After Jordan left, I returned to my room. Turing on the radio, I fell back into bed and the thoughts started coming. I went over everything that happened, over and over again, and each time I still didn’t come up with an answer to the ‘what the hell am I going to do?’ question I keep asking myself. I tried to picture Jordan and me in a romantic relationship but every time I got to the sexual part of the image, I stopped. I didn’t stop because I don’t think Jordan’s attractive, I’ve seen him naked, I was home one night when I apparently wasn’t supposed to be. And it’s not like he’s a prick, I wouldn’t be his friend if he was. No, his ‘do-able’ rating wasn’t my concern; I was worried about what happened if it didn’t work out? Did I want to lose my best friend because of a failed relationship?
My head hurt. And thinking wasn’t helping, I needed to get my mind of everything, I needed something productive to do. I hopped off the bed and went to my closet. Over the years since I moved out, I’ve been coming back here and changing or staying over night, and in that time I’ve managed to leave a few outfits here. I found a pair of sweats and I threw them on then went to find Mary. I find that doing housework, even though I hate it, is normally the easiest way for me to avoid something I’m trying to not think about. When I told Mary that I needed something to do, she looked at me like I was insane but she gave me a list of things that they have been meaning to do but never got around to it. One of those things was cleaning the attic. I jumped all over it.
I had been in the attic for about two hours when Natalie came up the stairs. “Mommy says dinner will be soon.” I thanked her and continued sorting through the boxes that were in front of me. They weren’t anything exciting, old bills, receipts, stuff like that. Mary had given me a box of garbage bags and the shredder and told me to shred all of it. It was a pretty boring job but at least I was keeping busy. She had also given me Natalie’s portable CD player, so I was bopping along singing as I went. “Aunt Anna? What’s this? It has your name on it.” I glanced at Natalie who was poking around in some boxes in the far corner by the door, she was holding up a book and a picture. “Is this Nan and Pop?” She asked. Jumping up, I joined her on the floor and looked at the picture. It was my parents and Zach; they were standing in front of our house. Mom, who was pregnant with Chad, was standing with her back to dad; dad had one arm wrapped around mom, his hand resting on her belly and in his other arm he was holding two-year old Zach. They all looked so happy. “Who’s the boy?” Natalie looked up at me. “Aunt Anna, why are you crying?”
I wiped the tears from my cheek and hugged her. “I miss them,” I sighed, “I wish you could’ve known them Nat, they would’ve loved you. And that boy is your daddy.”
“Daddy?” She took the picture back again and looked at it harder. I picked up the book that she had asked about, I never saw it before. I flipped to the first page and started to read.
April 5, 1983
I think I’m pregnant. I know I’m pregnant, I haven’t had a test yet but a woman just knows these things. How am I going to tell David? I’m sure he’ll love the baby like he loves the boys, but he could barely handle the boys when they were babies.
April 11, 1983
Its official, I’m pregnant! I just got home from the doctor and she is saying by December we’ll have a new bundle of joy in our home.
David is scared. I’m never seen him like this before. He’s worried that there will be problems, I’m not in my 20s anymore, he keeps reminding me. 36 isn’t that old! Other than that, he’s thrilled about the baby; he even went to the doctor’s with me today. He never did that with either of the boys.
“What is it Anna?” Natalie was holding onto my arm, trying to see what I was reading. I smiled at her, “It’s my mom’s diary from when she was pregnant with me.”
We read together for a couple more minutes before Zach called up the stairs for us to come to supper. I took the book with me to show the boys.
“I forgot it was there.” Zach said as he flipped through the pages. “I was going to give it to you when you got older, so you’d know how important you were to them, even though they weren’t here to tell you themselves.” I hugged him, thanking him for keeping it, and joked that it’s a good thing I volunteered to clean the attic or I would never have seen it.
After supper I went back up in the attic. I didn’t realize how long I was up there until Natalie come up to say good night. Looking around the newly organized attic, I decided that it was time for me to take a shower and get ready for bed myself. I didn’t realize how sore I was until I started down the stairs, every muscle in my back and shoulders were screaming at me. I wanted to relax in a bath but the only bathtub in Zack’s house was occupied at the moment with my niece getting ready for bed.
I quickly grabbed my bath stuff, realizing that I didn’t have my robe with me. I wasn’t too worried about it though; there wasn’t anyone here besides family. Stripping off my clothes, I stepped under the shower spray; I made it hotter than normal because my muscles were aching. What I need is a good massage, I thought as I rubbed my neck.
