maybe. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
Her eyes narrowed, and fuck, I wanted to kiss her. “You just said it.”
“I think they are, judging from what I see and what you said, but I could be wrong.”
“Pippa!” Terry called up the stairs. “Can you help me for a minute? Promise you don’t need to cook.”
Smirking at Pippa, I stood and offered my hand. She stared at it, lifting her eyes to mine before taking it. As soon as she was on her feet, she freed her hand from mine, leaving it cold and bereft.
“Let’s go steal something to eat. I’m starved.”
“So am I,” I whispered, watching the sway of her hips as she made haste out of the room.
Pippa was sitting outside with her head stuck in one of her word search books. “There you are.”
“Here I am,” she murmured, coloring a long horizontal row of words that I couldn’t make out from where I was standing with the late afternoon glow.
Her dad had enlisted me to help him pull down a rogue vine out front as soon as I’d had lunch.
He was actually a pretty decent guy. I didn’t have to ask him why he’d asked me; on the way outside, he’d informed me. “Drew’s still a work in progress.” I’d merely grunted, not knowing what to say. “Can’t blame him for holding a grudge. I deserve it, but it still sucks.”
It would. I couldn’t imagine not having the relationship I had with my own dad. So when I heard a sound come from the shed at the back of their long yard, I told Pippa I’d be back.
“You really don’t want to poke the bear,” she’d called after me.
“I’m not poking. I’m seeing if it’s hibernating or sulking.”
The shed was large, big enough for two cars if you got rid of half the work area set up inside. An old couch was tucked in the corner, and an old, dust-covered TV sat on the end of the bench in front of it.
Drew looked up from the game on the TV, doing a double take when he saw I was alone.
“You don’t play anymore?” I gestured to the child-sized hockey stick in the corner on display on the wall. Obviously, his first one.
“Do you?” he asked.
“Oh, snap,” I said. “And yeah, I’m playing again, actually.”
“Good for you. How much did Daddy have to pay them to get your place back on the team?�
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“I don’t play for the Tomahawks. I play for the Gray Springs Lions.”
Drew’s brows furrowed. “Who the hell are they?”
“A hobby team,” I informed him as I took a seat on the other end of the couch.
He was looking at me when I glanced over. “How do you go from the prospect of going pro to a fucking hobby team?”
I scratched the stubble coming in on my chin, chuckling. “Well, ah, you get kicked off the college team, go through a lot of shit, then realize you still love the sport.”
“You’re giving up?”
“Football was important to me, too important. Do you remember when you were a kid?” I asked, staring at the hockey stick. “When you played your first game, the whistle blowing, people watching, your teammates surrounding you? The excitement in the air? The anticipation?”
Drew nodded.
“Doing something you love should always make you feel that way. Passionate, but most of all, excited. Happy.”
“Uh-huh. What are you trying to say?”
“Just saying that I lost that feeling somewhere along the way. The passion was still there but got buried beneath the need to make it my life, my everything. The need to make sure I always had it, that it would take me somewhere.”
“You were always scared of losing it then.”
“I was. I just didn’t realize it. And now? Well, I’ve still got the game. I don’t need to make it my everything, and I’m quite capable of taking myself somewhere without it.”
“You’re on medication, right?” Drew asked after a long beat. “Are they happy pills?”
I barked out a laugh. “Not exactly, but yes, I take medication every day. I just … you look like you’re kind of flailing, dude. I thought I’d give you a little bit of my story.”
Drew was silent a while, and I decided to get up and go see his sister again.
“I hate him,” he suddenly said. “He left us years ago, then waltzes back into our lives like nothing happened.” The plastic TV remote groaned inside his clenching fist.
I sank back into the couch. Drew laughed dryly, running a hand through his brown hair. “I don’t even know why I’m saying this to you; I barely fucking know you. You’re like, my sister’s messed-up boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, who the hell knows.”
“Sometimes, it’s easier to talk to people you don’t know all that well.”
Silence again, then, “I heard you OD’d.”
I tensed, then let out a slow breath. “I did.”
“Wow.”
I chuckled. “You’re telling me.”
“What … what made you do it?”
“I don’t really know exactly,” I admitted. “I never would’ve thought I’d do something like that. But I do know it was the lowest I’d ever been in my entire life. My head, it can get kind of chaotic up in here.” I tapped my temple, a sad smile wriggling my lips.
“You’re better now, though?”
That had me shrugging. “I’ll never be cured, but I’m the best I’ve been in a damn long time. I know that much.”
“You’ll never be cured,” he repeated quietly as though he didn’t mean to say it aloud.
“It’ll always be there. I’m not going to believe that just because I’m feeling good today means I’ll be feeling good next week. But as long as the good days outweigh the bad, and the bad days aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be, then I’ve won.”
Drew made a scoffing sound. “You’ve won against what?”
The smile I gave him felt secretive. I knew he wouldn’t understand but I was okay with that. “Myself.”
Drew’s mouth hung open for a few seconds as he stared at me. Then he snapped it shut, swallowed, and looked back at the TV.
I stood, heading for the door. “You’ve got a right to be mad, and I get it. You don’t want to talk to him or anyone about how you’re feeling, but we all make mistakes, and he’s doing the best he can to fix his.”
He’s here, was all I could think as I set the food down on the table as though he’d disappear at any minute.
