Small Change

  Later, I’d told him that if he just crushed the chips it’d work much better. And then I’d made up for violating his sandwich with knife and fork by giving him a blowjob that had him clutching at my shoulders and crying out his release loud enough to make me glad I didn’t have neighbors.

  Tonight he was having dinner with his parents, so I wouldn’t see him. I was excited to make some more progress with the painting I was working on, and was very forcefully telling myself that I was not going to miss him. Because it was only one night. And that would just be pathetic. Right?

  I was doing inventory in the back of the shop in preparation for Lindsey to place tomorrow’s shop orders when the front door opened.

  I looked up and then did a double take because it was Daniel. Only he wasn’t supposed to be back for weeks. And standing behind him was… Jesus, I really hoped for Daniel’s sake that it was Rex, because the guy was gorgeous. Tall and thick with muscle, with dark, glossy hair and a perfectly proportioned face, all clean lines and flat planes.

  I dumped my clipboard on the table and ran to the front of the shop. “You came back early!”

  I jumped on Daniel in excitement, overjoyed at his familiar smell and feel. My throat was suspiciously tight and I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed hard before I started to cry.

  “My fucking father died.” He said it like he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Oh shit, babycakes,” I said, mindlessly defaulting to the ridiculous nickname I’d started using with him years ago and kind of never stopped.

  Daniel’s relationship with his father vacillated between open antagonism and a kind of chilly disinterest that I knew bothered him more. There was nothing easy about someone dying, but when it was someone you felt ambivalent toward…well, there just wasn’t anything to say.

  “Is this Rex?” I asked instead.

  “Ginger?” Rex sounded tentative. “Nice to meet you.”

  He held out his hand and I ignored it, pulling him down into a hug too. “Come upstairs. You’re staying with me, right?”

  “If it’s okay,” Daniel said, but he was already trailing after me. He looked absolutely exhausted.

  “Obviously.”

  ✕ ✕ ✕

  “He opened my puzzle box,” I told Christopher in awe, early the next morning.

  “I…am hoping that’s not a euphemism…?”

  “Dude. I have had that puzzle box for six years. Everyone and their mother has tried to open it. Rex is clearly a genius.”

  “How’s Daniel doing?”

  “Not great. The funeral’s in a few hours. I’m going to go with them. Daniel’s family’s the fucking worst, so I shudder to think what they’ll manage to put him through at an occasion that’s already awful. Sorry about canceling on you.”

  Christopher and I had planned to go make brunch at his apartment again. He was convinced that he could teach me to make French toast. I was convinced that I could entice him to do all the cooking and then thank him by showing him what I could do with maple syrup that wasn’t drizzling it over delicious bread.

  “Don’t worry about it. Of course you should go. Damn, I’m so sorry that happened to him.”

  I was so used to the tortured relationships nearly all my friends had with their parents that it was easy to forget how well Christopher got along with his, how devastated he would be if anything happened to one of them.

  “I could bring sandwiches by later,” he said, “if you think it’d be the right thing?”

  “Can I let you know after the funeral? Daniel’s…sometimes he’s not great with people he doesn’t know, especially if he’s upset. He’s bound to be fucked up by the funeral anyway, but with his brothers there…” I shook my head. I’d told Christopher a little about the situation over the past few weeks. “Anyway, I’ll call you after, okay?”

  “Sure. Are you okay?”

  “Me? Yeah sure, why?”

  “Okay, just checking.”

  But I wasn’t sure why he asked.

  ✕ ✕ ✕

  Christopher brought a bottle of bourbon and sandwiches over after the funeral. Daniel was a wreck, and I was furious on his behalf. The funeral had been awful and sad, the family drama epic, and Daniel, as usual, had borne the brunt of it. He was drinking a lot; more than I’d seen in a while. Sometimes he just needed to escape reality. And since he’d grown up with an alcoholic father and brothers who weren’t far from it, and then worked at a bar all through grad school, liquor had been an obvious escape.

