Back To Us (16 page)

Justin kept bugging me to tell him what was on my mind, but I wouldn’t. He liked to fix things and I was too proud to accept more from him than he’d already given me. At night when I was supposed to be sleeping my anxious thoughts kept me up. I worried about not finishing my classes on time and not finding a job after graduation. If any of those things happened I had no backup plan. There was no doting uncle or grandparent who would float me a loan until I got on my feet. The only family I’d ever known growing up was my brother and my parents. Every other relative was still in Croatia and it had been so long since my parents had brought me and Mike back for a visit that I barely remembered any of their names and faces.

The weather had been getting colder and colder. The leaves on the few trees that lined the streets in downtown Brooklyn turned orange and yellow and red and then fell off. The days got shorter and store shelves started to fill with boxes of stuffing and cans of pumpkin puree. I hated the holidays and tried my best to ignore that they were on their way. Holidays were for families, and every storefront held a reminder that I didn’t really have one. I didn’t want to be the person who dragged everyone down so I kept my feelings bottled up inside and did my best to act as if nothing bothered me.

Early one Saturday morning it was so cold in my apartment that I refused to get out of bed. Somewhere in the back of my closet the space heater I’d been forced to buy was safe in its box, but I just couldn’t drag myself out from under my pile of blankets— not until I heard someone knocking on my door.

I groaned, wrapped my blanket around myself and got up to see who it was.

“What are you doing here?” I asked shocked to see that it was Justin. I hadn’t remembered him telling me he was coming over.

“I woke up thinking that I really wanted to go and get a cup of coffee with my girl. Figured if I just showed up, you couldn’t tell me no.”

I smiled. “You know I wouldn’t have said no.”

“Why is it so cold in here?” Justin asked as he sat down to wait for me to dress.

“If you would’ve called first then I would have been dressed and ready by the time you got here and you wouldn’t have to freeze waiting on me.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Justin said. He rubbed his hands together like he was trying to warm himself. “Holy shit, it’s freaking cold in here. Don’t tell me you like it like this?”

“No, I don’t,” I said emerging from my bedroom in a pair of jeans and a sweater. “But it’s not like I have a choice on the temperature. The landlord decides what it gets set to.”

“So you’re telling me it’s this cold in here all winter long?”

“No, sometimes it’s colder,” I said, grabbing my coat from the closet.

A few minutes later Justin and I made it to the coffee shop, where it was nice and warm inside. I’d almost forgotten how nice that felt. We found a small table in the corner and Justin reached for my still cold hand. “What can I do?”

“About what?”

“You can’t stay in that freezing apartment all winter long.”

“Yes, I can.” Justin didn’t seem convinced. “I do have a space heater you know. I just haven’t pulled it out of my closet yet.”

“Those things are dangerous, they catch fire all the time.”

“Justin, can we change the subject, please? I’ve told you a million times, I’m a big girl, and I’ll be fine.”

“I can’t help it, Jess. I worry about you; and you never let me help you.”

“You help me all the time.”

Justin gave me another skeptical look. He’d been offering to help me get another apartment for the past few weeks. I knew I should’ve felt grateful that he wanted to help, but instead I just felt humiliated. “Fine. I won’t bring it up anymore. Anyway, the reason I just sort of showed up this morning is because I had something I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“I was hoping you’d agree to come to my house for Thanksgiving this year.”

“Your family will be there,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Of course they will be. I thought you might finally want to meet them.”

Secretly I’d wondered when Justin was ever going to introduce me to his family. We’d been dating almost three months and I’d never met a single friend or family member of his. Now that he’d extended the invitation I was petrified by the prospect.

“Your family?”

Justin nodded.

“Did you already tell them you were planning on asking your girlfriend to come over for Thanksgiving?” Justin had said that he told his family about me, but how much they really knew, I wasn’t sure.

“I told them.” Justin took a sip of coffee and then set his cup back down on the saucer.

