Ava
I unlocked my apartment and walked in, flicking the light on as I went along. The apartment was always dark when I came home. It wasn’t something that usually bothered me – since I’d left Apalachicola this was what coming home was like.
Tonight, it bothered me. The whole trip home I had mulled over what I’d said to Graham, where I thought we’d stood and what had happened. I didn’t like hurting people. I didn’t like telling them off when they got too close, and Graham was a nice guy. Hurting him had been the worst of all.
I still chose it above being in a relationship. I didn’t like dating. I didn’t want to commit to someone. There was something about giving yourself up to someone else, to committing the most vulnerable part of yourself to someone, that didn’t make sense to me. I was an independent person. I had created myself from scratch. I’d worked myself through school and gotten a job here in Chicago far away from anything that could remind me of how I’d started out.
I hung my keys on the key hook behind my door and walked to the kitchen where I poured water in the kettle.
I didn’t want to give up my independence. I didn’t want to sacrifice who I had become for someone when they could potentially crush me and throw me away like it had meant nothing at all.
Was I cynical? Probably. But it took getting burned only once to realize what could happen when you gave your heart to someone.
James flashed in my mind’s eye and I shoved the memory away. I didn’t want to think about him. He was a stupid kid I had fallen for when I’d been too young to know what love was. He shouldn’t have been as much as a blip on my radar.
It didn’t matter that he had been my first. He had been so brief it barely counted. Still, every time I mulled over the meaning of a relationship and why I was still single, he was the one that came to mind.
Why the hell was that? After James, I’d had a serious relationship. It had been just after I’d come to Chicago. He had been studying law and I’d worked as a waitress where he used to hang out with his friends. I had been stupid enough to believe that I really did mean more than the women in his rich social circles and he’d led me to believe that love conquered all for so long that I’d let him have my heart. It was the second boy I had convinced myself I was in love with. It was the second boy that had made me realize what money meant.
When he’d dumped me for some rich bitch I had realized that I would never be good enough for someone else, that the only way I could be happy was being good enough for myself.
And that was all I was working toward. I had goals and dreams and I didn’t need anyone else to get there.
James and TJ had taught me that I had to stay far away from the rich people and their toxic circles. And that was the only rule I stuck by, besides not dating. Everyone in my life since then had been comfortable middle-class, mediocre at best and safer because of it.
I kicked off my shoes and changed into pajamas. My phone rang just before ten.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Hannah said. “I know it’s date night and all. I just need to ask you something for work.”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me.
“You’re not bothering me at all. I’m at home.”
“With Graham?”
“No, just me,” I said. Hannah hesitated long enough for me to know she was fighting her curiosity.
“What happened?” she finally asked. Curiosity had won out.
I shrugged and sat down on my couch, tucking my socked feet under me.
“He wanted to get serious. Go steady, girlfriend boyfriend, all that jazz.”
“And?”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
“And I told him I couldn’t do it. So, I ended it.”
“Ava,” Hannah groaned. “Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep them around if you’re just going to end up telling them off, anyway?”
I leaned on the armrest. “You know why. I’m not going to sleep around. One-night stands aren’t my thing. But I can’t do long-term. I don’t want to go as far as labels and pet names. You know me.”
“So”, you’re just keeping them around for sex?”
I chuckled. “Companionship, Hannah. It sounds terrible when you say it like that.”
I imagined her pulling a face at me. That’s what it was, she always told me. It was just about sex but I was too scared to have one-night stands and walk away. It wasn’t that, though. It was about friendship. About not being alone. I didn’t want to date and my views on love were a little off the mark but that didn’t mean that I wanted to be alone. I was human. Humans were essentially pack animals just like wolves or elephants. We needed each other to thrive and most humans wanted to mate for life. At least, they used to.
These were modern times. Divorce, never getting married, same sex relationships, everything was possible now. Which meant that what I did was just as possible. There was nothing wrong with me for not fitting into the ideals of a world that had long passed.
“I did tell him how I feel, upfront,” I said. “It’s not like he didn’t know. He was just hoping for more.”
“And I don’t blame him. You’re a great person. You deserve to have someone. Look at me and Nate.”
Hannah and Nathan had been dating just short of a year and they’d moved in together recently. I was happy for her. Nate was a nice guy and he treated her right and that was hard to come by these days. But that was her life, not mine. I didn’t want to share my space with someone else. I didn’t want to make sacrifices and compromise my routines and take other people into account. And I didn’t have to.
If I had to relate myself to any animal, it would be a cat. I would only fetch attention when I needed it. And the people I did it with understood who I was. That was all that mattered. I never lied about it, I never led them on and let them believe that I wanted more.
