Denial

Chapter 7

Nash's POV

I waved to Cam and starting driving towards Skylynne's preschool and no matter how hard I tried to, I couldn't wipe the embarassingly huge smile off my face. I plugged my phone into the car speakers and listened to In My Place 4 times in a row on full blast before remembering I wouldn't look like a very responsible big brother if I pulled into the pre-school parking lot with music blaring.

I was already 15 minutes late picking Skylynne up since I had driven Cam home, so I parked the car as fast as I could (in two parking spots by accident) and jogged into the building. I signed her out as her teacher gave me a disappointed stare and helped her pack up her ten huge messy drawings she made that day before walking to the car.

"Naaaash today I finger painted a flower and it's pink and it's purple and it's green," Skylynne said, "And theeen I drew a picture of you driving your car and I drove a picture of mommy sleeping and I drew a picture of me and Cameron." The mention of Cam made me smile and almost forget about her drawing a picture of mom sleeping.

Sleeping, ha. It was almost like a mini coma that lasted the whole day, and when she finally awoke from it, she'd shower, eat something, put on a different pair of heels, and go out again. Every day. Wake up, get dressed, drink, pass out, repeat. I was too busy thinking to hear any of the rest of Skylynne's chatter about her friends or toys or school, but once we reached the house I snapped out of it.

I unbuckled her from her car-seat, a task that always took me at least three tries to get right, before I carried her inside and saw my mom, still passed out, on the couch. Right on schedule.

When I was eleven my mother would drive me home from school blasting Kiss because she had a horrible obsession with 80's rock, and when she cooked she would sing christmas carols and she always made me eat my vegetables every night, and she would check on me before I went to sleep even though I insisted I was way too cool and way too old to be tucked into bed by my mom. And she kissed my father on the cheek before he went to work and she went to book club with her friends and she took Pilates and she was completely cliché and completely ordinary but she was perfect.

I had to make myself stop thinking about that because I felt a lump in my throat and my eyes stung and besides today was a good day. I was going to watch Fight Club with Cam and eat popcorn and be stupid.

I made Skylynne a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and called my neighbor, Mrs. O'Connel, an old woman with no grandchildren who lived alone and was a stereotypical cat lady. She gladly agreed to watch Skylynne for a few hours, so while she hobbled across the street I carried my mom into her bedroom and tucked her in. She's way too old to be tucked into bed. Ha ha.

Mrs. O'Connel shuffled inside and I said hello and hugged Skylynne goodbye and ran outside before Mrs. O'Connel even had the chance to plant a slimy old lady kiss on my cheek. I drove to Cam's house as quickly as possible, disregarding the speed limit and most stop signs, because I was already running ten minutes late and I was really excited.

Right when I pulled up to his house I almost sprinted up to the door as fast as I could, but then remembered that I had to be cool. And that I couldn't screw this up. I rang the doorbell and heart my heart beating in my ears and I felt nervous and ecstatic all at once. Why are you freaking out so much? It's just Cam, I repeated to myself.

I heard the door unlock and I felt dizzy and when Cam opened the door I found myself grinning like an idiot. "Hey!" Cam and I said at the exact same time.

"Ok, there's like twelve buckets of popcorn and a huge bottle of Dr. Pepper upstairs, so I think we're fully prepared for the movie adaptation of the greatest book ever," Cam said. "I am ready to judge Edward Norton's performance and see if he is even better at being Narrator than the human steak I imagined," I laughed. "I imagined him as an average looking guy though, because how would he have enough time to get human steak level ripped between all his work hours and business trips?" Cam said. "You know what, that's actually a pretty good point. Why did I imagine him as a human steak at all in the first place?" I cackled as we walked upstairs.