Page 123 of His Big Bad Stick

“That would be great.”

“Let me make a call,” he says.

I watch him walk outside, already on his phone.

I catch myself swallowing hard and touching my belly.

As I stare intently, it rushes at me all the way back to those first moments meeting Colver. To those first days. Weeks. Both of us knowing things weren’t going to work out with our parents. My mother wanted money and attention. Colver’s father wanted someone else.

I didn’t like the idea of losing Colver all those years ago.

I guess in a way now I have him forever.

And once again Colver is helping me. Saving me.

Hanging up some string lights may not be the most dangerous thing in the world - at least for him. But he does care.

He did care back then too.

I knew it then.

It was just both of us couldn’t say it…

(I know I swore none of the jumping back to the past but this story is important.)

So right now, everything is falling apart.

Mom showed her paranoid bitch side and stole Jack’s phone.

Something to note - Jack has several phones.

There’s a work phone. A personal phone. He has a few ‘fuck phones’… at least that’s what I call them. Those are phones he uses to meet and hook up with other women.

Some of the women are really young too. I’m talking like twenty years old.

To me, he’s just some gross dude with money.

The second Mom sees a picture of someone Jack is sleeping with, she goes into full destructive mode. Comparing herself, hating herself, wanting to drink herself into oblivion.

The only reason we haven’t left the house is because of how big it is.

Mom stays in her own section.

I mind my own business on the first floor, trying to stay busy painting.

It’s also getting old having Colver bust into my bedroom to sneak a girl through the glass doors.

Part of me thinks he does this to tease me. He always looks at me when he walks someone through my bedroom. He smirks too. Like he’s saying, ‘don’t you wish this was you?’…

The worst part is that I kind of wish it was me.

I mean, whatever, okay?

His father and my mother were never really a thing. The marriage certificate says otherwise, but be real, TV shows have seasons that last way longer than this marriage will.

My next worry is where we’re going to end up living.

Moving again. Me packing up my one bag. Trying to figure out what artwork to take and what to leave behind.

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