~Peter~
5 Days Later
Noah Martin. With a dazzling white-toothed smile and sparkling blue eyes, he had that classic, All-American pretty boy look. Although the news article mentioned that he and Ayla were childhood friends, I did not expect Ayla to be someone that rushed into an engagement.
At first, it didn't make sense, but the longer I stared at the screen, the more I could imagine the lively grin on Noah's face turned towards Ayla. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy, like someone that would always look at Ayla with a smile.
In spite of an uncomfortable pull in my chest, I knew that this meant it was time for me to stop spending each weekend scouring the internet. Ayla was safe and content, and that's all I needed to know.
Although my dreams still haunted me at night, I'd known for a long time that quitting this portion of my Sunday ritual was the healthy way forward. I needed to deal with the things my mind made up without the reassurance of the media.
I pushed the screen of the laptop closed and left the library for Stephanie's. She'd known I'd had the day off and invited me to her place for dinner with her and Charlie.
From the outside, Stephanie's home looked like all the rest - beige vinyl siding, stone accents, and a lot of slushy snow, but as soon as she opened the door, I stepped into a kid's playground.
Littering her gray and white color scheme was a rainbow of Charlie's toys. There were action figures frozen in a battle on the living room table, and trucks and trains of every size and color lined the edges of a geometric rug.
"Careful!" Stephanie yelled.
Thinking she was speaking to me, I paused my perusal of her hallway. When I turned, however, I saw Charlie scaling the built-in shelving of the living room in a Spiderman costume. His foot kicked at a picture frame, and it fell over onto the floor. Luckily for his bare feet, the frame was already glassless.
"Charlie, get down from there right now!"
The kid gave his mother a wicked smile and jumped from the shelving.
"Charlie!"
He landed in a crouch on the living room rug.
"Impressive," I told him.
Stephanie, meanwhile, was not amused. "Don't encourage him," Steph chided me.
Charlie ducked behind the couch and then popped up in front of his mother. He spread his fingers towards her and pretended to wrap her into a web.
"He's been on a Spiderman kick this week." Steph said. Her voice was tired as she played along and spun around in the "web".
"I can tell."
"Do you mind cutting me out of the web, Charlie? I need to go make your dino nuggets."
Dino nuggets must have been a real lure for Charlie because he immediately made some weird hand motions. When he appeared finished, Stephanie took an exaggerated step towards the kitchen.
With less children's toys, the kitchen was far less colorful than the open area I'd first stepped into. The backsplash was white, the cabinets were white, the walls were gray, and the countertop was a white marble. Other than me, the darkest thing in the room was the stovetop. I felt like a dark splatter of paint in a surgery room. It was the complete opposite of the warm, comfortable scheme Ayla had decorated her home with.
As I continued to survey her space, Steph's head disappeared behind her freezer door. I watched as she opened a bag of Tyson's dino nuggets, carefully spread five out onto a baking sheet, and deposited the bag back into the freezer. Next, she grabbed a mitt, opened the oven, removed a cast iron pan from inside, and replaced it with the sheet of dino nuggets.
The kitchen smelled heavenly. "Pork?" I asked.
"Pork and potatoes."
"I would've been okay with dino nuggets."
Steph laughed. It was quiet, more of a giggle than the howl I'd been used to four months ago. "No way I'm serving an adult dino nuggets for their first time in this house."
I shrugged. "They looked good."
"They're practically all Charlie eats these days."
"Respectable decision."
For the second time that night, she glared at me. "I'm about to spend 10 minutes finely chopping up spinach enough that I can hide it into mashed potatoes in order to get that kid to eat a vegetable."
"I could chop the spinach."
Steph did most of the talking while we finished making dinner. From the living room, Charlie's play battle noises gave us a soundtrack to listen to when it was quiet.
"He's got a lot of energy." I handed her the cutting board loaded with spinach when she gestured at me.
"Tell me about it." She scraped the spinach into a bowl of mashed potatoes and mixed it in. It created a bright green bowl of food.
Ayla would have found a way to force the kid to eat before she ever did this to a vegetable.
"I would put some to the side for us, but I've convinced Charlie that the Hulk gives us special green potatoes to use. I absolutely can not have him seeing you eat a different color of mash."
"Hulk potatoes and dino nuggets. Sounds like a great meal to me."
"I'm just happy he's no longer on a mac and cheese fix. I went through so much nutritional yeast in those few months."
"Nutritional yeast?"
"It's like a seasoning with some vitamins in it," she explained.
The dino nuggets came out of the oven, and soon enough, we were all sitting around a table. Surprisingly, I enjoyed my hulk potatoes. Steph had put enough garlic and pepper in them that the spinach disappeared into the background.
"You'll have to thank Hulk for me." I played along with Steph's tale. "These are amazing."
She blushed.
"Hulk comes when I'm at school," Charlie announced. "My mom says I can't meet him 'cause I have to learn."
I nod. "Learning is important."
"Hulk can teach me stuff."
"Fair point."
"See mom?"
Ayla would have absolutely destroyed me by now. Stephanie, meanwhile, gave me a pleading look.
"Your teachers know a lot more than Hulk." Steph said, attempting to pacify the kid.
I couldn't stop myself from adding, "Hulk has seven PhD's."
"Peter!"
I was saved from my scolding by Charlie. "Mom, what's a PhD?"
"It's something people get when they go to college for a long time."
"Mom, what's college?"
"A school for grown ups."
"Grown ups go to school?"
"Yes. Hulk goes to school just like you." I told him, butting in to redeem myself to Steph.
"That's so cool!"
Stephanie sighed.
Conversation continued similarly until Charlie finished all his dino nuggets and ran back into the living room.
"Thanks for putting up with him," Steph told me as I helped her clean the kitchen.
"He's a funny kid."
That small giggle escaped her lips again. "He is."
She was quiet for a bit as she scrubbed a pan clean.
"He likes you, you know." Steph broke the silence.
"I'm sure he likes most people."
Steph turned towards me. The look on her face was one of deliberation. I waited silently for her to say whatever it is she was thinking.
"Well, I like you."
"I'm sure you also like most people," I told her. Steph was almost too nice. I couldn't see her hating anybody.
She put the pan into the second bowl of the sink and stepped towards me. "I like you more than most people."
That, I had not seen coming. As I quietly tried to sort out how I felt about Steph hitting on me, a small frown formed on her face.
"Forget I said anything." Red spread across Steph's cheeks as she turned back towards the sink.
"Stephanie -" I tried to find something reassuring to say.
"Totally understand!" Her voice squeaked. "We can pretend that never happened."
I found myself wishing I could just be direct and say what was on my mind without having to filter it. Instead, everything I could think of seemed like it would just make her more embarrassed.
Steph anxiously scrubbed at a bowl with green potato pieces stuck to the sides.
The more I pondered my next move, the more my own feelings began to sort themselves out, and an honest reply came to mind. "I'm not over someone else."
I wanted Ayla or I wanted no one, I realized.
"Oh," Steph said. She still seemed a bit unnerved, but her hand moved in less wild circles around the dishes.
"An ex girlfriend?"
"It was complicated." While a genuine answer, "complicated" barely began to describe Ayla and me.
She frowned. "I'm sorry. I've been there."
~~~
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