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Part 8

Pulling up to the front of the store, I saw Brian jogging down the steps, his eyes on his feet to make sure he didn't slip on the creeping layers of ice. Rolling down the window slowly, I looked out at him and our eyes caught on one another's as I leaned out the window with a grin.

"How much for a few hours?" I asked, his tired eyes lighting up as he rest his hands on the hood of the car and looked down at me, his jacket hanging open so I could see the black shirt he was wearing stretch across his chest.

"You couldn't afford me," he smirked, leaning down to kiss me even though he knew the person who worked after him was watching. I really didn't know if I could lie at the bar and tell everyone I was single, especially when Brian was so forward about me, "besides, you've never lasted more than a few minutes."

"Is that a challenge?" I scoffed, and he chuckled, pushing himself away from the car, "in which case, I accept. I expect to see you at my place tonight."

"Don't work yourself too hard," he said, walking around the front of the car to get into the passenger side. The door closed with a slam before he leaned over to kiss me again, resting his hand on my lap, "or you might pull something."

"That was so lame it was cute," I chuckled, "how was work?"

"Boring, tiring, stressful, and I didn't get to see anyone naked," he said diffidently, a slight frown flicking across his muzzle as he looked at me with sad eyes and a dramatic frown.

"It's a bad thing that you haven't seen these people naked?" I asked, shifting the car into drive as his hand lingered on my thigh, moving up slightly, "I mean, your boss is a great guy and all, but do you really want to see him naked?"

"I was more hoping you'd be able to make it for my lunch break," he said with a wink as I paused at a stop sign, "how was your first day of being taught about how to get people drunk?"

"Too much like school," I admitted, coasting slowly, trying to avoid going home as long as I could because I knew that the book would haunt my brain even though it was safely hidden away. I wanted Brian to be the most important thing in my life, but something else always seemed to take precedence, "my boss even has the same droning voice as all my high school teachers."

"Is he at least better than what's his face, from the restaurant?" he asked as I pulled into the driveway with a distracted frown. I wished I had money to go somewhere other than home, but I didn't, so I idled in the parked car and he did the same, "I couldn't stand him."

"Nicer, perhaps," I started, leaning over to kiss him as he unfastened his seatbelt. I knew what was on his mind, so I figured it'd be easier to just bring it up as a joke and hope we could laugh it off, "but cuter, I'm not so sure. My old boss was an ass, but damn does he have a nice one."

"God, I hope you're kidding," he grumbled, shivering theatrically as he stood from the car. It seems like I'd averted a crisis, so now all I had to do was focus on him and ignore work until he went to bed.

"Definitely," I said, reaching across the passenger seat and grabbing onto the back of his jacket before he could get away. He fell back into the seat and leaned back into my arms so I could kiss him again, "have I told you today that I love you?"

"You might've," he mumbled, pressing his lips to mine softly and I smiled. All the late nights and early mornings would we be worth it, just for this. Everything else, like the money, and the apartment, and the job would just be a bonus. I looked down his muzzle, kissing him again without even realizing it, "are you seeing your mother this weekend?"

"Damn it," I grumbled and he frowned slightly. I'd completely forgotten about her in all of my plans. That would mean I'd have even less time to see Brian, and more of a chance that he'd get upset. Would it be worth turning down my mother this weekend, just to keep him happy, or would he know that's why I cancelled? Sighing to myself, I wondered why I was even thinking about canceling my plans when I'd had them planned longer than I'd been fighting with Brian, "I'm supposed to be going to see her on Sunday, assuming I even have the day off. I promise I'll spend my next few days off with you, and we can eat out, and I'll finally be able pay this time."

"Sounds good," he said with a smile before pulling himself out of the car, closing the door behind him. I could hear the edge in his voice even if he was trying his best to hide it. At least I wasn't the only one working on fixing our problems; he was trying to avoid arguing, too. After closing my eyes and pressing my skull into the headrest, I got out of the car and jogged after him, "so, since you have a new boss, does that mean I can visit you at work?"

"That might be pushing it a little," I said gently, unlocking the door for him, watching him frown as he flipped through the mail. I didn't really want him showing up at work, especially if Derrick was around. I felt bad saying it, but I didn't want to risk arguing with him again, and, on top of that, I didn't want to risk him finding out that I was pretending to be single while at work.