“And what did they say?” I got the distinct impression that Justin was keeping some vital piece of information from me. I could always tell when he was anxious about something.

“Nothing, really. They all want to meet you. It’s just that, I told you, my mom can be kind of protective. Especially after what happened with my ex.”

“You don’t think she’ll like me?”

Justin fidgeted in his chair. He was doing a poor job at hiding the fact that he was uncomfortable about what he was about to say. “It’s just that I think it’s for the best if you didn’t tell her that much about yourself. If you kept to the basics like what you’re majoring in, how we met, that kind of thing. You can tell her you live in Brooklyn, but maybe don’t mention the exact area. Park Slope is real nice. Just tell her you live close to Park Slope.”

“So you want me to lie?”

“It’s not really a lie.”

“It takes me twenty minutes to get to Park Slope from my house, how is that considered close?”

“The less my mother knows, the better.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You want me to meet your family so we can get to know each other, but then you don’t want me telling them anything about myself.” It’s not like I was planning on pouring my entire life story out, but the way Justin was talking it made me wonder if he was ashamed of me. It was just one more thing to add to the pile, one more thing for me to worry and feel insecure about, and suddenly, it felt like I’d reached my tipping point.

“That’s not exactly what. . .”

I reached inside my pocket for the few dollars I had and flung them on the table before Justin could explain himself. I stood up and stormed out of the coffee shop. Something had told me all along there was a reason why I hadn’t met his family. I was good enough for a weekend of fun, and that was about it. Hot tears streamed down my face as I marched down the street and towards the subway station. I could hear Justin calling my name, but I ignored him and kept walking faster and faster. Halfway down the stairs of the closest station I felt Justin close his hand around my arm. I spun around to face him.

“Let go.”

“Not until you tell me what the hell is going on with you.”

“What is going on is that I want to be alone right now.” I tried grabbing my arm away from Justin, but his grip was firm. A train must have just stopped and let off a load of passengers because suddenly it felt like we were swarmed as people trudged up the stairs knocking into us. I didn’t want to make a scene in public.

“Fine,” I said. “But not here.” Justin followed me down into the train station. I slid my card through the card reader and handed it to Justin to do the same. I walked towards the front of the train platform hoping that there weren’t many people around and stood there with my arms crossed in front of me.

“I’m waiting,” Justin said.

“There’s nothing to say. If you’re ashamed of me then I don’t have to meet your family, but I don’t appreciate you asking me to lie to them, it’s like you’re telling me I’m not good enough.”

“That’s not what I was trying to say. It’s just that I know how my mother is and I just want to protect you from her. Once she gets to know you and sees how wonderful and beautiful you are then it won’t matter.” Justin moved closer to me. I could tell he wanted to wrap his arms around me, but I turned my back to him so he wouldn’t see the fresh tears that started rolling down my face.
Why was I so angry with him?
It occurred to me then what was eating at me. Weeks of worrying about things I had no control over were wearing on me. I was good at keeping my feelings bottled up until something set me off and then I blew up. Between worrying about the fact that I was holding my brother back from the life he deserved, stressing over the loneliness that Thanksgiving and Christmas brought, and the prospect of spending another freezing cold winter suffering through my landlord’s refusal to supply heat I was close to the edge.

“I just think it’s better if I go to Mel’s for Thanksgiving.” I wouldn’t have to pretend at her house. There would be more food than I could eat in a week, there would be music and jokes and laughter and no pressure to act like someone I wasn’t. So what if one of her cousins got drunk and tried grabbing my ass. It would still be a million times easier dealing with that than trying to impress Justin’s uptight family.

“I’m going with you then.”

I shook my head. It was still turned so Justin couldn’t see my face. I didn’t want to speak because I was afraid he’d hear the sadness in my voice.

“You’re killing me here, Jess,” Justin pleaded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you how to act. You know I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“You’re wrong. I’m so far away from perfect.” I was right. My voice had given me away. Justin came around from behind me before I had a chance to turn away again. He saw the salty trail that the tears that streaked down my face had left behind.

