Bittersweet Always

by Ella Fields

  “Go,” I said. “I’ve got some things I need to do.” I left the kitchen without a backward glance.

  I didn’t go back downstairs and opted for an early night instead. This weekend was strange and was playing havoc on my psyche.

  I tossed and turned, a glance at the time telling me that each hour was racing by, and still, no sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Throwing my blankets off, I tucked my feet into my slippers and went downstairs.

  Toby was asleep on the couch, my dad passed out on the other, while infomercials played silently on the TV.

  Toby looked peaceful, his chest rising and falling evenly, and his hand in his hair, as though he’d been touching it when he fell asleep.

  Gently, I stroked a finger down his cheek. But he didn’t wake. It puzzled me. He was usually a light sleeper. “Toby,” I whispered, tapping his cheek.

  Slowly, his eyes blinked open, and a small smile transformed his alluring face. I tugged self-consciously at my sleep shorts, my breasts tightening as he licked his lips and asked groggily, “Wanna snuggle?”

  I couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped. “No, just thought I’d wake you so you don’t get a stiff neck from sleeping here all night.”

  “What time is it?” He sat up, looking around the living room.

  “One in the morning.”

  Frowning adorably, he stretched his arms over his head, displaying a tiny morsel of hair that trailed into his pants. “Why are you awake?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I admitted quietly. “Did you take your medication?”

  “Sure did,” he said, standing and towering over me.

  My throat bobbed as I stared up at him, taking a step backward. “Right, well. Good night.”

  “G’night, Pip-squeak,” he said as I dragged my feet away.

  Smiling to myself, I flipped him off over my shoulder, retreating to my room.

  Sleep still evaded me and what felt like five minutes later, but was probably an hour, my door creaked open, and the bed dipped with Toby’s weight before his arms wrapped around me from behind.

  “Sleep,” he whispered to the top of my hair, and I was too tired to argue. I needed him there more than I wanted him there because my lids closed, and as I sank into his warmth, I slipped away.

  Toby was already downstairs the next morning, eating pancakes with Drew at the table, who was actually smiling and laughing with him.

  I readjusted my towel turban, pouring myself some coffee before heading back upstairs to dry my hair. Nuthouse indeed. It seemed everyone in this family was a little unhinged, including myself.

  “Pippa.” My dad tapped his knuckles on my bedroom door a while later as I was packing my things away. “I’m heading out for a few hours. I need some things from the hardware store, and your mom wants to talk to Drew.”

  “And you think it’ll be better if you’re not here.” I zipped my duffel, tugging my dress down over my leggings as I stood from the bed.

  “Yep. I’ll take you back later. Is that okay?”

  Knowing he was checking to see if I wanted to ride back with Toby, I nodded, relief sweeping through me. “Yeah, but I can go back with him. It’s stupid to make you drive all that way when he can take me.”

  “I want to,” he said before walking off.

  Alrighty then. I went downstairs, my stomach grumbling. Toby found me in the kitchen eating leftover bacon. “Wanna go for a drive?”

  I licked my fingers, watching his eyes dart to my mouth with a little too much satisfaction. “Where to?”

  “You tell me. You grew up here.”

  “I can show you where my second boyfriend scored a boob grab.”

  Toby scowled. “You trying to test me?”

  “No, it’s a genuine offer.” I washed my hands and wiped them on the dish towel.

  “I’ll go anywhere with you, but I don’t need to know about that stuff.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, lips twitching with irritation.

  I felt bad but only a little. “Let me grab a jacket and I’ll meet you outside.”

  The car’s rumbling vibrations and his scent everywhere really did my libido no favors. My legs clenched, my eyes searching for scenery to point out to him in an effort to distract myself.

  “So when did you get the tattoo?” I asked as we bypassed the truck stop.

  “You noticed that, did you?” When I didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding, he continued. “The first week I got out of Millstones. When I realized I could really do this.”

  “I like it,” I said, when what I wanted to say was that I loved it. “What did you talk about in there?”

  I wasn’t just asking for selfish reasons. I was genuinely curious about what had happened, what led him to become this more solid version of himself.

  “Loads of things.” He tossed me a smile. “My feelings, doubts, school, you, football, my dad …”

  “Your mom?” I asked hesitantly.

  A sigh followed his nod. “I don’t know her, so I don’t know if our problems are anywhere remotely the same. I just needed to discover the source of mine. And they’re not from abandonment. My overactive brain is just that, overactive. Obsessive.”

  With my hands fisting together, I told him about the message she’d left for my dad months ago. That she’d said to tell him she loved him, and she was sorry.

  “I thought about her a fair bit when I first arrived at Millstones. But you and I both know there’s no point in looking for someone who doesn’t wanna be found. Yes, there might always be a small part of me that wondered why she left, and if we weren’t good enough for her, but it’s small. And I can live with that.”

  My hands unclenched, my smile unfurling as his words rotated around in my head. I was proud of him. So proud. Not knowing how or if I could voice that, I pointed out something else to him instead. “There’s the corner store where Phil Conner stole ten bucks from me, then lied when I told on him.”