  But as worried about Daniel as I was, there was also a part of me that was…jealous. Daniel fell apart and Rex gathered up all his scattered pieces as if they were his responsibility. And something inside me ached with an emptiness I didn’t know how to name.

  I had Christopher. Christopher was wonderful. He was kind and hot, funny and caring. He asked about my work and actually cared about the answer. He cooked for me, he talked to me, and he screwed like a dream.

  And me?

  Well, there was clearly something fucking wrong with me. Because despite Christopher being wonderful, I still hadn’t let my guard down. I still couldn’t quite believe that Christopher wanted me.

  The real me. The one who was moody and irritable and too busy, and was sometimes willing to go to absurd lengths to avoid doing things I didn’t want to do.

  It felt like if he found out how very fucking much I wanted someone who would want me despite these things, then he could break me into pieces. If he found out how scared I was that no one ever would, because no one ever really had. That he wouldn’t. Or, fuck, if he would… Ugh, my head was a roiling mess and seeing Daniel and Rex together had whipped it into further turmoil.

  The next morning, Daniel and Rex decided to leave for Michigan before Mr. Mulligan’s wake. Daniel didn’t want to deal with his brothers, and I didn’t blame him.

  “I’m gonna take a quick walk, get a few snacks for the ride,” Rex said, kissing Daniel’s hair and looking at him intently.

  “He’s very subtly giving us time to talk alone,” Daniel said with a faint smile. Rex shot him another intense look as he closed the door.

  “About anything in particular?” I asked. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I love him, if that’s what he’s giving us time to establish.”

  Daniel shook his head and led me to the sofa. “What’s up with you?” he said. He was exhausted, sad, fucked up, and still managed to look concerned for me. Did I mention there was something wrong with me?

  “Uh, up in which category of things?”

  Now Daniel shot me an intense look of his own, green eyes sharp through his fatigue. “The category of Christopher is totally in love with you and you’re obviously gonzo for him but you keep looking at him like he’s the warm, cozy Christmas scene and you’re the poor little match girl outside in the snow.”

  “Wait, doesn’t she die?”

  “Er, yes. Excuse the reference. Point is, you look at him like he’s something you can never have. Only clearly you already do. So what the fuck?”

  I slumped, trying to find the words for what I was feeling. “Remember when you told me that your brain kept doing this thing when you first started dating Rex? Where no matter what he did, it told you that things weren’t going to work out?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, my brain is doing that with Christopher. So then I keep backing away from him, or throwing my guard up, because I’m afraid he’s gonna realize how much I like him.”

  “We’re in the world where that’s bad, I take it?”

  “Yes, because apparently I am thirteen again.”

  “Right, sure.”

  “It’s like I keep…I dunno, flinching in the moments when I should be leaning in. But why? What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  “Uh, because being vulnerable is terrifying, duh. And if you’re in the place where you’re worrying about what his response will be then you probably aren’t in a place where you feel totally safe being yourself around him.”


  “Yeah. I don’t even have an excuse for it though, because Christopher’s so caring. I mean, he even likes taking care of strangers. He knows everyone’s coffee and sandwich order.”

  Daniel hmmed.

  “I dunno,” I said. “It’s like…he takes care of everyone by default, so the fact that he cares about me doesn’t feel like it matters as much. Like, how can I separate out what someone like that does just because it’s what they do, and what they do because it means something?”

  “Well. Maybe. Does it really matter?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because!”

  “Yeah, sure, good point.” He flicked me in the shoulder and I rolled my eyes.

  “Because…because if it’s stuff he’d do for anybody, then I can’t use it as a gauge of how he feels about me.”

  “Nah. So he’s a caring person. That doesn’t mean he, like, cares deeply and intimately for everyone he makes coffee for. Caring might be a baseline personality trait for him, but there are levels, surely.”

