That Flew Between Us As We Slept, It Slipped From Your Mouth Into Mine, It Crept Between Two Lungs
Chapter: 11/?
Song: Between Two Lungs- Florence + The Machine
Word Count: 4,476
Summary: And now, facing his mother in her beautiful kitchen, looking at her beautiful like...now she has to tell her why she'll never have that with her son. Why he may have a beautiful life with someone else but there's no hope for the two of them, no hope for her.
They feel like they’re two high school kids when they get back to the house and he’s sneaking her up to his bedroom. No one is still awake and
all the lights are off so they trip over the couch, stairs, and each other on their way to their destination.
“Do you want the shower first?” He whispers to her when they get in the room and he flicks on the light.
“Sure.” She kicks off her flip flop. “If you don’t mind?
“No, it’s fine. Or, you know…” He stands behind her and puts his arms around her waist. “We could share and take one at the same time.”
She smiles and pulls his arms away from her body. “I would feel really weird if we did that in your mother’s house.”
“I think it would be fun. Like high school.”
She slips away from him. “Maybe if we were in high school.” She says the smile still on her face so he knows that she’s not really rejecting him.
“You’re no fun.”
“I’ll be fun when we get back to the city.”
“That’s why we should’ve gone home tonight.”
She laughs as she heads into the bathroom and starts the shower and it just hits her that this is going to be the first time that they’ll be spending the whole night together. It’s the first time she’ll fall asleep with him and then wake up with him in the morning and that’s something that at the start of this whole thing she swore would never happen. She’s getting too close and there isn’t a way out because she wants to be right here with him. She can feel herself getting closer and closer to accepting him completely and she’s afraid that she won’t be able to save herself from getting there.
When she gets out of the shower and gets dressed she carefully opens the bathroom door to peek out at him. He’s spread out on the bed, his
bare feet hanging off the side and one of his arms across his stomach and the other kept straight, holding the remote comfortably at his side. His eyes move from the TV to her when he hears the door creek open.
“Finally, took you long enough.” He jumps off the bed and she eases herself into the room. “Last chance for the shower sharing.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“There’s always tomorrow morning, and then tomorrow night.”
“You’re just full of optimism aren’t you?”
“I’m never giving up on this, Molly.”
She starts to climb into bed but stops when she notices that he’s still standing in the doorway watching her.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” He crosses and then uncrosses his arms. “But is this weird?”
“The whole, sharing a bed thing?”
“Yeah.”
She curls one of her legs under her as she sits on the bed. “A little.”
“Okay, good, I didn’t want to be the only one feeling this way.”
“You’re not. I think it’s because we never do this.”
“Mmmm. So if I come out here and you’re fake sleeping…”
“I’m not trying to avoid you, just the awkward situation that you being her will cause.”
“I guess that’s a comfort.”
He closes the door and she lies back on the bed to wait for him, the sound of the running water fills her ears. She’s determined not to fall
asleep. They can push through the awkwardness. They can do it, be n normal. But then as soon as the door opens her eyes slam shut and she can’t just open them again, she has to go with it.
Things get darker on the other side of her closed eyes and she feels his weight on the other side of the bed as he settles in. She waits until he’s stopped moving before she opens her eyes and lets them adjust to the dark.
“I’m not sleeping.” Her whispered voice seems so loud when the room is completely still.
“I know.”
“I told myself that I wouldn’t pretend and then I panicked and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
She turns on her side to face him; she can just make out his profile. “This really shouldn’t be this weird. I mean, we have sex like, all the time.”
He bursts out laughing and covers his mouth with his hand.
She hits his chest. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just saying, it’s not like we’re strangers, it’s not like we have to be afraid to touch each other accidentally or anything. We don’t have to build a pillow wall.”
“That’s true.”
Silence stretches between them for a moment.
“You don’t like your stepdad, do you?”
“What?”
His voice is more than a gentle whisper and she’s worried that someone might have heard them.
“Darren, you don’t like him.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’m just thinking that you didn’t introduce me to him and you introduced me to everyone, I’ve forgotten half their names but I should know them. But not him.”
“I just couldn’t find him is all.”
“He was outside when we were out there. I saw him. I actually met him but you didn’t know that, did you?”
“No.”
“He was nice. When no one else was being nice to me he was nice. And he really likes you; he only had good things to say about you. Why don’t you like him?”
“It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s just….” He sighs and she looks at him more intently. “My dad isn’t a bad guy, you know. He works a lot and he really loves his job and I know that he loves us, even my mom maybe, still…”
“I’m sure he does.”
“He wanted to be here today, I mean, Morgan is his granddaughter and he always wanted to be there, he wanted to be at my first little league
game and at my graduation and my first show but he couldn’t be. “
“What does this have to do with Darren?”
“Nothing really. I don’t know. I just feel like Darren would’ve been there, even if he had the same job as my dad and everything, he would’ve made sure that he was there.”
“That bastard.” Things are getting a little too deep and she has to start to reel her way out of this closeness so she makes a joke that thankfully, he laughs at, low and rough.
