“How have you been adjusting to living life with Collin,” she asks and I shrug.
“He’s so different,” I train my eyes on my soup and I play with the spoon.
“But, there’s times I recognize things in him,” I feel my cheeks blush and I hate that I am blushing over him. “I-I don’t really know how to feel about him,” I say quietly. My hand massages the back of my neck, reminding me of the heavenly few hours I just spent. How he apparently extended the gesture himself.
“You feel distant toward him?”
I nod. “Should I not?” I ask genuinely.
“Who is keeping the distance you or him?” Helen is listening to a side of the story she already has the other half to. I wonder what Collin talks to her about, what treatments they’re doing to bring them closer to integration.
“I think it’s both of us,” I say only feeling a tad bit guilty.
“You’re going to dinner tonight?”
“Yes, It’ll be the first time it’ll be just the two of us,” my voice raises.
“And you’re nervous?” she covers up a smile, but I’ve already seen it.
“To be honest, yes,” I admit. “He’s so… he’s hard to read.”
“Collin?” she asks and I wonder if she means it to come off as accusatory or if I’m just taking it that way.
“I know he says that he’s transparent, like he’s an open book, but I don’t necessarily believe that.”
“You think he has ulterior motives,” she asks but her tone is neutral.
“Don’t we all,” I meet her eyes. She picks up her napkin and wipes her mouth. She then folds her hands and leans closer into the table.
“Do you believe Cal loves you?” she asks.
“Of course,” I answer almost defensively.
“And Chris,” she asks and I nod.
“Collin,” she asks and I pause.
“I don’t know him enough to know if he loves me,” I chuckle. “I asked if he was gay. I read about that when I was researching,” I giggle to lighten the mood and even Helen cracks a smile.
“Yesterday, we had a good moment,” I say quietly, briefly meeting her eyes.
“Before then it was things that reminded me of Chris or Cal that he did, that I missed that made me want to be near him, but then was the first time I think I liked him.” I pick up my glass and take a small sip, my heart is beating faster and I just let out a long breath.
“And I’m sort of afraid of that,” I tell her and she nods as if she’s been waiting for me to say that. She stretches her arm across the table and takes my hand in hers.
“It’s normal, Lauren,” she says reassuringly. The show of affection brings tears to my eyes, but I blink them away.
“I feel stupid because… I’m supposed to feel about him how I feel about Cal and Chris… but at the same time if I do, I can’t help feeling guilty about it, which makes me a huge hypocrite because I tell Chris and Cal I love the whole man,” I spout all of this out in the span of one sentence.
“If you got closer to Collin… what are you afraid of happening?”
I reflect on her question all through the day. I didn’t answer her then. I just shrugged it off as me being silly, and she didn’t press since technically we weren’t having a real session under the guise of two friends meeting for lunch and girl talk when it’s anything but. The salad I ate swishes in my stomach like waves as I sit in front of my closet trying to choose what to wear. I feel as nervous as I did on my first date with Cal, so many moons ago. Then I didn’t have a closet full of designer dresses and shoes. He didn’t say where we were going but knowing what I do know of Collin, it will be somewhere fancy and calling for something nice.
“All of them are nice, Lauren,” Raven says as she and Caylen sit on the bed watching me pick through the dresses.
“And why are you so jittery, sweetie?” she asks.
“I don’t know, I’m being stupid,” I flop on the bed.
“Things have been okay between you and… Collin,” she reaffirms his name.
“Yes, they’re fine it just still takes some getting used to sometimes,” I tell her sounding as confident as I can, especially after the speech I gave her earlier. She squeezes my hand and nods. I give her a hug, and she hugs me back, the kind of hug she’d give me when I was little to let me know that everything was going to be okay.
“I still have my reservations about this, and I really wish I could pack you up and give you a vacation on an island away from all of this,” she laughs, but in a way I know that she is completely serious. “But if there is anyone who can get through this, it’s you,” she tells me quietly in my ear.
When she releases me, she walks over to the closet and picks up the little white one shoulder dress that clings to me everywhere.
“I can’t see any man not liking this,” she tells me with a soft smile. After I shower and put on my dress, I curl my hair and end up sweeping it in a top bun. I put on a little makeup and when I look at myself in the mirror, I can’t help but smile. I’m going on a date, and the woman staring back at me is excited.
I miss him, and the small part of me he opened up to show me last night, gives me hope.
Not just from being anxious and slightly suspicious like I have been. I keep thinking of how I missed doing this with Cal, how Chris and I had so much going on that it never came up, but the time before last Collin and I did this was right after he first appeared and that was the night before all hell broke loose. I’ve gotten to know Collin better since that night, but he still makes me nervous. He’s charming but almost too charming, and I just can’t read him. Not that I was great at reading Cal, but I knew what motivated Cal, I knew how to get my way most times. Chris is hard to read but only because I felt like he was so confused about what was going on, that his conflicting emotions get the better of him most times. Knowing his history and his parents I felt more at ease with him, and the fact I was determined to do whatever I needed to make things work for our family…. well that hasn’t changed.
Whatever it takes.
Family.
It can make or break you.
I’ve seen it. It was the thing that made him, but sometimes the cure comes from the same tree as the poison. Of all of us, I remember the most about our life before. Our mom and dad, well the man we thought to be our father, and our three sisters. I remember our life being good when our mother was stable, or more stable than the times she wasn’t. I remember feeling love at some points. We were her favorite, I remember the last moment with her before everything was changed.
Raven is sitting on the sofa, her eyes on Caylen.
“I love my niece, Collin. I would die for her and this little girl,” she continues looking me directly in the eye. I can sense her worry, her restraint, the pain she’s dealt with being interconnected to all of this. I wonder how many sleepless nights she’s had, how many prayers she’s said. I heard her and Lauren today when I realized I left one of my files. I heard their fight. I don’t know if they heard each others' plea, the one that’s really unspoken, hidden under the anger at the surface, both just want the pain to stop, a break from the underlying worry. I understand Raven; I’ve been in her place for all of these years. Through the tug-of-war, the opposite agendas of Christopher and Calvin. We all just want peace. I approach her slowly and take her hand.