The Hating Game(69)
“I knew you wouldn’t be happy but I also wasn’t expecting such complete horror.” Josh leans back in his chair and assesses me. “Don’t freak out.”
“We’ve never even gone to a movie together, or to a restaurant. I was nervous getting a ride in your car. And now you’re telling me I’m driving several hours with you and to bring my pj’s? Where are we staying?”
“Probably a seedy hotel.”
I am close to hyperventilating. I am this close to running down the fire escape. I’ve had a fair idea we’d at some point get around to playing the Or Something Game. I imagined it in his blue bedroom, or while hissing hurtful insults at him in the cleaner’s closet. But too much has happened today.
“I was kidding, Lucy. I have to talk to my mom about where we’re staying.”
“I didn’t properly think about meeting your parents. Look, I’m not coming. You were a real asshole to me just now, remember? You don’t need help beating me, remember? I’d have to be crazy to help you now. Go by yourself like a big loser.”
“You made the commitment. You promised. You never break your word.”
I shrug and my moral fibers strain uncomfortably. “Like I care.”
He decides to play his ace card. “You’re my designated moral support.”
It is the most intriguing thing he could have gone with. I can’t resist.
“Why exactly do you need moral support?” He doesn’t answer, but shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
I raise my eyebrows until he relents.
“I’m not dragging you along as my sex slave. I won’t lay a finger on you. I just can’t walk in without a date. And that’s you. You owe me, remember? I helped you vomit.”
He looks so grim I have a chill of foreboding.
“Moral support? Will it be so bad?”
His cell begins to ring, and he looks between it and me, torn.
“The issue here is timing. I have to take this.”
He walks down the hallway, and I resign myself to looking up the route, because unfortunately it’s true. I promised.
ONCE, A TINY eternity ago, I could lie on my couch like any other person. I could watch TV, eat snacks, and paint my nails. I could call Val and we’d go try on clothes. But now that I’m an addict, I have to hang on to the cushions with my chipped fingernails to stop myself from standing up, putting shoes on, and running to Josh’s building. The effort is making me ache. I weigh myself down with my laptop on my chest and halfheartedly flick between news sites, my interview presentation, Smurf auctions, and my favorite retro-dork clothing site.
I get a pop-up notification that my parents have just logged into Skype, and I dial so quickly that it’s a little embarrassing. My mother appears onscreen, frowning and too close.
“Stupid thing,” she mutters, and then brightens. “Smurfette! How are you?”
“Fine, how are you?” Before she replies the screen fills with the fly of her jeans as she stands up and calls out repeatedly to my dad for one very long minute. Nigel! Nigel! Even the familiar tone and cadence her voice takes has me shriveling in homesickness. Finally, she gives up.
“He must still be out in the field,” she tells me, sitting back down. “He’ll wander in soon.”
We look at each other for a long moment. It’s so rare to have her to myself, without my dad’s gale-force personality propelling the conversation, that I hardly know where to start. I can’t seem to talk about the weather, or how busy I’ve been. As her shrewd blue eyes narrow as I choose my words, I realize I’d better ask the question I’ve been torturing myself with for these last few weeks, and perhaps all of my life. It’s something I should have asked her years ago.
“Before I was born, and when you met Dad . . . how could you give up your dream?”
The question clangs in the dead static air between her and me. She doesn’t speak for a long moment, and I think maybe I’ve said something I really shouldn’t. When she locks eyes again with me, her gaze is steady and resolute.
“If you’re asking me if I regret my choice? No.” She sits back into her chair, I sit up properly on the couch, and suddenly it’s like there’s no screen between us. No frame surrounding her face, or mine, and no strangely intrusive preview screen distracting us with our own faces. I feel like I could reach out and take her hand. It’s the closest we’ve been since I saw her last, when I hugged her at the airport and breathed her shampoo and sunshine smell. I watch her thinking, and the clock is ticking before my dad walks in and interrupts.
“How can I regret it for a second? I have your father, and I have you.” It’s the answer and the smile I knew she’d give me. How can she say anything differently?
“But don’t you wonder where you’d be now if you chose your career instead of him?”
She avoids answering again. “Is this about your job interview? Are you worried about what happens if you miss your big chance?”
“Something like that. I’ve just started thinking that even if I get it, I could lose out on other . . . opportunities.”
“I don’t think you need to give up your dream for anything. You want this, I can see it. I can hear it in your voice. Times have moved on, honey. You don’t have to give up anything. You don’t have to make a choice like mine. You just need to give it your all.”