“Why are you crying?”

I wiped my eyes. “I’m not. I’m just cold. The wind makes my eyes tear.”

“You don’t really think I’m going to buy that.” Justin waited for me to answer, but I didn’t want to tell him what I was feeling. “Jess, please talk to me.”

“I told you I wanted to be alone.”

Justin reached out and held the sides of my face with his hands. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

I buried my head in Justin’s chest as fresh tears erupted from my eyes. “I hate Thanksgiving and I hate Christmas and I hate the winter because it’s so damn cold and my brother’s probably going to get married soon and then I’ll
never
see him, not like I see him that much now, but still. . .”

I was bawling like a baby and sure that not much of it made sense to Justin. I wasn’t even sure he could hear me since my head was still buried in his chest and my words were muffled by his coat.

Justin put his arms around me and started stroking the back of my hair. “Why do you hate Christmas?”

“What is there for me to like about it? Everyone else I know spends the day with their family eating Christmas cookies and opening presents while I’m home alone or with some friend that invited me over because they felt sorry for me.”

“You don’t have to be alone ever again, Jess. I want you to spend Christmas with me.”

“And with your mom who is probably going to hate my guts?”

“She’ll love you, and even if she doesn’t, I don’t care. I love you and that’s all that matters.”

I mopped my eyes with one my sleeves. “I love you, too,” I said. “And I’m sorry I got so mad.”

“Why won’t you let me help you find another apartment?” Justin offered again. “Someplace where you won’t freeze to death.”

“My apartment’s cold, but it’s not that cold. I’ll be fine once I pull out the space heater.” And I would be, but I still hated the reminder that I was stuck in a life I never imagined for myself. Sometimes it felt like the only good things in it were the hope of something better one day after I was done with school and Justin. But I hated hanging my happiness on another person, there was just too much that could go wrong. My own life, the path I took, was under my control, but I had no control when it came to Justin. He could turn his back on me whenever he wanted just like my parents had done, and then where would I be?

“Have I ever told you that I hate your apartment? I hate your neighborhood. If I helped you find another place it wouldn’t just be for you, it would make me feel better, too.”

“I can’t afford anything better and I’m not going to let you pay my rent.”

Justin groaned. “I knew you’d say that. I don’t get why you won’t let me help you.”

“We’ve talked about that already.” I shivered. Even wrapped in Justin’s arms it was cold.

“Let’s go somewhere. Somewhere warm. You barely touched your coffee and it’s practically lunch time by now.”

I wanted to protest, to tell Justin I was fine and that I wasn’t hungry. Susan, who was Catholic, had explained to me at one point about the seven deadly sins, and I realized that mine was most definitely pride. But even my pride had its limits, and, at that moment, I was too cold to argue with Justin.

Opening up to Justin helped. Once everything, or at least most of it, was off my chest I felt like I was able to breathe again and see things from a different perspective. Or maybe I was just too anxious about finally meeting Justin’s family to think about much of anything else. Justin insisted that one way or another we were spending Thanksgiving together, and I figured I wouldn’t be scoring any points with Justin’s family if I stole him away from them at a major holiday.

Mike and Melanie kept asking me if I was sure I didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving with them. I was tempted to say yes and bring Justin along with me. The night before Thanksgiving Mel stayed over. She and my brother spent half of it in the kitchen preparing food to bring back to her mom’s house the next day. 

The banging around of pots and pans woke me up way too early Thanksgiving morning.

“I thought you two were done already?” I said as I walked into the kitchen still half-asleep. “Who wakes up this early on a national holiday anyway?”

“Mel decided we needed to make another tray of macaroni and cheese. Because three just aren’t enough,” my brother groaned.

“You know how big my family is,” Mel said to my brother. I sat down at the table with a bowl and a box of cereal and Mel turned to ask me, “You sure you don’t want to come over?”

“What, and miss your cousins hitting on her all night?” Mike said.