“I already told you I…”
Right. She wants to minimize it. It makes her feel more comfortable. I worry for her then, that her person might be Colt. Might be the one person that she’s not going to allow herself to have.
“The person… Why can’t you be with him?”
“First of all,” she says. “I’m over it. I don’t have the same crush that I had in high school. Second of all, because it’s complicated.” She looks away. “You already know,” she says.
I nod slowly. “Yeah. Well. I do.”
“It’s weird. Right?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not weird. I’m also a very bad judge of that, because I’m extremely dysfunctional.”
She laughs. “Well, that actually works for me. You want to be my friend who enables me?”
“I really do. I really do want to be your friend. You can trust me with that information. I’m not going to tell anybody. Not even Dallas.” I love the idea that I have a secret with a friend. “I’m bad at figuring out romantic relationships, honestly, but I’m just as bad with friendship.”
“You’re pretty good at it, actually,” says Allison.
I spend the rest of the shift feeling like I’m floating. It’s amazing how intense the formation of a friendship feels. Similarly fraught to this whole thing with Dallas, if I’m honest. Okay, maybe not quite so intense, but it’s definitely not nothing.
When Kaylee comes to pick me up, I feel like I’m on the verge of peaking in my happiness. Everything feels like it’s working together. Like it’s normal and functional and great. And yes, that underlying sense of the possibility of everything being torn away from me also exists. I can’t escape that. But I’m choosing to embrace the good.
“How was your day?” Kaylee asks as I settle into her car.
There are car seats in the back with Cheerios ground into them, and I smile.
“Where are the girls?”
“Oh, they’re with Bennett. He went to help deliver some puppies, and they went with him. If they don’t come home committed to at least two of the puppies in the litter I’ll be surprised. Bennett is such a pushover when it comes to his kids and animals.”
“Dallas really likes animals too,” I say.
Kaylee looks at me, and I can see that she’s debating whether or not to push the topic of Dallas now that he’sbeen brought up. I also see when she gives in. “So things are going well with Dallas?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Great.”
“I think it’s really wonderful that… That you found each other,” she says.
I feel a little bit panicky, because I don’t want her to attribute something to it that isn’t there. Commitment or vows that we haven’t made.
“I would really like to figure out how to make him dinner,” I say.
This is the thing I wanted to talk to her about.. Though it feels a little bit more high stakes now. Especially because she knows everything. Though I’ve been spending time with their family a lot over the last few weeks and I feel comfortable enough with her.
Maybe less comfortable now that I’m sleeping with her stepson, but still.
“You would?”
“Yeah, I… He’s been taking care of me, and I want to take care of him.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“I just want him to have everything he needs. I want to be able to give it to him. He’s my best friend.” Though that doesn’t feel quite right. “He’s my…”
“I know that you care a lot about him. He cares about you too.”
I nod and look out the window.
