I wanted to say Not anymore or various other noncommittal responses. Instead, I simply replied, “Yes.”
“I wanted you to know Sarah mentioned him and said she misses him.”
Holy shit. Sarah actually noticed that Justin hadn’t been coming by? I just nodded, because what could I say? Besides the fact that Justin had been away intentionally for Sarah’s sake at first, he was now away for mine as well. “Sarah’s a great kid, Randi—and she’s acting more and more like she’s ready to talk about her trauma.”
I hated that word, trauma—but who was I to say what my child experienced and how it affected her? I only hoped it was something we could fix.
On the drive back to Sarah’s school, I decided to try some conversation. I made an attempt at sounding casual, but my daughter probably couldn’t pick up on my emotions anyway. “I love you, Sarah. I don’t say it often enough, so I wanted to make sure I told you.” When I glanced over at her, she was looking out the passenger side window, so I didn’t even know if she was listening to me. “Rebecca said you miss Justin. Is that right?” As I pulled up to a stop sign, I looked over and saw Sarah nodding slowly. While she didn’t say a word or make eye contact, she turned her head toward me—so I ventured ahead with another question. “Would you like it if he came over sometime next week?” Was this an evil ulterior motive? I didn’t know for certain, but when Sarah nodded again, I merely said, “Okay. We’ll see.”
Having him over, though, would minimize the distance I was trying to give myself. My heart, that open wound, would never heal if I wouldn’t stop gouging it.
But like an addict, I sought him out that night after class. I justified it in my head because I thought I had multiple issues to discuss with him. As I walked to my van, I saw his truck next to it again, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. So I got in my vehicle and lit a cigarette, turning on the engine so the heater could run and waited.
A few minutes later, Justin was walking across the parking lot, talking with another man, a guy I thought might have been his instructor. After chatting a little longer, the two men waved to each other and Justin approached our vehicles. Snuffing out my cigarette, I shut off the engine and jumped out.
“Hey, Rascal. What’s up? I hope you weren’t waiting on me.”
“I was warming up the van. But, yeah, I was waiting.”
“Warming up? It’s not that cold out here.”
“Yes, it is—and I’m not ready for winter yet.”
With a grin, he tugged at the collar of my jacket. “Well, then, you should wear something a little warmer.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So what’s goin’ on?”
“Well…I wanted to tell you about a phone call I got yesterday.”
“Yeah?”
I couldn’t even bring myself to say the woman’s name. “Your girlfriend called.”
“Girl? Chelsea?”
“Yeah. She was pretty snotty. She told me I couldn’t talk to you or see you anymore.”
Justin laughed. “You gotta be kidding.”
“I wish I were. She’s freaking psychotic.”
“Damn straight. She doesn’t know me too well if she thinks she can threaten my friend like that.”
“But it got me to thinking,” I said, playing a card that could backfire—but I was going to do it anyway. “I don’t want to ruin your relationships just because I like hanging out with you. It’s selfish of me. I can get out of the picture for a while if you need me to.”
“Are you kidding? No woman is going to stop me from seeing you, Rascal. We’ve got too much history together.”
Goddamn, that was true. With everything from pulling an all-nighter to help him pound out a final essay to being by his side at his father’s funeral in Kansas earlier in the year, we’d been through a lot together.
Huh.
“So,” he said, “consider it taken care of.”
“I don’t want to ruin—”
“Not another word, Rascal. Okay?”
Giving him a quick nod, I lit another cigarette. “Anyway, I also thought you’d find it interesting that the psychologist told me today that Sarah misses you.”
“Misses me? No shit.”
“No shit. So I guess you don’t have to stay away anymore.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. So the door’s open, my friend.”
“Then I’ll have to make a point of stopping by.”
“She’d like that.”
“But you wouldn’t.”
He could see right through me. “I didn’t say that, you pain in the ass.”