That was what I would want from someone. I had wanted that from the people that had broken me once upon a time – to know that I wasn’t enough to make the long haul. I had wanted them to tell me it was just casual, that it wouldn’t go anywhere. It was the one courtesy everyone deserved and I hadn’t gotten that. I had made a point since then to always be honest about what I wanted and what I felt.
Men started seeing it as a challenge – they always tried to win me over. It wasn’t going to work. They never understood why they weren’t the ones to finally win the battle. None of that was my fault, though. I was always upfront and dead serious about what I wanted, where we stood, where we were headed.
“Okay. How about we go out on a double date, then?” Hannah asked. “I told you about Nathan’s friend.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Not now, Han. Just let me digest this.”
“I knew you weren’t a machine. You felt something, didn’t you? Maybe a little sad that he’s gone?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “He was a good friend if nothing else…”
“With benefits,” Hannah interjected.
“Right… and we were close in some ways. And I feel bad that he got hurt. It wasn’t my intention to hurt him. Usually, it’s the woman that gets attached, not the man.”
“I guess people are different,” Hannah said and I nodded in agreement.
“Right,” I said again. “Anyway, that’s another chapter closed, I guess.”
I shifted so I could lie down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, clutching my phone against my cheek.
“I’m going to have to call my mom tomorrow. I need to tell her my arrival times so they can pick me up at the airport. She got angry when I drove the rental there the last time.”
“You can’t blame her,” Hannah said. “You haven’t seen them in four years. I don’t know how you don’t go back for Christmas.”
I sighed. “I had work.”
Hannah said something about being married to my job. I didn’t really listen. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my parents picking me up or even seeing them. I had just changed so much since I’d lived there. Going home felt weird. And there was the summer before I’d left…
I wouldn’t think about that, though. James had come up too many times in my thoughts tonight for someone I had seen fifteen years ago and who just didn’t matter.
“I have to go, Nathan is going to start wondering where I am,” Hannah said.
“Are you still at the office?” I asked.
“You know how it goes.”
I nodded. I did know.
“You wanted to ask me about work,” I said.
“It can wait until Monday. Have a good night.”
I hung up and closed my eyes, trying to drown out the noise, trying to forget Graham’s hurt expression. I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes again, my phone read eleven thirty.
My phone beeped with an email. I opened it. I smiled and found his number in my contacts list.
“It’s almost one on a Saturday morning,” Caleb said when he answered. “Why are you phoning me. Don’t you have people to see?”
“It’s an hour earlier here, remember,” I pointed out. “Still Friday night. And I don’t have anyone to see. I saw your email as it came in. Speaking in person is so much nicer than sending emails.”
“Always,” Caleb agreed. “Work gets so busy, though, if I don’t email you we’ll never talk.”
I groaned. “I know.”
Caleb was the only rich kid that hadn’t ditched me. His father had been involved with a lot of the rich folks’ finances around Apalachicola and we’d grown up together in a life where class differences didn’t matter. When I’d left for Chicago he’d left for Tampa to take over his dad’s business. We hardly saw each other anymore but we kept contact.
“So, how’s work going, then?” I asked.
“Fine, for the most part. I just have a couple of tough clients to deal with. Everyone gets uptight where money is involved.”
“Oh, you’re in the wrong business if that bothers you,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah. It’s all I know, though. I’m sure you get that.”
I didn’t answer him. I did understand it. In his circles, it was a lot harder to change direction. When so much was expected you, you did what you had to.
“And you?”
“Oh, nothing exciting to report. I’m going back home in two weeks. Forced leave. Can you imagine? Apalachicola won’t know what hit it.”
Caleb chuckled. “I can. You’ve always thrown yourself into whatever you do so your boss has to force you. And Apalachicola has never been able to handle you. Before you know it, you’ll be doing your mom’s books while you’re there.”
I smiled. Talking to Caleb was nice. It was a taste of home without all the extras, without reminders of my past or how much I’d changed. Caleb was the one person who had always seen me the same, no matter what the circumstances. His usual friends had been the rich kids in and around the Key in Florida but he’d never treated me like I was lower than he was.
“Well, you know what I always say,” I said after he complained about his clients a bit longer. “You just call me when you need me to get them back on the straight and narrow.”
“All in one column, right?”
It was a ridiculous money joke we’d been running with for a few years now.
“You betcha. My boss says I’m pretty good, too.”
Caleb laughed. “I can believe that. I must go, though. It was good catching up.”
“Yeah, it was. We shouldn’t leave it so long.”
“I’ll call you soon,” he said. “We’ll try to make time to talk on the phone. When you head this way in the future you need to let me know in advance and stop off halfway for lunch or something. I haven’t seen your face in years.”
“We’ll do that,” I said.
We hung up and I smiled, turning off my phone. Going to Tampa sounded like so much more fun than going to Apalachicola to see my parents. Of course, it wasn’t an option, this time.