Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(26)

“Don’t forget to lock your door. And take some aspirin before you go to sleep,” Brent instructs, giving me a wave before turning and jogging down my steps.

“Sorry for drunk texting you!” I shout after him, quickly shutting my door, turning the lock, and gently smacking my forehead against the wood a few times.

As I slowly turn away from the door, I notice my cell phone still lying on the floor where I left it after it dropped on my foot. Bending over, I snatch it up, saying a prayer that Aubrey hung up as soon as she heard the loud clamor of it falling and didn’t listen to that disastrous conversation.

“It wasn’t that bad!” she immediately chirps as soon as I bring the phone up to my ear.





Chapter 13





Have you ever had that dream where you’re being chased, but it’s like your feet are stuck in a pile of mush and you can’t move? You keep pushing and pushing and trying to run, and no matter how hard you try, you don’t go anywhere. I have that dream all the time, but it’s gotten much worse recently. It doesn’t take a genius or even Google to tell me what that dream means.

I. Am. Stuck.

I want more out of my life. I want fun and excitement and passion, and I thought I was taking the steps to getting all of that. I got a new job that has nothing to do with teaching. I branched out in my reading and stopped being a prude. I made friends with famous people. I started a podcast. I still only have a handful of listeners who continue to tell me how much I suck every time I upload a new episode, but at least I haven’t quit. I’ve done some fun and exciting things outside of my comfort zone, and yet, nothing much has really changed. I’m still afraid to tell my parents I never want to be a teacher again. I’m still petrified to tell Brent how I feel about him. I’m still walking through a pile of mush, not going anywhere. I’m still waiting for something to happen to me instead of going out and getting it for myself.

If last night’s interaction with Brent taught me anything, aside from making sure my phone is nowhere within my reach after I’ve had wine, it’s that I need to stop being such a wimp. What if I tell my parents I never really wanted to be a teacher, and they’re disappointed in me? What if I tell Brent how I feel about him, and he doesn’t feel the same?

I’ve spent my entire life constantly asking myself what if and worrying about the consequences of every potential decision I might make, instead of just doing what makes me happy. If my parents are disappointed in me, it will make me sad, but at the end of the day, that’s their problem, not mine. If Brent doesn’t feel the same way, it will really suck, since we live next door to each other. But that’s his loss, not mine.

“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in.”

My body jolts in surprise when I hear my mom’s voice and I give her a sheepish smile when I see her in the open doorway of their house. Standing on my parents’ front porch for the last ten minutes contemplating life probably wasn’t the best decision.

“Are you two gonna stand there all day air conditioning the entire neighborhood or are you gonna come inside and shut the door?” my dad shouts from somewhere inside the house.

“Get in here before your father has a heart attack.” My mom sighs, moving out of the way so I can enter.

It’s really no surprise I’ve come to a point in my life where I feel stuck. Walking into my parents’ home is like walking into a time warp from the 1970s. This house used to belong to my grandparents on my dad’s side, and when my parents got married, my grandparents sold it to them for next to nothing and moved into a retirement community just outside of town. The only thing my mom has changed about this house over the years is the wallpaper. There’s got to be at least fifteen layers of wallpaper in each room. She never rips the old stuff down; she just papers right over it with something even more hideous than before. Every room is filled with some sort of floral design from floor to ceiling that will make you dizzy if you stare at it long enough. The kitchen still has the same yellow Formica countertops and dark brown laminate cabinets. The bathrooms still have the same little bowl of pink decorative soaps in the shape of roses on the sink that were there when I was little that no one is allowed to touch because they’re for “guests,” but the guests never use them, because they’re too pretty, so my mom just continues to dust them every week and puts them right back. I asked my mom once when I was a teenager why they never upgraded their house, got new carpet or new cabinets or new anything, and her reply was, “If it’s not broke, why fix it?” She’s never been a fan of change. And now here I am, walking in, ready to tell her that her only daughter is changing in a big way.

“It’s about time you got here. I’m starving.”

I come to an abrupt halt when I reach the living room to find Jameson sitting on the couch next to my dad with a huge smile on his face.

“Peggy, you have to tell me where you got those cute little retro, rose-shaped soaps in the bathroom.”

Turning around in place, I watch with my mouth dropped wide open as Aubrey comes up to stand next to my mother.

Forget what I said about a time warp. This has officially turned into The Twilight Zone.

“Am I still drunk from last night?” I mutter, looking back and forth between my mom and my new friends.

“If you would have checked your texts this morning, you would’ve known your mom asked us over for lunch,” Aubrey admonishes.