Page 58 of Not Over You
“Are they going to be okay?”
Rayma nodded, abandoned her turkey, and came to give Zoe a hug, keeping her greasy turkey hands away from the young girl’s body and using just her arms to comfort her. It was awkward but sweet. “Why don’t you help me here in the kitchen. Jordan tried to peel his knuckle off his finger in an attempt to impress me, so maybe he should be on something less complicated, like setting the table, but I’m sure a smart girl like you can figure out how to peel potatoes without severing a digit.” She returned to the kitchen and shot Jordan a look from where he was still sitting at the table. Her smile was smug and not at all friendly.
“Sure,” Zoe said, following Rayma into the kitchen, washing her hands and taking up Jordan’s post at the sink with the peeler. “Why did Jordan think peeling his skin off would impress you?”
“Because he’s a man and men are dumb,” Rayma said plainly, throwing another sassy, pissed-off smile Jordan’s way.
“My dad’s not dumb and he’s a man,” Zoe replied, hurt in her blue eyes.
“No, honey, he’s not. And I should correct myself by saying thatsomemen are dumb. But not all men. Not the ones who open up to women and expose their soft underbellies.”
“So you want Jordan to lift his shirt and show you his tummy? That will impress you?” Zoe’s confused face was hilarious and Jordan had to keep himself from snickering. Rayma was just digging herself a nice little hole and it was going to be entertaining to watch her climb her way out of it.
“In a manner of speaking,” Rayma said. “Jordan is emotionally stunted. He won’t let himself be vulnerable with me, which is a way of saying, he won’t show me his weaknesses, and with a lot of animals, their belly is their weakest spot.”
“Ah.” Zoe nodded, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Like a porcupine. I did a project on porcupines for school.”
Rayma booped Zoe on her nose with her pinky finger as it was probably the only finger without turkey grease, and grinned. “Exactly like a porcupine, honey. Prickly on top, squishy on the bottom.”
“And you want Jordan to show you his squishy bottom?”
Jordan snorted.
Rayma glared at him a moment before turning back to Zoe. “I do, yes. Metaphorically speaking at least.” Then she fixed her gaze back on him and lifted an eyebrow, her expression turning impatient. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Start setting the table. You peeled off a piece of skin, you didn’t break both your damn legs.”
Zoe snickered and even Jordan struggled not to smile.
“Right.” He stood up and entered the kitchen, deliberately passing closely behind Rayma and brushing his hand along the small of her back as he went to gather all the plates for the dining room.
“So why doesn’t Jordan just show you his squishy bottom so you can get back together?” Zoe asked, turning to Jordan. “I mean if that’s all it is, just lift your shirt and get back together. Seems easy enough to me.”
“Seems easy enough to me, too,” Rayma said, her smile tight.
“It’s complicated,” Jordan said.
“No, it’s not,” Rayma snapped back.
Zoe twisted her head over her shoulder to look at him. But he was looking at Rayma. “I want her back. Am willing to do anything it takes to get her back, and she’s being stubborn.”
Fire ignited in Rayma’s eyes. “Anything except theonething that I asked for. You broke my heart, ghosted me then expect me to just jump right back in where we started without giving me theonething I always asked for from you.Trust.”
He met her fire with his own flames but didn’t say anything.
“What does he need to do Aunt Rayma?” Zoe asked, still fairly oblivious to everything unsaid that continued to pass back and forth between Rayma and Jordan. “Seems like it’s more than just lift his shirt and show you his stomach. We went to the lake with you guys and Jordan took off his shirt, so I feel like there’s something more here.”
Oh, there was a lot more here.
“He knows,” Rayma said quietly, not peeling her eyes off him. “He knows what he needs to say, what he needs to do, and the fact that he’s unwilling means thathe’sthe stubborn one. He says he’ll doanythingto get me back, but we both know that’s just not true. Despite all that I’ve given him, my trust, my heart, my mind, and my body, he still can’t give that all back to me in return. And I firmly believe that if I took him back now, I’d never get it all. And Ideserveit all.”
She did deserve it all.
The problem was, what she was asking of him was impossible.
He’d buried his past so deep in the ground it was impossible to resurrect. He’d put those memories as close to the earth’s core as he could get, then filled the hole with concrete, built an entire skyscraper on top of it, and just for good measure, lost the map to the spot altogether.