"Figured," he mumbled apathetically, distractedly sorting the mail by order of importance as he walked up the stairs, "it's all right for guys to slobber all over a girl in public, but if a guy so much as looks at another guy, it's the end of the world."

"It's not that," I said, squeezing by him as he scowled at the bills which went straight to the front of the pile. I couldn't help but feel that the few minutes of heat I'd used the night before was going to be more than we could afford, even if they thought was absurd, "it's not the slobbering in public that I mind. It's the slobbering at work that I mind."

"I know, I know," he muttered as he dropped the bills on the table and flopped onto the couch. I walked into the kitchen so I could start something for dinner, "need to keep that manly look. Girls love it. Too bad they don't know they have no chance."

I was sure I was just imagining it, but as I looked through the things in the freezer, I could have sworn that by the way he was emphasizing his words, he thought the guys had more change than the girls did. He hadn't said that no one had a chance, just the girls. I had the feeling that Brian had said it because he wanted to test me and see if I'd argue, so I just ignored it.

Opening a box of cheese pizza, I threw it in the oven, not even bothering to pre-heat it. As I stood up straight, I felt Brian's arms wrap around my waist and his head rest on my shoulder, swinging my hips along with his in a calming motion. He kissed the side of my muzzle and I reached up to scratch the top of his head, feeling the heat from the oven wash across my waist before it shut completely.

"I'm sorry I'm such a meanie head," he said, his warm breath wafting by my ear. Placing my hands on the edge of the counter, I felt him lay his head in the large of my back as he tightened his grip.

"Meanie head?" I asked with a smile and he nuzzled into my back, humming his response, "have you been talking to Jack?"

"Isn't Jack the stuffed animal?" he wondered aloud, sneaking his hands into my shirt so he could rub the fur on my stomach almost forebodingly, "you haven't given him back yet?"

"I haven't gotten a call and I don't know her father's number," I said, watching the time tick slowly away on the stove clock, feeling his hands moving down a little lower, "so he's just sitting on the bed, keeping me company when you're not around."

"Do you have to keep him on the bed? You don't know where he's been. Can I bring him somewhere else?" he asked, but I tried my best to shrug it off. I didn't know where he expected it to have been, since it was a little girls toy, and I didn't know how I could tell him that, if that if it wasn't for that little girl, we'd probably still be broken up.

It truly bothered me that everyone was so far from selflessness that they couldn't even see it when it was thrust in their faces. Everyone saw the negative side to a situation and tried to just lived in that. But, I guess I couldn't really be that great of a judge, before I'd met Meghan, all I'd done was complain about how difficult my life was and how much I didn't want to do the things I had to. I still complained a lot, but at least things were beginning to feel a little different.

I didn't know if it was all her doing, or me getting a little wiser, or both, but now I'd come to accept that all the things worth having were worth working for. I could even see that Brian had caught on and was trying to learn the same thing.

Everyone just cared about the item or the stuffed animal, they didn't even seem to acknowledge what she'd done, and how her small, little, seemingly inane act could change the world, one person at a time. All Jack ever was going to be was an item, and he was nothing more than the act or emotion he symbolized.

"Yea, that's fine," I mumbled and he rubbed my stomach, almost as an apology. He turned me around, pulling himself close to my chest with a frown as I looked down at him, "I'll just leave it in the living room or something."

"I'm doing it again, aren't I?" he sighed and I grinned wanly, holding him tightly as he tried to hide in my chest. Even the most stubborn and thick-headed people could admit that they needed to change, it was usually just the actual changing that was hard, "I'm having a hard time letting you show me that you love me because I don't even know how I can show you. Especially because you probably do think I'm a meanie head."

"When I see you, I want to hug you more than I want to strangle you," I said, hearing the time tick away slowly and leaving us further stranded in the night. I wanted to try to explain exactly what it was I felt when I met Meghan, and I wanted to say exactly how much she made me realize that I'd love him no matter what, but I guess that some feelings you just couldn't put into words, "so I think that means I love you. And, if you feel the same, I guess we can just go back to being fools in love. I don't really need any other qualifications. Well, there are other things I like to do, but I guess I don't really need them."

"You're such a goober," he chuckled, kissing me as the stove went off. Pulling out the pizza, I took two slices for him and three for myself before I sat on the couch beside him, watching him flip through the bills again as he ate, even though we already knew what each one of them was.

