Me and Mr. Jonas

It had been two weeks since that night and the days had only gotten better between us. Tucker was falling in love with his father and all was well. I was shopping for groceries, more on the Kevin side of town because, although the groceries were cheaper, I was kind of hoping to run into someone from high school we used to hang out with.

I was surprised to meet up with Kevin, standing there, looking at different types of chips. Tucker ran to him and hugged his leg, and for some reason it made Kevin’s face turn pale white.

“Hey Kevin!” I smiled, hugging his neck a little. He stammered incoherent words at me, and then she appeared. It was the tall, lanky mannequin from his car slinking over towards us. Her eyes had caught the last of our hug and then her screeching words came out.

“Who the hell is she?” The girl beside him said to me. I didn’t quite know who she was, but I kind of got the jest from the huge ring on her left hand.

“She’s an old girlfriend…Holly, meet Danielle.” He introduced me to her and I instantly grew cold to her. The ring gave away everything and I was shocked he couldn’t tell me this. She draped an arm over her man, as if that could protect her from me, I’d break her ass in two, I’ve had a kid, I know tough.

“Who’s the brat?” She asked, I pushed Tucker back towards the buggy and almost went at her with my bare hands.

“Whoa…Danielle, this is Tucker, chill what you say about him, alright? We’re in public.” He said holding her back, like he should be.

“So, catching up with the old girl, eh? Have you fucked her yet? I bet that was the whore you stayed with the past couple of days, isn’t it? God, Kevin Jonas, you’re pathetic.” She started walking off, but he didn’t chase after her at first.

“I’ll call you, honey.” He whispered and ran after her. Those few steps it took him to get to her made me realize, he hadn’t changed, and she was the reason we didn’t talk after high school. I immediately dialed Ell’s number, asking her to come pick me up, fighting back tears that were about to spew out of my eyes, not thinking I could drive in the state of shock I was in.

I dialed my mother’s number, telling her she needed to get Tucker, I had some business that was urgent, and told her no more.

Bending down to his level in the aisle of the grocery store that seemed to be closing in on me, I spoke to him softly, “Honey, that is what we call a ‘gold digger.’ Now, Mamaw Miller is going to come pick you up and you’re going to go to her house and act like nothing happened okay?”

“Am I brat mommy?” His face, serene, not sure of what to think of the whole ordeal.

“No, baby, you are the best kid in the world!” I hugged him tight, feeling Kevin’s presence in him.

It took five minutes for Mom to get there and ten for Ell. I was glad my mother didn’t ask questions, but just took him on her way. She was always glad to see him as it was. Ell was a different story though, when I got into her car, she immediately pulled me into a hug and I hadn’t even gotten to the story of what happened yet.

“Honey, I’m so sorry.”

“I haven’t even told you the story yet.” Her reaction made my tears kind of dry up and made me kind of worry about her state of mind sometimes.

“Oh, tell me what happened, I shall start driving.”

I gave her the shakedown with all the details of what happened, not really fighting tears because for some reason…I saw it coming, and I blame him for telling ‘I’m no single, can I say that?’ It kept hitting me though, over and over again, like a knife going into the back of my head.

“Can you take me home? I just want to be alone.” I sighed and she nodded slowly. It was the first time I had seen her act this way.

It had been two weeks since I saw Kevin that day. He tried calling almost every hour on the hour, but he admitted in one voicemail he left that it was hard to call that much since Danielle was constantly down his throat. I wanted to send him a text message saying ‘Why try when I don’t pick up anyway?’ But I thought it would egg him on to call me more.

Tucker won’t stop asking me where daddy went. He was young, intelligent, and a snappy dresser, but all boy in a broken home he was even more.

I should have been giving Kevin the time of day, considering in the past two weeks I’ve gotten checks for obscene amounts of money, but they landed where my junk mail landed, in a cubby hole in my role top desk. I looked at them every once in a while, thinking about doing stupid things with them, like flying to Maui to get away for a while, but I could never bring myself to sign the bastard pieces of paper.

I wanted nothing more than to get Kevin’s memory out of my brain, but no matter what, his face haunted my dreams and his brother’s also dropped notes as well. Nick was the more persistent one, but his were always heartfelt, they made you believe he was on your side. Joe’s were sweet, but they were more concerned with Tucker’s well being, which made me happy and made me reply to him, and only him.

Joe was still seeing Ell and I didn’t object, she was happier than she has ever been, so who was I to ruin her perfect life? She never brought him around, mainly because they were out of town now and it was harder, but she knew dwelling on him and the events would make it worse.

I sat at the kitchen table, waiting on something to happen, timidly drunk for six in the evening, but I had no other responsibilities at the moment and Ell was busy tonight. Tucker was at my mother’s, and for some reason he’s been spending more and more time there. I don’t know if it was because he was upset or it was because I moped around the house like a fool not wanting to do silly things with him all the time. My phone rang and I didn’t even bother looking at it, knowing who it was. When the answering machine answered, I braced myself for the message, but was surprised at the voice and name.

“Hey, Holly, it’s Nick. I’m going to be in New York City for a few days, doing some things with- well, that’s not important to you-but I was wondering if we could get together and talk. I need someone to vent on and I think you’d be the perfect person to talk to about this junk. Ummm…I’ll text you some details and you can fire one back saying yah or nay. Alright…talk to you later…bye.” The beep and whirring sound of the machine filled the empty house and I had to replay the message to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

Why would Nick want to meet up with me? I weighed the options of doing it, wondering if it would all be worth it, knowing Nick reminds me of Kevin the most and not knowing if I could handle that at the moment.

I sat the drink down and decided to have a cup of coffee instead. I was abusing myself and it needed to stop. I stared intently as the coffee machine percolated, dripped, and scalded hot, black liquid. I took a glass out and poured me a big glass, shooting it back with no creamer or sugar. I instantly started sobering up and poured another glass.

I heard my phone [I}buzz, buzz and grabbed it from the kitchen table where my seemingly disgusting alcoholic beverage was sitting. I read a long text message from Nick explaining that he wanted to meet somewhere secluded and decided the football field at the old high school was the perfect place. I sent a message directly back claiming that was perfect and would see him there.