“It’s just that he doesn’t even take any credit for it.”
“Is he supposed to?”
“No.” He says sharply. “I just feel like, I don’t know, why wasn’t he there when I needed him to be? No one was there. Do you know what I’m
saying?”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t know what you’re saying. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. I guess it’s just that, my dad kind of taught me how not to be a father and Darren taught me how to act and I think it should be the other way around and that bothers me.”
He finally looks over at her and she has the strongest urge to kiss him. But they don’t do that unless it’s going to lead to something more, they’re not that close. So instead she leans in and presses her lips to his cheek, slowly pulling away and leaving her hand on his chest over his heart.
“I get it.”
“Maybe I’ll change my mind sometime. I mean, Morgan likes him, he’s pretty much all that she knows and kids have that kind of sixth sense about people, don’t they? Like dogs, they can tell if people are good or not?”
“I…do not know if that’s true but it sounds good. Morgan likes me.”
“She definitely does. Other people will like you too. They just take a little while because they’re…..stupid, I don’t know.” He says quietly and she rubs her hand over his chest before she lets it slide off.
“I think I can handle just Morgan and Darren liking me.”
“I like you.” He says immediately, like he really means it, like he really means something more than just liking her and that’s too much so she
has to smile softly at him, even though he can’t see it, push his shoulder gently, even though it’s not really that gentle and rolls over before she does something that she’ll more than likely regret.
In the morning she wakes up first. He’s still sleeping soundly on his side of the bed, not a toe over the imaginary line when she gets out of the
shower. They didn’t need a pillow wall because they both knew to keep to their own separate sides.
She goes downstairs carefully, she doesn’t want to wake any other family members that are still sleeping, she plans on sneaking out of the house and going for an early morning walk on the beach so she can clear her head and try not to implode with nerves and dread and worry about what they’re going to do with this new situation that they’ve suddenly found themselves in.
But as soon as she turns the corner to go into the kitchen she stops short, her plan thwarted, her nerves and dread and worry through the roof.
His mother is standing at the stove pouring batter into a pan and Molly’s first instinct is to run, just book it back up to the room and hide under the covers.
She shifts her weight, preparing to flee and one of the floorboards squeaks and she silently curses the stupid house with the faulty floors.
Kathy turns around and Molly is frozen, like a deer in the headlights, completely unsure about what to do. She could still run. Kathy would know that she was standing there and what she did and probably think that she was an idiot but really, is that any worse than what she thinks of her
already?
“Would you like to help?” She asks Molly and Molly is even more unsure as to what to do. “It’s not hard dear, I’m pouring pancake mix into a
pan, haven’t you made them before?” It might sound like more of an insult to Molly’s ears than it does to Kathy’s but Molly slowly makes her way to her side.
She puts her hands on the counter next to the stove and leans forward, unsure about what to do. “So…how long have you been up?”
“Since six.”
“Oh my god.”
Kathy laughs. “There’s some coffee in the pot over there if you want it.” She tips her head to the opposite counter and Molly pours herself a
cup then returns to her spot next to the stove, carefully sipping her coffee. “I want to apologize to you…”
“No.” Molly touches her arm with her free hand to stop her and then removes it. “You don’t need to. I get where you’re coming from, I really
understand it.”
“No, no, I should say this, I treated you unfairly.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Molly.”
“Kathy.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Lee told us you were stubborn.”
“Probably too much for my own good.”
“I think you’re probably a really great girl.”
“You really don’t have to do this.” She’s almost begging, if her nails we able to dig into the marble countertops they would be.
“But you’re not right for him, you might be a good thing for the moment, but he needs more than a moment. Do you know him, the way that he used to be and what he went through?”
Molly nods.
“Then you also have to know how hard it is to keep him the way that he is now. Okay. He’s okay now and part of me might believe that has
something to do with you and I want to sincerely thank you for that but Molly, it’s been so long. You’ve been with him for so long and it’s like this is the first day that you’ve met him. You’re feelings aren’t changing and his are. They have.”
“He said…”
“I know what he’s said and that’s not true. He’s only going along with that because that’s what he thinks you want to hear and he’s so desperate
to keep you. When you find someone else and leave….what do you think is going to happen to him?”
“I don’t….”
“He’s going to fall apart and turn to god knows what to comfort him. He’s fragile. He loves you and he’s only going to get hurt by you. I don’t mean to be harsh but this is what I’m thinking. Mother’s intuition.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.” She says quietly, her voice shaking because she’s on the edge of tears.
“I know you don’t. That’s why you should end this now, before he has a chance to start to think that he can change you.”
“I don’t want to lose him.”
“Then love him.”
Molly shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Molly bites hard on her lip to keep the truth from spilling out. But that fails.
“I was married.”
It’s the first time she’s said that since….for as long as she can remember and a tear slides down her face as Kathy’s eyes widen and then narrow.