Holding my bath puff in one hand, I squeezed some Water Lily body wash onto it and proceeded to wash myself. While I was rubbing the puff against my skin my mind started to wander, my imagination kicked in. Closing my eyes, I thought about Josh. I imagined him joining me in the shower and taking control of the puff. I shivered as I thought of his strong hands guiding the puff over my flesh, as he stood behind me kissing my shoulder, whispering his intentions as he touched me. I pictured him ‘accidentally’ dropping the puff and continuing like he didn’t notice it wasn’t in his hand anymore. He would explore for a while, then turn me around and…oh my god! My eyes sprung opened as the image of Josh morphed into Jordan. I stared at the wall in front of me, and my mind started to wonder what showering with Jordan would be like. I wanted to slap myself, I had to stop this. I washed my hair, rinsed off and then hopped out of the shower. Taking care in drying myself, I wrapped the bath towel around my body and grabbed another towel for my hair. Rubbing at my hair with the towel, I opened the door and stepped out.
Amongst the various wolf whistles I heard, “Zach you didn’t tell us you were providing ‘entertainment’!” My head snapped up and I froze. Standing in various parts of the family room were four of Zach’s friends and both my brothers. The only one I really knew was Josh, the others I knew to see them but I couldn’t think of their names at the moment. I was frozen where I stood, I never saw Zach move so fast in his life, he grabbed the blanket off the couch and wrapped me up in it. He led me to my room, shoved me in and shut the door. I heard booing and hissing from the guys and Zach told them all to shut up.
Josh is here! My heart skipped a beat as I recalled the look that he just gave me. The fact that Zach’s friends have seen me in just a towel didn’t seem to matter, well it did matter but Josh’s presence seemed to make it alright. Tossing off the towel, I walked to the closet and poked around looking for something nice. But all that was in there were clothes that I didn’t really care much for. Sighing, I pulled out my high school grad sweatshirt and a pair of jeans; it was the only thing that wasn’t stained with one thing or another. I quickly dried my bangs and ran my fingers through my hair.
Opening my bedroom door, I peeked out to see if anyone was paying attention. They were all gathered around the pool table, talking and laughing while two of them played. My eyes were drawn to Josh, he was half sitting on one of the stools from the bar, they had dragged them over to the table. He glanced over towards me and smiled.
I walked out of my room and was in front of the couch when he joined me. “Hey Beautiful.” He sat down on the couch and held out his hand to me. Slipping my hand in his, I joined him. “That was quite the entrance.”
I grinned, “I didn’t know anyone was here.” I leaned closer to him. He turned his body towards me, taking my hand in his other one, his fingers softly stroking my hand.
He proceeded to tell me that he was thinking about me all day, wondering if everything went ok after he left. “I called you a couple times, you didn’t answer, and I thought you were ignoring me.” He chuckled, “Now I know it’s because you weren’t home.” He paused, “So? How did it go?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I sighed then continued. “We got into an argument and then we were fine.” He didn’t say anything. “What? Jordan and I have argued before, it’s ok.” I think.
“You don’t seem to believe that.”
I sighed, “Josh I don’t know what I should tell you and what I shouldn’t.”
He told me I should tell him as much as I feel comfortable telling him. I didn’t want to tell him about Jordan because I didn’t know how he would take it. But I don’t want to not tell him. So I told him. “We argued, got over it and then he kissed me.” I watched his face for a reaction but he didn’t react. “Josh?”
“What?” He looked confused.
“You didn’t seem too surprised to hear that. Why weren’t you surprised?”
He shrugged, “I thought there was something going on between you two. I knew you weren’t dating but…” His voice trailed off.
“But what?” I stared at him and then it hit me. “You thought we were fuck buddies?”
He frowned at that. “No, not quite that. You two are very close and sometimes people are lead to believe that there’s something between you. I could see that he felt some thing; I just didn’t know what you felt. I mean, you were flirting with me so I assumed that you weren’t in a relationship, that you were free.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not making any sense.”
I leaned over and kissed his lips, I couldn’t help myself. “No, you are making sense; you aren’t the first person who said that either. Jordan and I are more touchy-feely than most friends are, we always have been.”
Josh sank lower on the couch and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. Resting his forehead against my shoulder he asked the million dollar question. “How do you feel about him?”
