Capturing You

Chapter 30: That Was Just Thunder

      I was not a good secret keeper. In fact, I was a chronic truth teller. When I was a little girl, I ruined a Mother's Day surprise from my dad because my mom warned me keeping secrets was going to make me come out a liar — and I did not want to be called such a sinister-sounding thing. The word in my mom's tone always sounded like nails on a chalkboard and, even without knowing the full implication of being called a liar, I swore I'd never be one.

     So when I couldn't lie, I did my best to withhold the truth, figuring that would be different enough and I would be spared from the wrath of someone like God, who probably didn't like liars. The older I got, the less I believed in God, but when I was younger and going to church was something my mom, a devout Catholic, instilled in me, of course I was scared. Now, the fear morphed into guilt, a more complex adult emotion that especially wracked my nerves.

     I didn't tell Joe about the offer I got that morning over breakfast, and I hadn't told him in the day or so that followed. In fact, by the weekend, I still hadn't told him, and my guilt over that kept me away from him. Luckily, he had been busy with football anyway given that preseason games were about to start, but I knew it would be sooner than later that he'd sniff out my sudden distancing and start to ask questions.

     Just between you and I, I wished he would confront me about it already, because I plain didn't have the guts to tell him myself.

     Don't get me wrong. Joe was a perfect soundboard, and when I agonized over anything and told him about it out loud, he was immaculate at calming my worries and assuring me everything was going to be okay. That we would figure things out together. Sometimes, you looked at people and you knew they couldn't have the answer to everything, and they were just pretending to have their shit together. Joe was not one of those people. You looked at him and saw a lighthouse.

     So it was frustrating me more and more that I couldn't find the courage to tell him about the email like he deserved. Had I decided to take the fellowship? No. I hadn't even emailed Mr. Dupont back. But the sheer opportunity, the mere notion that I could be that close to my mom's dream, was enough for me to want to say yes. I was almost two years out of college and hardly even made a dent toward fulfilling that dream for her, and to ignore the possibility of this fellowship felt like a disservice to her name. The longer I waited to tell Joe, the more I was letting him down, and my mom down. I was just scared.

     Imagine the sort of rock bottom I'd built for myself at this point, two days out from receiving the email.

     On Saturday night, we were meant to be on a date at Funky Anchovy, wanting to have one last hurrah now that the Bengals were only a few days away from the first game of the preseason against the Houston Texans. Things were going to be hectic again to say the least once preseason began, and it was Joe's idea for us to have a night of self-care and pigging out before we felt the stress. Despite all my personal anguish I'd actually been looking forward to our date, hoping to use it as a springboard to start the conversation about the email, so I was disappointed when a severe thunderstorm kept us inside all day.

     And we weren't even at Joe's place; we were at my dingy little apartment, the old windows rattling with every harsh gust of wind.

     "I'm sorry we couldn't go out tonight," Joe said. It was probably the fifth time all night that he apologized for something that was completely out of his control. Regardless, we were both eating delivered Funky Anchovy pizza, and the divey atmosphere of my apartment pretty much made it feel like we were at the restaurant anyway.

     I reached over to close the mostly empty pizza box sitting on my coffee table, patting Joe's socked foot that was resting a good distance away from it on the surface too. "Joe, you can't control the weather," I teased him, but even that came out a bit nervous sounding. I wondered if he'd picked up on my teetering nature this past week.