Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
This time when he offers his hand, I let him pull me to my feet. “What will you do now that you know?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I swipe my gloves across my ass to brush off the snow. “Maybe there will be a Christmas miracle, and they’ll have moved out before I get back.”
“You think so?”
I sigh and shake my head. “I’m not the lucky one here.”
“It’s that bad?” he asks quietly.
“You really want to hear?”
“I’d like to know you better. Because if I’d bothered to know you before, maybe some of this shit would never have happened.”
He’s about to know me better than anyone else does, then. Because we’re in a snowy wood with more than a mile to go, and I’ve never unloaded. I didn’t even realize how desperately I needed to until I get started.
“Well, there’s Lauryn, who’s just…negative. Beyond, you know, normal bitching. It’s as if nothing pleases her. If I take her out to dinner, the only comments she makes are about what’s wrong—with the prices, with the food, with the service. But then she’ll clean her plate. And I know her. When Lauryn doesn’t like the way something tastes, she won’t eat it. She’ll ask me if I want it or leave it on her plate. So she enjoys it enough to finish, but what she enjoys is never mentioned. Only the negative stuff. Or if I say, ‘Wow, this chocolate dessert is really good,’ she’ll comment that it looks like a piece of shit. Every time I mention something I like or enjoy, she’ll find something wrong with it. I can barely stand to be around her anymore, because it’s such a constant beatdown. And I keep my mouth shut about what I do enjoy now, so that she doesn’t come swinging in with all her reasons why I shouldn’t enjoy it. So I just feel…I don’t know what.”
“Silenced,” Reed says, the sleeve of his coat brushing against mine as we walk, the sled sliding along behind.
“Yes? Not deliberately, because she hasn’t told me to shut up. But I’m so tired of it. I don’t want to deal with it anymore. There’s this dread in my chest all the time when I’m with her, like I can’t breathe. Nothing I do is good enough. Because she’s also socially and environmentally conscious—which I get, and I’m on board for—”
“Me, too.”
I don’t know why I’m so glad to hear that, but I am. I pause, so distracted by his reply that I can’t recall what I was explaining.
Reed saves me with a, “But she doesn’t think your efforts are good enough?”
“Not even close. I do try to make responsible choices and to put my money where my mouth is. But I also accept that there are some things I just can’t get around. So I choose what my priorities are, but there are areas where I have to make compromises. Mostly I just do my best as things come up.”
“It’s all anyone can do.”
“Not if you’re Lauryn. Her priorities are the right ones, her compromises are the acceptable ones. Everyone else gets judged for theirs. Oh! An example from just this past week: I’ve got a neighbor, Delia. She doesn’t drive anymore—she’s eighty, eighty-one?—and I check in on her when I can, and every once in a while she calls me if she needs help with something. So she asked me to pick up a few things from the grocery store—she gets them delivered, but sometimes the items she needs aren’t in stock. So my sis is with me. And some of the things I get for Delia are these pre-sliced, pre-washed vegetables. Like diced onions. And Lauryn goes off on this, because of the wasteful packaging, how it’s lazy because it doesn’t take long to cut things up, and it’s fresher if I get whole produce. So I have to tell her that Delia can’t, because her arthritis is just bad enough that she can’t grip her knife easily. So Lauryn says that I could cut them up for her—which I have done before—until I remind her that I’ll be gone this week. But when I tell her that Delia wouldn’t mind if my sister came over to do it, instead…yeah, nope.”
Reed grunts and shakes his head, which I take as a complete lack of surprise at Lauryn’s refusal to assist a neighbor.
“So anyway, Lauryn decided the packaged vegetables were okay—and I’m just, why does she feel like she gets to judge whether it’s okay for Delia to use them? Why is it her place to judge? And why does Delia’s personal business have to be laid out in the open, so that she can justify her choices to someone who shares no part of her life? But Lauryn does that all the time. She judges what people are doing—though, okay, we all judge other people. I’m judging Lauryn right now for all of her judgements! That’s just human nature. But she judges, then doesn’t ever ask herself why they might be doing it. She just decides they must be wrong—and then says they’re wrong. Without making sure she’s actually right. And without considering whether saying these things might give someone a bad name that’s completely undeserved.”