Before it’s even light outside, my eyes fly open and the memory of what happened the night before comes back to me. I also realize that it’s the first time in a long time that I haven’t dreamt about my dad and the events of that final, awful day.
I’m still curled up against Jake’s side, neither of us having moved since we fell asleep. His arm is still around me and in the quiet, I steal a look at his impossibly handsome face. He appears totally at peace while he’s asleep and I reach up and trace the line of his jaw with my finger, feeling the grate of the stubble. It’s only when he stirs in his sleep that rationality starts to come flooding back into my brain.
I edge away from Jake slowly, not making any sudden movements that might jerk him awake. I tear my eyes away from his muscular chest and his too-handsome face and think about the events of the previous night. It dawns on me that I’ve had sex with my best friend and, right now, my only close friend, and that could potentially have thrown everything out of whack.
It's hard enough being his friend and thinking about what was going to happen when he turns twenty, but now all my intense feelings for him have come bubbling to the surface and there doesn’t seem to be any way to bottle them back up.
I can’t lose him, and at precisely the wrong moment, the horrible little voice in my brain rears her ugly head. But you don’t even really have him to begin with, she reminds me.
I try to push the intrusive thought away but every time I focus on how sweet and tender and kind and wonderful Jake had been to me the night before, how he had made me feel so special and so beautiful.
The little voice reminds me that at no point has he said how he feels about me. He’d said that he thought I was perfect, I reason to myself, and I get that warm glowing feeling that--I’ve recently discovered--comes unbidden when I think about Jake.
But how do I know that it's not just a line? After all, she says, How do I know that he doesn’t act that way with all the girls that he’s trying to get into bed? The simple answer is: I don’t. I don’t think that Jake’s a bad guy, but he might just be more of a typical guy than I thought. He said himself that he’s been going through a dry patch.
And it wasn’t even like he had to work particularly hard to get you into bed, the snide little voice points out. You were so lonely and desperate you gave it up to him without even thinking twice about it. She succeeds in exactly what she was aiming for: she makes me feel ashamed. Ashamed and slutty.
I try to remind myself that I’ve only been to bed with one guy, and he just happened to also be my best friend. But, as always, it’s the crappy stuff that’s said about you—or even that you say to yourself—that’s hardest to believe.
Wading through the crappiness that starts to overcome me, another thought pops up and I feel a massive sense of guilt. My mom.
I had completely forgotten about her. I always checked in on her at night before I went to bed, even if I was going to or coming from the graveyard shift at work. I had never left her alone all night. Not ever. Spending the night with Jake had managed to make me forget my responsibilities and I suddenly feel ashamed all over again. I have to get home. I reach my hand out as if to wake Jake, to let him know that I’m leaving. But, before I touch him, I pull my hand back.
What am I supposed to say? How do I even know how he’s going to react when he wakes up? He may have expected me to have left already, like he did with the other girls he spent the night with. He’d said something once to me in high school along the lines of “only girlfriends get to stay the night” and I’d punched him on the arm, called him a pig, and felt sorry for all those girls that fell for him and then never heard from him again.
Now I was one of those girls. I’m not a girlfriend though, I remind myself. Not even close. What if he wakes up and decides that it was all a mistake? Would I be able to pretend that I felt the same? I already know the answer. I need some time to prepare myself for the inevitable brush-off, and the longer I spend here, within touching and kissing distance, the harder it’s going to be to go back to being “just friends.”
I slip out of bed, carefully and quietly, and start to collect up my clothes. I tip-toe, trying to avoid any floorboards that look like they might be creaky. I shimmy up my short denim shorts which, in the cold light of day take on a much sluttier hue than they had when I’d put them on in the safety of my bedroom yesterday.
I pull my top over my head, trying not to think how I felt the night before when Jake took it off and what happened after that. I steal a look behind me to check that he’s still asleep, and I try not to dwell on how difficult it feels to leave him behind. I walk out the door, closing it softly behind me.
As I wander home, almost breaking into a run as I leave the body shop, I realize that I should have left him a note. But what would I have said? My pace quickens as I think about my mother sitting all alone in a dark house. I don’t focus on the fact that it would be a miracle if she even realized or even cared that I wasn’t home. She’s my responsibility and I let her down, I berate myself. I rush through the front door of our home, running into the living room, and touch my mother on the shoulder.
“Mom?” I ask hesitantly. “I’m home.” There’s no reaction. Although her eyes are open, they’re staring through me rather than at me. I sink down to my knees, holding her hand as she continues to stare, almost unblinkingly. “Are you thirsty Momma?” I ask softly, wondering what it would be like to hear her voice again.
I hate to admit it, even to myself, but I feel like I’ve started to forget how she sounds. I remember my dad had always said she had a voice that was full of sunshine, but it turns out that my dad had taken all the sunshine with him when he died.
“Something happened last night,” I start to tell her, holding her hand and trying to imagine what her side of the conversation would have sounded like.
It’s been so long since we’ve spoken, I don’t think I have any idea of what she would say. But I’d like to think that she would have listened quietly as I told her what had happened, that she would hold my hand and quiet all the negative thoughts in my head. That she would hold me close and stroke my hair like she had when I was a little girl, that she would tell me that everything would be alright and that I deserved a little happiness, after everything.
But none of that happens, and after a few minutes of holding my mother’s hand and staring up into her empty face I start to feel a little stupid to be sitting on the floor, imagining a conversation with a woman who hasn’t opened her mouth in six years.
I stand up slowly and wander into the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water, inclining my mother’s head so that she takes a few sips before I set it down on the table in front of her. I make sure to leave it by her hand, a habit I only seem to realize the stupidity of now. It’s not like she’s going to reach out and take a drink while you’re not looking, Aimee, the grumpy little voice in my head says.
Suddenly feeling so tired that it’s almost hard to move, I trudge up the stairs towards my bedroom, wondering how it is possible to feel lonelier than ever after having so intimate with someone. I suppose a smarter person would call that irony. I just call it my life.