Billy, part 1
March 2006
My job search gets even more
frantic and desperate. The job I have now is only temporary and doesn’t even
come close to covering my bills. I only have a few months left on my contract.
I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t find something real in my field
using the degree I took so long to complete. The feeling of standing at the edge
of an abyss only intensifies.
I start casting an even wider
net, applying for positions that I’m not really suited for. I get a few more
interviews, but now I’m getting questioned about why I applied. It’s
infuriating. Why won’t anyone give me a chance?
At the same time, there’s a big
convention in my field in downtown Raser City. I go to network and interview
more, although that doesn’t seem to help. Hanging around with colleagues at the
bar is fun at first. But then I end up at a restaurant with about ten of them,
all men, and they can’t even look up from their work discussions long enough to
order food. The server is literally standing next to them trying to talk to
them and they don’t notice her. I’m dying of hunger and their obliviousness is
driving me crazy. What is wrong with these guys? More importantly, what is
wrong with me? Why do I want to work in a field full of assholes?
The same weekend as the
convention there are also auditions for the next production of the Raser City
Lyric Opera. I duck out of the convention long enough to get to my audition.
I’ve done eight shows with them now so I’m feeling pretty confident—I’m sure I
just have to show up and I’ll be cast in the chorus. I’m in such a rush that I
don’t have time to warm up properly before I get there, so I run through my
vocal exercises and a few arias in the car as I’m driving over. But the problem
with singing in the car is that the acoustics are deadening, and it’s
impossible to have good posture while hunched over the wheel. Also I’m not
fully paying attention to my voice because I’m driving. Before I realize what’s
happening, I blow out my voice by singing too loud with poor technique.
I try to rest, drink water, and
do more exercises when I get to the rehearsal space, but it’s too late, my
throat is fucked up. During the audition, my voice cracks more than once, to my
mortification. Even after that embarrassing performance I’m still hoping that
I’ll be cast anyway because the director knows me from so many previous shows
and the competition isn’t that intense for the chorus.
Less than a week later, I get a
rejection notice from the opera. I’m devastated and humiliated. But at the same
time, it feels like a sign. I’ve been trying to juggle too many things at once,
and something has to go. Besides, if I ever do get a job, I might have to pull
out of the performance anyway. I’m heartbroken not to be in one last show, but
I realize it means I have to focus more on my real work and stop playing
around.
The next morning, I head out to
my car with a load of laundry to take to the laundromat, and discover that the
driver’s side window of my car has been broken. There’s nothing left, just a
pile of shattered glass on the seat. What the hell? Was someone trying to steal
it? What happened to the super annoying car alarm? It must not have gone off or
I would have heard it.
As I’m scanning the neighborhood
in disbelief, I happen to see a cop car cruising by and flag it down. The cops
are supremely uninterested in my crime scene.
“Looks like someone threw a rock,”
one of them says, pointing to some scratches and dings at the top of the window
frame. “Probably just kids playing. You’ll never figure out who did it. It’s
not even worth claiming the insurance.”
Well, that’s discouraging, and
now I have to spend the day getting it repaired instead of washing my clothes.
As I drive down the highway to the auto glass place with the freezing wind
blowing wildly through the open window, tiny shards of glass from the edge of
the frame pelt me in the face. I feel like my life has hit a new low.
I’m still spending hours every
night posting on Paradevo and exchanging emails with a ton of guys, although
most of the correspondence doesn’t proceed beyond a few get-to-know-you
exchanges. They all live really far away, and especially after what happened
with Tibo, I can’t get too excited about something long distance. I’m so sick
of the misunderstandings when you can’t talk to face to face.
But I have sworn to myself that I’m
only going to date guys with disabilities from now on. It feels so empowering
to make that decision. I stay away from the regular dating sites with the boring,
lukewarm dudes. Why not go for what I really want?
One night while I’m wasting time
online even more intensely than usual, I notice that the most recent sign up on
PD has the user name Rasercitypara. No way! Could it be that a para dude just joined
who actually lives near me? I immediately send him a private message, even
though he hasn’t even posted anything on the board yet.
It’s almost too good to be
true—he is in fact a para who lives in Raser City. His name is Billy Nguyen. He
gives me his email address. I send him my latest photos of me in a sexy red
dress that I picked up from a sale at the opera costume shop. He sends me back
photos of himself.
Oh my god, I know this guy.
