Page 44 of One Little Problem
“It’s going well, then?”
“So well.” She almost looked… dreamy. Weird.
“Not that then.” Weird. Hearing all about a happy couple would also be sad and dark for me right now.
“I could tell you about what I watched on TV last night, but it was a Snapped marathon.” She frowned and looked normal again. “This isn’t helping at all, is it?”
“No,” I admitted, but I kinda felt better anyway. “But you trying does.”
She nodded, almost smiled again, and we almost had a nice moment. Things felt very sibling-y between us. “Okay,” Lydia said after a moment, looking excited again. “One of the murder stories they covered last night was so twisted—”
“Lydia, no!”
“I’m helping!”
Then we got into a giant verbal fight/wrestling match where we tried to push each other off the bed and we made enough noise that Lily came in, saw what we were doing, and joined in, but she was a giant traitor of course and started throwing pillows at me. But maybe it was okay. I didn’t have— There was a lot of people I couldn’t talk to at the moment, but at least I had them. I still had some family.
* * *
Ryan
Mrs. Reynolds and Alicia made some good points. I could admit that. The only problem was that arguing with me on a regular day was already a challenge but now it was even more difficult when my only counter was: LUKE. Just his name said at full volume. Might not be a good enough answer for everyone, but I still had trouble arguing with that one word. It made sense to me.
Also, I really hoped I could get Mrs. Reynolds saying suck out of my head.
It didn’t feel like I was putting Luke first or our relationship, it felt like I was thinking about me and what I wanted. Not what me in the future wanted or what I was supposed to be doing but on me now, who was happy and wanted to stay happy. I hadn’t wanted things to change. I’d found a way to be happy and wanted to hold onto that, wanted more of that. Yes, happiness wasn’t the only thing in the world.
Could be pretty fleeting though and when you didn’t have it… well, my strategy was to soldier on, acting un-bothered, which worked pretty well until I actually did get some happiness, a good thing, a great thing, in my life and I realized how nice it was.
Right now? Things weren’t very nice. I was outside of Zach’s family’s grocery store. I didn’t always do the grocery shopping, but I had run out of junk food to eat and Dad said he wasn’t going to enable me.
Lake Forest was relatively small, especially when Luke and I came from the same part of town and went to the same school. I’d have to talk to him eventually. Maybe I should have planned for what to do, what to wear, what to say. I needed a prepared statement, something cool and cutting maybe, to show that I didn’t need him at all even though I did, or something to make me look witty and irresistible and have him dying to take me back.
What I said was, “You look terrible.” At least it was true. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was limp, but we were outside, and it was a nice day, so he still had his unfairly tan skin and bright green eyes.
“So do you,” he said immediately.
I didn’t have tan skin and green eyes to fall back on, so my voice was icy when I replied. “Yeah, I got dumped and byyou, so I don’t think that’s very fair.”
“Fine,” he replied tightly, gritting his teeth. “You look marvelous. Happy now?”
“Not at all, thanks to you.” As the broken up with, I didn’t have to make this easy. That really worked because I wouldn’t have made it easy even if I was supposed to. We were standing outside the grocery store, off to the side. Luke looked weird, not just because of our breakup but because there was distance between us. I was used to being in closer proximity to him.
“I broke up with you, yeah, so maybe I don’t get to be sad, but I am.” His tone there had gone from tense and irritated to tired and honest. It stopped me short for a second.
Only for a second. “That’s not fair,” I scolded. “Don’t make it hard to hate you.”
“It’s the truth.” He stared at me with sad green eyes. “Not like I broke up with you because I wanted to.” The part of me that was stupidly happy to see him even though I also hated him was growing louder.
“I—” had trouble hanging onto my righteous fury. “I’m sorry you felt that I didn’t leave you with any other choice.” Okay, now I had been stopped short for more than a second. I obviously hadn’t meant to say that. If there were going to be apologies here, I really hadn’t planned on them being from me.
Luke seemed similarly surprised. “You don’t have to— uh, thanks, I guess. You’re stubborn as hell, but, still. I decided. And I still think I did the right thing.”
“So much for us getting along,” I muttered. The part of me that was happy to see him? It threw its hands in the air and gave up.
“I just didn’t get it. You staying. I’m not worth that.” He spoke quietly but earnestly.
“I’m not about to compliment you.”
