Chris scratches his head and looks at the ground.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll give it up; will you get off of me about it now?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, handing back the remote control. “Over the next little bit, I’m probably going to need some further evidence that you’re not just going right back to it,” I say, “but for now, we’re good.”
“Okay,” Chris says, glaring at me as he throws one hand over the opposite shoulder and turns the television back on again. “Hey,” he says, walking back to his spot on the couch and sitting down, “this is a momentous occasion in my life. I think we should celebrate.”
“I’m not thirsty,” I tell him.
“Oh well,” he says, “more for me.”
He goes back to his liquor and his decades-old cartoons, and I’ve got to get out of here.
Chris promises to change more frequently than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’m not stupid enough to think things are going to be hunky-dory from here.
Still, on the off chance this is some kind of genuine breakthrough, I don’t want to stick around and let him see all of the doubt written across my face. He’d probably end up using that as an excuse to blow up his end of the bargain.
I’m walking now, no particular direction or destination in mind.
Chris said what he said to avoid getting kicked out, that’s plain. The biggest change is that this time, I’m not going to accept his excuses.
If he fails, he’s out and this time, I’m not just going to give him warning after warning.
This is the most ambitious I’ve ever been in trying to get Chris to stop doing what he’s doing before things take a turn that can’t be fixed by a drunken week or two at “little bro’s” house. That doesn’t mean anything if I’m not willing to follow through, though.
For now, I just walk and try to find something else to put my mind.
Immediately, my thoughts turn toward Ash. She’s at school right now, but we have plans to get together later.
As soon as I’ve got the image of Ash in my mind, though, the last half hour comes crashing back into my thoughts.
She knows about Chris, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair to drag her through all of this. If I know my brother, he’s going to try to weasel his way out of this every step of the way, and this is far from the last argument he and I are going to have about it.
Do I really want to ask Ash to deal with this when we’ve only been sort-of dating for a couple weeks? It doesn’t seem fair.
Conventional wisdom says it’s her choice whether or not to have this be a part of her life, but she doesn’t know Chris like I do and I don’t want to have him take off one day, only to find he’s sold her some kind of sob story and made off with her life’s savings.
Maybe the best thing for both of us right now is to break it off, but at the same time, I’m really starting to feel like those walls between us are beginning to come down, and I don’t want to miss out on knowing her better.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Chapter Eight
Reminiscing
Ash
I’m just leaving for class when I find Jana standing outside our building, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey,” she says as I come within speaking distance.
“I thought you quit,” I say, walking up to her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says.
“The apartment’s empty,” I say.
Jana looks down at her cigarette and then back at me with a smirk. “I am outside smoking,” she says.