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On Thursday, Mike took Charlotte to an Ethiopian restaurant near Ossington and Bloor for dinner.
It was good to see her again. She looked better than she had two days ago, when she’d been pale and clearly in pain. Not that she hadn’t still been beautiful, but he hated to see her unwell. It caused his chest to tighten.
The server set a large platter in front of them, with several piles of food on the injera. Mike couldn’t identify everything, but there were a couple with meat, one of which was doro wat, and several vegetarian items. One looked like lentils; another looked like collard greens. In the center of the platter was some salad. There was also a plate with more injera, and Mike tore off a piece and used it to scoop up the lentils.
Yes, it was as good as he remembered.
And this time, Charlotte was with him.
At the end of the meal, they cleaned their hands with wet wipes, and he suggested they do the coffee ceremony. The coffee came with a big dish of popcorn. He and Charlotte eyed it, then looked at each other and laughed.
“I’m not sure I could possibly eat more,” she said.
She still ate a few handfuls.
All the food did not, of course, prevent her from drinking lots of coffee. He only had a small amount, since it was almost eight and he had to work tomorrow.
When he said she could have the rest, she grinned and said, “I love you.”
He immediately stiffened, and she did, too, looking horrified that she’d said those words.
“I didn’t mean it...like that,” she stammered. “I was just talking about the coffee. I love that you’re letting me have more than my share of coffee. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, he did.
But he didn’t think anyone had ever said those words to him before, and this hadn’t been real. It had just been about coffee.
You think anyone could ever love you? Ha!
He grimaced.
“Shit, Mike, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m never able to love people this quickly. It’s not about you. It’s too soon. We had our first real date less than a week ago.”
“I know,” he said, irritated with himself.
“Do you want to, um, talk about it?” She sounded uncomfortable with the idea, but he knew she was sincere.
“Not here.”
As they headed back to her apartment, he tried to put on a cheerful façade, but it was hard when all these stupid thoughts were rolling around in his brain.
Once they were inside, she pulled off her bra through her sleeve and put on a pair of pajama shorts. She made herself a hot water bottle before climbing into bed; he took off his jeans and got in with her.
“What’s up?” she asked.
This was the thing about relationships. People were supposed to know stuff about you.
“Sometimes,” he said, “people tell others, ‘I’m sure your parents love you,’ but I’m convinced my parents didn’t love me and Angela. I used to think that if only I was good enough, they’d love me, but I was a constant disappointment, always getting in trouble for minor things. All of grade seven and eight, my room didn’t have a door on it and half my stuff was thrown out. More than once, they made me sleep in the garage. They were always yelling, asking us if we ever thought about what we were doing to them, like we were responsible for their unhappiness, and...”
For a minute, he was back in that house in Ashton Corners, the one he tried to forget.
“Maybe some people in town wouldn’t have considered your parents normal, either,” he continued. “You’d build a cool Lego structure, and your parents would talk about how you were so smart, you would get a scholarship to a good engineering school. You were only six, but they talked about university scholarships. Whereas mine would get mad when I didn’t draw what they told me to draw, then take all the money from my piggybank and tell me I was an embarrassment.” He paused. “If it hadn’t been for your family, I probably would have hated being Asian. I would have assumed that’s why my parents were the way they were, since that was the big difference between me and nearly every kid at school. School made me anxious, because I worried about what my parents would do if I didn’t get a perfect grade, but people seemed to like me at school. I made myself easy to like. Anyway...” That was enough for now. Relationships were supposed to be happy things, weren’t they?
But before he could comment on something else, she said, “What happened after you moved?” She hesitated. “You don’t have to tell me much, if you don’t want.”
“My parents claimed we had to be in the Toronto area if Angela and I had any hope of going to university. Because clearly we were too stupid to live away from our family, and there are multiple schools in the GTA.”
“Your parents were such turds.”
He chuckled, but then he said, “Yeah. They were emotionally abusive.” He paused. “In high school and university, I didn’t date. Whenever I started to get close to someone, I’d freak out and distance myself, because I worried that I’d make them miserable, or they’d realize I was a piece of shit. Angela, on the other hand, craved the approval she couldn’t get at home, and she had a string of shitty relationships, the last one being her marriage when she was twenty. She got pregnant right after she finished university. My parents were furious with her for getting pregnant so young...and then my mom made the pregnancy all about her being a grandma for the first time. Threw a baby shower Angela didn’t want, tried to force herself into the delivery room when Angela made it clear she didn’t want her there. Blamed Bailey’s slightly low birth weight on Angela. Mocked her for not immediately losing all the baby weight. Told her that post-partum depression was bullshit. Stopped by without warning multiple times a week.”
He trailed off, thinking back to those awful days. He would defend his sister and try to deflect attention from Angela and Bailey to him. He was still living with his parents, even though he was miserable. Yet, although his mother and father thought he was incompetent, they expected him to look after them as they grew old. They laid on the guilt. He wouldn’t want his poor parents to suffer, would he? What would people think?
