Worry Rock

The next time my eyes opened was because of the amount of sunlight that was pouring in from the window. I sat up slowly and lifted a hand to rub my eyes a moment before I jumped as I realized that I was no longer in Travis’s living room, but in the guest bedroom. Travis, now, was nowhere to be found.

I looked down at myself and realized I was wearing the same thing as yesterday, though it wasn’t exactly like I had had a spare change of clothes. I lifted my body from out of the bed and out of the room to the stairs. I found Travis sitting at the island in his kitchen eating cereal. His hand froze just before it reached his mouth [in which was already opened] before he placed it back in the bowl. He smiled and wiped some of the milk that had gotten stuck in the small hairs that were growing on his chin since he hadn’t shaved lately. “You’re alive,” he stated with a chuckle. “I didn’t know anyone could sleep so long. I kept going up there to make sure you were breathing. You fell asleep on the couch and were one helluva fight, but I brought you into the guest bedroom last night—I figured it was more comfortable than the couch and I didn’t want to wake you.”

I grinned at him and rubbed the top of my head. “Thanks, Trav. How long was I asleep for?”

He laughed as he grabbed the box of cereal, a bowl and placed a mug into the coffee maker, and then settled back at the island in which I was now sitting at. “A long time.”

I laughed softly at that as I helped myself to the cereal. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well, to be perfectly honest. Your beds are so comfortable; I’m tempted to steal them from you.”

Travis grinned widely up at me as he went to take a spoonful of cereal and milk, and then once again wiped his chin as more milk dribbled down it. “How are you feeling?” He asked after a moment of silence.

I stirred the milk and cereal around in the bowl and nodded, not making eye contact. “I’m feeling alright, thanks. You?”

He chuckled. “Great.” After a few more moments of silence, Travis sighed and placed his spoon in his bowl. He ran a hand through his dark brown hair, making it stick up. “You know that’s not what I meant. Sweetie, you came over here yesterday sobbing your heart out and then ended up falling asleep for well over twelve hours.” He hesitated and rested his chest on the counter as he leant closer to me across it. “I don’t mean to pry, but, well, I really think I’ve got a right to.”

I smiled pathetically down at the bowl, still avoiding eye contact. I shook my head and lifted a hand to rest it in. “I’m just not a good person, Trav. That’s all.”

Travis scowled. “Shut up. Yes you are.”

I ran a hand through my long hair and twirled some around my finger. “Billie Joe doesn’t seem to think so.” I laughed. “Travis, you don’t get it; he literally acts like I’m dead.”

The attractive man that was sitting across from me, though leaning across the island bit his lip. “Explain to me everything that happened.”

And so I did. I started from the visit to the doctors and how Billie Joe and I argued because of me refusing the blood test. I explained all about him getting drunk and how we fought and everything up to the doctor’s call and then my confession. The whole time in which Travis sat silently and listened.

It occurred to me many times as I spoke how much I needed Travis. It also made me wonder why the hell he didn’t hate me by now. By now, I was tired of listening to myself.

I watched as Travis’s deep blue eyes connect with mine for a moment before he broke away and looked down at the bowl I had used for my cereal. “I mean, I know I’m not perfect. No one is. I know I messed up more than either of us ever has, but still—I am a person, and I am his wife.”

Travis lifted a hand and ran it through his hair again, this time tugging on it. “You’re his wife, yes,” Travis agreed, “that’s why it hurts him so much. You’re his wife. If anything, you’re the one person he can trust. I can’t speak for him, but what I can say is that I’m betting what kills him the most is the amount of trust he’s lost. His pride is hurt, Mand. He doesn’t hate you—he doesn’t know what to think.”

I nodded slowly and looked down until I felt Travis’s thumb push my chin up gently. I forced a weak smile. “If you were him, would you hate me?”

Travis smiled reassuringly to me. “Never. I could never hate you.”

