Bad news. Pete’s making me stay late and work overtime.
It’s a lie, but if she can’t see me or hear the tone of my voice, she can’t know that. She also knows I’m not supposed to answer my phone at work when she calls, so when she instantly calls back five seconds later, I have a reason not to pick up.
Are you joking?she texts back. I can almost hear the vitriol in her voice.
SorryI write back.
There’s a long pause before her next reply – long enough that I start to wonder if she’s going to reply at all. When she doesn’t, that’s when she’sreallyangry.
Well, there goes my dinner plans.
Sure, I’m making this all up, but if I wasn’t, Delilah would be guilt tripping me over something completely out of my control, and that’s just completely not okay. I bet if I showed Yara these texts, she’d have something to say about them.
Sorry, I text back. She won’t respond again – I know that.
Next, I send a text to my longtime friend Jim asking if he wants to hang out after work, to which he enthusiastically replies that he would. I don’t get much time to see Jim anymore now that Delilah takes up so much of my time, which I hate, considering he’s been my best friend since high school and has always been there for me. He’s also the only one I’ve told about Clint forcing me into dating his daughter.
“Pete!” I call out to my boss, who’s finishing up putting a caliper back on a Ford F-150. “You need me for anything else?”
“Finish up that genius’s donut?” he asks with a chuckle.
“He’s good to go,” I reply. “Until his next blowout.”
“Then you’re set. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”
“Thanks!” I grab my coat off the wall and head to my car.
Jim looks at me like he’s seen a ghost when I knock and he opens the door to his apartment.
“Holy shit, there he is!” He throws his arms around me and yanks me in for the biggest bro-hug I’ve ever experienced.
“How you doing, man?” I laugh.
“I thought she’d killed you,” Jim replies. “I thought that crazy girl had finally had her dad cut your dick off and choke you to death with it.”
He backs up and looks at me, shaking his head like a proud father whose son has just returned from the war – or maybe just done really well in a soccer game.
“Still here.” I shrug with a smile, feeling suddenly exposed. But Jim, always knowing how to read a situation, hands me a cold beer and ushers me inside.
“Well, get your ass in here, pal. I feel like I haven’t seen you in years.”
I nod as we go over to the couch. “Well, you know what it is.”
“It’s that woman of yours,” Jim says, taking a swig of his drink. “And her criminal overlord father. Don’t you think it’s time to put those two in your rear view?”
“Yeah, I’m thinking it might be,” I reply
“Say what?” Jim almost jokes on his beer. “Damn, bro. I never expectedthatto come out of your mouth.”
“Me neither…” I take a sip of my drink and sit back. I feel as though my life has changed so much in the last couple of days that it’s almost like I’m an entirely new man. And by the way Jim’s looking at me right now, he can tell.
“Bro, what’s going on?”
I need to say it.
I want to say it.
But it’s a lot harder than just letting the words bounce around in my head. Vocalizing what’s on my mind would put that truth that I now know out into the world, and that’s going to change everything.