Chapter Nine
After spending the better part of the night looking into Jesse’s dazzling baby blues, the once introspective green eyes seem flat, lifeless. Dull.
I avoid them at all costs, though he is looking straight at me. Instead, I focus on the coffee mug in my hands. I’ve long since polished off its contents, but Frank is standing beside the coffee pot, and I can’t bear to walk closer to him.
Like a schoolchild who knows they’ve done wrong, I avert Frank’s dull green gaze as if he’s a mean teacher.
“So he just… showed up?”
I nod. We’ve been over this four times. Ever since Frank stumbled out of his bedroom this morning to find his idol sprawled out on our puny secondhand couch, it’s been nothing but question and answer time.
“How late were you out?”
“Jeez, mom,” I start, but I make the mistake of looking up into his eyes, his pained, dull eyes, and the rest of my ‘mind your own business’ attitude fades away. “Three or four.”
“Were the bars even open that late?”
“Well, we wound up at a waffle house toward the end,” I admit.
He nods, allowing it.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. I set my cup on the table behind me and take a few hesitant steps toward him, but he moves uncomfortably, and I stop. “I didn’t mean to completely not tell you he was here. I was going to! It all just happened so fast, you know, and we were at the record store, and then we were at the bar, and…”
As I talk, he holds a hand up and shakes his head. “You were excited. You lost track of time. I get it.”
“No, but-”
“No hard feelings, Carolyn. I understand. It’s fine.” He finishes his coffee and grabs a briefcase off the counter. “Anyway, I have to go. Job interview.”
He walks all the way to the door and stops, just for a second, without even turning around, only to say, “Tell him I say hi, okay?”
All the pain in his voice hits me like a ton of bricks, and suddenly I imagine that Jesse and Frank had spent the night painting the town red while I stayed in and watched TV and went to bed early. I imagine how I’d feel, waking up and walking into my own living room to find my hero lying on the couch, unannounced while Frank made shame-faces at me over coffee, apologizing time and again.
I imagine what it feels like to not be chosen by your hero, and I imagine it feels a lot like coming in second place to someone you love: you pat their back and say you’re happy for them, but really, you wish it was you.
Though, in reality, I say none of this, I just stare. Because even if there was something for me to say, even if I wanted to apologize again, or even if I simply wanted to tell Frank, “Sure thing,” he’d called me Carolyn.
Not affectionate ‘Lynn’, not Jesse-esque ‘Bitty’, not even the playful last name nickname, ‘Owen’.
Carolyn.
As soon as I hear the door slam, I sit at the kitchen table and start to cry.
