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Chapter 17
Look Out! You're humanity is showing
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The next day:
Jason~
Brenda and I had 2nd period free today because Ms. Vilmer was absent so we spent it in the library talking, and we talked so much we didn't realize we had talked into 3rd period, somehow missing the second bell that signaled the start of class. We just kept talking and talking about anything and everything. Sometimes I think Brenda and I are better suited for each other than Karen and I, especially more suited than Jagger and Brenda.
We're different, I'm the first one to point that out, I'm led by responsibility, I do what's expected of me, I try be someone people can be proud to call their friend, their son, their brother, Brenda does what pleases her. Of course she's living up to their expectations of her the same as I am; only they expect so little of someone who could be so great. Brenda and I have such a mirrored past, we both were forgotten children of people who were too self-involved to be parents.
Brenda's got a lot more in common with AJ though, she was the child of a spouse who was hated, AJ was thought to be the child of an affair, a child of a man my father hated. It's funny though, I'm the child of an affair, yet they treat him like that.
Brenda and I started talking about all the things we missed out on growing up (I know some people would say we're still children, but we aren't, not in the important way). There was one thing we agreed on and that was Slip and Slide or the one with the alligator, or it might have been a crocodile, Dad always said we'd get it, but we never did. It was just another dream to be dashed when we'd come home for those summer visits. Brenda and I talked about getting one this summer…I wonder if we really will.
"Earth to Jason"
"Huh?" my head pops up and I look up and see Brenda standing across the room looking perplexed
"I can't believe you were zoned out" she walks towards me "I just entered the apartment, turned the doorknob and everything and you didn't hear me come in"
"Sorry" I say putting the book down "How was physical therapy?"
"Jax is an animal, he just keeps pushing himself and pushing himself, they're worried he's going to hurt himself, but I know him better than that. And don't apologize for acting normal; it's kinda a nice change."
"You're a fine one to talk about normal." I say with a smile. "Peggy called today"
I watch her eyes light up and I love knowing that I'm the one bringing her joy "Aaah tell me what did she say?"
"Saturday"
"Saturday as in this Saturday, as in three days from now?"
"Yup that Saturday"
All of a sudden her look of sheer delight is replaced with fear "We have no furniture"
I stop and look around the apartment and then laugh "What exactly would you call what I'm sitting on then Bren?"
"Oh no, there is going to be no Bachelor's Pad furniture in my beautiful Tudor-Style home. And we still haven't seen the upstairs."
"So we can get rid of this furniture when you find new furniture that is Tudor-Style appropriate."
She flops on the couch and glares at me "I don't think so"
"Why not?"
"I dunno, it's just…."she shakes her head "Something about that just doesn't feel right. There's something about that house and I don't want anything in it, that's…I dunno, I just don't know"
"Let me guess. You want it to be real, permanent, yours." I see the look on her face "Sorry ours. I have been getting a lot better with that."
"Yes you have" she says smiling "And yea, I want this house to be ours, I want it to be a home, I want to have one real home. The cottage was at times or it seemed like it could be, but this is going to be a forever type of deal. The cottage was an in-between thing."
"You want to go see the upstairs?"
She smiles "It's 6, the office is closed"
"Your point?"
As I stand I watch Brenda's face, her excitement is radiant, but I know what she's thinking "We aren't breaking in Bren, Peggy left me her cell phone number and told me to call if I needed anything."
"You shouldn't joke with me like that. I've become quite boring in my old age." She laughs as she looks at the journal I'd just dropped on the coffee table, that journal was written when she was still a so-called wild child. "So have you gotten to any stories of me and the nurses station yet?"
I raise an eyebrow and look at her
She smiles at me "I'm just going to run upstairs to get warmer gloves; mine aren't going to cut it for nighttime."