“No,” I answered honestly. “I think I might be running out of mad.”
“You are?”
“Yeah.”
He let out a slow breath and stared back at me, saying nothing. Dark bruises lingered beneath his eyes, though his swollen nose had gone back to normal size.
“I really am sorry Nate hit you.”
“If I was your brother, I’d have done the exact same fucking thing.” He braced his elbows on his knees, but kept his face turned toward me.
“Would you?”
“Without question.”
Males and their penchant for beating on things, it knew no end.
The silence dragged out. It wasn’t uncomfortable exactly. At least we weren’t fighting or rehashing our break-up one more time. Being broken and angry got old.
“Can we just hang out?” I asked.
“Absolutely. Lemme see this.” He picked up my iPhone and started flicking through the music files. “Where are the ear buds?”
I hopped up and retrieved them from among the crap on my desk. David plugged them in then, handed me an ear bud. I sat at his side, curious what he’d choose out of my music. When the rocking, jumpy beat of ‘Jackson’ by Johnny Cash and June Carter started I looked at him in amusement. He smirked and mouthed the lyrics. We had indeed gotten married in a fever.
“You making fun of me?” I asked.
Light danced in his eyes. “I’m making fun of us.”
“Fair enough.”
“What else have you got here?”
Cash and Carter finished and he continued his search for songs. I watched his face, waiting for a reaction to my musical tastes. All I got was a smothered yawn.
“They’re not that bad,” I protested.
“Sorry. Big day.”
“David, if you’re tired, we don’t have to—”
“No. I’m fine. But do you mind if I lie down?”
David on my bed. Well, he was already on my bed but … “Sure.”
He gave me a cagey look but started tugging off his sneakers. “You just being polite?”
“No, it’s fine. And, I mean, legally the bed is still half yours,” I joked, pulling out the ear bud before his movements did it for me. “So, what did you do today?”
“Been working on the new album and sorting out some stuff.” Hands behind his head, he stretched out across my bed. “You lying down too? We can’t share the music if you don’t.”
I crawled on and lay down next to him, wriggling around a bit, making myself comfortable. It was, after all, my bed. And he would be the only male who’d ever lain on it. The slight scent of his soap came to me, clean and warm and David. All too well, I remembered. For once, hurt didn’t seem to come attached to the memory. I poked around inside my head, double-checking. When I’d said I was out of mad, it had apparently been nothing more than the truth. We had our issues, but him cheating on me wasn’t one of them. I knew that now and it meant a lot.
“Here.” He handed me back the ear bud and started playing with my cell again.
“How’s Jimmy?” I rolled onto my side, needing to see him. The strong line of his nose and jaw was in profile, the curve of his lips. How many times had I kissed him? Not nearly enough to last me if it never happened again.
“He’s doing a lot better. Seems to have really gotten himself right. I think he’s going to be okay.”
“That’s great news.”
“At least he comes by his problems honestly,” he said, his tone turning bitter. “Our mother is a fucking disaster from what I hear. But then, she always was. She used to take us to the park because she needed to score. She’d turn up to school plays and parent–teacher nights high as a kite.”
I kept my mouth shut, letting him get it out. The best thing I could do for him was to be there and listen. The pain and anger in his voice was heartbreaking. My parents had their overbearing issues, certainly, but nothing like this. David’s childhood had been terrible. If I could have bitch-slapped his mother right then for putting that pain in his voice, I would have. Twice over.
“Dad ignored her using for years. He could. He was a long-haul truck driver, away most of the time. Jimmy and me were the ones that had to put up with her shit. The number of times we’d come home to find her babbling all sorts of stuff or passed out on the couch. There’d be no food in the house ’cause she’d spent the grocery money on pills. Then one day we came home from school and she and the TV were gone. That was it.” He stared up at nothing, his face drawn. “She didn’t even leave a note. Now she’s back and she’s been hurting Jimmy. It drives me nuts.”