Marriage of Unconvenience

“You’re probably right. I don’t picture a whole lot of guys willing to take a backseat to studying. I mean, I know there are, but they’re a little hard to find sometimes.”

“Mmm,” she said in agreement.

“But you can date. If you want to. Obviously. You don’t need my permission.” I was babbling. I wanted her to be free to do what she wanted to do, but it would also crush me if she got into a relationship. The cognitive dissonance was real.

“I know,” she said as we reached the end of the road and turned around. We had walked this so many times when we were kids we didn’t even have to decide that we were going back. We both just knew.

“So you can. If you wanted to. Or not, if you don’t want to.” I cringed at myself. Why was I being awkward about this?

“Good to know. But I don’t want to right now. Still figuring things out. And school too.” I couldn’t help but be relieved. So relieved I thought my legs were going to give out on me. I stumbled a bit and Cara reached out to steady me.

“Stupid rocks,” I said, kicking a few away from my feet.

We got back to the house and went inside to play board games with my parents. It was one of my favorite things to do with them because they were both pretty mild-mannered most of the time, but something happened to them when the games were brought out. Things got vicious and hilarious at the same time.

We had more wine and did a lot of yelling and Cara kicked all our asses, first at Exploding Kittens, then at Life, and then at Jenga. She was on a roll.

“For the millionth time, I am NOT playing Cards Against Humanity with my parents,” I said when Dad tried to get the box of cards out.

“There are some lines I will not cross, and that is one of them.” He sighed and put the cards back.

“You can save that one for when you have parties with your friends. Not your daughter.” I shuddered at the thought.

“I don’t know, it could be fun,” Cara said, and I aimed a kick at her under the table that she dodged.

“Don’t you encourage them,” I said, pointing my finger at her. She just gave me an innocent look.

“I’m being attacked,” I said, crossing my arms. They all laughed in unison and Mom got up to put the games away.

“Well, in our old age, your father and I have started going to bed earlier. You’re welcome to stay up as long as you want because you’re grown adults, but we’re probably going to head to bed.” I raised my eyebrows at her. My parents didn’t normally go to bed early, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with being older, because they weren’t even that old.

“Okayyyyy,” I said, drawing the word out. “Well, goodnight.” I hugged and kissed both of them, as did Cara.

Then it was just the two of us.

“You want to play cards?” Cara asked.

I yawned.

“Not really, but I’d watch a movie if you want.” She agreed and we both grabbed blankets and got ourselves situated on my parent’s couch. I was still full from dinner, but I couldn’t do a movie without snacks, so I raided the pantry and brought out the fancy kettle chips and some caramel apple flavored popcorn.

“Drinks?” Cara asked, and I went back and pulled out a few sodas. We scanned for nearly an hour through all the available movies, and at last decided on one we’d seen about twenty times before.

Cara moved closer to me until our shoulders were touching and she pulled the edge of my blanket over her legs.

“You have your own blanket right there.”

“But I like yours better. It’s softer.” I couldn’t argue there; my blanket was better. My mom had found it and given it to me before I went to college, and it was one of the softest things I’d ever felt in my life. I’d gotten three more of the exact blanket that were back in the city at my apartment.

I swear, I was watching the movie, but I couldn’t help glancing at Cara as she slowly popped one piece of popcorn in her mouth at a time. We should have picked a different movie that I had to pay my full attention to. This one couldn’t hold my focus.

“Stop it,” she said, not looking away from the screen.

“Stop what,” I said.