Page 68 of Between the Lines
She says this all while she slips on her shoes by my front door.
“Next time?” I ask, relieved that she wants to keep coming back.
“Next time.” She nods, cups my chin again, and presses up onto her toes to kiss me goodbye.
“Thank you for today, Nathan. It’s been a long time since someone cared enough to ask me about what I want. Even if I didn’t really talk much about it.”
“You’ll speak about it when you’re ready to. Drive safely, please. Text me as soon as you get home.”
“I will.”
twenty-seven
claire
“Sorry,”Lucy yawns, then immediately lifts her coffee to her lips.
“I should be the one apologizing,” I wince.
It is, after all, five-thirty in the morning. Lucy so kindly agreed to meet me where I’m at, but unfortunately for her, that means functioning before the sun is officially ready to be social.
“No. No apologizing. I’m happy to meet with you, friend.”
She waves me off with a smile, and the guilt instantly begins to melt away. Is this what it’s like? Having normal social boundaries and relationships with the people close to you? Having afriend?
We dig into our first coffees and pastries, catching up about our weeks. Aaron has been busy with basketball season. I tell her about all five of my siblings and their various activities and antics. It isn’t until the six-o’clock hour that she finally punches me in the gut with one of the questions I’m most afraid of.
“So, now that I know what all of theotherBensons like to do for fun… Claire, what do you do foryou?”
I swallow, which is tricky, because there’s a lump the size of the Cape currently lodged there. I choke down the rest of my coffee, frowning when there’s nothing left at thebottom.
“Honestly? This, and those few times out at the bar with you guys, are about the extent of my social life.”
She chews on this for a moment, then asks, “What about your friends? From high school or college?”
“I never attempted to keep others around.” I both love and hate that it’s getting easier to admit this stuff. “I have duties at home, and those always come first. My relationships in school were surface level. Penelope’s brother and his friend group were the closest thing I had to normal ‘friends,’ but that was because my brother was friends with one oftheirbrothers, so I could pass off my own social getaways as bringing Michael over there to play. I didn’t let my relationships get much deeper than that.”
“So, no extracurriculars or…”
“Nope. No sports, no clubs. I was smart, and I was an extra set of hands. And things kind of stayed that way.”
Embarrassment pangs me more than anything—that I’ve lived twenty-five years of life, and this is what I have to show for it: being my high school valedictorian with a college degree I don’t use. I’m basically a glorified Uber service that gets paid in rent and twice-yearly vacations.
Lucy inhales deeply, then carefully chooses her words.
“I want to say I’m sorry, but I’ve been in your shoes before. I never wanted the pity either.”
I’m grateful that she extends empathy, not pity.
“Here’s what I’m going to do instead,” she says. Digging into her bag, she comes up with a yellow legal pad and a pen.
“Ahh, so youaregoing to school counselor me after all?” I say cheekily, scrunching my nose and smiling as she hands me the pen and paper.
“You can take the girl out of the counselor’s office, but you can’t take the counselor out of the girl.” We share a quiet laugh, and then she adds, “But this is me being your friend, too. If you’d rather notshare, then we can put down the therapy session and talk about trashy romance books, or boys you think are cute.”
I freeze, hoping my face doesn’t give away the boy—man—who has recently taken up residency in my brain—and maybe my pants. I know that Lucy is my friend, but I haven’t really had a true one before. I feel like,Hey, I’m sort of hooking up with our boss?isn't first-friend-date conversation.
“You up for it?”