Page 43 of One Little Problem
“Were you in denial?” Mom persisted. We hovered in the entryway, both standing there awkwardly.
Actually, we weren’t broken up then. Now we are. Too complicated. That would probably give her more questions than answers and I didn’t have the energy to explain it. Plus, what if she tried to punish me for lying? “I don’t want to do this,” I told her instead.
“We should. We don’t have to fight all the time.”
“I disagree.” I leaned against the wall until I realized that I could just leave.
Lydia was walking in as I was walking out. “Hold on,” she said. Wasn’t a super annoying request by itself but was made worse when I had to sit there and wait for her while she talked with my mom, all chummy.
“My parents traded one child for a better one,” I told her after we went up to her room. It was actually my older sister Rose’s room, but she had commandeered it from Rose. Well, that was too strong, commandeer. She had been kicked out of her old house and Rose was at college. Lydia sat on one side of the bed while I sat on the other, something I’d done with my sister a million times before.
“Don’t be jealous,” she said.
“I’m not jealous.” Unless I was but annoyance was prominent.
“Okay, good because it would be pretty shitty since I don’t have any parents at the moment.” She had to play that card. Okay, her parents weren’t talking to her. It sucked and she got to play that card if she wanted.
I didn’t want to complain. Sometimes, it felt like I couldn’t. She had it worse. But whatever was going on with me and my parents? It wasn’t great. I wouldn’t complain, though, I would just accept that I was actually lucky because it could have been way worse… Only, she lived in my house and it’s not like my parents were weird with her. They freaking loved her and it just sucked.
“Why are things so weird between my parents and me because I’m bi?” I wondered. “When you’re gay too and they love you anyway.” They could be a little more consistent. Yeah, I didn’t want them to also be weird to Lydia but on the other hand, they could just be less weird to me? It’s a choice for you, Mom said. You can like girls.
“It’s easy to be nice to the sad girl,” she said, making a sad face for effect.
“I’m sad, because of them.” I made my own sad face and she rolled her eyes. Rude.
“Yeah, but I’m not their kid.”
“I know.” Like as a statement of fact, I was aware of that. What did that matter? She was the orphan they took in. I was their son they had raised and known all my life, shouldn’t it be easier to feel and show affection for me?
“No, I mean, they’ve known you your whole life and had certain preconceptions.” Oh, like they thought I was straight. Hey, I had thought that too, so we had that in common. Didn’t think telling them that would help. “I think they’re getting there, Luke.”
I wanted that to be true, but I wasn’t sure it was. God, taking a break from thinking about Ryan for an entire minute, maybe even two, had sounded like a blast. Unless I was thinking about my parents instead. I needed a break from the heaviness, so I looked around the room instead.
The room outwardly stayed the same mostly, but Rose had taken some stuff to her dorm, so it had been sparsely decorated but now it looked like someone lived in here again. But the biggest difference was, like. Okay. I swear the room had a gloomier vibe. Was I making that up? The lighting was darker and the atmosphere was more oppressive, how Lydia liked it.
Rose was… crunchy, which I thought was just about peanut butter or something she did to her hair for a long time until Ryan told me it actually referenced all the annoying environmentally friendly stuff she did, which actually wasn’t that bad, it was just that she always tried to pull us into her social justice stuff with her even though I’d never seen or heard of an endangered rice rat before she told me about it and didn’t know why I needed to save them.
Lydia and Rose were different. Lydia had never been called a warm and fuzzy bleeding heart, some people might believe that her heart didn’t even beat, let alone bleed. With most of the stuff in here, it was pretty obvious what belonged to who. A picture of a black rose that looked like it was bleeding? Lydia. Signed Inconvenient Truth DVD? Rose. A really scary looking voodoo doll on the dresser that I prayed wasn’t me was Lydia’s while the paint can on the desk filled with spare change was Rose’s from when she protested wearing fur. The book on women’s sexuality could go either way, relating to a college course Rose took or was perhaps Lydia’s as women’s sexuality was the only kind of sexuality she was interested in, but either way, I didn’t want to know more about that one.
I sighed. “I just, I don’t know. I want something in my head right now other than Ryan or my parents.” Something other than how much I missed them all.
Lydia looked excited. “Oh, I can so help with that.”
“But I don’t want something sad in my head either,” I added quickly. Then there’d just be another thing I didn’t want to think about.
Her enthusiasm deflated. “That makes it more difficult.” She thought. “Um, puppies?”
Puppies, that could work. “What about them?” Their tiny little paws or the cute way they sneezed or—
“I don’t know, certainly not them contracting rabies and hunting for human flesh.”
Not that. “Lydia.” That was where her mind went when she thought puppies? What the hell?
“It’s like a jinx,” she shrugged apologetically. “Now all I can think about is sad and dark things.” Plus, that was probably all she thought about already. “I could talk about Alicia?”
“Like, your relationship with her?” I wasn’t sure about that. Alicia was best friends with someone I wanted to stop thinking about for a moment.
“It’s the happiest thing about me,” she replied simply, almost a smile on her face.
