Page 7 of Except Emerson (Detroit ABCs #7)

“It’s because he’s lonely, too. His wife left him about ten years ago and then his daughter moved across the country and she’s really busy with her job.

He works from home like I do and he can hear when my door opens and closes.

When I sit outside on the steps, he trots out, too.

I go there when I get overwhelmed by anxiety.

” Levi Lassiter’s eyebrows raised and I realized that this had been a lot of information…

Oh! I suddenly realized what I was doing.

I was telling him all this stuff like people sometimes did to me, just like his sister Ava had in the orthopedic surgeon’s waiting room.

This was an anonymous confession! Except, unlike the people who ran to escape after telling me their stories, we weren’t anonymous because I knew his name and he knew mine. He had my email address, too.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I like to ski. And I know how to make hard candy, which is not something that everyone can do, because you need a special thermometer.” I wished I still had that, but it had been in my former house and was gone.

I thought of more innocuous things I could tell him, things which wouldn’t be embarrassing if I ever saw him again later.

“One time, I dislocated a toe. That hurt.”

“Is that why you were in the doctor’s office with my sister?”

“No. I was there because I got into a car accident last summer.”

“Bad one?” he asked. People were always interested in this, and I might have been, too, if it had been someone else’s story.

“Pretty bad,” I agreed. “We collided with the center divider on the Lodge Freeway. The car was totaled.”

“And you got hurt,” he said.

“I had a concussion and I broke my hip. I had some other injuries, too, but those are the ones that still bother me. I couldn’t work for a while because I couldn’t focus well.”

“Damn. You’re better now?”

He seemed genuinely concerned. Maybe his sisters hadn’t needed to tell him to hold the door, and that had been a natural instinct.

“I’m better,” I agreed.

“Did anybody else get hurt?”

“My boyfriend. He’s not around anymore.”

“Oh.” Now he looked very, very concerned.

“I don’t mean that he’s dead,” I explained.

“He actually walked away from the accident.” Other drivers had stopped and pried open his door, allowing him to escape the crushed car.

He’d left the scene by crossing over the freeway and jogging on the shoulder to the nearest off-ramp.

Then he’d gone into a neighborhood and waited for a car to come get him, so it was only later that the police had caught up with him.

By that time, his blood alcohol level was back to normal.

My side, the passenger side, had been smashed against the concrete, so I had stayed put until the fire department had arrived. It had been a major thing to get me out.

“That was lucky for him,” Levi said. “But you’re not together anymore?”

“No, not anymore. Like you, I got dumped.”

“Not that it matters, but I wasn’t dumped,” he clarified. “I broke up with Mary Evelyn, so it came from me.”

“How long were you guys together?”

“Do you really want to hear about my former relationship?” he asked me back.

“Well, what should we talk about instead?”

“Funny that you should ask,” he told me.

“Ava just sent over a list of conversational guidelines.” He opened his phone and scrolled.

“Ok, here we are. For starters, I’m not supposed to say anything that I think is funny, because she reminds me that I’m not a comedian and no one else is laughing.

She suggests that I ask you more about your childhood. Go for it,” he offered.

“I think I already told you everything.”

“Up north, ski team,” he said, nodding. “I guess we covered you, then. Next is your job but I’m supposed to be careful that I don’t spend too much time talking about how I don’t have one, myself.”

“I already told you about that, too. I work from home.”

“As a bookkeeper,” he recalled.

“There’s not a lot more to say.”

“Then we’ll move on,” he replied. “Next is your family.”

“I don’t have any,” I answered.

“Like, you sprung from your father’s head? Zeus,” he explained, when I must have looked puzzled.

“No, I used to have a mother but she died when I was in college. I have a father, too, but he lives in Oregon with his second family.” They were really his first family, because he and my mother hadn’t been married or had a real relationship.

He had impregnated her and moved on, and after dealing with me, she knew that she didn’t want any other children.

“I have some half-siblings out there but I’ve never met them. ”

“Ok, now I can respond that my parents are still married and I have two sisters. I’m in the middle of Ava and Liv.”

I already knew that, but I felt like we were on a roll so I kept it to myself.

“Liv got married and mostly stays up north with her husband. They have a kid, so I’m an uncle four times over,” Levi continued.

To my surprise, he scrolled on his phone again and then held it up so I could see pictures of several kids and babies.

“You don’t actually have to look.” He quickly clicked it closed before I could say that I wouldn’t have minded.

“Does Ava think that if you go out with someone, you’ll get your life back on track?” I asked.

“You don’t really beat around the bush, do you?

” But again, that didn’t seem to make him angry.

“I think Ava wants me to do something normal, and going out with a woman is a good start. I hadn’t realized that she was trolling around medical offices to find someone for me, but I appreciate her effort on my behalf.

Also, she always thinks that she knows better than the rest of us, and she’s probably looking forward to giving herself another pat on the back if I end up with the person that she had picked out. ”

“She said that she didn’t like Mary Evelyn.”

“We’re back to prior relationships? No, no one in my family was too fond of my ex. I liked her, though. She had her shit together and she didn’t mind that I didn’t.”

“Then why did you break up with her?”

He spun his cup, and watched the milky-brown liquid as it as it swirled around.

“She wanted more for her future. She wanted what my sisters have and I wasn’t going to be able to change enough, fast enough, to make it happen.

Plus…” His mouth twisted. “I also knew that she wanted someone else. The other explanation makes me sound very noble and mature, but the truth is that she wasn’t in love with me anymore.

She was sticking around because she felt sorry for me. ”

“That’s very demoralizing.”

“Why did your boyfriend dump you?” he asked.

“He didn’t want to deal with me, how I needed care.

He doesn’t like stuff like that. Also, we were heading for it, anyway.

Just before the accident…” I remembered that moment of brilliant clarity, when I’d known exactly what I had to do.

I’d seen that I needed to be on my own, that I needed to get back to the woman I’d been before.

And then we’d hit the barrier.

“It’s better that we’re apart,” I concluded.

“It’s pretty shitty to leave someone who needs your help,” he pointed out. “That doesn’t say a lot about him as a person.”

“You’re right.”

“Did you talk to the therapist from your app about that?”

“No, because she quit and I got a new guy and I had to start over, then he quit, too, and I got tired of rehashing my problems. I was also past the reduced-price introductory period and I couldn’t pay so much.

Did you ever talk to a professional about why you need the kickstart, or do you just ask your sisters for advice? ”

“I don’t need to ask them anything,” Levi told me. “They have plenty to say without prompting. I don’t need to pay someone to tell me that I’m lazy.”

“Are you?”

“I guess so. When I look back at my life, what have I done? Nothing,” he answered his own question. “Damn. This is the worst date I’ve ever been on.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and really meant it. “I did tell you that I have a real problem with bonding.”

“We can’t continue like this and we can’t let it end on this note.” He stood up. “Do you have to get back to work?”

I should have, but I didn’t want to. Maybe I was lazy, too? “No,” I answered.

“Then let’s try something else. I have to be able to tell Ava that I made an effort.”

I stood slowly. “You also have to drive, because I don’t have a car. Is your insurance up to date?”

“It is. I’m able to handle a few things,” he answered. “Want my arm?”

I leaned on him a little and we walked outside. As far as dates went, I didn’t think it was the worst. The time before this, I’d ended up in the hospital, so today’s outing with Levi was actually a big step up.

How was that for optimism?