“I met Brad during our junior year of college and right after we graduated we got married. Six months later he went to work and I got a call just after one that he was rushed to the hospital. He had a brain aneurism, the doctors don’t know what caused it or why but he died before I could get there. He was twenty two.”
“Oh, Molly. I didn’t…”
“No one does. My family and a few friends but that’s it.”
“So you mean Lee doesn’t know?”
“No, and he can’t.”
“Why not? If he knew then he could understand why you’re not giving in.”
“I don’t want him to understand because I want him to leave as much as you want him to. I’m keeping him for selfish reasons. Before I met Brad
I didn’t really believe in the whole, love forever, soul mates thing but when I met him I knew that he was going to be everything to me and if I believe that then that means Lee belongs to someone else and I can’t keep him. I can’t steal him from someone that deserves him. If he finds out what happened then all he’ll feel is sympathy and pity and that’ll make it impossible for him to go.”
“People fall in love more than once. Look at me and Darren.”
Molly sniffles and pushes back tears with the back of her hand.
“You should give him a chance. Just do that and you’ll see how great this can be.”
“Hey.” Both of them turn their heads to the doorway to see Lee standing there. He looks at Molly. “Are you okay?” And then at his mother. “What did you do?”
“She didn’t do anything.” Molly says as she puts her hands on his arms as he wipes her tears off her cheeks with his thumbs.
“It looks like she did something.”
“Lee.” Kathy says and Molly stares at her, silently begging her not to say anything. “I was apologizing. I know that what I did was wrong and I
said sorry.”
Lee looks to Molly for confirmation and she nods her head.
“We were having a moment and you came in and ruined it.” She hits his side with a dishrag and Lee puts his arm around Molly’s shoulders.
“Everything is okay now.” Molly tells him and he frowns at the two of them, not believing their story completely.
“Okay. If you say so.”
“We do.”
He looks them over once more before he leans in and presses a kisso the side of her face and then takes her hand and pulls her into the kitchen, where the rest of the family has already started to gather.
“You’re sure that you’re okay?” He asks her as he pulls out a chair for her.
“Yeah, it’s totally fine now. Everything’s fine.” Lying through her teeth is her specialty.
“Alright.” He sits down next to her but then tenses back up when Andy practically jumps on her, his arms around her shoulders to greet her.
“Hey, girl didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I was here all day yesterday.” She tells him as she wiggles out of his grasp, Lee helping to push his arms away.
“I know you were, sorry I didn’t get a chance to say hi, I was kind of busy or whatever. I just didn’t expect you to still be here given how everyone hates you and everything.”
“Andy.” Lee warns.
“Nobody hates anybody.” Kathy walks in with a plate of food, Darren following behind her with orange juice and the coffee pot in his hand. “Now, Andy, shut up and eat your food that I cooked for you.”
“I have to meet your girlfriend.” Molly tells Andy, just to break the new tension in the room.
“Oh yeah.” He talks to her around a mouthful of pancake and Molly makes a face while Lee laughs. “Kendal is still sleeping.”
She turns to Lee and mouths her name at him and he shrugs his shoulders and laughs.
“She’s not really a morning person.” Andy continues. “Just try not to get kicked out of here and I’ll introduce her when she wakes up.” He laughs
at his own joke even though no one else finds it funny.
She’s included when they start to set up for the party. Lee takes Morgan down to the beach and Molly is asked, very nicely to stay by his sister, her hand gently on her arm to persuade her, like she’s apologizing.
They asks her questions like they really want to know about her and she begins to wonder if Ka thy let her secret slip so that they’d have to be nice to her.
Andy introduces Kendal to her. She’s nice, surprisingly and Molly feels bad for judging her on name alone. She’s short, pretty, blond hair, aviator sunglasses never leaving her face. She’s not who she would’ve picked out for Andy, she’s probably better. And everyone on Lee’s side of the family seems to genuinely love her. She catches Kendal and one of his cousins laughing by the pool as they put pink and purple streamers around all the chairs and Molly can’t help but feel left out again. They might be accepting her, but they’re not accepting her like they
seem to be with Kendal.
The party goes well, it’s a lot more extravagant than any party that she had when she was a kid, but it’s pretty much everything that Molly
expected them to throw for her. She keeps expecting to turn a corner and run into a petting zoo and a circus and an amusement park.
Morgan loves the present that Molly got for her and that’s really the first good thing that happened to Molly all day because she knows that
Morgan has no idea about Brad and her relationship with Lee and why it’s getting so messed up.
The party starts to slow down around five. Morgan’s friends start to slow down and they take to the pool to cool down and relax. Morgan’s face is starting to burn, her cheeks tinted with pink as she comes up to Molly with a bottle of new pink nail polish that she got as a gift.
“Can you paint my nails, Molly? I liked yours so I thought that maybe…” She trails off, her voice quiet like she’s scared that she’ll say no.
“Sure. Of course.” Molly looks over at Lee who is smiling at her, ignoring the conversation that is going on around him to watch her.
