Page 45 of PS: I Hate You

“Leave me alone. I’m puzzling.” I put my headphones back on, restart my book, and command my eyes to only look at the pieces in front of me.

Still, I can sense when Dom stands and moves away. He stays in the main area for a stretch, moving around the kitchen. Probably correcting the microwave and oven clocks. Eventually, he disappears down the short hallway to the bedrooms.

I think I hear his voice attempting to penetrate the noise cancellation of my headphones, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t bother to check.

The puzzle lulls me into a meditative state. When I finally press the last piece into place, I realize a good amount of time must have gone by, because my shoulders and back ache and my headphones feel welded to my skin. When I peel them off, the quiet cabin seems loud, but it’s just my ears readjusting to the fresh airflow. Glancing at the wall clock, I find it’s well past midnight. A fact I can trust because of Dom’s Father Time efforts.

I stand, my joints creaking with the movement, and I bite back agroan as I stretch my arms high over my head. Multiple cracks sound off in my body, and I sigh in relief.

Then I wander around the room, picking up each clock I find, fiddling with the dials at random, and setting them back in place before heading to bed.

Dom needs to learn there’s things in life you can’t control.

And I’m one of them.

Chapter

Twelve

Ever since returning home from Alabama, whenever I try to sit and read a book, or wait in line at the grocery store, or attempt to fall asleep at night, my mind uses the moment of relaxation to unearth memories of a time I thought I’d left behind me forever.

Memories ofthatsummer. The one after my first year of college.

That summer was all kinds of perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

I blame these frequent trips into the past on too much Dom exposure combined with the casual communication I’ve reestablished with the twins.

At the start of that June, I wasn’t looking forward to the warm months. Josh had an internship in New York, Dom was set to work full-time, and I expected he would spend his free hours with Rosaline. My mom had disappeared on some excursion she claimed would revitalize her aura. I wanted to be back in school, away from Florence, who always seemed to blame me for her own daughter’s absence, rather than the woman who kept leaving me behind.

Dom’s mom’s accident changed everything—a car crash that landed Mrs.Perry in the hospital followed by months of limited mobility and physical therapy.

I never wanted her hurting, but with their family in need, I finally got to start paying the Perrys back for years of care. No longer was I the quiet neighbor girl who struggled to breathe and lived with a mother and a grandmother who wouldn’t mind if I disappeared. That summer I became the responsible young woman who looked out for the twins and picked up groceries and dried dishes while Dom washed them after dinner every night. A dinner I was eagerly invited to stay for by every member of the family.

We got into a comfortable routine, where I arrived in the morning to drive Adam and Carter to swim practice. While they did laps, I swung by the library to find a book for the day. Then I’d arrive back at the pool in time for it to open to the public. Situated under an umbrella and wearing a thick coating of sunscreen, I’d read for most of the day in a lounge chair, using my finger as a bookmark when Adam would break off from his teenage friend group and ask me to rate his cannonball skills. At lunch, the boys would pile into the back seat of my old Honda Civic, filling the hot car with the scent of chlorine and sunscreen—which I insisted they both regularly apply despite their not having vampire skin like mine—and we’d debate over which fast-food drive-through to visit for the day. Mr.Perry always gave me cash in the morning when I picked them up. I think he considered it payment for babysitting. But I didn’t want their money.

I wanted their family.

Especially with Josh states away all summer.

Without the Perrys, it would’ve just been Florence and me until the semester started again. My mom’s cleansing retreat in California was set to last months. Leaving on some random trip was her MO my entire childhood. It’s not that I missed my self-involved mother. Only, when she left, Florence would remind me that my mother had to escape her life so often because she was miserable. Miserable because her husband was gone. Miserable because her son didn’t show his mother or Florence the proper respect. Miserable because I was her daughter, and who would want that?

So, while plenty of nineteen-year-olds would’ve hated committing their summer months to looking after two thirteen-year-olds, I loved it. I loved how Adam passionately argued for Taco Bell every single day, and how Carter would share an eye roll with me whenever we gave in and let the smooth talker get his way. I loved how the twins wore matching grins when I pulled my old car into their driveway every morning. I loved how Adam would tell corny jokes and Carter would sing along to show tunes with me. I loved how when I brought them home after the pool closed, Mrs.Perry would open her arms to hug the twins from her seat on the couch and say, “There’s my little monsters and the monster tamer.”

But most of all, I loved how Dom would set aside his laptop, stand from his seat with a spine crack and a groan, then stride across the room and hug me.

I loved how he’d lift me off my feet, until his lips were near my ear, and in a voice low enough that only I could hear, he’d murmur, “Thank fuck for Maddie Sanderson.”

And as I recovered from the affection and irresponsible word usage, Adam would scowl at his older brother and demand Dom set me down before he broke me in half while Carter made not-at-all-subtle kissing noises.

It was a little play we did most days, and I lived for it. Because it never felt like acting.

I became addicted. I dreaded the conclusion of summer. Especially when I realized the end was coming sooner than I planned.

The twins had summer camp in August. Two weeks of them gone. No more need for me to pick them up and spend my day with them. No more fast-food dates and silly singing and bad jokes.

No more thank-you hugs from Dom.