Well, to be clear, I have never
met him in person, but I’ve seen his personal ads all over OK Cupid, Yahoo, and
every other local personals site. There are a bunch of photos of a good looking
Asian guy with long hair in a nice sporty manual chair, posed at various
tourist destinations. I’ve been seeing his ads for almost a year and never
replied. The reason is that in the photos, he looks mean as a snake. There’s
one photo of him that looks like it was taken at someone’s wedding reception.
He’s dressed up but not smiling, and the look on his face speaks of nothing but
contempt for everyone around him. He looks like an unrepentant asshole.
But now I’ve gotten to know him
at least slightly, and it feels too late to back out without more of a good
reason. Maybe I’m just being hasty in judging him by these photos. He seems
nice enough over email, and he is cute. Without wasting a lot of time chatting
online, I agree to meet him in person.
I’m trying not to get too excited
about this guy. I’ve endured such a string of disasters, I can’t bear yet
another one. And I’m still upset about the way things ended with Tibo. Maybe we
weren’t as perfect for each other as he kept saying but it hurts that he flew
off the handle and judged me so quickly. I keep kind of hoping he’ll message me
again, but he doesn’t.
In an effort to streamline the
whole getting-to-know you process, I just go ahead and give Billy my home
address so he can drive over to pick me up. I realize after I do so that I
probably should be more careful, but whatever, he doesn’t seem like a creepy
stalker. Just to be sure, I let Sarah and Lulu know about my date.
At the agreed-upon time, Billy
drives up. I’m waiting for him at the curb, because I know it’s a big deal for
him to get in and out of the car, and I don’t want to make him transfer extra
times. Also my street is always all parked up. I see him pull up along the
parked cars, and I give a little wave, then hop in.
“Uh, hi.”
“Hi.”
We stare at each other and shake
hands nervously. It’s so weird to meet someone for the first time in their car.
It’s way too intimate.
We go to the Starbucks by the
university for our first date, because I can’t think of any other place that
I’m sure will be accessible. As we drive over, we make very awkward small talk.
At Starbucks, I order a
peppermint tea. I can’t have milk because I’m lactose intolerant, I can’t have
caffeine because it gives me migraine headaches, and I don’t want something sugary
because I’m trying not to gain weight. So herbal tea it is. I feel super boring
and uncool.
I hold Billy’s latte for him as
he wheels smoothly over to the one little table that isn’t taken by students.
He pushes aside one of the chairs, and I sit down opposite him, so for the
first time we’re looking directly at each other.
Billy looks just like his photos.
He has a round face and a big round belly, so yes, he’s slightly overweight but
it doesn’t look bad on him. His glossy black hair is pulled back in a thick
ponytail. I like it. Except for the long hair, he looks like a business
professional, with a neat polo shirt.
There’s no trace of the mean
snake in his photo. He gives me a charming grin, and I start to relax. I
shouldn’t have judged him by that one photo.
He tells me warily that he lives
with his parents. It’s clear that’s been a deal breaker for some potential
girlfriends, but I let him know I understand. Privately, I think of all the
paras and even some quads I know who live on their own, but hey, who am I to
judge?
Billy’s parents came to the US
from Vietnam after the war. He and his two brothers were born here. His dad
works for the police as an interpreter but his mom never really learned
English. She works as a cashier at the Vietnamese grocery and other part-time
jobs in the community. Billy was injured in a motorcycle crash when he was
eighteen, and since then she’s been taking care of him. Like me, he’s
thirty-three now, so he’s had a long time to adjust to his injury.
The more we talk, the more I get
the impression that Billy is a study in contrasts. He’s like a motivated
slacker. He works as a tax preparer so he’s coming up on his busy time of year,
but after April he takes months off to go travel the world. He’s already been
all over Europe, Southeast Asia, China, and South America, sometimes with his
brother, sometimes on his own. I gather that part of the reason he lives at
home is so he can afford these epic trips. He works hard during tax season, but
after that is months of vacation. At least one of his clients pays him in weed.
That’s a lot of weed.
My admiration of him ticks up as
I learn all this. Ok, so he lets his mom take care of him, but he’s pretty
independent and adventurous to be traveling like that. He’s planning a trip
around the world next. He’s trying to figure out if he can get a visa to travel
through Iran.
I tell him about my travel in
Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan. These are also places he wants to go on
his trip around the world.