The interaction with Morgan is only strained in her own head and on her side because Morgan could not be more comfortable with her. She talks and talks and even though she doesn’t say it, Molly knows exactly what kids she likes, which kids she hates and which boy she loves. She’s honest and innocent and she doesn’t care that Molly has zero experience dealing with children and is basically a mute as she goes on and on.
Molly paints her nails better than she paints her own and when she’s done Morgan slides off of the picnic table bench and waves her hands
around dramatically to dry the rest of the paint.
“Thank you, Molly.”
“It’s no problem.” She answers back as Lee sits down next to her and puts a plastic cup on the table. “If any of them smudge or whatever I can
fix it.”
“Thanks.” She calls over her shoulder as she takes off to join the group of kids that she just likes.
“That was really nice of you.” Lee tells her and she rolls her eyes.
“I couldn’t say no.”
“You wanted to help her out. You really do like kids don’t you? I kind of pegged you as someone that got annoyed by them super easily but…”
“I am…one of those people.”
He laughs. “You love them. You’d be a good mom.”
She laughs not, too loudly because she’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have any maternal instincts.” She looks up at him, terrified that he’ll read that the wrong way. That he’ll think she’s thinking about him and kids. That he’ll think she’s the kind of girl to think about him and kids.
He takes a drink as she waits for him to do something. He’s drinking soda, it’s orange or something, there’s no beer at a kids party. She’ll know for sure when she kisses him later. She’ll taste it on him. It might not lead to anything but she needs to do it, she’ll break her own rule just once.
“Some people don’t.” Is all he says and she wants to thank him for letting that slide, letting her off easy. She figures she’ll just thank him later with the kiss. “Come on.” He stands up and pulls off his shirt then tugs at the hem of hers. “I know you have your bathing suit on and it’s hot as hell out, let’s go swimming.”
“Oh…kay.” The conversation on kids ending abruptly but she’s not going to fight that and follows him over to the pool.
He jumps in right away while she carefully perches herself on the edge, the water coming up to her knees.
“That’s it, are you kidding me?” He swims towards her and she leans back and holds onto the edge because she’s got this feeling that he’s going to be pulling her in at some point and she’d like to resist and fight back against that. “The water is warm.”
“I like to ease myself in.” She says as she watches Andy splash Kendal on the other side of the pool; too busy doing that to harass the two of
them. “I don’t get that.”
“Get what?” Lee leans on the side of the pool.
“That whole thing.” She nods to the two of them. “I don’t understand how she puts up with him.”
Lee laughs.
“Does she know…about him?”
“What….”
“Does she know what he does?” She doesn’t want to come out and just say drugs.
“Oh. Yeah, she definitely does She’s talked to me about it; she doesn’t want him to be that way. He’s not using.”
“Anymore?”
“No, just right now, I’d be able to tell.”
“That’s comforting…I guess.” She kicks her legs. “I don’t know how she puts up with it; I don’t think that I could.”
She looks down at Lee who’s intently looking up at her.
“You know, if you ever…started again, this thing that we’re doing, whatever it is, it would end.”
He nods slowly and moves in front of her and puts his hands on the sides of her legs. “I will never need more incentive than that.” He tells her
softly as his hands move closer to her skin. “Now.” He tucks his hand behind her knees and starts to pull her in; she doesn’t resist.
Instead she kind of falls into him, gracefully, naturally, as she hangs her arms over his shoulders to keep her feet from touching the bottom of
the pool and she watches Kendal yelling at Andy for splashing her over his shoulder.
She turns her head into Lee’s neck because she doesn’t need to see them anymore. What she and Lee have, whatever convoluted relationship that they have is better than that.
They spend the night in the pool, lazily swimming around together and talking quietly in their own world until it gets dark and colder. Then they
get out and he wraps her in a blanket and they wander down to the beach, the sand sticking to her legs as they sit, his arms around her, her leaning back against his chest as they watch fireworks burst over the water.
When the fireworks stop and it’s time to go inside they wait for everyone else to clear the beach first so they can have a few minutes completely to themselves.
She turns around in his arms so she’s sitting between his legs and runs her fingers through his hair as she kisses him. She pushes him back into the sand and his hands work their way under the shirt that she put on to cover her bikini top and she giggles as his fingers brush against her stomach.
She tears her mouth away from his lips and move to his neck and he gasps to breathe.
“We should probably stop this.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a feeling that you’re not going to finish it so…” He trails off as she sits up.
“Sorry. I guess I got carried away.”
“It’s definitely okay.” He says as they both stand up and she takes his hand.
“It was the fireworks. They always make me want to make out with someone.”
“That must’ve led to some awkward 4th of July parties when you were growing up.”
She laughs then ducks her face into his shoulder as they walk back up to the house.
He lets her take a shower first and when she gets out he goes in and unlike the previous night, she’s able to keep her eyes open for him.
When he gets into bed instead of staying away on her own separate side she slides closer to him and puts his arm over his waist, her chin on the top of his shoulder and his on the top of her head.
For the first time she falls asleep in his arms.