“Josh,” I lifted my hand to his face, brushing my fingers against his recently shaven cheek. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that ever since it happened and I still don’t know. I mean, I love him obviously, he’s my best friend but I’m not sure if it’s enough to want to be with him. You know?” Josh didn’t say anything; he brought my hand from his cheek and pressed his lips against the palm. “I can’t even think about it now though, he’s not talking to me. I did something totally stupid because I didn’t know how to react.”
Josh looked up at me. “What?” He asked his lips still against my palm.
“I called his brother and asked him to make an excuse to need to see Jordan because I didn’t want to tell him I needed time to myself to think. He found out, got really upset and stormed out.” I cringed as I said it, it was horrible.
“Ouch!” Josh sat up again, “Poor Jordan. I wouldn’t blame him for getting upset. He tells you how he feels and you call his brother to get rid of him?” I nodded; I couldn’t feel any more horrible than I did at this moment. It’s bad enough when you say what you did was bad but when someone else says it, it seems to sink in more. “Hey don’t worry; I’m sure everything will be ok. You’ll talk to him and work it out.”
“I hope so.” I gave him a weak smile. “I didn’t expect you to react this way about the whole thing.”
“Anna, sweetheart, I won’t lie to you, I don’t like that he kissed you. But I can’t sit here and get mad at you when we aren’t a couple, unfortunately.” He kissed my forehead. “I really like you, and I want to see how we could be together but if you decide that you want to be with Jordan, then I won’t stand in your way.”
I looked down at our hands on my lap. “I -”
“Josh!” We both jumped as Zach called out to him. Josh looked over the back of the couch. “Get over here man. And Anna why don’t you go upstairs?”
Josh looked at me, and smiled. “I think he’s saying we’ve spend enough time together.” He stood up and went to help me up but Zach called out to him again. He returned to the guys but watched as I went upstairs like I was told too.
It wasn’t until later that night when I was in bed, about to fall asleep, that something he said came back to me, ‘You were flirting with me so I assumed that you weren’t in a relationship, that you were free.’ He was flirting with me too; does that mean he’s free? I sat up in bed, is he divorced? I decided that the next time I spoke to him; I would stop ignoring the issue and ask him.
My head hurt. And thinking wasn’t helping, I needed to get my mind of everything, I needed something productive to do. I hopped off the bed and went to my closet. Over the years since I moved out, I’ve been coming back here and changing or staying over night, and in that time I’ve managed to leave a few outfits here. I found a pair of sweats and I threw them on then went to find Mary. I find that doing housework, even though I hate it, is normally the easiest way for me to avoid something I’m trying to not think about. When I told Mary that I needed something to do, she looked at me like I was insane but she gave me a list of things that they have been meaning to do but never got around to it. One of those things was cleaning the attic. I jumped all over it.
I had been in the attic for about two hours when Natalie came up the stairs. “Mommy says dinner will be soon.” I thanked her and continued sorting through the boxes that were in front of me. They weren’t anything exciting, old bills, receipts, stuff like that. Mary had given me a box of garbage bags and the shredder and told me to shred all of it. It was a pretty boring job but at least I was keeping busy. She had also given me Natalie’s portable CD player, so I was bopping along singing as I went. “Aunt Anna? What’s this? It has your name on it.” I glanced at Natalie who was poking around in some boxes in the far corner by the door, she was holding up a book and a picture. “Is this Nan and Pop?” She asked. Jumping up, I joined her on the floor and looked at the picture. It was my parents and Zach; they were standing in front of our house. Mom, who was pregnant with Chad, was standing with her back to dad; dad had one arm wrapped around mom, his hand resting on her belly and in his other arm he was holding two-year old Zach. They all looked so happy. “Who’s the boy?” Natalie looked up at me. “Aunt Anna, why are you crying?”
I wiped the tears from my cheek and hugged her. “I miss them,” I sighed, “I wish you could’ve known them Nat, they would’ve loved you. And that boy is your daddy.”
“Daddy?” She took the picture back again and looked at it harder. I picked up the book that she had asked about, I never saw it before. I flipped to the first page and started to read.
April 5, 1983
I think I’m pregnant. I know I’m pregnant, I haven’t had a test yet but a woman just knows these things. How am I going to tell David? I’m sure he’ll love the baby like he loves the boys, but he could barely handle the boys when they were babies.
