What Doesn't Kill You by Virginia DeBerry

Author:Virginia DeBerry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2009-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

8

That’s before my head was forcibly removed from the hole in the sand.

Every Gerald thought made me madder. Not just angry—mad-dog mad—crazy and foaming at the mouth. Or like mad cow disease—disoriented and unable to walk or think straight. The closer I got to home, the more I could feel myself swell up, like one of those big, butt-ugly lizards with the bumpy skin and the neck that puffs out like a balloon. I don’t know if they’re really mad, but I’d stay the hell away. And I’m sure the man squeezed in the plane seat next to me knew better than to even dream of challenging me for space on the armrest.

It’s just that in all the time we were…I don’t even know what to call it—dating? Hardly. In a relationship? Clearly not. That implies you tell the other person what’s going on in your life, and somewhere along the line I lost my priority status. How could he not tell me?! That zipped me right between the eyes, and I think I hip-checked a woman for space at the ladies’-room sink.

I never realized how much of whatever Gerald and I did involved what he could or couldn’t do—with me or for me—because we had to keep his little secret. OK, big secret. So I never even considered asking him to pick me up from the airport. It would have been nice for the man in my life to help put my luggage in the car, tell me he missed me and take me home. But he couldn’t because how would he explain his Saturday-night absence to Annie? Except that for quite some time now Toni—whom I missed already because we were absolutely not going to get to explore our friendship options—didn’t give a rat’s rump what he did on Saturday or any other day, or night. Except he should have said something to me. Gerald owed me that much.

Which left me with steam coming out of my ears while I scraped together enough money to take the train to the bus, because I did not have $100 for a cab. I didn’t want to know if Amber and J.J. were still mad at each other, so I wasn’t asking them to pick me up. Really, I had planned to catch a ride with one of my so-called friends, but since the demise of the Live Five, I was on my own. I had a mind to call him while I was waiting on the decidedly nontropical train platform. And I cussed under my breath while dragging a ton of suitcase on and off a bus and down the road to my house in the dark. But I knew I’d need more energy and more wits than I had at the time to speak to him.

Welcome home.

Next day I snatched dirty clothes out of my bag, stuffed them in the washer, threw myself in the shower, yanked on some clothes, raked a comb through my hair—sense any hostility? I

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