The Deep End ✔️

2 - pretty people

Erick was growing his hair out.

"All the kids are doing it," he said with his nose turned up after my endless ridicule over the sorry mullet in the back. "Just because you would look like Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer doesn't mean I don't look sexy as fuck. Right, Phoebs?"

"Right, babe," Phoebe agreed from the kitchen.

I shook my head. "She's enabling it."

"Aubrey likes it, too," Erick said, flicking the tail on the back of his head dramatically. Aubrey nodded from behind her pancakes. She had lost two more teeth since the last time I saw her. "So, tell me what's been going on."

"Nothing, brother," I said and leaned back in my chair. "Just working and keeping busy."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "There's something you're not telling me."

I shrugged. "Nothing to tell."

Phoebe returned to the table with even more food than was already in front of us. It filled me with pride that my friends were living such a happy, domesticated life. Erick deserved it more than anyone I knew and I was glad he was content. It was a life he always desired and he'd got it.

"Have you talked to Dallas at all?" Phoebe asked.

I cleared my throat, not quite prepared for that so soon. They asked every time we saw each other, but it usually didn't come up until we were all boozed up and reminiscing. It had been two years, after all, and I never had the answers they wanted to hear. "No," I said plainly.

They nodded as if they already knew the answer, which begged the question: why ask? It was a brief, fleeting romance that had an impact on me for the rest of my life. It wasn't my call to cut off contact after a month of phone tag and cheap texting conversations. We all knew it was over when it ended, yet they felt the need to remind me every single time they saw me. Old wounds hurt just the same.

"He said you called on his birthday but he missed the call," Phoebe said casually. I wasn't sure what they wanted from me.

The fact that he had seen the missed call and didn't return it kind of hurt. I hated making the first move, especially when it came to Dallas, so for him to see me try and completely ignore it? That stung.

Thank God I was over him.

I just kept eating my food, hoping they'd take the hint and change the subject. No such luck, though, because Aubrey piped in. "Is Uncle Dallas coming to Thanksgiving?" she asked, her big brown eyes lighting up at the prospect.

Me, however? My heart sunk at the notion. I stared at Phoebe, waiting for her to say yes, he's coming and that I had little to no time to prepare.

"No, baby. I invited him, but he didn't RSVP," she said and I felt my bones quake as they relaxed beneath my skin. "Don't worry, Meek. He never shows."

We ate our breakfast and I listened to Aubrey tell me all about second grade so far, Phoebe rant about her boss, and Erick gush about the backyard set-up, complete with a jacuzzi and grill area. They asked me a few questions, but there wasn't much to tell. I was still working the same dead-end job, making enough money to survive with a few splurges here and there, and nothing exciting has happened.

Eventually, Phoebe's cousin—Dallas's, too, though I was in no position to introduce myself—or something showed up. I told everybody I'd see them tomorrow and left.

It was freezing outside, which I knew, but it never ceased to take my breath away at first. My aunt Rachel was probably at Mom's by now, but I had one stop I wanted to make before I went back home.

I hated that my dad kept popping into my head, but that's what holidays did. It was an almost monthly reminder that life goes on, but the mind can't. Everything that used to revolve around the three of us, now just revolves around me and Mom. It was such a strange, uncomfortably normal feeling these days and I knew we both felt it. All we could do was hold a brave face and pretend like we didn't make an entire pecan pie every year, even though Dad was the only one who liked it, or that the wreath on the door wasn't handmade by a pair of newlyweds celebrating their first Christmas as bride and groom, love in the air and impossible to ignore.

So I stepped up at some point. Not right away. I was still a kid when he left. The only thing easier than stepping up as the man of the house, was to deny that the position needed to be filled at all. It had to be three or four years later when I was only sixteen that I knew how wrong that was.

Mom never dated, never even asked what I'd think if she wanted to. But I knew she was aching with loneliness under her sandpaper exterior. I knew she wanted to be held sometimes or to feel protected in her own home.

I did that. I made sure to gauge her emotions when she got home from work to decide whether she was okay to cook dinner or if I needed to just let her lay down on the couch and do it myself. I installed the security cameras that still Big Brother'd the front and back porches to this day. I scraped together the quarters and dimes to pay the water bill before Mom woke up without a shower.

And every time I came home, I brought her flowers.

Maybe it wasn't for her anymore. I didn't even know if she liked real flowers. But I'd never stop doing it until the day I died.

I pulled into the Walmart, near the outdoors side. It was busy as all hell, unsurprisingly, since it was two days before Turkey Day and the last minute shoppers needed their ingredients for a well-debated green bean casserole. Bundled up jackets with legs brushed past me as I veered straight for the flower section. The selection was mid, not a whole lot to choose from that wasn't tacky or wilting.

In the very corner of my eye, I caught sight of a charming bouquet of orange lilies and decided it was just festive enough to bring a smile to her face. I snatched it up before the peering old man beside me could think to and made for the registers.

Naturally, the line was entirely too long and made me want to stuff the flowers in the movie bin and just go home, but I persevered. I stood behind a woman with three kids falling over themselves around her cart, causing their mother more trouble than she needed. She seemed preoccupied, and after a nosy look around her to see what was more important than her child playing with a Bic lighter dangerously close to another woman's skirt, I saw a forth child, a baby.

Dads could be such pricks in the ass.

"For your girlfriend?"

I turned hesitantly. A girl around my age was standing behind me with a carton of eggs and pumpkin filling. She smiled easily and gestured towards the flowers in my tightly wound grip. I ah'd in realization and shook my head. "For my mom," I for some reason admitted out loud.

"That's so sweet," she said and jutted out a lip. "My boyfriend brought me flowers when he picked me up for our first date. It was so romantic."

Sounds familiar.

I smiled, not saying anything. Small talk made me want to gag myself. The girl took the hint and went back to people watching, much like myself. I waited in line for a total of fifteen minutes, no thanks to a man yelling at the cashier for short-changing him which, after a second party came to count the drawer, was a false accusation.

As I swiped my card, I glanced back at the girl behind me. She was beautiful in the sense that she had such a unique face. Pale skin you could hardly see past the dozens of orangey freckles ombréd down her face, less saturated on her forehead but packed into the center. I almost had to gawk for a moment, stunned by her beauty, before the card reader beeped at me to remove my card.

She smiled at me, a pretty girl smile, and I smiled back. We didn't share another glance as I left the store.

Pretty people, I thought to myself with a huff..