It’s nice to chat about these
interests we have in common, but eventually I bring the conversation around to
devotees. Not that I want to, but I feel like it’s something I have to get out
of the way. At least this time I’m not starting from zero, which is a relief.
“So how did you find Paradevo?” I
ask.
He shrugs. “I dunno, late night
googling. I was bored. I broke up with my last girlfriend six months ago, so I
thought why not?”
“You’ve been reading the posts?”
I ask. He still hasn’t posted anything himself.
“Yeah.”
“So what do you think?”
He shrugs again. “I dunno, it’s
fucking boring. The guys all seem like a buncha whiners.”
“I mean about devotees. You’re ok
with it?”
“Sure, why not? It’s kinda nice
that you already know all the shit that goes with SCI. So you’ve been with,
like, a ton of guys in wheelchairs?”
He gives me a significant look
that I completely misinterpret.
“Oh yeah, a lot,” I say breezily.
“I mean, like, a LOT. But don’t worry, they were all assholes. Like this one
para who did bmx tricks in his chair, he went into the hospital for a UTI and
never even called me after. Can you believe that shit? I thought he was dead!”
Maybe I’ve been hanging around
the fetish scene and people like The Mantis too much, because I think
experience is a bonus, something to flaunt, not hide. And I want to reassure
him that it’s not like I’m still hanging onto feelings for these previous guys.
But he definitely doesn’t take it that way.
Billy narrows his eyes at me, and
there it is, that mean look from the photo. “What’s wrong with you?” he says. “I
thought this was a date. Why are you talking about your ex-boyfriends?”
Shame slices through me like a
cold knife in my belly. “What?” I retort defensively. “Am I supposed to pretend
I’ve never been with anyone before now?”
“You’re not supposed to talk
about it.”
“I hardly said anything! You
talked about your ex-girlfriend.”
“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes at
me, how stupid I’m being.
But he must think I’m cute
because he asks me out again, and again, and pretty soon we’re dating, like for
real. We go out for dim sum for brunch in Chinatown. It’s delicious but he
teases me for not eating the chicken feet.
He likes to joke around about his
name and the way white people don’t know how to pronounce it. “Just say Nguyen!”
he shouts, making it sound like “when.” He also has a routine about Chinese President
Hu Jintao that’s basically stolen from “Who’s on first?”
“Hu’s in town,” he says and we
repeat it back to each other endlessly, laughing hysterically. Yeah, stupid jokes.
We go to the science museum
together, which is like the most actual cute date activity I have ever done
with anyone. We goof around on the exhibits and make stupid jokes together.
As we’re going through the museum
we pass by a model of a space capsule that you can climb in. He takes a photo
of me in it and tells me how cute I look. I guess I have a boyfriend, for the
first time in years.
Billy has one of those cool new
Razr flip phones that are so flat. I’ve been thinking of getting one, so I ask
him about it.
“Ah, it’s a piece of shit,” he
complains. “I wish I never bought it.”
But I ignore him and get one
anyway, since it’s time to renew my cellular contract. I immediately realize he
was right, it is a piece of shit that gets terrible reception and has fewer
features than my trusty old Motorola. I should have listened to him, but no, I
was taken in by sleek design.
By the third date, I’m ready to
invite Billy to my place. I’ve finally solved the ant problem through liberal
application of diatomaceous earth, so the house now feels presentable. But
first there’s the inevitable negotiation over the three cement steps outside
the front door.
He opts not to get out and slide
on his butt, and I don’t blame him. If you spend all your time sitting on your
ass, you’ve got to be super careful about even the smallest scratch. After some
discussion, we decide to turn him backwards and I drag him up the steps in his
chair. He’s a big guy; it’s not easy. There’s a queasy moment on the middle
step when he’s balanced precariously back and I feel like I don’t have the
strength to pull him up but I give one last heave and he’s inside.
I mention to him that I’ve been
thinking that I could just put a board or something over the steps to create a
makeshift ramp. The truth is this occurred to me years ago but I was never with
a guy long enough to actually try it out. But Billy thinks this is a fantastic
idea. He clearly doesn’t trust me to pull him up and down the stairs myself.
Billy is not messing around about
the ramp. Before he comes over for the second time, we go to Home Depot
together and pick out a big piece of plywood. It just barely fits in his car.
When we get home and slap it down
over the steps, I suddenly realize why this isn’t the best idea. With nothing
to hold it in place, it moves around a lot. If I put the edge flush with the
top step, it will fall down when he gets to the top. The only way to set it is
to leave about six inches sticking out over the top step, but when he rolls on
the end, the bottom flips up. It’s also much steeper that I expected.