But in the morning when she wakes up, she moves away from him, still convinced that what she’s feeling is nothing.
Song: Between Two Lungs- Florence + The Machine
Word Count: 4,476
Summary: And now, facing his mother in her beautiful kitchen, looking at her beautiful like...now she has to tell her why she'll never have that with her son. Why he may have a beautiful life with someone else but there's no hope for the two of them, no hope for her.
They feel like they’re two high school kids when they get back to the house and he’s sneaking her up to his bedroom. No one is still awake and
all the lights are off so they trip over the couch, stairs, and each other on their way to their destination.
“Do you want the shower first?” He whispers to her when they get in the room and he flicks on the light.
“Sure.” She kicks off her flip flop. “If you don’t mind?
“No, it’s fine. Or, you know…” He stands behind her and puts his arms around her waist. “We could share and take one at the same time.”
She smiles and pulls his arms away from her body. “I would feel really weird if we did that in your mother’s house.”
“I think it would be fun. Like high school.”
She slips away from him. “Maybe if we were in high school.” She says the smile still on her face so he knows that she’s not really rejecting him.
“You’re no fun.”
“I’ll be fun when we get back to the city.”
“That’s why we should’ve gone home tonight.”
She laughs as she heads into the bathroom and starts the shower and it just hits her that this is going to be the first time that they’ll be spending the whole night together. It’s the first time she’ll fall asleep with him and then wake up with him in the morning and that’s something that at the start of this whole thing she swore would never happen. She’s getting too close and there isn’t a way out because she wants to be right here with him. She can feel herself getting closer and closer to accepting him completely and she’s afraid that she won’t be able to save herself from getting there.
When she gets out of the shower and gets dressed she carefully opens the bathroom door to peek out at him. He’s spread out on the bed, his
bare feet hanging off the side and one of his arms across his stomach and the other kept straight, holding the remote comfortably at his side. His eyes move from the TV to her when he hears the door creek open.
“Finally, took you long enough.” He jumps off the bed and she eases herself into the room. “Last chance for the shower sharing.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“There’s always tomorrow morning, and then tomorrow night.”
“You’re just full of optimism aren’t you?”
“I’m never giving up on this, Molly.”
She starts to climb into bed but stops when she notices that he’s still standing in the doorway watching her.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” He crosses and then uncrosses his arms. “But is this weird?”
“The whole, sharing a bed thing?”
“Yeah.”
She curls one of her legs under her as she sits on the bed. “A little.”
“Okay, good, I didn’t want to be the only one feeling this way.”
“You’re not. I think it’s because we never do this.”
“Mmmm. So if I come out here and you’re fake sleeping…”
“I’m not trying to avoid you, just the awkward situation that you being her will cause.”
“I guess that’s a comfort.”
He closes the door and she lies back on the bed to wait for him, the sound of the running water fills her ears. She’s determined not to fall
asleep. They can push through the awkwardness. They can do it, be n normal. But then as soon as the door opens her eyes slam shut and she can’t just open them again, she has to go with it.
Things get darker on the other side of her closed eyes and she feels his weight on the other side of the bed as he settles in. She waits until he’s stopped moving before she opens her eyes and lets them adjust to the dark.
“I’m not sleeping.” Her whispered voice seems so loud when the room is completely still.
“I know.”
“I told myself that I wouldn’t pretend and then I panicked and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
She turns on her side to face him; she can just make out his profile. “This really shouldn’t be this weird. I mean, we have sex like, all the time.”
He bursts out laughing and covers his mouth with his hand.
She hits his chest. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just saying, it’s not like we’re strangers, it’s not like we have to be afraid to touch each other accidentally or anything. We don’t have to build a pillow wall.”
“That’s true.”
Silence stretches between them for a moment.
“You don’t like your stepdad, do you?”
“What?”
His voice is more than a gentle whisper and she’s worried that someone might have heard them.
“Darren, you don’t like him.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I’m just thinking that you didn’t introduce me to him and you introduced me to everyone, I’ve forgotten half their names but I should know them. But not him.”
“I just couldn’t find him is all.”
“He was outside when we were out there. I saw him. I actually met him but you didn’t know that, did you?”
“No.”
“He was nice. When no one else was being nice to me he was nice. And he really likes you; he only had good things to say about you. Why don’t you like him?”
“It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s just….” He sighs and she looks at him more intently. “My dad isn’t a bad guy, you know. He works a lot and he really loves his job and I know that he loves us, even my mom maybe, still…”
“I’m sure he does.”
“He wanted to be here today, I mean, Morgan is his granddaughter and he always wanted to be there, he wanted to be at my first little league
game and at my graduation and my first show but he couldn’t be. “
“What does this have to do with Darren?”
“Nothing really. I don’t know. I just feel like Darren would’ve been there, even if he had the same job as my dad and everything, he would’ve made sure that he was there.”
“That bastard.” Things are getting a little too deep and she has to start to reel her way out of this closeness so she makes a joke that thankfully, he laughs at, low and rough.
