Page 117 of Dirty Like Jude
He gave me the monkey when I was a baby, and he left when I was five. My mom told me, many times, that he wasn’t my real dad—as if that somehow made his leaving irrelevant. And after he’d left, when I cried about it for days, she couldn’t even seem to understandwhy.
He’s not your dad, Roni girl, she told me.And I told him not to come back. I don’t love him. You want me to spend my life with a man I don’t love, to make youhappy?
That, or some version of that, was what she’d said every time I cried or asked if he would come back to seeme.
So eventually, I stopped asking, and I stopped crying about it in front of my mom. But I stillhoped.
For years, actually, until I was about twelve or so, Ihoped.
Which was why I put the monkey in baby Nick’s crib. Because no matter what happened, he’d always have his Auntie Roni looking out for him. And the monkey would be my assurance that even if I wasn’t here to give him a hug or tell him everything would be alright, or listen to whatever had made him upset, he’d have his purple monkey to hold onto, just like Idid.
Whoever said I wasn’t sentimental didn’t know jack shit aboutme.
I could be sentimental ashell.
I still had, of all things, the ticket from that Dirty show at the Back Door where Jude stomped on myheart.
Why? Tangibleevidence.
That little bit of something I could look at and touch was proof to me of everything that had happened between us and what we’d almost had… even if it had endedbadly.
Even if it was going to end badly all overagain.
It had been three days since we’d fought and Jude had stormed out of my place, and I had no idea how long he’d be gone thistime.
Days?
Years?
Maybe I couldn’t even blame him for disappearing. But I wasnotabout to go running afterhim.
I just couldn’t. Not after everything we’d been through. All the times he’d pushed me away… I couldn’t put myself out there again and risk him rejecting me,again.
I was strong. I’d always been strong. Maybe because so many early experiences in my life had abraded me until I had to be outwardly tough to survive. Something like that. But I really didn’t want to stand there, face-to-face with Jude Grayson, ever again, and have him turn me down, push meaway.
Because maybe it would be that push that would be the one that would shatter my heart,irreversibly.
To that end, I knew I was holding myself back, even when I was withhim.
Protectingmyself.
Drinking too much to give myself an excuse to lose my inhibitions with him. Flirting instead of being straight with him. Using sex and our whole stupid “fuck buddy” arrangement to get close to him without actually gettingclose.
He was protecting himself,too.
I knew hewas.
I knew I’d hurt him too, longago.
And so, we were both playing the game. A game neither of us was willing tolose.
Making carefully-calculatedmoves.
He stepped forward, I pulled back. And viceversa.
But we still weren’t actually having a relationship with oneanother.
I wondered if we would ever be able to make any kind of a real relationship work, or if he’d ever even wantedto.
