I Shouldn't Love Him
I Shouldn’t Love Him (Book 2) – Chapter 53

Manning

If someone had asked me a week ago what a typical Saturday night looked like for me, it wouldn’t have involved anything. A Ferris wheel, pink cotton candy, and a pair of girls, one of whom was only sixteen years old.

The wheel wiggled forward and stopped several times. Tiffany ate some cotton candy and put it in her mouth. I didn’t know what to expect for twenty minutes alone with her, but already she would become more shy without an audience.

“I don’t know what my sister told you, but I’m not stupid,” she said softly. “I can get a job, it’s just that nothing really interests me so far. »

“She didn’t say that.” »

“She’s boring.” Sometimes she doesn’t even do anything and she always annoys me. »

That wasn’t a word I would use to describe Lake, who was relatively calm compared to Tiffany. “How come?”

“It’s like she thinks she’s better than me. ” Just the way she talks or the things she does. »

“Yes, but what? ” I asked. ” What is she doing ? »

“She gets straight A’s and that’s all my parents can talk about for a month.” It’s lame. If I really wanted to be a nerd, I could have been, you know? I prefer to enjoy my life. »

I looked at Tiffany. This might have been true to some extent, but I didn’t buy it all. “you don’t think your sister loves life?” »

“Everything she does has a purpose. She takes piano lessons only to be “well-balanced”. And so she doesn’t disappoint my father like I did. »

Up until that moment, I had really only seen Lake as intelligent, driven, and curious. Maybe because I had only really seen the lake. I didn’t stop to wonder how many dinners Tiffany had to sit through to hear about Lake’s accomplishments. “I’m sure that’s not true. »

“It’s got it. » She shuffled her feet on the floor of the car.

The wheel jerked, sending us higher.

“I think Lake admires you,” I said.

Why would she?”

“You’re her big sister.” If I had expressed myself better, I would have told her how much it bothered me to see brothers and sisters not getting along. But we don’t I didn’t think about it until I lost one, and then it was too late for that kind of lesson. “Let her go a little. She probably just wants you to be nice to her.”

Tiffany frowned. “Nice?”

“Yeah. Like inviting him to come here. It was nice.

” “Oh.” Her expression relaxed as she twisted her lips. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe.”

A girl in the car above us laughed loudly at something the man with her said. She lunged forward to k**s him. Tiffany noticed this and smiled.

I preferred Tiffany like this, without all the drama. It made me uncomfortable when she was up front, like she had been in the car on the way here. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. With long blonde hair and even longer legs, and blue eyes a little icier than her sister’s, she was very attractive. But I wasn’t that attracted to her. His attitude put me off the first day.

I probably should have left. I would have done it now if I hadn’t felt so confused the last few days, and since I’d only really existed since Maddy died, nothing more, feeling something was a welcome change. Losing my little sister had brought the kind of darkness you never really recover from. Even day to day, there wasn’t much going on in my life. I went to work. Construction was good for me, it kept my hands busy, but it was hard. The men I worked with had seen the shit, too. Some of them were ex-convicts, and others probably should have been behind bars – I’d almost gotten into a fight with some of them on Friday when I warned them not to hit on girls. Then I would spend my nights either at the community college with other overworked and tired classmates, at a bar drinking by myself, or at home. I preferred it that way, I guess. I wanted to focus on getting my degree so that I would be able to help others like they had helped me when I needed it, even if I didn’t deserve it.

Lake was the only person I had met since Maddy who still hadn’t seen the evil in life. She was good. You could feel it just by being near her. Not yet jaded. She had dreams, and she believed they would come true. She was easy-going, ambitious, thoughtful. None of that meant it wasn’t complicated. The day we met, as she sat on a sidewalk with The Grapes of Wrath, I saw that she was having trouble concentrating. I remembered that Maddy read a lot, but I had forgotten that expression she made when she was trying to understand a new word or when something went over her head. Lake did it too. There were layers to her that you could miss if you weren’t careful.

My sister’s death had made my world dark, but Lake was the light. At his age, I had done all kinds of stupid things: drugs, alcohol, s*x. Lake seemed so far away from it all. Pure, naive, like Maddy would have been. I would have seen to that. Maybe wanting that in my life, someone to watch over, to protect from bad things, was a mistake, considering she was sixteen. But then again, if I had done a better job with Madison, maybe she would still be here doing things like this, admiring the night sky from the top of a Ferris wheel. To taste melted pink sugar on her tongue. To ask his big brother for advice.

“What do you want to do after this?” Tiffany asked.

I looked at her, wondering how long I had been in the trance. We were moving now, going in circles, the breeze was warm on my face. “I’ll take you home,” I said.

“I don’t have a curfew.”

“LAKE has one.”

“Oh yes.”

People became pins stuck in a 3D map while the buildings below us became smaller, looking more like a model fair than an actual fair. The ocean lay on one side of us. The carnival lights reflected orange, purple, green and red on the water near the dock. But there was nothing but black beyond.

“We could just drop Lake off.” Tiffany put her hand on my thigh and left it there, as if deciding what she was going to do. “Take a drive for a while.”

“We could just drop Lake off.” Tiffany put her hand on my thigh and left it there, as if deciding what she was going to do. “Take a drive for a while.”

If it was a date, I would have put my arm around her, I would have hugged her, I would have kissed her. If I gave her what she wanted now, she would give me what I wanted later. I wasn’t in the habit of refusing s*x from pretty girls. And Tiffany was pretty. A California beach girl, the kind men dream of. No doubt she also had experience. I wouldn’t have to go easy on her. Not that I minded taking it easy sometimes. I would have liked to be with a woman for more than s*x, if I had found that. Had Tiffany ever experienced this? Did she want it?

I put my hand on Tiffany’s to see what it felt like. It didn’t answer anything, but it didn’t give me any more questions either. Maybe it was good. I was pretty sure if I tried to hold Lake’s hand I would feel something. We’d both be worse off for it.

With the reservations I had, holding his hand was all I was willing to do tonight. “I’ll take you home after this,” I said. “I wouldn’t want your father to worry.”

“He wouldn’t be,” she said softly, looking up at the sky. “Not for me.”

I had the feeling that this was the real Tiffany. That his bravado was a front for insecurities that probably came from his father. She needed someone in her corner. “Do you really think that?”

“We don’t get along very well,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

I started to do it. “It’s a shame.”

“Look how beautiful the stars are,” she said.

Even though the change in topic was sudden, it didn’t stop a lump from forming in my throat. I continued to look ahead. The f*****g stars. It was a place reserved for Maddy. I didn’t want to go there. “What’s beautiful about them?”

She looked at me strangely. “What is this question? They sparkle. They are…” She couldn’t think of anything else. “They’re just pretty. Have you looked?

“I’ve seen them.”

“If you drop me off early… when will I see you again?”

I had no answer. I stretched my arm along the back of the seat. She took it as an invitation to sit next to me. “I will be back on the field on Monday.”

“I don’t mean it like that. I was hoping we could, you know, hang out.”

I knew what she meant. I could just say no. I didn’t want to lead her on. But there was no reason, not one, for me to see Lake again if his sister wasn’t there.

As the Ferris wheel turned, the silence stretched between us.

I didn’t tell Tiffany I’d see her again.

I didn’t tell him I wouldn’t do it, either.