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Mornings Suck

My date with Tenant was a disaster. The only upswing was that even though I arrived home six hours late, no one at my house noticed I was missing. My mother didn’t get home from work until two a.m. and she was so tired she forgot to check on me. Aaron should have noticed, but he fell asleep on the couch. He didn’t say anything to me this morning.

So no one in my family would notice if I disappeared. That’s my upswing.

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It was a whole week before Kerry felt comfortable enough to go back to the cemetery. When she finally got there, she simply sat in front of Tenant’s grave and bawled.

She didn’t know why she existed anymore when no one cared about her one way or the other.

Sitting in the well-cut grass, she wasn’t sure if she was happy that there was no way John would come looking for her, or miserable that there was no way he would come looking for her.

After sitting in the wind and sun for over an hour she decided to go home. She was getting sunburned and there was still supper to make. So, she stumbled towards the gates and mapped the route home that provided the most shade.

She wasn’t expecting it, or maybe she was, but she turned her head and pretended not to see him when John pulled up in his truck.

He called to her. “Kerry.”

Stopping, she turned to look at him. He left his motor running and got out of his truck. He had clearly been working all that day and was a sweaty red mess with grass sticking out of his clothes. But his brown eyes looked soft.

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“Hi. How are you?” he asked.

“Fine,” she mumbled, looking at the sidewalk and wondering if he really hadn’t told anyone where he’d found her.

“Say, do you have plans tonight?” he asked pleasantly, like he didn’t know that she was just coming out of the cemetery.

She didn’t want to say, “Yeah, I’m cooking a huge pot of spaghetti that will end up tasting about as yummy as stewed hay,” so she didn’t answer.

“The reason I’m asking is that I got paid today and I wanted to go see a movie in town. Do you want to come with me? My treat.”

Her upper lip curled scornfully. “Are you pitying me?”

“No,” he said quickly. “You’re not the only person I asked. I’m taking a group – very casual.”

Kerry waited for an explanation of why he was asking, and when it didn’t come she got antsy. “Look, I know I broke down and told you those awful things about myself, but my problems aren’t yours. If possible I’d like you to forget what I said. I was just feeling especially blue that night and broke down a little. I’m better now, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

He hesitated before he said, “Then why is your face blotchy? You look like you’ve been crying.”

Kerry stepped back. She had been trying to hide her face by looking the other way, but he saw through it.

“You’re not better,” he said before she could answer.

She started walking away from him.

But he ran after her and said, “You know, that’s okay. We all have problems. Yours aren’t that weird. I have problems myself. I understand.”

She turned on him. “You understand?” she growled. “How dare you? What honestly makes you think you get how I feel?”

He didn’t back down and met her eyes sternly. “Do you really think you’re the first person who has ever felt loneliness?”

“N-No,” she stuttered.

“Good, because that would be ridiculous. We all feel like that sometimes – even to the point of wanting to die. Sometimes the feeling lasts minutes, sometimes weeks – possibly years. I just want to give you a boost, not because I feel sorry for you, but because that’s what you do when you find out that someone is suffering like you are.”

Kerry was stunned. She had never heard anyone talk like this before. People in this town were frank like this? Whenever she had flaked out before, everyone always turned the other way. It seemed to her like they liked to pretend that nothing was wrong.

She bit her lip and as she tried to keep her tears strangled, she asked, “So after you take me to the movies tonight, you’ll forget all about me and think you’ve done me an amazing favor?”

“No.” He took a step towards her so he was in her face. “Do you think I’m naïve enough to think that your problem can be fixed with one gesture of kindness?”

“And you think you can fix me?” she snarled.

“Of course I can’t. I’m only offering you a boost. A smile, a joke, a movie, an email – that’s the sort of thing I can offer. That’s all.” He stepped back and put his hands in his back pockets. “So, do you want to come to the movies or not?”

“Who’s going?” she asked speculatively, a little happy to have him out of her space.

“My sister Trista, my friend Ryan and his girlfriend Julie, me and you. That’s all that will fit in my parents’ car. So, do you want to go?”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly.