Page 112 of Happy After All

He turns his full attention to me when he asks that question, and I think that kind of focus could become an addiction. I remember Christopher half looking up from his laptop when I’d talk to him, and it isn’t like I wasn’t distracted sometimes too.

This is just different.

This is something totally new. That’s all.

“I want to drive to Bakersfield today.”

I don’t fully realize that that’s what I’m going to say until the words exit my mouth. Because it was only a germ of an idea spinning around in the back of my mind from the time I got out of bed. I really hadn’t decided I was going. Much less including another person in my psychosis. Now I’ve invited him, and I can’t go back.

“Your mother?”

“Yes. I am hurt. By the whole lack of relationship I have with her. By everything. I try to pretend I’m not. I try to pretend it doesn’t matter. I ...” I take a deep breath to ground myself.

“I don’t know if I can explain it. I’ve told myself and told myself that it’s okay. That she is just who she is. She can’t help it, she has a personality disorder. Whatever. I think to an extent, that is a really healthy thing for me to do. I’m not taking her issues on board, I’m trying to make my own life, but the problem is that I’m hurt by it. I don’t know if I just need to tell her that, or what. It feels like I deserve something. I don’t know. Or maybe I just need to see the house that I grew up in.Maybe I just need to see her. I’m very good at running, Nathan. The thing about running is it’s not closure. It’s just leaving things behind. But if you run too fast, you leave the door open, and all kinds of shit follows you. Whether you mean it to or not. Letting shit follow you isn’t the same as working it out either.”

“Right. I mean, I’m familiar with shit.”

“I know.”

“Actually, I really do want to go on this journey to your childhood trauma.”

“That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I say. “So ... come along with me as I drain some poison.”

He smiles at me, and I want to save the image of that forever. It’s gone too quickly.

“I’ll drive,” he says. “I get better gas mileage.”

“No doubt,” I say.

We bring our coffee and head out to his car. It is a very cute car.

We get in, and I quiz him on his music preferences. And scowl in judgment about all of them, even though I have never met a genre of music I didn’t like. Unsurprising, his tastes are morediscerning.

“I love pop music,” I say as we head down the two-lane road that will carry us to the interstate.

“It’s not for me,” he says. “It’s too ... bright and happy.”

“That’s why I love it,” I say. “It sounds light, and it sounds easy, but sometimes the lyrics are devastating. That’s ... life, isn’t it?”

“I think you’re putting too much thought into ‘... Baby One More Time.’”

“You can never put too much thought into Ms. Britney Spears,” I say.

“I didn’t know anyone felt that strongly about it.”

“Have you never been on the internet?”

“No,” he says. Which makes me laugh because I know he’s lying.

As we drive, my phone rings. I look at it, and then I feel my heart slam against my breastbone.

Chris.

Of course. He’ll be rolling into town this weekend, and he was asked to moderate the panel. He’s trying to do ... whatever this is. Damage control of a kind, maybe. I suppose I would know if I answered.

“You can get that,” Nathan says.

“I don’t want to.”

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