Page 47 of Red Zone Realizations
I sigh. I’ve known I didn’t want to have children since I was a teenager. I babysat because it was the best money I could make at the time, but I didn’t love it like my other girlfriends did. It really blossomed in college when I realized that there isn’t a path you have to follow in life. Since then, I’ve been reading everything I can on women without children, which led me to feminism. I can talk about the patriarchy, capitalism, and the Witch Trials’ effect on women’s power until I’m blue in the face and she will never understand. She won’t want to hear that any time I dream that I become accidentally pregnant, it always ends with me terminating the pregnancy. That I’m simply not cut out for her normal. That’s okay with me. I knew that my other friends would get married, have children, and move on from me. Their days would be spent hanging out with other parents at gymnastics and dance classes. That’s part of the reason I wanted to work for myself, be my own boss. My business is my baby.
We click the last of the straps into place and lean back tofinish talking over the roof of my car. “I know you don’t, Sarah.” I wipe my hand over my face. “Do you not want me to watch Mikey tonight? If you think I’m hellbent on uprooting your family, I certainly wouldn’t want to infer my beliefs on such an impressionable mind?” My voice is drenched in sarcasm.
Sarah’s “No, no. That’s fine” is lickety-split. She wants to misunderstand me, but she doesn’t want to lose my help. “Just don’t answer any more of his big questions. He’s only five and he should be hearing stuff from me.”
“All right.” I don’t want to step in it again anyway. “Besides, I would rather fly under the radar and keep everyone happy with my free childcare.”
She just stares at me, obviously annoyed, and straightens her shirt and heads back to her car to get Mikey out and buckle him in.
“I’ll be back here to get him by ten.”
“We’ll be here.”
She waves to him through the window. “Have fun with Auntie Audrey!”
He waves back as I buckle into the driver's seat.
I look at him in the rearview mirror. “Ready to rock?”
“Yes!”
As I drive, I can feel my anger bubbling up inside me. It’s like now that I’m out of fight, flight, or fawn mode, my brain can finally make sense of what I’m accused of.
Sometimes it feels like my own family is intentionally misunderstanding me. How else could you explain Sarah taking what I said the way she did? I’m sure being a single mother is hard, and maybe she’s a little insecure, but there’s no reason to take it out on me. The emotional whiplash of being needed and trusted for childcare, to being berated for givingan honest answer, is painful. The sting of always being the minority fucking sucks. I can feel it beating in the back of my skull, hammering against my goodwill. I’m not sure what curse I was born with to have my whole family needing me, and at the same time never understanding me.
I take a deep breath to try and bank the flames of my anger as I pull up to Jaden’s house at half past four. I can’t allow the negativity in my family life to get in the way of enjoying time with Noah tonight. Even though it's a stark reminder of my spot in life right now. The part of me that desperately wants to be with Noah is being held back by helping Sarah out and the money that comes from Noah being my client. The part of me that’s afraid Noah will reject me is being provoked by Sarah’s reaction. Every time one of them makes a comment, no matter how inconsequential they think it is, it’s a tiny cut in my skin. A reminder along with all the other tiny cuts over the years that I’m scared, different. The weight of everything is so heavy, it’s keeping me rooted in place. Neither moving forward, nor back.
I hop out of the car and go to the back to get Mikey. He already has his goggles perched on his blonde head. Ready to go. I take a breath and steel my resolve to have a good time as we walk up the front path. This house is just shy of a mega-mansion. Like probably a thousand square feet off, give or take. As I corral Mikey toward the huge, double front doors, they immediately open and Jaden greets us with a big smile.
“Hey, Audrey!” He bends down to eye level with Mikey. “Hey, little man. Everyone is out back by the pool. Can I get y'all anything to drink?”
“Beer for me. Water for him.” I can practically hear the whining starting, so I put a hand up. “You can have a soda when you eat dinner.”
This placates the small demon, and he darts into the house, toward the flow of people through the backdoor.
I move to follow as Jaden shuts the door behind us. “Noah is out back, too.”
I redden even as I try to act cool. I’m a little sick from the anger and anticipation fighting for space in my churning stomach. I mosey into the house, taking in the black metal banisters of the huge staircase and the giant windows in the family room. “Cool.” I shrug, as if I’m not dying on the inside. “I’ll grab a drink and head out there.”
After the chaos of towels, goggles, drinks, chips, and sunscreen has been dealt with, I take a seat on a pool chair in the shade of a huge umbrella. I look over to the table to grab my beer and am startled when someone plops into the seat next to me. I whip my head around and see Noah. I suck in a breath because I haven’t seen him in person since our kiss. Instead of having dinner to talk about his Seduxion deal, I’ve been sending emails. It’s cowardly, but I haven’t sorted everything out yet.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
We go quiet. This is painful. I feel so awkward after kissing him and leaving. We haven’t talked about it at all. It’s just lingering between us like so many other things. I know I’m giving mixed signals. If I wasn’t still calming down from getting my ass chewed out by Sarah, I probably could make a better effort.
Noah, as always, takes it in stride. I know it’s all on me. I’m the one who doesn’t have the balls to say what needs to be said.
“I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah,” I shrug. “I’ve just been busy.”
Noah’s eyes drop to the bottle in his hands. “Don’t do that.” I frown at him. Why can’t he keep things light while we’re at his teammate’s house? “Don’t push me away because you’re feeling bad about last week. You needed your space. I get that. Don’t ice me out now that we’re face to face. I can’t take it. I want to talk.” He takes a deep breath, and I can see the wheels turning in his mind. “I want to be with you. I said it that day we were in the coffee shop. I’ll be anything you need me to be. You just have to let me.”
I feel myself lean closer to him, hanging on his words.
“The need to respect your wishes, caring for you when you push me away, and doing what needs to be done on the field are heavy, but the need for this is harder to ignore. It screams at me louder than anything. Every day that goes by that you and I are notmore…” he trails off. “It physically hurts.”
