“You’re thinking too much,” his voice interrupts me from my trance. I try to read him. What’s his mood?
He’s a blank canvas.
“I try to keep my thoughts to myself these days. It seems to work out better for everyone,” I say quietly as I move past him to the sink to wash my hands. He leans back so that he can look at my face. His stare sends chills down my spine. He still has the ability to look at me and unnerve my thoughts, to unhinge my anger.
“I’ve been told that can cause serious problems,” he says and I try to stop myself from laughing. I feel him behind me, his chest pressing against my back. I close my eyes and think about how we were before, before all of this. When we were just us. He presses closer against me as his hands move on both sides of me and he washes his hands.
I’ve made up my mind. I won’t give him my body if he won’t give me the truth. He has my heart but I can at least deny him my physical self, no matter how difficult it is.
I move away from him and search through the drawers for the utensils we need. Without missing a beat, he’s pulls out a skillet and bowl. It’s quiet, eerily quiet, despite unspoken words blaring between us. I don’t think we have ever gone this long without talking to the other, unless one of us was pissed off. I don’t think he is. However, I am pissed, but more than anything, I’m hurt and still off-balance from everything that’s happened. Questions upon questions, unsolved mysteries, disconnected theories that want to burst out of me. I don’t voice them, though. I keep them confined in the pit of my stomach but they swirl around as dinner starts.
He does the hard part of the cooking. He makes the steak and the potatoes. I watch as he goes about doing what I now know he learned from Mrs. Scott, that’s one mystery solved. I’ve tended to the spinach, which was easy.
“There’re plates in the cabinet over the sink. You want to put them on the table? I’m almost done, but your spinach is about to overcook.”
Shit.
I turn off the stove and, sure enough, there’s dishes in the cabinets over me. I grab service for two and lay them out on the table. A few moments later, he brings the food. For some reason, he seems more domesticated than he ever was years ago. After he puts the food out and I’ve made my plate, I quickly say a prayer. A habit I’ve picked up from eating dinner with the Scotts. When I open my eyes, I catch him observing me as if he’s absorbing my every move. I expect him to say something but he doesn’t. I look at his plate, which is the half the size of Chris’s, and can’t help but giggle. He eyes me suspiciously.
“What?” he asks, irritated. I shake my head and giggle again.
“What, Lauren?” he demands.
“You and Chris…eat so…differently,” I say, quickly stuffing my mouth with a spoonful of potatoes. It feels different saying his name to Cal. It doesn’t feel like a sore subject but I glance at him to see if I’m wrong. Instead of seeing him frown, a smug grin spreads across his face.
“He ate like a pig because he wasn’t getting any,” he says and I try to hide my shock. He’s watching me, waiting on my reaction. I’m trying to not give him one but what is he talking about? I want to play coy but screw that.
“What do you mean?” He can’t be saying what I think he’s inferring. That’s not possible, is it?
“He and Jenna never…” I trail off.
“Nope,” he says, his eyes directly on mine, unearthing feelings within me that only he has been able to do, with just his stare. I don’t know how to feel. Happy? I’m ecstatic, actually. All this time, I tried to never think about him and Jenna. It hurt too much. It made me sick. But, to know that he never…that means Cal never…and what I did with Chris, he sees as…God this sucks.
“Did that have anything to do with you?” I say quietly.
“What do you think?” he says stoically and I get up from the table. Cal could always be a jerk when he wanted but now he’s like a jerk with PMS. I head to the bedroom and slam the door. Was it a stupid question? How the hell do I know what’s stupid or off-limits since he’s shut himself off from me? The walls are up again and I feel lost because I have no idea what to do about it.
I feel the bed shift as he sits down on it. There’s silence, so much so that it fills the room. A moment later, his hand touches my back, causing a warm sensation to run through me but I shift away from him. That’s just how it starts and that will not start tonight. There are so many other important things that need to be brought to the table and his distracting me with his form of physical comfort won’t work.
No more distractions.
“I want to talk,” I say, rolling over to face him. He looks me in the eyes, I expect a look of scorn or disdain but I don’t find that at all. He looks away from me briefly and I slowly glide my hand across the bed and touch his. “Please,” I say, as sincerely as I can. Silence passes between us.
“I don’t remember a lot of my childhood. I know I had brothers and sisters. Or I remember playing with a lot of other kids, at least,” he continues. He doesn’t look at me but ahead of him. I wanted to talk but I definitely didn't expect this answer.
“ My mom’s name was Isabella. My…biological dad’s name is Clay. She died when I was five. I’ve been trying to find Clay since before I met you.”
I sit up in bed and move near him. He turns to look at me and his expression nearly stoic.
“When I ask you how much do you want to know? Are you really ready to know? People think they want to know things but it can be ugly. It can change things.”
“There’s nothing that can change the way I feel about you,” I promise him. He nods his head.
“I know that you want things to be normal for Caylen. I don’t want her to be screwed up by me. I know why things have to be different now,” he says, looking me in the eyes.
“They have to,” I admit.
“What do you want to know?” he asks casually, his posture adjust tone as if he’s just said the simplest thing in the world.
“Are you really going to tell me?” I ask him.
“I’ll tell you whatever I can,” he says, his eyes on mine. I sit up, taken off guard by his openness.
“If you want to?” I ask, still cautious of the turn this has taken.
“If I think it pertains to you,” he says simply. There’s always a catch. I let out a deep breath.
“Why do you hate your dad?”
“William?” he scoffs.
I nod.
“Because he’s an asshole,” he answers simply.
I can’t exactly argue with that. “But there has to be more to it than that.”
“Next question,” he says gruffly.
Instead of arguing I go on to the next question “When Chris comes out, what happens to you?”
His eyebrow raises and he looks directly ahead, his hardened expression softens. “I’m still there. I’m always there, it just…sometimes I can choose not to be,” he says quietly.
“So you don’t go in this dark prison or something,” I ask, the question sounding silly and immature but it’s honest.
A small smirk spreads across his face. “It’s not really like that. It’s more like a dream. Sometimes I choose to sleep instead, if that makes sense. When he met Jenna, I was asleep if that’s what you want to call it. I didn’t want to be around. I’d just left you. Gwen was dying. It was his turn to deal with the shitty side of life,” he says quietly.