Page 24 of Yield to Me

Chapter 13

The next morning, I sat at the kitchen counter with my head in my hands as I ate pancakes. An untouched stack of sixty pancakes rested on a plate on the counter. My mother bustled around the kitchen, continuing to cook as if she were cooking a feast for an army. The closer it got to her anniversary with Grayson, the antsier my mother became, unable to relax. I hadn’t seen any hard liquor around, but I wondered if Regina had put something in her orange juice when I wasn’t looking.

“Are you going to eat?” I asked.

“I’ve got to make bacon and eggs first. We have too many eggs,” Regina said. She opened the fridge and took out two egg cartons.

“You don’t have to make all of them, Mom,” I said.

She wrinkled her nose. “Are you hungover? You seem a little off.” She felt my forehead and her own at the same time. She shook her head. “What’s wrong, sweetness? Boy troubles?”

An involuntary shudder took over my body. Of course she thinks it’s boy problems, I thought. “My mood has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that all of this food you’re cooking is going to be fed to the garbage can,” I said. And it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I ended things with Owen last night, I thought, Not at all. Regina ignored my comment and cracked eggs into a large metal bowl. I counted seven eggs before I realized my mother truly did intend on making an egg scramble fit for a giant.

“Are you feeding an army?”

“You never know when your father might show up,” she said.

“He can’t eat two dozen eggs, Mom.”

“He’s a big man, sweetness. You never know.”

I scoffed. Grayson was average; an inch or two taller than Regina, without an inch of fat on him. The truth was that he was obsessed with physical health, ran outside every day, which cooked his skin into a leathery texture, but made him seem sleek and attractive to women like my mother. Maybe Regina meant that he had a large appetite, but he certainly wasn’t a big man. A man was someone who could overpower you, I thought, someone who could make you feel safe by the way he pulled your waist into his and held you close, who could make you whimper and cry out from the flick of his hand against your bare skin.

Owen was a man in the best possible way.

My mother turned around. “It is a boy, isn’t it?” she asked. “You haven’t made that face since Peter Gimmel.”

I rolled my eyes. “How do you even remember him?” I asked.

“You were heartbroken like a sick dog for weeks!” I crossed my arms. Of course I had been devastated to find out that my first serious boyfriend during my senior year of high school had kissed my best friend behind my back, and then dumped me. Who wouldn’t be devastated to lose your boyfriend and best friend at the same exact time? But the truth was that it had only cemented my beliefs even further. I didn’t need love, or best friends, or the torment of my father’s mockery. Not much else mattered besides my art and my mother. If I could make it with my sculptures, proving my father wrong, and in doing so, providing for my mother like she had taken care of me for so many years, that would make everything worth it, wouldn’t it? I needed to focus on my art. Screw Owen Lowell, and every other guy, for that matter.

“Weren’t you going on a date with that Owen guy? Or was it Michael?” Regina asked. “I can’t keep them straight.”

“Or I’m busy working two jobs and going to school,” I said.

“Why don’t these boys ever stick, honey? That’s what I’m saying. Why not actually be with one of them? Won’t that make you happy?” The spatula scraped against the pan. She pulled a four-pound bag of shredded cheese out of the fridge. Did twenty-four eggs really need four pounds of cheddar? “What’s Owen like?”

“Why do you care?” I whined.

“Geez. I’m just trying to make conversation.”

Guilt rode through my spine. I knew my mother was doing her best, even if that best was the most irritating thing after getting eggshells trapped in your omelet.

“We—” I wanted to explain that we had broken it off last night in an attempt for both of us to focus on our careers, but it seemed wrong. There hadn’t been anything to break off, had there? We happened to see each other a few times, most of the time in a non-sexual context. But the tension was there like a fly hovering around fresh meat, but clearly, neither of us wanted it badly enough to make it work. “I wouldn’t even call it a date. We hooked up. We’re both too busy for dating,” I said. Regina cackled, a horse’s laugh, and it instantly made me annoyed again.

“I know you’re busy, Riles, but you can make time for it if it’s worth it to you.” She was right, and I knew it. It was annoying how right my mother could be sometimes. “What was the deal with that Michael again?”

“He practically screwed his agent in front of me, and then she spilled wine on me.”

“Right!” Regina said, stifling a laugh. “He’s got problems of his own, doesn’t he? But he’s a nice guy. Why don’t you give him a go?”

“Give him a go?”

“Yeah. Try him out.”

“Like a car?”

“You know what I mean, Riles. Why not enjoy yourself for once?”

It was insulting to suggest that I didn’t get joy from my art and work, but I knew what my mother meant. I was twenty-four, and that was old enough to know to put your dreams first. But I was still young enough to mess around, to appreciate the nourishing aspects of life, to get that ‘real life experience’ for my art. I didn’t care about love, but sex was a way to feel good again, to feel a connection with someone other than my mother, even if it was only temporary. I shifted on the stool. My ass ached. I wondered if Michael had ever heard of dominance and submission, if he was the type of guy who could control me, or even hurt me, and mean it. I wasn’t going to subject myself to crawling back to Owen.

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