Never Been Loved(22)

The door swings open and it’s not Sera. Instead, there’s a chick with one of those tight skirts and blouses on, stockings and all. She looks like she just came from work, she looks like she wants everyone to believe that she’s better than them. Her hair isn’t as light a brown as Sera’s is, and her eyes are dark, not hazel. She’s not wearing any glasses.

I’ve decided I really like shirts that say stuff on them that I don’t understand. I could get the girl in them to explain them to me in all sorts of interesting ways.

“Where’s Sera?” I ask, ignoring the way her friend just continues to gape at me. It’s the way Aly looks at me, and I want to growl at her to look away. I look past her to the rest of Sera’s apartment, getting a glimpse of a glass table set to the far right, and a clear view straight ahead to the living room. A zebra carpet. Looks like Sera can be full of surprises.

Then I realize she wasn’t with a man. And damn if I don’t want to beat my chest, and roar.

“What now?”

I watch Sera come closer to her friend—God, please let it be her friend—and stare at me, then to the kid at my feet. I look down, too, and watch as Matty gets his whole body behind a wave hello. I look up in time to see Sera, with her mouth open in that waiting-for-a-kiss look, wave right back at him.

“You want Peter Pan?” she asks.

Matty nods, and Sera looks up at me one more time, then back down. I told her the truth. No matter what happens next, or a month from now, or weeks, or years – I told her the truth.

She turns away from me, and I’m stuck staring at her friend, who gives me the once-over two more times. Doesn’t seem like my dick is into the whole look-over, either. A new one for me.

As Sera comes closer to the doorway, and hands Matty that DVD, I can’t remember how many times Matty has been given something, like a gift. I watch him cradle the thing to his chest, and probably toss up a signature MacLaine smile.

I get pole-axed with Sera’s smile as she gives it right back to the little guy.

“Thanks. He’ll have it back tomorrow, swear,” I say, and I sound tired, even to my own ears. It’s been a long three years, and I’m tired of fighting. I nod, because I can’t talk anymore. The headache’s pushed its way front and center into my attention span, and the kid’s already walking down the hall to our place when I turn away from her.

There are just too many game-changers. I’m not healthy, I’m not successful, or anything like that. If I was that cocky piece-of-shit eighteen-year-old kid again—before the diagnosis, before the insulin injections, before the checking of my sugar six or seven times a day; before I had to pay attention to my body, and listen, and think of how I feel in every moment so I could be around to take care of Matty—I would have gone after her. I would have gone after Sera.

If I’d seen her in the elevator that day, reading her book, oblivious to the world – yeah, I would have asked her what her shirt meant.

I would’ve asked her what she was reading, and what it was about, just to listen to her talk about it. I’d ask her why she seemed so nervous, and maybe she’d explain to me that the characters are going through a hard time, or whatever. I’d be brave enough then to ask for her number, ask her out to coffee, hell, I’d even offer to buy a book or ten for her, if she’d let me.

If a girl can understand and feel for fictional characters on the level that Sera seems to feel for them, maybe there’s hope for me after all. Maybe I could be one of her flawed characters she could care for.



I convinced myself all week to leave her alone, to let her live her life without the complication of Matty and me added to it. I made Matty drop the movie off the day after she lent it to him, and I haven’t seen her since.

I figure it’d be best if I didn’t see her, but I can’t seem to shut my brain off. The sludge between my ears has me wondering what her laugh sounds like, or what book she’s reading right now, or even what her favourite Disney movie is.

My phone buzzes along the kitchen counter where I’m trying to slice up some broccoli to be steamed for dinner tonight. I have yet to take a shower, and the sweat from today’s work is slowly cooling on my body, and I’m about three seconds from freezing my ass off. I slice the pad of my finger lengthwise, and the idiot I am, I just watch the blood streak its way across the space of injured skin, and hit the vegetable.

This wouldn’t’ve happened if I was at a hundred percent. I move closer to the sink, put my finger under the running water, and squelch it with paper towel until the bleeding stops.