“That stuff with Angela made me have a breakdown,” he said. “I realized how messed up everything was, though it’s hard to fully comprehend when that’s all you’ve ever known.”
He’d never spent much time at other friends’ houses, and of course their families might act differently when he was around. Mike’s parents were different in public, that was for sure.
“I remembered your family,” he said quietly. “I told myself they never would have behaved quite like that. I got a therapist. I moved out, went no contact with my parents, though it made me feel incredibly guilty at first. Helped Angela leave her husband. And things did get better. In fact, I was amazed by what I was able to accomplish. I’d been led to believe I could do, well, nothing, and would only end up disappointing people.”
“Jesus, Mike,” Charlotte said. “I had no idea. They were so wrong about you.”
“Yeah, so wrong.” He tried to say it with conviction, but his voice wobbled.
There had been so much he’d had to unlearn, and it was still hard to believe in himself at times. He’d feel like he was a walking fraud, and if anyone got too close and peeled back the layers, they’d find nothing underneath.
But he also had lots of practice telling himself that wasn’t true.
“At first,” he said, “I was in no place to be in a relationship. After years of therapy, I was much better, but that one thing was still a bit hard. Which is why I thought practice dating would be good for me.”
“Do you go to therapy anymore?”
“Not for a few years, but maybe I should start again. I still have a little baggage, and I don’t want to fuck things up with you. Also, I think I’d like to have kids one day, and I don’t want to fuck up being a parent, either.” He paused. “Do you want kids?”
Now he felt like he was fucking up again. Talking about kids with someone whom he’d been dating for such a short period of time—surely that was going too fast?
Though it had seemed natural to ask, and it was good to know these things early on, right?
“I think so,” she said. “It’s part of the reason I wanted to start dating again. Beneath the cranky hermit exterior, I’ve dreamed of weddings—small ones, with no dancing—since I was little, and wanted children to wreak havoc on my life.” She smiled as she spoke. “The only problem is that I don’t think you’re supposed to have much caffeine when you’re pregnant and...” She made a face. “Obviously, that would be hard for me.”
“We’re not doing a great job of taking this slow.”
“We’re not. Screw you, being so sweet and bringing me fucking flowers and chocolate cake and letting me have most of the coffee. You’re too goddamn thoughtful.” She lightly shoved his shoulder. “Is it better if I compliment you using swear words? Does that make it easier?”
“I do really like you, Charlotte. And yeah, maybe a little.”
“Your parents are toxic assholes, and you’ve done a lot of work to heal yourself. I’m proud of you. You turned out so well in spite of them.”
He swallowed. “Now don’t go overboard on the compliments.”
“Do they ever try to contact you?”
“They did at one point, but I moved and changed my number, and my aunt and uncle started blackmailing them.”
“Blackmailing them? With what?”
“I’m not sure, but they seem to believe it would be enough to put my parents in prison.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened.
“Financial stuff, I assume,” he said. “It was never clear how my parents got all their money, and I try not to think about it. My aunt and uncle had very little to do with my family when we were younger because they couldn’t stand my parents. But they—and my cousins—talk to me and Angela. They live far away, though.”
“And you and Angela?”
“We get along okay, but it’s tough. Seeing each other makes us remember our childhood, and we were taught to compete, so sometimes we bring out the worst in each other. Plus, we both thought the other had it easier. She moved away from Toronto, and I think that’s worked out best for her and Bailey.”
Charlotte used some choice swear words to describe his parents again, then rolled him over so she could hold him from behind, similar to how he’d held her on Tuesday night.
“You can be the little spoon,” she said.
“It’s called jetpacking.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure where I heard it, but when the smaller person is on the outside, it’s like they’re a jetpack on the other person’s back. Hence the term.”
“Ah. I’m making you powerful. Got it.”
Yeah, you kind of are.
“You have shit taste,” she said, “in cider and pizza—”
“Hey!”
“—and you don’t appreciate spiders, but other than that, you’re pretty wonderful. Wait. I thought of another flaw.”
“And what’s that?” he asked.
“You drink decaf lattes sometimes.”
“Oh, come on. Not everyone needs ten servings of caffeine a day.”
“And sometimes, you wear too many clothes.”
“Charlotte...”
He knocked off his jetpack, turned over, and started tickling her. He didn’t know where she was most ticklish, but this, he figured, was one of the many things you got to learn about someone when you were in a relationship.
When she tried to tickle his nipples—damn her—he rolled her underneath him and pinned her wrists above her head.
She was gasping for breath and her cheeks were a delightful rosy color.
“Another flaw,” she said. “You play dirty in tickle fights.”
“It’s a better flaw than being offended by pineapple on pizza.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
And then he had to kiss her.
When he came up for air, she touched his cheek and said, without any mischief in her voice this time, “I’m glad my first relationship in five years is with you.”
Yes, he’d have to get used to compliments from Charlotte.