Still, it’s better than dragging
him up the stairs. I give him a big push at the start, then stand on the bottom
of the ramp to keep the plywood in place. He weighs more than I do, so there’s
a seesaw moment at the end but it’s not too bad. Now the question is what to do
with it. If I leave it outside to be rained on, it will rot away in no time, or
get slippery or dirty or infested with insects. I have no choice but to stand
it up against the wall in my living room. Not exactly elegant décor, but I’m
pleased that my house now has a wheelchair ramp.
The other problem of course is
that the bathroom is too narrow for him to reach the toilet. By now I’ve had so
many wheelers over that I just tell him to piss in an empty bottle like it’s
nothing, but he makes a face.
“Whatever,” I say with a shrug.
“I learned that if you want to date SCI guys, you have to be ok with pee.”
“Well, you would know, Devo
Girl,” he says, saying my user name like it’s an insult.
I just laugh, because I refuse to
let him shame me over this, and because by now we’ve had enough fun moments
together that I want things to work out.
“That’s right,” I say. “I’m Devo
Girl, and you think I’m seeeexxxxyyy.” I do a little belly dance in his face,
and he grabs me around the waist.
“Sexy freak,” he mutters, then
kisses me.
“Lucky for you,” I tell him.
April 2006
Of course Billy would be more
comfortable at his place than mine but we have an unspoken agreement that we
need to wait before introducing me to his parents. But by now we’ve been
together for over two months and things feel pretty official. For a few weeks
right before tax day, he’s working around the clock and I don’t see him but as
soon as it’s over, it’s like he’s on a six month vacation. He calls me up and
asks if I want to drive down to his place and stay the night.
Billy and his parents live far to
the south of Raser City in a suburb made up almost entirely of Vietnamese and
other Southeast Asian immigrants. The house is nice, a two story faux Craftsman
type with a wheelchair ramp in front. I park my car in the street, which is
lined with Japanese sports cars with elaborate, massive spoilers.
I’m super nervous about meeting
Billy’s parents. I know that before me, he was dating another white girl for a
few years and I kind of get the impression she didn’t get along great with his
parents.
Billy meets me at the door and
shows me around the first floor. The living room is decorated with gold, jade
and teak knick-knacks. On the opposite side of the front door, what must have
once been a study has been turned into his bedroom, with a private bathroom
attached. There’s a second floor but he never goes up there.
It’s a Saturday so both his
parents are at home. Billy takes me through the beaded curtain to the kitchen
to meet them. Both his mom and dad are small and wiry, both with round faces
like him. His mom has the standard
Asian grandmother perm and she’s wearing a loose pajama-like outfit. She
smiles at me in a friendly way and we exchange some awkward greetings. I shake
hands with his dad, who also seems friendly but shy.
We sit down at the kitchen table,
and his mother serves lunch. The kitchen table is covered with a lace
tablecloth under a thick plastic cover—it reminds me of my grandmother’s
apartment. I’m served a giant bowl; I have no idea what the dish is called, but
it’s rice noodles with a giant, softball sized pork meatball, deep fried and
delicately spiced, served with huge handfuls of fresh basil, cilantro and mint,
with lime juice squeezed over the top. The taste is amazing.
We’ve gotten over the first
hurdle—I like the food. As we eat, his dad asks me about my time living in
Seoul and Taipei. He seems happy to hear about how much I enjoyed it.
“So you love Asian culture,
right?” he asks.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
He nods, looking pleased.
I feel sort of weird about that.
On the one hand, we both know that there is no “Asian culture.” All these
countries are very different. But on the other hand, unfortunately it is kind
of rare for white Americans to know anything at all about Asia. It doesn’t feel
great to be getting over such a low bar.
So Billy’s parents seem to like
me but I still heave a sigh of relief when the meal is over and we can retreat
to the living room. I hate making small talk, especially with parents, I just
feel so awkward. We turn on the TV and lay on the couch for a few hours,
drinking Yeo’s soy milk from cans.
After we get bored of daytime TV,
we get in Billy’s car and drive around. He shows me the neighborhood and we
make a long stop at the local library. There’s really nothing else to do in
this suburb but it is a very nice library.
Eventually we’ve killed enough
time that we’re ready for dinner. He takes me to a little Vietnamese place in a
strip mall. I’m baffled by the menu, but Billy won’t tell me what anything is.
