Cutting In by Julia Wolf

Author:Julia Wolf [Wolf, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

Ten

Will

Responsibility is stupid.

No one loved their job more than me, but not this week. I wanted to be with Anna more than anything, but when I was up making dough, she was still fast asleep. And when I went to bed for the night, she was out for drinks with friends.

Or at least that’s what I imagined she was doing. We texted off and on Sunday and Monday and I asked her to send me a picture of herself both days. She joked about being needy, but fuck if I wasn’t the needy one.

By Tuesday I couldn’t really hide my desperation anymore, so I called her.

“Hey, you,” she answered.

I let out a long sigh. “Hi, Annie. Are you still at work?”

“Nope, I’m home now. I’m in the middle of making a PB&J. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

I chuckled. “It’s 7:30. I’ll be up for a couple more hours. Can we video chat?”

“You want to watch me eat my sandwich?”

“I’d love nothing more.”

After a beat her face appeared on my screen and the ache in the pit of my stomach that had been there since I left her on Sunday eased infinitesimally.

“There you are!” she said.

“And there you are.” She was on her kitchen counter, wearing another tank top, her hair pulled off her face. A thought occurred to me, so I asked, “Are you wearing pants?”

She grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Of course not.” Then she lowered her phone, scanning down her torso, over the length of her bare legs, down to her feet and her black-polished toenails.

I groaned. “Why am I in Baltimore right now?”

Her face appeared back on the screen. “Because that’s where you live, silly.”

“True. Are you gonna eat your sandwich?”

She held up a triangle. “Here I go!”

I watched, mesmerized, as she made fast work of the first half of her sandwich. And she let me watch her, seeming not to have a care in the world.

“Is there anything better than a peanut butter and jelly?” she asked.

“I mean, I can think of a few things.”

She grinned and took a bite out of the second half of her sandwich.

“How was your day?” she asked between bites.

“Honestly, this is the highlight,” I said.

“Watching me stuff my face is the highlight of your day?”

“Mm-hmm. What about you? Tell me something.”

She took a drink, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I gave a little girl her first haircut today. Oh god, you should have seen her. She sat so still, like she was scared to breathe or I’d chop her ear off. And then after I curled her hair at the end, she couldn’t stop staring at herself in the mirror. Too frigging cute!”

I felt a tugging in my chest, right in the heartstrings region. Never could I have imagined Anna talking about a child in that way. I don’t think she even knew kids existed when we were teenagers.

“Do you want kids?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm. Yeah, hopefully. I plan on doing the exact opposite of everything my parents did with me.

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