Dickle. What is a Dickle?
LOGAN IS DICKLE15. DICKLE15 is Logan. That’s why he stopped talking to me. I’ve been sending him messages throughout the week, getting no response, and he’s been here all along. I’m not sure I’m capable of digesting this.
I’ve been sitting on the toilet seat cover for twenty-five minutes, staring at the speckles within the tiled floor. It’s creepy, right? I should be against this behavior. He joined a company to meet me. That’s borderline stalkerish—it’s something Brielle would do. I did tell him where I work, so that was my mistake. He never specified his career to me, and I never pushed the topic. I also did cancel our dates, but it was because I was scared of meeting any more creeps online, and now, here I am.
What would I be teaching Cora if I went along with this type of behavior? Granted, she may never find out, but I’m trying to teach her to avoid men like him.
Cora. It’s almost time to get her.
I step out of the bathroom and grab my clothes from the floor, finding Logan staring out the window from the bed. He hasn’t moved an inch since I went into the bathroom. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“I have to go get Cora off the bus.”
“Okay, I’ll get my stuff together and head out.”
“Just wait, okay. I need more time to think. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I dress quickly, avoiding eye contact with the perfect-looking man in my bed. That’s my problem. Perfect-looking men.
I run out of the bedroom and down the stairs, throwing my coat on and slipping into my snow boots, leaving the laces loose and hanging to the sides.
The winds are almost unbearable, and the snow is blowing sideways, directly into my face. It’s hard to see, it’s so bad. Why didn’t they close school earlier? There’s easily half a foot already.
I reach the bottom of the short hill and pull the hood of my jacket down over my face to block out some of the snow.
Somehow, by the grace of God, the bus is on time, and Cora jumps off the big step with her usual perky smile. I never should have let Logan in the house before I knew him well enough to let Cora get mixed up in this.
“How was school, kiddo?” I ask her, trying to hide the pain in my voice.
“It was boring. We couldn’t go out and play today.”
“You wouldn’t want to be outside in this for too long. Trust me,” I tell her.
As we walk closer to the house, she notices Logan’s truck in the driveway. “Logan is over?” she asks with excitement—excitement I’d rather not hear.
“He is. He had to help me with something for work,” I lie.
“So, he’s not staying again?”
“I’m not sure right now, sweetie.” This blows. I should have known something was up. Life doesn’t just happen the way it happened. He was so wrong to do what he did. It was deceitful, and I promised myself I’d never end up with someone like that again, not after what Rick did to me.
We walk inside, and Cora shakes the snow off her body and tosses her boots to the side. I follow suit, then hang everything up and place our wet boots on the doormat next to Logan’s.
“Beefcake Batman!” she shouts. She runs into the kitchen as if she knows exactly where he is.
“Miss Cora,” he says with a smile I can hear. “How was your snowy school day?”
Cora chatters more about her day in thirty-seconds to him than she did with me on the three-minute walk home. I hate that she likes him. I hate that he’s good with her. I hate that I let him into my house with Cora home, now that I know what he did.
“Can you make a snack?” Cora asks Logan.
“You may want to ask your mom first,” he tells her.
“I think you should go, and I’ll cancel your flight for tomorrow. Just do paperwork in the office until I decide what to do with you.”
Logan looks heartbroken, and I feel the same. I liked Dickle15. I knew if we met it would most likely be different. Then he stopped talking, and it proved to be a lose/lose situation.
“I’m so sorry,” he says while grabbing his coat and boots.
“Mom, I don’t want Beefcake Batman to leave. It’s snowing really bad too.”
I can’t listen to Cora. She doesn’t understand, although I don’t understand either.
“I put up with crap like this for years, Logan. I just can’t.”
“Crap?” he responds. “I wanted to meet you so fff—orking bad,” he catches himself before cussing in front of Cora.
“Well, now you have, and you can go … spoon yourself tonight.”
Cora giggles. “What are you talking about? I can give you guys a fork and a spoon. They’re right here.”
“You wanted to meet me because I knew nothing about baseball, right?” I retaliate. We had that conversation more than a few times, and now I know why. I hadn’t heard of him, and I was safe.
“No. Well, yes, I wanted a clean start. I didn’t want to be known as ‘that guy’ anymore. You can’t fault me for that.”
“I don’t.” I press my hand onto the kitchen island, needing it to hold me up as my heavy heart tries to anchor me to the ground. “I blame you for not being honest.”
He ties his second boot and stands back up. “Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly, you went about getting it in the wrong way?”
I can’t think clearly enough to answer his question, so I don’t. “Please be careful driving home.”
He looks down and away from me as he opens the door. “Wait!” Cora says while running over to him. She wraps her arms around him, looking like a little doll compared to Logan’s size. She yanks at his shirt, pulling him down to his knees and whispers something into his ear.
“Cora,” I say, wanting her to stop doing whatever she’s doing. In response to me calling her, she releases his shirt and runs back over to me. Logan looks up at me once more, then leaves a cold gust of wind in his place as the door closes after him.
“What did you just say to him?” I ask Cora.
“I just … I told him I’d miss him.” She’s lying.
“Let’s get your homework done so we can pack you up for your dad’s. I’m leaving in the morning for Florida, remember?”
“I remember,” she says with a sigh. “I wish I could go with you.”
“Me too, sweetie.”
“I like Beefcake Batman,” she says. I wish she would stop calling him that.
“I know, but some people come and go from our lives and we need to be okay with that. What’s important is that we always have each other, and we’ll never come and go. Do you understand that?”
“No,” she says as she climbs up on the bar stool. “He likes you too. So, why would you make him leave?”
Her words are making this harder and the hurt worse, and I’m still trying my best to digest all of it. If this was just about Logan for the past week, a man I just met, my heart wouldn’t be hurting, but it’s not. This is a year’s worth of conversations, topped with everything else that happened over the past seven days, which included me taking care of him when he was sick and vice versa. It’s like we had a relationship but didn’t. My head is just everywhere. “He made a mistake Cora, that’s all.”
“You don’t like mistakes, do you?” Cora asks.
“Cora, it’s not like that.”
“What if I make a mistake? Will you not like me anymore either?”
I take the seat next to her and pull her hands into mine. “Cora, you are my little girl. I don’t care how many mistakes you make in your lifetime, I will always, always love you. Do you understand?”
“Kind of,” she says with a whole lot of disappointment settling into her big, blue eyes.
She’s not old enough to understand the big picture, but I don’t want her to feel any of the repercussions of my decisions. I feel like I’ve caused her a whole lot of discontent in the last year. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I am.”
“It’s okay, mom. I’ll try not to make mistakes, okay?”
I’m leaving home with a broken heart tomorrow morning, for so many reasons.
But at least my ass cheeks aren’t still glued together.