“You said you like anything, so
just order,” he says. Why is be being so passive aggressive? But rather than
call him out on it, I just smile at take a guess based on the pictures. I think
I’m ordering a rice noodle salad type thing, like what we had for lunch, but
what I get is not that at all. It’s like a block of crispy noodles with shrimp.
But whatever, it tastes good.
As we’re driving home, he says
casually, “That’s where I was injured,” gesturing out the window at a circular
freeway on ramp.
My friend Lulu has been dating a
new guy who has a motorcycle, and has been talking about learning to drive one
herself. I tried to convince her that it was too dangerous, adding that the guy
I’m seeing right now was injured in a motorcycle crash.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did
someone hit him?”
“No, he was taking a curve too
fast. He only had his license for a few months.”
“Oh, so he was being an idiot,”
she said dismissively, as if that would never happen to her. I feel like she’s
just parroting back what her boyfriend said, as if motorcycles aren’t insanely
unsafe. At least half the guys on the Mantis’s wheelchair basketball team were
injured on motorcycles.
But I don’t say any of this to
Billy. I can see that it’s just a regular on ramp, and probably he was being an
idiot, but he was only eighteen.
“I remember flying through the
air upside down, thinking ‘oh shit,’” he continues. “Then I landed on my back
in the grass, and I was like, ‘that ain’t good.’”
I’m amazed at how laid back he
seems about the whole thing, but he’s had almost twenty years to adjust. And I
guess if he drives by this spot almost every day, the emotional impact must
lessen.
“You’re lucky you didn’t land on
your head,” I say. “It could have been a lot worse.”
“Yeah, I get that now, but at the
time I was really angry,” he admits. “I took it out on my mom a lot. It took
forever for me to get a new license and a car with hand controls, so she had to
drive me everywhere and I would just be yelling at her the whole time. Like,
you fucking bitch, haha!”
Again he talks about all this
like it’s nothing. By now I’ve talked to so many SCI guys and seen a range of
reactions and ways of talking about it but Billy seems the least emotional of
any of them. I assume that means he’s well adjusted. It is a little disturbing
the way he talks about yelling at his mom, though, like it’s funny, or even
something he’s proud of.
“You were lucky,” I repeat.
“I don’t feel lucky.”
I shut my mouth, feeling guilty.
I’ve had this conversation with many SCI guys also. I’m kicking myself because
I know I shouldn’t say anything but it’s my dev nature that drives me to it.
Really what I’m feeling is that I’m lucky I met a hot wheeler dude, because
they’re so rare, but somehow I can’t say it, so I tell the guy he’s lucky. But
SCI guys usually don’t feel like they are lucky people, just the opposite, a
lot of them feel unlucky that they were injured. Stop poking that hornet’s
nest, I tell myself. Who am I to tell him how to feel about his injury?
When we get home, there’s another
awkward moment where his dad gestures upstairs and asks if I want to put my
things in the guest bedroom. What the hell? Are we not allowed to have sex in
their house?
I glance at Billy in confusion.
“He’s asking if you want to sleep upstairs,” he says, which doesn’t clarify
anything.
“Uh…I’d rather sleep with you,” I
say. His dad just shrugs and walks away.
“What was that about?” I whisper
as Billy rolls into his bedroom.
“Oh, my ex-girlfriend always
slept upstairs so I guess he assumed you want to also.”
Ok, so this isn’t a morality
thing? That’s a relief, but I’m still so confused. Why didn’t his girlfriend
sleep in his bed? Billy made it clear that exes are not a topic of discussion
so I don’t ask him about it. Was it the spasms? Thinking back to how Sean kept
me up the whole night with his foot going like a metronome, I can understand
that. But I can’t understand not wanting to sleep next to your partner. Having
sex then drifting off to sleep together is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
Having to get out of bed and walk upstairs instead would be annoying and
lonely. Even more than that, as a dev curling up next to him, wrapping my legs
in his is the greatest thrill. Well, obviously his ex was not a dev. Billy has
a queen size bed, so I really can’t imagine what her problem was.
The bed though is like three feet
off the floor. I’m still used to my cheap Ikea bed which is very low with no
box spring. I feel like I’m going to get a nosebleed climbing up into this
thing, and it’s crazy to think he has to transfer up from his chair. But
somehow he does it with no problem, hoisting his butt up to the edge of the
mattress then scooting over. I admire his bulging arms and shoulders as he does
it.