  Toby slowed the car, arm leaning lazily over the steering wheel as he peered over at the yellow and red little shop.

  “I wasn’t allowed back in the store for a whole week because I told lies and made him cry.”

  “Assholes,” Toby said, voice laced with humor.

  “Yep. The smug idiot made a huge show of naming me Pip-squeak, the squeaker of lies.”

  “That’s why you didn’t like the name.”

  I nodded, looking over at him as he sped up and continued down the main street of Willowmina. “Didn’t, yes.”

  He made no comment on what that implied, just smiled out the front window until we reached the high school. “It’s small.”

  “It is. There were only about four hundred kids when I attended.”

  He pulled up out front, opening his door and getting out. “Where are you going?”

  I got no answer, so with a sigh, I unclipped my seat belt and followed him over to a side gate. He rattled it, then pulled out his keys and flipped open the switch blade attached to the key ring.

  “That’s what you guys use those things for?”

  Toby shrugged, the lock popping open after some finagling. “It has many uses.”

  Looking around the empty lot, I felt nostalgia take hold, transporting me back to when college felt like a dream that would never seem real until I got there. All the experiences that’d seemed mediocre in school, still waiting for me out in the big wide world.

  And there I was, a sophomore who’d experienced far more than I ever could’ve bargained for.

  I pointed out the classrooms, some of the funny things that’d happened, and some of the bad. When we reached the football field, I gestured to the bleachers. “My first kiss was behind them, cliché and disgusting.”

  Toby kicked up some dirt, staring across the field before finally looking down at me. “Disgusting?”

  “Wet, slobbery. I went home sick afterward and tried not to hurl for a full hour.” I laughed at myself. “I didn’t kiss anyone else until junior year.�
��

  Toby grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the bleachers until we rounded them. “Here?” he asked, both his hands holding both of mine, his thumbs gliding softly over my skin.

  Blinking up at him, I nodded. “Yeah, wh—”

  His mouth met and moved slowly over mine. Deliberately and carefully prying my lips apart to slide his along them. They dragged, and they grew wet, and even without our tongues involved, my knees quaked almost as much as my heart.

  He pulled away, his hands still holding mine, while I stared at him without a thought in my head and barely any breath left in my lungs.

  Without a word, he walked me back through the school, locking the gate behind us before we got back into his car.

  Frustration and desperation warred with my confusion, and I couldn’t contain it anymore. “Why’d you just give up?”

  “Did I?” He watched me with a lazy smile.

  “Yes. You stopped fighting; you stopped pushing. You stopped … you just stopped.”

  “Pippa, I’d said all I needed to say. I’m not going to bully you into being with me. I’m not going to stalk your every move. I’m still here. I’m just waiting you out until you can see that I’ve got this, and most importantly, that I’m not going anywhere.” The intensity in his eyes calmed. “I’ll still love you. I’ll just keep doing it quietly, if that’s what you need.”

  The ignition turned over, and my mouth shut before my heart could crawl out and leap onto his lap, begging him to make it all right again.

  We arrived back at my place five minutes later, where I watched in that same state of euphoric confusion as he tossed his bags into his car, said goodbye to my mom and brother, and drove away.

  I stared after his taillights, hugging my arms to my chest and feeling like I was at a crossroads, but I’d already started taking the wrong turn.

  He’d barely even looked at me as he left, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out if that was a good or very bad thing.

  “Pippa,” Mom said, her hand rubbing my arm as I stayed rooted in the driveway.

  I inhaled a deep lungful of cold air and forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” she said, following me into the house.

  “Okay, I’m not. I’m confused, and tired, and … and fucked.”

  She raised a brow. “You really had to say that?”

  I groaned. “No lectures on my potty mouth right now. Thanks.”

  Drew was watching a movie in the living room when we walked by it to the kitchen.

  Mom put some coffee on, taking a seat beside me at the counter and flicking through a magazine as she waited for it.

  Leaning my head on my hand, I watched her. “Are you and Dad back together?”

  “Define together.”

  My nose wrinkled. “I’d rather not.”

  She smiled, licking a finger and turning the page. “We’re, I don’t know, seeing how things go. We hadn’t exactly talked about it at length until Drew’s spectacular explosion last night.”

  “You hadn’t?” I sat back. That meant … “You’ve just been acting like a bunch of hormonal teens then? Not even stopping to think, oh, wait a minute, this dude bailed on me six years ago, should I really be doing this?”

  Mom laughed, closing the magazine. “Actually, yeah. That’s about right.”

  I slid off the stool. “Craziness.”

  “It’s complicated, Pippa.”

  I snorted. “You’ve got that fucking right.” Pausing in the doorway, I turned. “Hang on, so if he were to outright ask you, you’d take him back, just like that?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”

  My eyes bugged out. “How can you say that?”

  “Quite easily, really.”

  “No.” I shook my head, blinking. “After he left. He left us for years. Not to mention he got a new girlfriend.”

