Page 106 of I Could Never
Jealousy immediately set in, but I tried not to let it show. “Christina? Dildo Girl?”
“Yup.” She chuckled.
“How did it go?”
“Well, considering I left early and made up a story that I wasn’t feeling well…not great.”
“Wow, look at us, huh?”
“Yeah.” She sighed.
“For the record, I miss you, too, Carly.”
After a short pause, she said, “It’s so good to hear your voice. That’s really all I wanted.”
We talked for several minutes as I pulled up to my apartment.
As I entered my place, she said, “It doesn’t sound like you’re driving anymore.”
“I just got home.” I threw my keys down.
“Do you need to go?”
“Nope. Let’s stay on the phone, unless you have somewhere else to be?”
“I don’t,” she said.
We continued talking as I got out of my clothes and climbed into bed, wishing desperately that she were here with me.
“I went to visit my father in Arizona,” Carly told me.
I straightened against my headboard. “When?”
“Last weekend.”
“You hadn’t seen him in years, right?”
“At least seven years, yeah.”
“What made you do it?”
“I think when I saw your dad at Christmastime, it made me miss mine—or at least miss theideaof him. I decided maybe I’d regret it if I didn’t try to make amends with him.”
“How did it go?”
“He was really happy to see me. He said he’s felt like I hated him, and that had deterred him from contacting me, said he didn’t want to upset me. I know that’s bullshit in a sense, because if you love your kid, you reach out to them no matter what. But I realized over the course of the trip that he has a certain immaturity about him that affects the way he handles things. I don’t think he’s a bad person, nor do I think he means to hurt me. But I also don’t think he loves me the way I wish he would.”
It broke my heart to hear her say that.
“Pretty sure I lost the one man who ever truly loved me when Brad died.”
“No, you didn’t,” I wanted to scream.But I knew there would be no turning back if I did. More than that, I wasn’t going to overshadow a statement about Brad’s genuine love for her by unleashing an inappropriate revelation of my own, with impeccable timing. Nor did I want to give her false hope when we were supposed to have ended things.
I shut my eyes, then opened them, relaying only a fraction of what I really wanted to say. “The best is yet to come for you, Carly. I just know it. Please don’t give up on the idea of love. There’s always hope, as long as we’re alive. Don’t let your shitty dad impact your outlook on life.”
“I think you should take some of your own advice, Josh.”
In many ways, with Carly, it felt like I’d found the female version of myself. Which was ironic, considering how much we’d disliked each other at one point.