My stomach was still flipping ever since I picked it up off the kitchen floor earlier, where it dropped and danced as soon as I saw Toby standing there. In his jeans, a long-sleeved white t-shirt, navy blue socks, and disheveled hair, I barely kept my hands from flying around his neck.
I couldn’t read him or his intentions. I’d been left to drift from one day to the next ever since he left my apartment weeks ago, and now this? I couldn’t wrap my mind around what he was trying to achieve. He was here, but he wasn’t forcing me to talk to him or spend time with him. I was so fucking confused.
Sitting at the table, he was talking with my dad as if they’d known each other half a century. Drew watched on with a gritted jaw but curious eyes from his seat at the head of the table. Which he took before Dad even entered the room.
“Gravy boat coming through,” Mom singsonged, placing it down next to the turkey.
She untucked a chair at the opposite end of the table, taking a seat next to Dad while I took one next to Toby. Either I sat there or between my dad and Drew, and then it’d be obvious I was avoiding Toby. No, better to look like I didn’t give a crap.
Everyone was silent as they busily loaded their plates, and my dad carved the turkey.
I was waiting for Toby to finish with the gravy when he reached over and poured some on my meat and vegetables for me.
Dad cleared his throat. “While this isn’t something I think any of us are used to, I’d like to make it clear that I, for one, am very thankful to be seated here.” His eyes skirted around the table, pausing on Mom, who actually blushed, before they landed on Drew for a long moment. “With all of you.”
We all gave cheers, Drew’s halfhearted at best, and dug in.
“This is so messed up,” Drew muttered after a few minutes had passed, eyes roaming the faces at the table.
Everyone acted as though they didn’t hear him, but I’d had enough. “Messed up? You’re seeing the town reverend’s daughter.”
“She’s normal compared to you guys.” Drew paused. “Well, like 87% normal.”
“What’s the other 13%?” Toby asked, scooping some food onto his fork with his knife.
A groan slipped out of me. “Why did you ask?”
Drew smirked. “That’s for me to know and you to—” I slapped a hand over his mouth, and he shoved it away with a grin.
“Wanna watch the game after?” my dad asked Drew, possibly in an effort to stop the train wreck of a conversation.
The grin fell as Drew glared at him, and I contemplated kicking him. I got it; he wasn’t able to easily express all the ways our dad had hurt him, but shit. All he had to do was make an excuse or say yes.
He said nothing, and Mom’s face was void of expression as she gazed down the table at him. “Drew, honey.”
“What?” he mumbled around a forkful of turkey.
“Your father asked you a question. You can continue being mad while also giving him an answer, you know.”
Cutlery clattered to Drew’s plate as he stared incredulously at Mom. “I don’t wanna do this, so quit forcing me.”
“Drew,” she hissed.
Dad’s hand met Mom’s, and I felt Toby’s land on my knee as he continued to use his other to eat. Gentle, yet firm. A touch to reassure.
“Ter, it’s fine.”
“Ter?” Drew scoffed. “It’s not fine. That’s what you don’t understand.” Drew pushed his chair back, standing. “You wanna do this now? Okay, I’ll do this now.” He reached down, grabbing his glass of water and swallowing the contents before slamming it down onto the table hard enough to rattle the dishes. “You think inviting Pippa’s messed-up boyfriend here would give us all some clarity? Huh? That it would make me understand Dad’s not the only asshole in the world?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I growled, glaring up at him.
Toby squeezed my knee as Drew sent an apologetic look his way. “Sorry, just
trying to make a point here.”
Toby waved his hand out as if to say go right ahead.
My hand met his under the table, my eyes stinging with tears. He was being dragged through the muck of our family, yet he remained strong, unshakable, as if he almost wanted it to happen.
“Drew, that’s not why I invited him here.”
“It is, and you damn well know it. You want to get back with Dad? Fine. You want to risk that he’ll probably bail on us again? Fine. You want to act like he didn’t leave us in a pile of steaming shit years ago? Fine. But how about a fucking conversation first, huh? A little warning.”
Mom paled, her hand rising to her chest.
“He does have a point there,” I added gently.
Dad looked at Mom, then back at Drew. “You’re right. We should’ve spoken with you, but we didn’t know …”
Mom waved a hand. “Stop. Not here and not now.” Looking pointedly at Drew, she said, “There’s a time and place. And yes, I should’ve discussed it with you, but that’s hard to do when you don’t want to.”
Drew looked like he was about to flip the table Hulk-style as he stared at her in disbelief. “You know what? Fuck this.”
“Drew!” she yelled. “Don’t you dare walk out—”
The front door slammed shut, reverberating up the hall to meet us, rendering everyone silent.
“Happy fucking Thanksgiving,” I muttered, picking up my utensils again.
Toby was rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. I stopped beside him, wrapping the leftover turkey. “I’m so sorry; he never should’ve said that stuff to you.”
He shut the door, leaning against the counter. “It wasn’t about me, not really.” At my confused expression, he went on, “He needed to do it, but it was about him. It’s obvious he bottles shit up, so he needed to explode. It was killing him. Wait him out now, there might be some change.”
“I don’t know about that,” I mumbled, tucking the plastic wrap back into the drawer.
“Wanna watch the game, Toby?” my dad asked, walking into the kitchen to put some leftovers in the fridge.
Toby looked at me a long moment. He wanted to stay with me, but I didn’t think I could be alone with him. Not now, not ever, but most especially not now. Not when my thoughts were so scattered, emotions were haywire, and I could still feel his touch on my knee.