“It’s just that he doesn’t even take any credit for it.”
“Is he supposed to?”
“No.” He says sharply. “I just feel like, I don’t know, why wasn’t he there when I needed him to be? No one was there. Do you know what I’m
saying?”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t know what you’re saying. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. I guess it’s just that, my dad kind of taught me how not to be a father and Darren taught me how to act and I think it should be the other way around and that bothers me.”
He finally looks over at her and she has the strongest urge to kiss him. But they don’t do that unless it’s going to lead to something more, they’re not that close. So instead she leans in and presses her lips to his cheek, slowly pulling away and leaving her hand on his chest over his heart.
“I get it.”
“Maybe I’ll change my mind sometime. I mean, Morgan likes him, he’s pretty much all that she knows and kids have that kind of sixth sense about people, don’t they? Like dogs, they can tell if people are good or not?”
“I…do not know if that’s true but it sounds good. Morgan likes me.”
“She definitely does. Other people will like you too. They just take a little while because they’re…..stupid, I don’t know.” He says quietly and she rubs her hand over his chest before she lets it slide off.
“I think I can handle just Morgan and Darren liking me.”
“I like you.” He says immediately, like he really means it, like he really means something more than just liking her and that’s too much so she
has to smile softly at him, even though he can’t see it, push his shoulder gently, even though it’s not really that gentle and rolls over before she does something that she’ll more than likely regret.
In the morning she wakes up first. He’s still sleeping soundly on his side of the bed, not a toe over the imaginary line when she gets out of the
shower. They didn’t need a pillow wall because they both knew to keep to their own separate sides.
She goes downstairs carefully, she doesn’t want to wake any other family members that are still sleeping, she plans on sneaking out of the house and going for an early morning walk on the beach so she can clear her head and try not to implode with nerves and dread and worry about what they’re going to do with this new situation that they’ve suddenly found themselves in.
But as soon as she turns the corner to go into the kitchen she stops short, her plan thwarted, her nerves and dread and worry through the roof.
His mother is standing at the stove pouring batter into a pan and Molly’s first instinct is to run, just book it back up to the room and hide under the covers.
She shifts her weight, preparing to flee and one of the floorboards squeaks and she silently curses the stupid house with the faulty floors.
Kathy turns around and Molly is frozen, like a deer in the headlights, completely unsure about what to do. She could still run. Kathy would know that she was standing there and what she did and probably think that she was an idiot but really, is that any worse than what she thinks of her
already?
“Would you like to help?” She asks Molly and Molly is even more unsure as to what to do. “It’s not hard dear, I’m pouring pancake mix into a
pan, haven’t you made them before?” It might sound like more of an insult to Molly’s ears than it does to Kathy’s but Molly slowly makes her way to her side.
She puts her hands on the counter next to the stove and leans forward, unsure about what to do. “So…how long have you been up?”
“Since six.”
“Oh my god.”
Kathy laughs. “There’s some coffee in the pot over there if you want it.” She tips her head to the opposite counter and Molly pours herself a
cup then returns to her spot next to the stove, carefully sipping her coffee. “I want to apologize to you…”
“No.” Molly touches her arm with her free hand to stop her and then removes it. “You don’t need to. I get where you’re coming from, I really
understand it.”
“No, no, I should say this, I treated you unfairly.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Molly.”
“Kathy.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Lee told us you were stubborn.”
“Probably too much for my own good.”
“I think you’re probably a really great girl.”
“You really don’t have to do this.” She’s almost begging, if her nails we able to dig into the marble countertops they would be.
“But you’re not right for him, you might be a good thing for the moment, but he needs more than a moment. Do you know him, the way that he used to be and what he went through?”
Molly nods.
“Then you also have to know how hard it is to keep him the way that he is now. Okay. He’s okay now and part of me might believe that has
something to do with you and I want to sincerely thank you for that but Molly, it’s been so long. You’ve been with him for so long and it’s like this is the first day that you’ve met him. You’re feelings aren’t changing and his are. They have.”
“He said…”
“I know what he’s said and that’s not true. He’s only going along with that because that’s what he thinks you want to hear and he’s so desperate
to keep you. When you find someone else and leave….what do you think is going to happen to him?”
“I don’t….”
“He’s going to fall apart and turn to god knows what to comfort him. He’s fragile. He loves you and he’s only going to get hurt by you. I don’t mean to be harsh but this is what I’m thinking. Mother’s intuition.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.” She says quietly, her voice shaking because she’s on the edge of tears.
“I know you don’t. That’s why you should end this now, before he has a chance to start to think that he can change you.”
“I don’t want to lose him.”
“Then love him.”
Molly shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Molly bites hard on her lip to keep the truth from spilling out. But that fails.
“I was married.”
It’s the first time she’s said that since….for as long as she can remember and a tear slides down her face as Kathy’s eyes widen and then narrow.
“I met Brad during our junior year of college and right after we graduated we got married. Six months later he went to work and I got a call just after one that he was rushed to the hospital. He had a brain aneurism, the doctors don’t know what caused it or why but he died before I could get there. He was twenty two.”
