Georgie, All Along (95)

I press my lips together, finally uncrossing my arms. At the moment, the only thing I feel free to be is sad and tired and in desperate need of a hug, but I don’t think it’d be right to ask Olivia for one, not after all that.

“Georgie,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to—” She gestures over her shoulder, vaguely indicating that she’s going to go—maybe to her office, maybe outside, maybe to phone a friend to talk about the employee who insulted her dad straight to her face.

“I hope you won’t quit here,” she says. “I like you. Everyone likes you. You’ve helped us so much.”

“Oh,” I say, caught off guard by this turn to professional matters, even though we are literally in a professional environment. But looking at Olivia, I can tell something; I can recognize something. Something she has in common with the brother I’ve tried to re-introduce her to with my spontaneous speech. I think of the night I first brought up Evan to Levi, standing in my parents’ house and cleaning up after that first mess of a meal. I think about the night he first kissed me back on their couch, the way he bolted at the first opportunity.

She’s being nicer about it, but what she’s looking for is a way out of this for now. An escape from something hard, something that hurts.

My heart swells with affection for her.

“Thanks,” I tell her. “I like you, too. I like working here.”

I don’t make any promises beyond that, because I have no idea if I’ll keep working at The Shoreline. But I know for sure I’m not going to quit because of what happened with Levi.

She nods and gives me a small smile, doing that I’m going to go gesture again, and I smile back at her, trying to make it apologetic and understanding. I’m wrung out, relieved when she’s almost to the door. I have to try—theoretically—to put Levi out of my head for the rest of my workday.

But before she pushes it open, she pauses and turns back to me.

“I’m glad my brother has you,” she says.

Then she goes, and I know I’m not even going to bother trying now.

*

BY THE TIME I pull up to my parents’ house later that night—after having gone straight from my spa shift to a dinner shift in the restaurant, where I know I did not put on a good show of being my normal self—I am almost amused at how colossally I have failed at not thinking about the past or the future, at how I spent nearly all of my workday either replaying my fight with Levi or rehearsing different ways I might reach out to him, or, better yet, ways he might reach out to me. I must’ve checked my phone every fifteen minutes, hoping for one of those clumsy Come over texts.

I wish I could say I’m glad to see my parents outside on the patio, my dad strumming at an old banjo he usually keeps in the RV, my mom gazing at him dreamily. But the truth is, I have to drag myself out of the Prius and over to the citronella-candlelit table, because the whole scene makes me ache for Levi.

I slump inelegantly into a seat next to my mom, groaning out my fatigue.

“Tough day, Foreman Grill?” my dad says.

I can’t help but laugh. I haven’t heard that one in a while.

“Long day. Stressful day.”

“Want a gummy?” my mom offers cheerfully.

She’s one hundred percent serious, but this makes me laugh, too. Maybe I am glad to see them out here.

“Not tonight, Mom,” I say.

“Suit yourself. I always take a gummy when your dad and I have a fight.”

My dad snorts. “We haven’t had a fight in a decade.”

“I know,” she chirps. “That’s because I take a gummy!”

Now they both laugh, my dad playing a jokey-sounding jig on his banjo. I’d join in, except that behind this teasing exchange is something real: My parents know about me and Levi not being right.

“Who said I had a fight?” I ask.

My mom points a slightly hooked finger at me. “Your face says.”

My dad makes a noise of agreement. “Wanna tell us about it?”

I sigh and tip my head back to look up at the clear sky, the pinpricks of starlight I can see through the gently fluttering leaves. My first instinct is to say no—to say that I’m too tired to tell them, or that I don’t want to talk about it. After today’s scene with Liv, I probably can’t be trusted to say anything about it that would make sense. Maybe I’d end up doing that whole speech again, but this time with the details about Pinterest included.

But then I remember where I am, and who I’m with—my kind of nonsensical childhood home, with my kind of nonsensical parents. I feel the same wave of comfort as I did when I first drove up to this house all those weeks ago, the fic on the seat beside me, my head swimming with thoughts about Nadia and Bel and the blankness that had been overwhelming to me.

This had been a good place to end up, and there’s no reason to think it won’t be a good place now.

So I tell them everything. Nadia, Bel, the fic. The big blank and the way it got smaller and smaller while I was here. Nickel’s Market and Mrs. Michaels and those milkshakes. Hank falling in love with Rodney, and how the citronella candles on the table remind me of the best pizza I ever ate. Sott’s Mill and spray painting and the water off the Buzzard’s Neck dock. Horror movies and how good Levi is at making out. Harry’s overprotectiveness, Bel’s grief, my fear and insecurity and what Bel called my gift.