“Has she been talking about that?”
“She’s been talking about everything. Mostly, how her former plans have gone to shit and what she’s supposed to do now. She hates the idea of a dorm room. But apartments by herself are too expensive. She’s all but said she wants to live with me.”
“But…?”
I shrugged. “But I don't know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
“I just don’t know, Mike. All right?”
My eyes fell out the window and I sighed. Finding a job around here hadn’t been nearly as easy as I’d figured it would be. Even with setting aside as much as I could to help Cecilia pay for bills and shit, I was running through money fast. Between treating Rae to some things and my father making this damn divorce as hard as possible, I was tearing through money.
And as of yesterday, I’d run out of things to sell.
“Taking Rae out of the picture for a second. What do you want?” Mike asked.
I sighed. “My own life.”
“Okay. Good start. What does your own life include?”
“A job I don’t hate. A studio apartment over a bakery or some shit in downtown L.A. I fucking love downtown L.A.”
“Well, that’s close to Rae’s school. Maybe the two of you could swing a place together.”
“Yeah, well. She’s making it seem like she can’t swing something like that until she’s got more money in the bank. Which is so weird to me, because I thought she was selling shit off, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, that stuff my stepmom gave her? Back when Cecilia and I first moved? Rae told me she was giving some of it away, keeping a few things for herself, and then selling off the rest to really cushion this transition and do what she wanted. Now, she’s talking about not having money at all. And every time I ask her about it, she doesn’t fucking say anything. I feel like she’s lying to me. Or hiding something.”
“Is that why you haven’t made a decision yet?”
I shrugged. “The fuck am I supposed to do? I lived with a man who forced me to walk on eggshells my entire life. And now I’m doing it with my own fucking girlfriend. I won’t go back to living like that, man.”
“Have you told her any of this?”
I snickered. “You want to try telling me how to tell Rae that she’s lying to me and I don’t appreciate it because she’s making me miserable?”
“If it were the other way around, I’d tell her to speak with you immediately. So…”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”
My eyes drifted out the window as traffic picked up again.
“Can I be real with you for a second, Clint?”
“Please. I’d appreciate it.”
“Downtown L.A. is expensive as hell. You’re going to need a decent sum of money just to make it through a year.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ve already run the budget. For six months, by myself, in a studio apartment where I’d like, with bills and groceries and shit, I’d need just shy of forty grand. And that’s without a car, just walking everywhere.”
“Exactly. Which means, splitting that down the middle, that’s still forty grand for each of you during the year.”
“So what are you saying?”
I looked over at Mike and watched him shrug.