  “Yeah. Fuck, man, I seriously don’t know what my problem is. I don’t know why I still don’t feel safe with him. I want to. Honestly…” I looked down at the purple velvet sofa and squeezed my eyes shut. “I want to so fucking much. Like, in my head, when I think about what I want, it’s always been someone I can throw my whole self at and they can take it. Only, not catch me because I’m falling, but catch me because I’m fucking launching myself at them. Like I’m the bullet from a gun and they’re…well, in that analogy, they’re dead, I guess.”

  Daniel nodded slowly, then said, “You don’t feel safe, period.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it… I was thinking of it like you don’t feel safe with Christopher as if he didn’t create an environment in which you could feel safe. But it sounds more like you just think you’re unsafe. That you think you’re a weapon. Something that, if you really focus your aim, is gonna hurt whoever you’re aiming at.”

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck.”

  Fuck. He was right. I did. I felt dangerous. Like maybe Christopher didn’t know what he was getting into with me and I had to protect him from…well, me. And I was protecting him from me by not exposing him to all of me.

  I swallowed hard.

  “So, what do I do?”

  Daniel looked so young. As young as he’d been when I first met him all those years ago, when he was just a scrawny teenager with more attitude than sense. His eyes were wide and his mouth soft. I think maybe I was looking at him just the same way. We reached out and clasped hands—a gesture of fear, born of a need for comfort.

  “I don’t know,” we said at the same time.

  ⌃ ⌃ ⌃

  Hey, J,

  Thank you. You can go back to not answering now.

  So I met Ginger’s best friend, Daniel. This is the guy she was inseparable from until he moved over the summer. His dad died suddenly and he has a shitty relationship with his brothers, I guess. Daniel’s boyfriend came with him and I think Ginger was a little jealous, to be honest. And okay, if we’re being honest, I’m super jealous. Of Daniel. It seems like he and Ginger have a secret psychic language and I have no hope of ever understanding it. Or of ever having that kind of thing with Ginger.

  But they just get each other. Ginger’s more…she puts up a front of business or distraction or ranting, whereas Daniel just kind of goes away somewhere in his head. But both of them look over at each other like scared siblings confirming that there’s one other person in the world who understands how fucked up everything is. And I don’t know if she’ll ever look at me like that. I guess she can’t, really, because I’m not part of their club—their club of, like, fucked-upness, or something.

  Sometimes, I feel like she’s scared of me. Scared of what it would mean to actually let me in. Does that make sense? I don’t know. A lot of people have obviously made her feel shitty about things, but it’s more than that. It’s like she’s constantly having some kind of internal argument with herself. And part of her wants to be with me, but the other part doesn’t want her to. I don’t know, man. What do you do when the person you’re falling in love with is conflicted about being with you?

  Listen, man, I’m really glad I’ll get to see you soon. Thanks again for writing back. It meant a lot to Mom and Dad to know when you’re coming.

  Love,

  C

  Chapter 12

  Daniel was gone and now I was missing him all over again.

  I did a tattoo for a woman whose asshole boyfriend made her feel terrible about getting it. I’d felt a little sensitive when I woke up and it got worse throughout the day as I got more and more overstimulated. Just a run-of-the-mill bad day, but it was compounded by my stress over Daniel’s family drama, and my uncertainty about how to get my head straight about Christopher.

  I was furious with myself for feeling stuck, for knowing what I wanted to do and not being able to do it. It was the same feeling I’d had in elementary school and wanted to jump off the high platform and swing on the rope in gym class. Every time I got to the top, I chickened out. What I wanted had been right in front of me and as I stood there, rope in hand, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t jump.

  Mostly, I’d worked tirelessly to get the things I wanted. My apprenticeship, my job, this business, respect.

  But there were some things I couldn’t demand, or work for. They were things that I had to just feel, or ask for; or things that had to be given to me willingly.

  I didn’t often let myself think about those things.

