Page 95 of Tell Me When It's Over

“Well, she raised you well then.”

The irony isn’t lost on me, but I don’t say anything. Simply nodding, I gesture toward the door. “I’d love your help in figuring things out, but I should go. I have to get to work.”

“Of course. I’ll see you on Monday.”

I think about our encounter the rest of the day, getting through my shift fueled by my idol’s praises. Not even Mr. Warren’s beady eyes on my chest can break the high I’m feeling.

And when Kyler surprises me at the café at closing and drives us home, our hands somehow finding each other’s with threaded fingers as I tell him about Marica Adams, everything inside of me buzzes with completion. I’m excited to see a movie pulled up on the screen, plain cheese pizza on the coffee table, and my favorite soda waiting for me when we walk in the door.

It isn’t until I wake up the next morning on a hard surface that isn’t my bed, with drool crusted onto my lip, that I realize he never carried me upstairs like usual. Blinking until my eyes adjust to the light streaming in from the living room windows, I look down at the firm chest I’m using as a pillow and note the arm draped around my waist to keep me from falling off the edge.

His even breathing lulls me back to sleep.

Chase splashes me with the warm pool water, pulling my attention away from my notebook, now dotted with droplets. Wiping them away, I fight the glare I want to shoot him and close the notes I’ve been studying for an hour then walk over to where he’s floating.

“Done?” he asks.

“For now,” I relent, sitting cross-legged on the heated cobblestone. The sun is starting to set, cooling off the previously warm October day that hit the high eighties. I’m looking forward to the days cooling off, though Chase has been dreading it. According to his mom he’s always been a water baby. Since I arrived this afternoon, he’s been swimming more than he’s done anything else, probably procrastinating from another work project, even though we haven’t talked as much about his programming lately.

“You’re going to ace it, Lenny.” He’s referring to the European History exam I have first thing Monday. My grades this semester mirror what they used to be before my attention was pulled away by Mom and her personal problems—problems that don’t feel so heavy since finally coming clean to Kyler. Like how, shortly after we’d gotten kicked out of the Bishop house, Mom went into a deep depression followed by a two-week binge of alcohol and anger where she nearly got arrested. I had to pull her out of a bar before the cops came. Or another time when she came home saying she lost her job and tried telling me it was the owner’s fault, when really, she was clocking in late all the time and half-assing her duties. When I’d asked her, “What now?” she’d looked at me in a way I never wanted her to look at me again—with a mixture of anger, defeat, and something far, far darker. Mom had simply replied with, “I’m doing my best, Leighton.”

But she lied. She always lied.

I didn’t realize how suffocating it was keeping that to myself, like I had something to be ashamed of when I didn’t. I’ve always been proud of myself for making do with the cards I’d been dealt, but there are still days I look back and think of all the ways things could have gone differently.

Sighing, I roll my shoulders. “I know. I’m almost done going through the last section from the study guide.” All my classes have been relatively easy, and the few writing assignments, though not my strong suit, have still earned me As, except for a short essay that my 3 a.m. binge-watching session of some K-drama with Kyler distracted me from preparing for. I should have gone to my room when Kyler put it on, but the break I allowed myself turned into five straight hours of TV watching, and before I knew it, I was being shaken awake by a freshly showered Kyler who’d already went on his run, showered, and cooked us breakfast. At least I’d gotten a B+, barely lowering my overall grade.

“Why don’t you come in here?”

Frowning, I huddle into the pullover I grabbed before leaving. “It’s cold.”

He deadpans. “It’s like seventy-nine.”

Shaking my head, I offer him an apologetic smile. “I’m just not interested in swimming today, I guess.”

“Still busy thinking about your professor?”

My nose scrunches.

“What’s her name? Miranda?”

Miranda? “Do you mean Marcia Adams?” My lips twitch a little that he doesn’t remember her name, and the way he teases me about her doesn’t make my tummy flutter when Kyler does it, but I give Chase the benefit of the doubt.

He looks a little apologetic. “I was close. Miranda. Marcia. That’s all still going well? You mentioned that she wanted to help you.”

I nod absentmindedly, feeling a little angry—probably irrationally so—that he doesn’t remember the conversation we had not even days ago. We barely talk about things anymore as is, so what we do say to each other should count. “I think she’s going to help me with an internship, but Gordy, er…Ky’s manager, said he’d get me something too. I guess it depends who gets to it first. I mean, I have plenty of time.”

“Most internships don’t start until senior year anyway. You should focus on having fun instead of bogging yourself down with work.”

I know he doesn’t feel the same way about his job, so I’m not sure why I should focus more on anything but my own interests. “I like the thought of getting experience early, but yeah. I won’t get any type of credit for the work until my last year at UCLA.”

We’re quiet for a moment, a thick tension in the air between us.

Eventually, I change the topic. “How did that meeting go with the overseas investor?”

The face he makes tells me not well as he swims over to the edge of the pool and leans against the side by my crossed legs. “Guy was a total douche. He wasn’t interested in investing, he wanted to buy me out and turn it into some mindless corporation.”

I blink. “That’s…” I mean, what could I say? It’s kind of cool somebody was interested in buying him—an almost twenty-year-old—out. “I know that isn’t what you want, but it’s awesome that he offered, right?”

---