He exhaled. “Look… Part of getting you to trust me is being honest with you. So I’m not going to stand here and deny that I have those thoughts about you…all the time.” His eyes wandered over me. “Especially when you’re in those damn Goofy scrubs.” He inched closer, putting my body on full alert. “Do I think I’m right for you? No. That’s me being honest, too.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. “I’m confused. That’s the truth. All I know is that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you, too,” I admitted. “That’s the problem.”
He looked down at me, the sun shining in his eyes as his hair blew slightly in the wind. “What do you want, Aspyn? You want me to back off? Stop trying to get closer to you? Because if that’s what you really want, I promise you, I will. I come on strong when I’m determined. But I know how to walk away just as fiercely. I do have pride—a fuck ton of it, which is why my mother never saw me knocking on her door.”
That broke my heart. I hated that this situation had somehow reminded him of that.
“All you have to do is say the word,” he said. “And you won’t see or hear from me anymore.”
An undetermined amount of time passed as we stood facing each other in silence. Shala walked by as she headed to her car. She gave me a look that said, you’d better fill me in later.
I had two choices—either admit that I was scared of my budding feelings for him, or agree that not seeing each other was best. I chose the latter.
“Yeah. I do think it’s best if we not see each other anymore.”
Those words left a bitter taste in my mouth. I guess that’s the way it tastes when you let fear win. Emotions twisted inside of me. I’d just said the opposite of what I wanted. But it felt like the safest choice, the one that would ensure I didn’t get hurt in the end.
The disappointed look on his face told me that it wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. I’d been giving him mixed messages, and he didn’t deserve that—another reason this couldn’t continue. I wouldn’t blame him if he never spoke to me again, though.
A vein popped out in his neck as he finally nodded. “You got it.”
That was the last thing he said before he got into his car and took off.
Aspyn
A week passed, and it felt like forever since I’d seen Troy Serrano. After being a constant presence for almost a month, he’d disappeared from my life. He somehow managed to avoid me altogether when he came to take his grandfather out and made no effort to contact me. This was exactly what I’d asked for, but the more he stayed away, the more I thought about him. Funny how that works.
One night over dinner, my niece caught me staring down into my plate.
“Are you okay, Auntie Aspyn?”
I looked up suddenly. “Yeah, hon. I’m fine. Just thinking about some stuff.”
She cocked her head. “What stuff?”
“Adult stuff.”
Kiki rested her chin in her hand. “Is it about Troy?”
Her perception surprised me, since I hadn’t mentioned him. But maybe the fact that I’d not uttered a word about him at all clued her in.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Did he do something bad?”
“No.” I stared down into my salad. “Not at all. He actually did something…good.”
“Then why are you sad?”
“Because I miss him,” I whispered.
The fact that I’d admitted aloud what I’d been thinking for days shocked me. And to Kiki, of all people. I missed Troy? Damn, I did. I missed his humor, his presence, his smell. I missed it all.
“Then why don’t you call him?”
Her question made total sense, but the answer didn’t seem simple.
“Because sometimes you have to choose to walk away from something because you know that ultimately, it’s not right for you.”
“Like candy?”
I laughed. “Exactly like candy.”
Troy was like candy, except I hadn’t even gotten a taste. I’d stopped it before it could happen because I sensed that tasting was exactly where things were headed. I could feel it in every fiber of my being. And I knew that taste would be as addicting as it was dangerous. Ironically, sex fantasies of Troy seemed to be all I thought about whenever I lay in bed at night. Would one time have really killed me? I shook my head.
“Why is Troy not good for you?” she asked.
My niece was really testing me tonight. But that was a fair question.
“There’s not a simple answer to that. But for one, we have a lot of negative history from our high school days.”
She leaned her elbows against the table. “Like what do you mean?”
“We were mean to each other, and he did some things that make me not trust him fully.”
“Troy scared me at first,” she said. “I thought he was trying to steal from us. But now I like him. He seems nice. And he bought me Menses.”
“I know he’s nice. That’s not up for debate. But I worry that a part of him is still the boy I used to know. Maybe that’s all in my head, but it interferes with our relationship. More than that, he’s not even here in Meadowbrook permanently. I don’t think he likes it here. And I don’t want to get attached to him if he’s only going to leave. So, like I said, there are lots of reasons why he’s not good for me.”
“Why can’t you just be friends until he leaves? My friend Ben from school moved away. I don’t talk to him anymore. But I’m glad I was friends with him while he was here.”
I smiled. “Things are a little different when you’re older. Friendships between men and women can be complicated. They sometimes lead down paths where you didn’t intend to go. And then someone gets hurt.”
Her forehead crinkled. “I don’t understand.”
I chuckled and sighed. “Someday you will.”
I’d thought the conversation was over until she shocked the hell out of me with her next question.
“Does he want to stick his penis in your vagina? Is that why things are weird?”
My mouth fell open. “What do you know about that?”
“I was reading about periods, and I found out about sex.”
“Please tell me you didn’t see anything online you weren’t supposed to?”
“No. It was in a book Grandma got me. It talks about periods and how babies are made. Then I started asking her questions, and she told me sometimes people have sex even if they’re not trying to make babies.”
Thanks a lot, Mom, for giving me a heads up about this.
“Well, that is true. Adults might choose to do it when they are not trying to have a child. Sex is definitely something that makes relationships between grown men and women complicated…if there’s an attraction.”
“Did Holden stick his penis in your vagina?”
She’d almost never brought up my ex since he moved out. And this context was definitely awkward.
Why did I not have wine with this dinner?
I kept my answer generic. “I’ve had sex, yes. Because I’m an adult. And when you’re an adult, you can decide whether that’s a decision that’s right for you.”