Page 18 of Bed of Roses

She leaned forward on her elbows, her face at the same height as mine so even the computer screen didn’t block her from my view.

“You’re scared.”

“Fuck off Raven.”

Her mouth gaped open and her eyebrows arched up nearly as high as the top of her forehead.

“Holy shit. You full on dig her. You’ve been moping around here, acting like a surly asshole because you are petrified.”

Petrified? The fuck she thinks I am? Petrified. She had no idea what she was talking about and I had zero patience engaging in a verbal tete a tete with her when I needed to figure out how to get Marley to talk to me.

“Ted, don’t you see it? The pattern?”

“Raven, I’m warning you.”

There was a vein behind my left eye that had started to throb. I couldn’t think straight, and Raven just kept yammering.

“Jen left. The station turned its back on you. Being a foster kid, facing rejection after rejection.”

“Raven, last warning. Stop with your Doctor Phil bullshit. Either shut the fuck up or leave.” I pointed to our door as if she didn’t know it was directly behind her.

“Or else what, Ted? You’ll push me away too? Why do you think it is that you walked away from this job until they agreed to hire us both?

“Totally different.” I didn’t want to have this conversation. I wanted to sit in the quiet and sulk. “We’re a team. Period. No one breaks that up. I wouldn’t want to do this without you.”

“Exactly, we’re a team. We’ve been there for each otherfor thirteen years. I’m the one constant that has never abandoned you. And so, you push against anyone who tries to separate us. That push—is out of fear. Because you are petrified of being abandoned.”

She rocked out of her chair and came around to sit on the corner of my half of the desk.

“You and me, we’re ride or die. Always. What you have with Marley though, it could be real. Don’t push her away out of fear.”

“I’m not pushing anyone away!” My words burst out with such force I was sure they were echoing down the hallway. “I can’t get her to take my calls or answer my texts. I don’t know what the fuck happened.”

“Well Bear,” Raven pats my hand with a smile, “some fools think of happiness, but I know it isn’t true. Love is just a lie made to make you blue.”

I jab her ass with my toe, huffing out a laugh.

“Really? I’m prostrate at your feet, bleeding out my pain, and you go and quote something so trite as Nazareth?”

Raven just shakes her head and shrugs. Her words percolate in my head. When did Raven get so fucking deep?

“If you want her to talk to you, you need to get her attention.”

“Raven, how am I supposed to that? She won’t take my calls.” I over enunciate to make myself even clearer.

“Jesus Ted. You’re denser than a cinderblock wall…. You work for a radio station. Make her listen.”

“I’m not getting my ass fired. I’m already in the middle of the lake hoping the ice doesn’t crack. I’m not risking pissing him off anymore. Even I know when I to press pause on my mouthy fuck it all attitude.”

“Then do something that she can’tnotrespond to. And I mean, in a good way. Don’t go like filling her driveway in with snow so she’s stuck talking to you.”

The question remained.Whatwas that “something”?

14

Asshole. I ignored the eight hundredth phone call from him. I’m not a locker room conquest, I yelled inside my head. Raven’s comments just kept playing over and again in my head. “Best way to get over someone is getting under someone else.” I would expect that from some frat boy, but fromRaven? Isn’t that like a betrayal against the X chromosome?

The thing that really got me, is that despitereallyenjoying myself, if he had wanted it to just be a casual thing, I would have been fine with it. But like, be up front, you know? How hard would it have been to say, “Hey Marley, we had some fantastic sex last night, but can we keep things casual? I don’t want to upset you, but I think our emotions got the better of us yesterday and maybe we can just, chill for a bit while we figure things out.” Great. Fine. Communication for the win. But he didn’t. In fact, when he’d left my house Saturday morning, he said that he would see me later at Carol the Square. It baffled me.

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