Page 51 of Holding Out for a Gyro
I felt ashamed of myself for wishing he’d come back, believing I’d driven him away.
He did come back, and it was like he’d gone through somePet Semataryreincarnation. He provided for us and occasionally treated my mom decently, but he acted like he resented us, like we’d trapped him and he’d resigned himself to a situation he hated. My mom walked on eggshells around him, but I’d gotten older, and I was a teenager, so I tended to talk back and stir the pot. He was stubborn, though. He made sure he won every argument, even if it meant playing dirty. Even if it meant taking everything out of my room and throwing it in the trash as I watched, pleading with him not to.
When I was fifteen, the night arrived when he called my mom afilthy slut and walked out the front door, never to return.
He left us without enough to pay the rent.
He left us with nothing but each other, but I lost my mom to night shifts and alcohol.
We were better off without him, sure, but we struggled, too. How could he abandon his family? His wife? His child?
Dr. Rubin leaned forward, and I blinked to clear the tears enough to see the box of tissues she was holding. “Your dad may have laid the rut in your path, Chelsea, but every time you choose to lift your tire back onto the road, you’re taking control.”
I sniffled a laugh. “A-plus metaphor, Doctor.”
“I encourage you to keep opening your heart, but try not to become someone else in the process. If you replace one identity with another, you risk falling back on old habits at the first setback. Now, did you want to get into—”
We spent the remainder of the time talking about my frustration with my mom’s current MIA status, but I couldn’t help but notice we’d spent nearly half our session without mentioning either parent. Progress.
Chapter Twelve
Basil
Challenge: Watch15 moviesa movie
On Saturday morning, Evan enlisted my help to move his things out of storage to his new rental. He was in a mood, and I suspected there was trouble brewing in paradise, but it also might have dawned on him that by signing a lease, he’d committed himself to at least a year at a job that was already stealing his joy.
In a lame attempt to lighten the mood, I said, “Hey, did you hear about the last unit in the apartment building?”
He set a box on the hardwood floor, confused. “This is a house, Bas.”
Undeterred, I finished the joke. “It was last, but not leased.”
He chewed on his lower lip, no trace of a smile. “I’m gonna start assembling the bed.”
When I brought up the next load, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by hardware, furniture parts strewn about. “You planning to stay here tonight?”
He glanced up from the instructions. “Hopefully, if I can get this thing set up. I’ve got a date with Elizabeth.”
I hoped that meant I’d have my place to myself tonight. “Where you taking her?”
“Drinks.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal to take a girl out. “Chelsea staying over?”
“Maybe.” I could never anticipate the many moods of Chelsea, but she’d texted me an eggplant emoji after I’d asked her over, soI had my hopes up.
“Dude, are you actually sweating this? I’m going to have to change your nickname.”
“Careful.” He’d better not call me Hard Lover.
“I’m just saying, who are you and what have you done with my fickle friend?”
“Yeah, yeah. Funny.”
“What has you trying so hard? The thrill of the chase?”
My jaw clenched. “It’s the girl, man. Ilikeher.”
“I mean, she’s clearly a smoke show.”
