The Deep End ✔️

6 - a bad penny always turns up

I wasn't going to meet with him.

The thought made my skin crawl. He didn't owe me anything, especially not an explanation or a drink, for God's sake. And I didn't owe him a second of my time.

Thanksgiving came and went fleetingly. Dinner was great, company was fine. I was just flustered for the entire evening. I never replied to Dallas's text, but it haunted me the entire night. I was only in town for two and a half more days; I didn't want to spend it pining after Dallas in some bar with no chance of actually getting anywhere.

"Well, of course you should meet with him."

My mom and I were in the line at Best Buy, much to my dismay. It was freezing outside and we'd stayed up all night so we could get here early enough to catch a spot in line before they opened. I think we did good, not too far back.

I shook in my many jackets. "What's the point?"

She hummed. "I guess the chance to get some closure is always a good reason to do pointless things."

We were sitting on the sidewalk, many eager gamers and businessmen alike surrounding us. All needing new technology to contribute something to their abysmal, chronically online lives. The Internet was a disease—what were we talking about?

"I don't need closure," I said.

"Yes, you do. Everyone needs closure," she said and I sensed a brief lapse in her building blocks. As someone who deserved closure more than most, she knew what she was talking about. "Your father never had the decency to give me closure and I could never forgive him, even if there was a good reason. It's far too late."

I shrugged. "Not the same."

She pulled out her phone and opened Facebook to pass the time. "I know it's not the same, but I think it might help you move on."

"I have moved on. He's ruining it by trying to meet."

"If you're so bothered that you can't even meet him for a drink and a conversation, then methinks you actually haven't moved on." She looked at me accusingly with her glasses pushed down her nose.

Damn it, Mom. It won't kill you to be wrong sometimes.

We stopped talking about him for the rest of the day. He never left my mind though, a common occurrence in his presence. I still hadn't replied to him by the time Mom and I got back to the house, both holding one side of a boxed flat screen TV. I helped her set it up and we put on our favorite Thanksgiving time movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Dallas (1:11PM)
Please?

I locked my phone and stuffed it back in my pocket, not wanting to deal with it. Coming home was supposed to be a pleasant time for me and it wouldn't if he kept getting under my skin. I stared at the TV, feeling myself dissociate from where I was and what I was doing. My thoughts were all consumed by Dallas.

Mom and I ate microwaved leftovers and had a Steve Martin marathon. I was shoveling turkey into my mouth when there was a knock at the door, surprising both of us. We shared a confused look, neither knowing who would be at the door right now.

"You get it," I said, squinting.

"Me? No. You're the man."

"But it's your house."

"You get it!"

I huffed, putting my plate on the coffee table and standing up. Mom never liked opening the door,
especially at night. It was some sort of paranoia that she possessed, claimed it was her own personal nervosity. The cold shocked me, barely clothed in just a T-shirt and sweats, when I opened the door. I shouldn't have been surprised to see Dallas on my Mom's porch, but I was.