April 11, 1983
Its official, I’m pregnant! I just got home from the doctor and she is saying by December we’ll have a new bundle of joy in our home.
David is scared. I’m never seen him like this before. He’s worried that there will be problems, I’m not in my 20s anymore, he keeps reminding me. 36 isn’t that old! Other than that, he’s thrilled about the baby; he even went to the doctor’s with me today. He never did that with either of the boys.
“What is it Anna?” Natalie was holding onto my arm, trying to see what I was reading. I smiled at her, “It’s my mom’s diary from when she was pregnant with me.”
We read together for a couple more minutes before Zach called up the stairs for us to come to supper. I took the book with me to show the boys.
“I forgot it was there.” Zach said as he flipped through the pages. “I was going to give it to you when you got older, so you’d know how important you were to them, even though they weren’t here to tell you themselves.” I hugged him, thanking him for keeping it, and joked that it’s a good thing I volunteered to clean the attic or I would never have seen it.
After supper I went back up in the attic. I didn’t realize how long I was up there until Natalie come up to say good night. Looking around the newly organized attic, I decided that it was time for me to take a shower and get ready for bed myself. I didn’t realize how sore I was until I started down the stairs, every muscle in my back and shoulders were screaming at me. I wanted to relax in a bath but the only bathtub in Zack’s house was occupied at the moment with my niece getting ready for bed.
I quickly grabbed my bath stuff, realizing that I didn’t have my robe with me. I wasn’t too worried about it though; there wasn’t anyone here besides family. Stripping off my clothes, I stepped under the shower spray; I made it hotter than normal because my muscles were aching. What I need is a good massage, I thought as I rubbed my neck.
Holding my bath puff in one hand, I squeezed some Water Lily body wash onto it and proceeded to wash myself. While I was rubbing the puff against my skin my mind started to wander, my imagination kicked in. Closing my eyes, I thought about Josh. I imagined him joining me in the shower and taking control of the puff. I shivered as I thought of his strong hands guiding the puff over my flesh, as he stood behind me kissing my shoulder, whispering his intentions as he touched me. I pictured him ‘accidentally’ dropping the puff and continuing like he didn’t notice it wasn’t in his hand anymore. He would explore for a while, then turn me around and…oh my god! My eyes sprung opened as the image of Josh morphed into Jordan. I stared at the wall in front of me, and my mind started to wonder what showering with Jordan would be like. I wanted to slap myself, I had to stop this. I washed my hair, rinsed off and then hopped out of the shower. Taking care in drying myself, I wrapped the bath towel around my body and grabbed another towel for my hair. Rubbing at my hair with the towel, I opened the door and stepped out.
Amongst the various wolf whistles I heard, “Zach you didn’t tell us you were providing ‘entertainment’!” My head snapped up and I froze. Standing in various parts of the family room were four of Zach’s friends and both my brothers. The only one I really knew was Josh, the others I knew to see them but I couldn’t think of their names at the moment. I was frozen where I stood, I never saw Zach move so fast in his life, he grabbed the blanket off the couch and wrapped me up in it. He led me to my room, shoved me in and shut the door. I heard booing and hissing from the guys and Zach told them all to shut up.
Josh is here! My heart skipped a beat as I recalled the look that he just gave me. The fact that Zach’s friends have seen me in just a towel didn’t seem to matter, well it did matter but Josh’s presence seemed to make it alright. Tossing off the towel, I walked to the closet and poked around looking for something nice. But all that was in there were clothes that I didn’t really care much for. Sighing, I pulled out my high school grad sweatshirt and a pair of jeans; it was the only thing that wasn’t stained with one thing or another. I quickly dried my bangs and ran my fingers through my hair.
Opening my bedroom door, I peeked out to see if anyone was paying attention. They were all gathered around the pool table, talking and laughing while two of them played. My eyes were drawn to Josh, he was half sitting on one of the stools from the bar, they had dragged them over to the table. He glanced over towards me and smiled.
I walked out of my room and was in front of the couch when he joined me. “Hey Beautiful.” He sat down on the couch and held out his hand to me. Slipping my hand in his, I joined him. “That was quite the entrance.”
I grinned, “I didn’t know anyone was here.” I leaned closer to him. He turned his body towards me, taking my hand in his other one, his fingers softly stroking my hand.