Once we’re up in the bed, I
tackle him and we start wrestling, rolling around like puppies. I nip his ear
and he groans loudly, then flips me over. I love that we can be rough. I love
his long hair, how it’s even thicker and glossier than mine. He goes down on me
and goddamn but he’s good at it. I come over and over, pushing my face into the
pillow next to me and trying not to make too much noise.
After that first visit, we
alternate weekends at his place and my place. It feels good to fall into a
routine, to know that we’re going to get together on a regular schedule. On the
surface, it’s like we’re becoming a serious couple, but the truth is there’s
nothing underneath. We’re both moving in different directions and I’m not sure
what to do about it.
I’m still applying for jobs all
over the country. I also applied for jobs in the area, but without success. Just
as I’m starting to truly despair that I will ever be hired anywhere, I get an
offer at a huge corporation in the Midwest. Actually it’s not really an offer
yet. There’s something wonky about the job that makes me nervous about
accepting but as I have no other prospects, I have to just wait to find out if
this provisional offer will come through with a real contract. If it does, I’ll
be moving far away.
“I’ve bought my plane tickets,”
Billy announces over the phone. He’s finalizing his plans for his around the world
trip. He’ll be leaving in June and coming back in August, so likely I’ll be
moving away while he’s gone.
I’m gutted. I thought we would at
least have three or four more months together, maybe more if I can’t find a
job. I was starting to even question the whole career path I’m on, not for the
first time, but to really make a plan for staying in Raser City.
But Billy makes it clear that he
is not the slightest bit disappointed. This trip is a lifelong dream, and
nothing is going to stop him. He’s annoyed that I’m being so sentimental about
it.
“Two or three months, what does
it matter?” he grumbles. Part of me wishes he would postpone the trip in a
grand romantic gesture, decide that being with me is more important, but no,
he’s already talking excitedly about all the places he’s going. I understand, and
I would never seriously try to derail his trip. I stifle my selfish urge to
want him to stay for me, but it just makes me want him even more. He’s cute and
sexy and we have so many dumb jokes together. It’s just so easy to spend time
with him.
Do I love him? Who knows? I can’t
even tell how I feel about anything anymore. I want a job but this job search
is killing me. I want to stay with my friends but I’m also so sick of the
traffic and overcrowding here. If I have to move to find work, so be it.
While our future plans are slowly
pulling us in separate directions but I’m pretending it’s not happening, we
just keep dating like this relationship doesn’t have an expiration date. I
think back to all the times I did the same thing, while I was living overseas.
I don’t want to be dating provisionally like this, but what choice do I have?
Soooooo good as usual. How crazy you met a local guy on PD.
ReplyDeleteThank you Emma! I was living in a big city, if I had stayed there I might have met more people through PD.
DeleteSuch an interesting character portrait in this chapter! (I feel a bit weird commenting about it since he used to be a PD user, but presumably he wouldn't be checking the fiction blog almost 15 years later...) It's clear his laid-back style helped him adapt to his injury & figure out a pretty cool lifestyle, but then there are also the weird little outbursts about yelling at his mom...
ReplyDeleteHoping that past DG gets a career break soon D: The never-ending job search is giving me second-hand anxiety!
Thank you Rowan! I’m sure he’s not reading here. He deleted his PD account shortly after we met, and he never posted anything. Maybe I didn’t portray it clearly enough but I think it’s an open question whether he was truly well-adjusted and laid-back, or was just ignoring his issues. As for the weird little outbursts, well, in fiction those are foreshadowing, in real life red flags I should have heeded at the time. More to come in the next chapter...
DeletePay attention, ladies, to how a guy treats his mother, because chances are that’s how he’ll treat you too.
Oh, I do think it was well-portrayed, I just hadn't wanted to delve into too much armchair psychologizing in one comment :) (it helps knowing that he disappeared from PD, hah)
ReplyDeleteWhat you laid out in this chapter left me with a lot of questions about the long-term sustainability of his coping mechanisms, and I definitely had the uneasy sense that he was taking advantage of how much his parents were willing to do for him. His poor mom - I can't imagine driving my son around while he swore at me.
Really, I'm glad that the timing worked out so that that you didn't get stuck with him for longer. But I'm still eager to find out what happens in the next chapter. (throw that Razr phone to the curb!! figuratively! I mean, I hope....)