+++

Travis was watching a football game on TV, watching everything closely. I was lying sprawled out on the couch with my head resting on his lap, a book held over my head that I was reading. I was never one to care about football when it was other than my hometown team playing in high school, when I had been dating one of the players.

Travis on the other hand was a writer for a major magazine and loved sports more than he loved most things, so he played close attention. His friends had called him earlier to persuade him to watch it with them, but he declined by saying that he had a friend over. After saying my name he pulled the phone from his ear as we both heard numerous OOUUUUUU’s. Travis blushed and I laughed.

I had told him to go hang out with his friends, the last thing I wanted to do being taking him away from them. But he just simply told them he couldn’t and then told me how he’d rather be with me watching the game than them.

I heard Travis scowl, which caught my attention. I looked up from the sentence I was reading while repeating it in my mind to not forget where I was and looked to the TV. My eyes shifted from the football game to the scowl on Travis’s face, his lips pulled together tight. I grinned and lifted my free hand from across his lap to in the air. “Touchdown.”

Travis cocked an eyebrow. “What? No. The other team scored.”

I grinned up at Travis. “I know. That’s the one I’m rooting for. If I root for the team you are, it makes the game boring.”

Travis scowled at me again and whacked my arm playfully. I giggled and pulled him arm down across my body so that he couldn’t whack me again. There were a few minutes of silence in which I had my eyes closed until I felt Travis squirm underneath me and scowl again. I opened my eyes and raised my hand again. “Touchdown.”

I could feel Travis’s eyes on me as he scowled. I giggled softly and shifted upwards so that I was now sitting with my chest pressed against my legs that were bent. “Wow, your team sucks.”

Travis ran a hand over his un-shaven face and sighed. “You know, I was trying to be nice.”

I grinned and winked. “I don’t like nice boys. Look who I’m married to.”

Travis grinned at me. “You married a brat, how does that mean you like bad boys?”

My mouth dropped open and I laughed, whacking Travis. “You’re lucky I’m not overly-possessive of my husband or else I’d kick your ass for calling him a brat.”

Travis continued to grin as he grabbed my arms so I couldn’t whack him anymore. “You call him a brat just about every day, you hypocrite.”

“Oh if I could hit you right now I really would.”

I struggled to get out of the strong grip Travis had on me. He let go after a moment and I pushed him back, a wild grin on both of our faces. I pushed him back and watched as he fell off the comfortable couch that we had been on for the past hour. As his body hit the wooden floors I burst into a fit of laughter, a few tears straying from my eyes because of it.

Travis scowled loudly and grabbed his hat that fell off his head before he reached up and grabbed me, pulling me off the couch with him. I landed on top of his body, straddling his chest for a moment before Travis turned us over and hovered above me not a moment before he began to tickle me.

Everyone knew I hated to be tickled so everyone did it to me.

Despite the pain that was ripping through my body from the lack of breath I was able to take, I was laughing more than I had altogether in the past week or two. “Oh my god Travis.” I groaned, “Please stop.”

The grin on Travis’s face stretched from one eye to another as he sat on top of me, his fingers slowly stopping as I stopped squirming. My breathing was labored as my chest heaved up and down while he continued to grin down at me, his chest also heaving up and down. “It’s good to hear you laugh again. I’ve missed it.”

I smiled up at him and for the first time I noticed the way we were sitting, how close we were. Travis was on my stomach straddling me, his hands on my shoulders. He grinned back down at me, his lips closer to mine than I had realized before. “You’ve got such a beautiful smile.”

“So do you.”

Travis chuckled. “Beautiful? I’ve heard great, amazing and breathtaking—but never beautiful. That’s a first for me.”

I giggled underneath him, a part of me wondering why I hadn’t begun to feel uncomfortable. At the sight of me giggling, Travis only continued to grin and for the first time, I actually became aware of the his breath on my lips. The warmth of it and the smell. For the first time, the smell of the man’s breath that I was close to didn’t smell faintly of cigarettes or anything of the kind.