  “Pippa.” Turning on her stool, Mom smiled sadly at me, the lines around her eyes evening out as she sighed. “Every decision is laced with right and wrong at your age. Partly because you walk around feeling like you have all the time in the world. And unfortunately, that’s not true.” She lifted her shoulders. “I’m not getting any younger.”

  When I went to interject, she held up a hand. “I know what I want. What I’ve always wanted. And I’m not stupid enough not to take it. Life is already complicated enough. No need to complicate it further with stubborn pride.” Scoffing, she said, “Been there, done that, and got two brokenhearted children to show for it.”

  “He’s tried to come back before?” I asked, not sure why I wasn’t exactly surprised.

  “He tried a year after he’d left, and you can blame me, get mad at me for saying no and turning him away. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the right thing to do. But I thought it was at the time. He wasn’t better, and I was too hurt. I didn’t trust him, and I was far too angry with him to support him.”

  Holy steaming piles of shit.

  My head and heart started to pound simultaneously, growing worse when she added one more blow. “Pippa. Pride is a wonderful thing to have until it gets in the way of everything you want. People leave, and people make mistakes. But sometimes, they come back, and they fix them.”

  “No freaking way.”

  “Yes freaking way.”

  “He just showed up there?”

  “Technically, my mom invited him.”

  Daisy made a high-pitched keening noise, her hands slapping together before clenching tight under her chin. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She continued to grin so broadly, I thought she’d get an instant headache.

  “You’re creeping me out.”

  “Are you guys …?”

  “No, I don’t know. But it was good to hang out. Just being … with him, I guess.” I tucked my knees under my chin, staring unseeingly at the opening scene of the TV show that’d just come on. “Too bad my family entered stage 1000 let’s embarrass Pippa and air all our dirty problems mode.”

  “No way,” she said again. I shot her a glare, and she winced. “Sorry. That’s just … holy cannoli.”

  “Mmmhmm.” My glare shifted to my toes, watching them curl over the rough fabric on the edge of the couch. “I think my parents are getting back together.”

  Another squeal she tried to quieten unsuccessfully. “How do you know?”

  “You mean besides walking in on them doing it over the kitchen counter?” I paused, looking at her as that sank in. Daisy bit her lips to stop from laughing. “They seemed, I don’t know, happy. And my mom made no secret of the fact she’d take him back.”

  “Something about kitchens,” Daisy muttered. “I busted my parents in the kitchen when I was a kid. Though I didn’t really understand what they were doing at the time, so I survived.”

  “Lucky bitch.”

  She laughed. “She must have never stopped loving him.”

  “I know she never has.”

  “You’re not happy for them?”

  Thinking on that a minute, I took my time replying. “I am. I’m just kind of confused.”

  “But not about them,” she commented. “Just talk to him.”

  “I have, and I can’t.”

  “You’re still scared.”

  “That obvious?” I slumped back into the couch cushions. “Enough about me. How was the farm? The crazy bull set his sights on you again?”

  “No.” She mock-shivered. “Thank God. It was good. Relaxing. Quinn caught up with some high school buddies this time, so that was surreal. Everyone gets old looking so quickly.”

  “Old looking?”

  “You know what I mean.” She waved a hand. “They change.”

  Huffing out a humorous breath through my nose, I shook my head.

  “The team is throwing some kind of party Saturday night. Apparently, they’re sick of sulking and wanna let loose.”

  “When don’t they party whenever they want?”

  Daisy hummed. “Not all of them do. Mos
t of them show up, but they don’t get wasted or even drink at times.”

  Not drinking sent my thoughts back to Toby. Again. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Daisy stood, tossing her long blond braid over her shoulder as she grabbed her purse. “I’ve gotta go. Told Quinn I’d meet him at home soon so we could grab some groceries together. You wanna come tomorrow night?”

  Home. I was still stuck on that word. A stab of jealousy ignited when I thought about the fact she got to be close to the person I couldn’t be.

  Whose fault is that? I slammed a fist down on my unhelpful thoughts.

  “You know what?” I smiled up at her. “I think I will come with.”

  Daisy stared a moment before nodding. “I’ll text you the address.”

  The door shut with a boom behind her.

  “Good morning,” Robin, one of the other volunteers, said as I signed in at the office.

  “Hey, how many strays over Thanksgiving?”

  Robin flicked a piece of paper my way, and I cringed. “Ten?” Eight dogs and two cats were listed.

  “Idiots were apparently letting off fireworks in town.”

  “Fucking muppets.”

  She made a sound of agreement, grabbing some keys off the wall while I tucked my purse away. “A few dogs found new homes over the past week. So luckily, we’ve got enough room. Just. Though if another dog gets brought in …” She trailed off, shaking her head as she walked out of the room.

  No explanation needed.

  Almost forgetting the treats I bought Bruce, I retrieved them from my purse before starting the morning walks. Some dogs were let out in a pen to stretch their legs, play catch, and sniff each other’s butts. If they weren’t already, they were spayed or neutered when they arrived here.

  Though others, like Bruce, didn’t always play nice and had to be walked around the large lot on a leash.

  As I approached the end of the run, I found Pete washing out Bruce’s cage.

  “Hey.” He smiled.