“Oh, Molly. I didn’t…”
“No one does. My family and a few friends but that’s it.”
“So you mean Lee doesn’t know?”
“No, and he can’t.”
“Why not? If he knew then he could understand why you’re not giving in.”
“I don’t want him to understand because I want him to leave as much as you want him to. I’m keeping him for selfish reasons. Before I met Brad
I didn’t really believe in the whole, love forever, soul mates thing but when I met him I knew that he was going to be everything to me and if I believe that then that means Lee belongs to someone else and I can’t keep him. I can’t steal him from someone that deserves him. If he finds out what happened then all he’ll feel is sympathy and pity and that’ll make it impossible for him to go.”
“People fall in love more than once. Look at me and Darren.”
Molly sniffles and pushes back tears with the back of her hand.
“You should give him a chance. Just do that and you’ll see how great this can be.”
“Hey.” Both of them turn their heads to the doorway to see Lee standing there. He looks at Molly. “Are you okay?” And then at his mother. “What did you do?”
“She didn’t do anything.” Molly says as she puts her hands on his arms as he wipes her tears off her cheeks with his thumbs.
“It looks like she did something.”
“Lee.” Kathy says and Molly stares at her, silently begging her not to say anything. “I was apologizing. I know that what I did was wrong and I
said sorry.”
Lee looks to Molly for confirmation and she nods her head.
“We were having a moment and you came in and ruined it.” She hits his side with a dishrag and Lee puts his arm around Molly’s shoulders.
“Everything is okay now.” Molly tells him and he frowns at the two of them, not believing their story completely.
“Okay. If you say so.”
“We do.”
He looks them over once more before he leans in and presses a kisso the side of her face and then takes her hand and pulls her into the kitchen, where the rest of the family has already started to gather.
“You’re sure that you’re okay?” He asks her as he pulls out a chair for her.
“Yeah, it’s totally fine now. Everything’s fine.” Lying through her teeth is her specialty.
“Alright.” He sits down next to her but then tenses back up when Andy practically jumps on her, his arms around her shoulders to greet her.
“Hey, girl didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I was here all day yesterday.” She tells him as she wiggles out of his grasp, Lee helping to push his arms away.
“I know you were, sorry I didn’t get a chance to say hi, I was kind of busy or whatever. I just didn’t expect you to still be here given how everyone hates you and everything.”
“Andy.” Lee warns.
“Nobody hates anybody.” Kathy walks in with a plate of food, Darren following behind her with orange juice and the coffee pot in his hand. “Now, Andy, shut up and eat your food that I cooked for you.”
“I have to meet your girlfriend.” Molly tells Andy, just to break the new tension in the room.
“Oh yeah.” He talks to her around a mouthful of pancake and Molly makes a face while Lee laughs. “Kendal is still sleeping.”
She turns to Lee and mouths her name at him and he shrugs his shoulders and laughs.
“She’s not really a morning person.” Andy continues. “Just try not to get kicked out of here and I’ll introduce her when she wakes up.” He laughs
at his own joke even though no one else finds it funny.
She’s included when they start to set up for the party. Lee takes Morgan down to the beach and Molly is asked, very nicely to stay by his sister, her hand gently on her arm to persuade her, like she’s apologizing.
They asks her questions like they really want to know about her and she begins to wonder if Ka thy let her secret slip so that they’d have to be nice to her.
Andy introduces Kendal to her. She’s nice, surprisingly and Molly feels bad for judging her on name alone. She’s short, pretty, blond hair, aviator sunglasses never leaving her face. She’s not who she would’ve picked out for Andy, she’s probably better. And everyone on Lee’s side of the family seems to genuinely love her. She catches Kendal and one of his cousins laughing by the pool as they put pink and purple streamers around all the chairs and Molly can’t help but feel left out again. They might be accepting her, but they’re not accepting her like they
seem to be with Kendal.
The party goes well, it’s a lot more extravagant than any party that she had when she was a kid, but it’s pretty much everything that Molly
expected them to throw for her. She keeps expecting to turn a corner and run into a petting zoo and a circus and an amusement park.
Morgan loves the present that Molly got for her and that’s really the first good thing that happened to Molly all day because she knows that
Morgan has no idea about Brad and her relationship with Lee and why it’s getting so messed up.
The party starts to slow down around five. Morgan’s friends start to slow down and they take to the pool to cool down and relax. Morgan’s face is starting to burn, her cheeks tinted with pink as she comes up to Molly with a bottle of new pink nail polish that she got as a gift.
“Can you paint my nails, Molly? I liked yours so I thought that maybe…” She trails off, her voice quiet like she’s scared that she’ll say no.
“Sure. Of course.” Molly looks over at Lee who is smiling at her, ignoring the conversation that is going on around him to watch her.