Both of our attentions were caught abruptly as screaming took over the volume of the television. Both of our eyes were glued to the flat-screen Panasonic mounted on the wall for a moment before I took my arm from his grip and stuck it up next to his head. “Touchdown.”

+++

“I apologize if it sucks,” Billie Joe muttered, “I don’t know how the fuck to cook. I can do sandwiches and that’s about my limit.”

Sydney rolled her eyes at her father and sat down on the stool at the island. “Then why didn’t you make sandwiches?”

Billie Joe scowled. “Because giving you a sandwich and chips is a terrible dinner.”

Sydney sighed softly and smiled as her father handed her a plate full of food and set one down for himself, also. “Where’s mom?”

Billie Joe seemed to freeze while facing the stove. His shoulders slumped as he pressed the cancel button to turn the stove off. “Not home,” he stated simply and then handed her a fork. “What do you want to drink?”

Sydney scowled. “Dad, stop trying to change the subject,” she hesitated, “and juice, please. What’s wrong with you and mom? She’s been a wreck and now she’s gone and I’ve barely seen you for the past week. I’m old enough to know that something is going on, dad. I’m not five anymore.”

Billie Joe sat back down at the island and placed his Budweiser in front of him, Sydney’s glass in front of her. “We had an argument, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it? Dad, tell me, what’s the last thing you’ve said to mom?”

I called her her mother.

He winced, realizing for the first time that that must have hurt his wife. He shrugged. “Sydney, drop the subject and eat.”

“I miss mom. Don’t you?”

“Sydney,” he growled, “I mean it. Eat.”

“Well you obviously don’t want to speak about it, which means it’s your fault. Why don’t you just apologize?”

“Because it wasn’t my fault,” Billie Joe snapped.

“Then why has mom been crying whenever she thinks we’re not around lately? Why haven’t you gone upstairs to see why she is? Why does she make you dinner but you don’t make her some? Why have you been sleeping in one of the guest be--,”

“Enough!” Billie Joe snapped again. “I fucking told you, Sydney, I’m not going to discuss this with you. Eat your goddamn dinner or change the damn subject!”

Sydney watched her father in surprise, her eyes wide. “You’ve been acting different, too,” She murmured. “Like this.”

Billie Joe dropped his fork onto the glass plate and dropped his head into his hands, running them through his hair while tugging on it. “A lot of things, Sydney, are just confusing right now. Your mother and I both made mistakes. Yes, it’s partly my fault. Yes, I’ve been sleeping in the guest bedroom, but damnit Sydney, that doesn’t mean I don’t feel any less guilty than I would if your mother and I were on speaking terms. You don’t understand and you won’t understand unless I told you the whole goddamn story. Your mother isn’t an Angel, Sydney. I’ve been upset, too. So I am sorry if you miss your mother because sheleft because she can’t take this anymore, but I’m not fucking dancing in paradise, either. This isn’t exactly the best time of my life, either, Sydney.”

With that said, a few stray tears managed to work their way from the 46 year-old man’s eyes and down his cheek a moment before he wiped them away hastily. Sydney stared at her father for a moment, not being able to remember a time where he had ever allowed himself to cry in front of her. She knew that her father did cry, but she had never seen it.

The teenager hopped down from her stool, went around the island and wrapped his arm around her father’s neck. She kissed his cheek lightly, a sinking feeling spreading in her heart. Billie Joe leant into her grip and sniffled, the whole time silently beating himself up. He never wanted to cry in front of his daughter and he felt terrible about the fact that she was holding him at the moment. That wasn’t her job to do. It wasn’t anyone’s job to do.

But it was his job to not cry like this in front of her, his daughter.

Billie Joe hugged his daughter back for a moment and then slid off the stool to grab the portable phone. Sydney cocked an eyebrow and watched as he turned to face her. “Fuck it. You want Chinese?”