He proceeded to tell me that he was thinking about me all day, wondering if everything went ok after he left. “I called you a couple times, you didn’t answer, and I thought you were ignoring me.” He chuckled, “Now I know it’s because you weren’t home.” He paused, “So? How did it go?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I sighed then continued. “We got into an argument and then we were fine.” He didn’t say anything. “What? Jordan and I have argued before, it’s ok.” I think.
“You don’t seem to believe that.”
I sighed, “Josh I don’t know what I should tell you and what I shouldn’t.”
He told me I should tell him as much as I feel comfortable telling him. I didn’t want to tell him about Jordan because I didn’t know how he would take it. But I don’t want to not tell him. So I told him. “We argued, got over it and then he kissed me.” I watched his face for a reaction but he didn’t react. “Josh?”
“What?” He looked confused.
“You didn’t seem too surprised to hear that. Why weren’t you surprised?”
He shrugged, “I thought there was something going on between you two. I knew you weren’t dating but…” His voice trailed off.
“But what?” I stared at him and then it hit me. “You thought we were fuck buddies?”
He frowned at that. “No, not quite that. You two are very close and sometimes people are lead to believe that there’s something between you. I could see that he felt some thing; I just didn’t know what you felt. I mean, you were flirting with me so I assumed that you weren’t in a relationship, that you were free.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not making any sense.”
I leaned over and kissed his lips, I couldn’t help myself. “No, you are making sense; you aren’t the first person who said that either. Jordan and I are more touchy-feely than most friends are, we always have been.”
Josh sank lower on the couch and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. Resting his forehead against my shoulder he asked the million dollar question. “How do you feel about him?”
“Josh,” I lifted my hand to his face, brushing my fingers against his recently shaven cheek. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that ever since it happened and I still don’t know. I mean, I love him obviously, he’s my best friend but I’m not sure if it’s enough to want to be with him. You know?” Josh didn’t say anything; he brought my hand from his cheek and pressed his lips against the palm. “I can’t even think about it now though, he’s not talking to me. I did something totally stupid because I didn’t know how to react.”
Josh looked up at me. “What?” He asked his lips still against my palm.
“I called his brother and asked him to make an excuse to need to see Jordan because I didn’t want to tell him I needed time to myself to think. He found out, got really upset and stormed out.” I cringed as I said it, it was horrible.
“Ouch!” Josh sat up again, “Poor Jordan. I wouldn’t blame him for getting upset. He tells you how he feels and you call his brother to get rid of him?” I nodded; I couldn’t feel any more horrible than I did at this moment. It’s bad enough when you say what you did was bad but when someone else says it, it seems to sink in more. “Hey don’t worry; I’m sure everything will be ok. You’ll talk to him and work it out.”
“I hope so.” I gave him a weak smile. “I didn’t expect you to react this way about the whole thing.”
“Anna, sweetheart, I won’t lie to you, I don’t like that he kissed you. But I can’t sit here and get mad at you when we aren’t a couple, unfortunately.” He kissed my forehead. “I really like you, and I want to see how we could be together but if you decide that you want to be with Jordan, then I won’t stand in your way.”
I looked down at our hands on my lap. “I -”
“Josh!” We both jumped as Zach called out to him. Josh looked over the back of the couch. “Get over here man. And Anna why don’t you go upstairs?”
Josh looked at me, and smiled. “I think he’s saying we’ve spend enough time together.” He stood up and went to help me up but Zach called out to him again. He returned to the guys but watched as I went upstairs like I was told too.
It wasn’t until later that night when I was in bed, about to fall asleep, that something he said came back to me, ‘You were flirting with me so I assumed that you weren’t in a relationship, that you were free.’ He was flirting with me too; does that mean he’s free? I sat up in bed, is he divorced? I decided that the next time I spoke to him; I would stop ignoring the issue and ask him.
3 comments:
so ~julianne~'s comment got me wondering. Who do you think Josh and Jordan look like? I would like to see if I portrayed them correctly.
This was so good! Jordan or Josh.. decisions, decisions! I hope she figures it out and gets it on with someone soon!
WOO!! Its about time. i have been asking that question for a long time!! I am excited. she needs to decid who she wants to be with. i hope her and Jordan will be ok. i want them to be friends. i am still unsure on which of the two i want her to be with... uhmmm..... :) Love that we are finally going to learn if he is divorced or not!! yay, you must read the comments!! Love it and love you for this blog. it has become my fav. The posts are SO frequent to.. I LOVE IT!!!
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