The interaction with Morgan is only strained in her own head and on her side because Morgan could not be more comfortable with her. She talks and talks and even though she doesn’t say it, Molly knows exactly what kids she likes, which kids she hates and which boy she loves. She’s honest and innocent and she doesn’t care that Molly has zero experience dealing with children and is basically a mute as she goes on and on.
Molly paints her nails better than she paints her own and when she’s done Morgan slides off of the picnic table bench and waves her hands
around dramatically to dry the rest of the paint.
“Thank you, Molly.”
“It’s no problem.” She answers back as Lee sits down next to her and puts a plastic cup on the table. “If any of them smudge or whatever I can
fix it.”
“Thanks.” She calls over her shoulder as she takes off to join the group of kids that she just likes.
“That was really nice of you.” Lee tells her and she rolls her eyes.
“I couldn’t say no.”
“You wanted to help her out. You really do like kids don’t you? I kind of pegged you as someone that got annoyed by them super easily but…”
“I am…one of those people.”
He laughs. “You love them. You’d be a good mom.”
She laughs not, too loudly because she’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have any maternal instincts.” She looks up at him, terrified that he’ll read that the wrong way. That he’ll think she’s thinking about him and kids. That he’ll think she’s the kind of girl to think about him and kids.
He takes a drink as she waits for him to do something. He’s drinking soda, it’s orange or something, there’s no beer at a kids party. She’ll know for sure when she kisses him later. She’ll taste it on him. It might not lead to anything but she needs to do it, she’ll break her own rule just once.
“Some people don’t.” Is all he says and she wants to thank him for letting that slide, letting her off easy. She figures she’ll just thank him later with the kiss. “Come on.” He stands up and pulls off his shirt then tugs at the hem of hers. “I know you have your bathing suit on and it’s hot as hell out, let’s go swimming.”
“Oh…kay.” The conversation on kids ending abruptly but she’s not going to fight that and follows him over to the pool.
He jumps in right away while she carefully perches herself on the edge, the water coming up to her knees.
“That’s it, are you kidding me?” He swims towards her and she leans back and holds onto the edge because she’s got this feeling that he’s going to be pulling her in at some point and she’d like to resist and fight back against that. “The water is warm.”
“I like to ease myself in.” She says as she watches Andy splash Kendal on the other side of the pool; too busy doing that to harass the two of
them. “I don’t get that.”
“Get what?” Lee leans on the side of the pool.
“That whole thing.” She nods to the two of them. “I don’t understand how she puts up with him.”
Lee laughs.
“Does she know…about him?”
“What….”
“Does she know what he does?” She doesn’t want to come out and just say drugs.
“Oh. Yeah, she definitely does She’s talked to me about it; she doesn’t want him to be that way. He’s not using.”
“Anymore?”
“No, just right now, I’d be able to tell.”
“That’s comforting…I guess.” She kicks her legs. “I don’t know how she puts up with it; I don’t think that I could.”
She looks down at Lee who’s intently looking up at her.
“You know, if you ever…started again, this thing that we’re doing, whatever it is, it would end.”
He nods slowly and moves in front of her and puts his hands on the sides of her legs. “I will never need more incentive than that.” He tells her
softly as his hands move closer to her skin. “Now.” He tucks his hand behind her knees and starts to pull her in; she doesn’t resist.
Instead she kind of falls into him, gracefully, naturally, as she hangs her arms over his shoulders to keep her feet from touching the bottom of
the pool and she watches Kendal yelling at Andy for splashing her over his shoulder.
She turns her head into Lee’s neck because she doesn’t need to see them anymore. What she and Lee have, whatever convoluted relationship that they have is better than that.
They spend the night in the pool, lazily swimming around together and talking quietly in their own world until it gets dark and colder. Then they
get out and he wraps her in a blanket and they wander down to the beach, the sand sticking to her legs as they sit, his arms around her, her leaning back against his chest as they watch fireworks burst over the water.
When the fireworks stop and it’s time to go inside they wait for everyone else to clear the beach first so they can have a few minutes completely to themselves.
She turns around in his arms so she’s sitting between his legs and runs her fingers through his hair as she kisses him. She pushes him back into the sand and his hands work their way under the shirt that she put on to cover her bikini top and she giggles as his fingers brush against her stomach.
She tears her mouth away from his lips and move to his neck and he gasps to breathe.
“We should probably stop this.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a feeling that you’re not going to finish it so…” He trails off as she sits up.
“Sorry. I guess I got carried away.”
“It’s definitely okay.” He says as they both stand up and she takes his hand.
“It was the fireworks. They always make me want to make out with someone.”
“That must’ve led to some awkward 4th of July parties when you were growing up.”
She laughs then ducks her face into his shoulder as they walk back up to the house.
He lets her take a shower first and when she gets out he goes in and unlike the previous night, she’s able to keep her eyes open for him.
When he gets into bed instead of staying away on her own separate side she slides closer to him and puts his arm over his waist, her chin on the top of his shoulder and his on the top of her head.
For the first time she falls asleep in his arms.
But in the morning when she wakes up, she moves away from him, still convinced that what she’s feeling is nothing.