  But on days like today, when the world felt a little too loud, a little too close, a little too much, I had to admit it: I longed for someone I could throw everything I was at, who would receive it. Gather it from the space between us with the sheer power of their hands and their insight and their care, and contain it like a devastating blast. Hold the jagged and shaggy pieces of my explosion suspended, relieved of their weight, quiet. At peace. I wanted so badly for Christopher to be that person.

  No.

  I knew he could be. I wanted so badly to let myself allow him to be.

  After I was done with my last scheduled tattoo, I was so on edge that I grabbed my coat, fled the shop, and walked down to the river. With the whole teeming city to my back and the black water of the Delaware before me, I could pretend I was alone. The wind was freezing, especially by the water, and I put my sweatshirt hood and my jacket hood up, popped in my earbuds, and listened to Chris Cornell croon as I gazed at the lights of Camden across the river, and I felt the tension uncurl a bit.

  I rested my chin on my knees, looking down at the scuffed toes of my black boots, and then closing my eyes. I was okay. It would be okay. I just needed to give things with Christopher a little time. Watching Daniel and Rex had made me feel like I was failing because they’d been together for longer, and knew each other better. Surely if I let things keep going as they were with Christopher, we would get there.

  As the final notes of “Steel Rain” rang out, I congratulated myself on my excellent impression of an optimist, and felt a bit calmer.

  I meandered home through Old City, the air turning frigid the later it got. When I hit South Street, all I wanted to do was take a hot shower and get in an hour or two of painting before I passed out. But as I got to the front door, I saw Christopher standing there, arms crossed. He looked upset.

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I asked, pushing my hoods down and popping out my earbuds.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, like he was realizing something. “You didn’t show,” he said.

  It took a minute for his meaning to register, and then guilt slammed into me, undoing any optimism I’d managed by the river. “Oh fuck, dinner with Wallace. That was tonight. Fuck! Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Christopher, shit.”

  “I thought maybe something was wrong. I called you.”

  “No, I’m just a fucking idiot and I forgot.” I started patting my pockets for my phone
. “I…uh, shit, I don’t know where my phone is. Do you want to come in?”

  He didn’t say anything, but he followed me, jaw tight. And there was my phone, sitting on the coffee table. Another wave of guilt hit me as I saw that I had five texts and two missed calls from Christopher.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said again.

  “I thought something might be wrong. Then I just figured you bailed.”

  He hadn’t taken his coat or hat off, and I was suddenly desperate that he did, because it meant he was staying.

  “I’m a dick,” I said. “I…I had a bad day and then this client…and I went to the river, and—shit, it doesn’t matter. It was an accident, and I’m sorry.”

  He bit at his lip, then walked to my window. “I know you’re really busy, and you’ve got a lot going on,” he said, looking out at South Street. “I get that sometimes you can’t make plans, or you’re not free. But when you do say you’re going to be somewhere, I need you to follow through with it. I need to you show up and not blow me off because that shit hurts.”

  My stomach felt sour and my head started to pound. I hated that I’d hurt him. I walked behind him and leaned my forehead against his cold back.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Or worry you. I’m… Shit, I don’t know what to say.”

  His shoulders were tensed beneath his coat and I squeezed them, an ineffectual massage through wool. He let out a little sigh and turned to look at me. “So why was your day bad?”

  I gulped. That couldn’t be it. I couldn’t be off the hook.

  “Um. Well.” I told him about Betsy and her boyfriend starting off the day. “I wanted to slap the shit out of him,” I concluded. “I could see her excitement over the tattoo deflate. Passive-aggressive bullying dickwad.”

  Christopher shook his head in agreement, eyes on me even as one hand separated my curls like he was untangling a skein of yarn. I felt like I owed him more though, after missing dinner, but I wasn’t sure how to explain.

  “Some days I just…I have this, uh, thing. It’s like someone walked by and turned the volume up on the whole world. Every sound is deafening, and every detail of every brick catches my eye so I can’t help but notice it. A touch feels like sandpaper across my skin, and basic, simple things like ordering a sandwich become this, like, tactical mission with so many moving parts…”