His lips would sink even lower the more he opened, so I just pulled him closer and told him we could worry about it in the morning because he deserved the night off. Resting his head in my lap, he lazed his legs over the arm of the couch and we just talked for what only felt like seconds, but by the time I looked out the window, the moon was high in the sky.

He talked about my old boss and how much of a jerk he was, or asked me about the bar and what my new boss was like, but not once did he say anything condescending or hint towards me cheating on him. It felt just like the dinner we'd had, except there was no wine, or candles, or fancy tables, just us in our natural element. We didn't even have to try to look good for each other; everything just seemed to fit.

By the time he went to bed, I followed him into the room to give him one last kiss before changing into my pajamas and bringing Jack with me back into the living room. He made me promise that I wouldn't stay up all night, but as I rest Jack to my side and the binder fell open, I already knew I'd be breaking my promise.

I'd set my phone to go off right before Brian woke up, because I didn't want to have to cram into the bed again, so I could just play it off as waking up before him. He knew that he was a heavy sleeper, so it wouldn't be too hard to pull off.

Wishing I'd closed the bedroom door, I sat there mumbling to myself and Jack, trying to find some way to remember exactly how the infamous Long Island Iced Tea was made. As I read through the list of ingredients, I'd try to mentally pictures where Derrick had said the things were on the shelves.

Somewhere around one in the morning I must have fallen asleep, because when my alarm woke me up and all I could see was laminated pages, the last thing I remembered was the clock telling me it was way past my bedtime. I tried wake Brian up with a kiss on the forehead, but it didn't work, so I was forced to resort to flicking his nose.

I dropped him off at work, and even though I knew I probably should've gone back home and got some rest, I instead took the binder with me to the coffee shop, only to be greeted by the same cynical fox. As I pored over the book again, I couldn't stop myself from wishing I had Jack with me, even if I'd look like a freak with a stuffed animal sitting with me in public. He was almost like my motivation, because this indescribable feeling of hope overtook me when I saw him, and the more I thought about it, the more I worried about my sanity.

Around lunch when I went with Brian to grab something cheap to eat, I knew it was a mistake to skip that nap, because I could feel myself being run into the ground. But, after we ate, I went right back to studying and feeding my headache as I tried to cram more into. I'd tried to memorize more in the last two days than I had in my entire senior year at high school.

I wasn't exactly sure when, but I felt someone nudge my shoulder and looked around, realizing it was the fox waking me up because he said I should go home if I wanted to sleep. Looking at the time, I swore to myself and tore out of the coffee shop, running to the car as I swore to myself. Even though I was ten minutes late when I got there, he didn't really seem to mind.

Making sure the book was out of sight, we drove back to the apartment and he made an early dinner. It wasn't that I didn't want him knowing that I was studying, because I'm sure he already knew, it was that I didn't want him to know just how much I was stressing myself out over it. If he found out that I'd gotten about four hours of sleep for the last few days and that I fell asleep at the coffee shop, he'd start to get bothered by it, so I'd have to deal with his worry and his panic. He was better off not knowing.

When I rushed to work and pulled into the parking lot, it seemed to be a slow night so I walked into the back with the book and Derrick greeted me, a lot brighter than I'd ever seen him. He was talking animatedly to the two guys that sat at the counter, laughing exuberantly, all traces of his standoffishness having long since disappeared.

About an hour after I got there, things started to get out of hand. Derrick told me that it was probably one of the busiest days he'd seen this year, and he wasn't sure why, but he figured it must have been something to do with the impending storm. We were right off the highway on the way to the big city, so it was likely that people were staying here until the threat passed and they could return to their holiday vacations. I could honestly say that I never thought there could be so many people in this town, let alone this one building.

The entire night passed by in a blur of glassware, cigarette smoke and booze-soaked feet as the drinks splashed onto the floor; occasionally I even saw a face in the mix. Derrick made most of the drinks and I tried to best to keep up, paying attention to the way he worked, and the way he eyed the measurements of different liquids effortlessly. I tried to keep as much of the glassware clean as I could while keeping everything stocked, and even as my body began to get bogged down, I felt my brain thriving in the loud chatter. My attention was being pulled around like I was on a marionette.

Derrick seemed to turn into a completely different person when he was working the bar and serving drinks. He was clapping my back, and nudging my shoulder, and pulling me into conversations left and right, all the while maintaining a perfect focus on what it was he was doing. He was acting like we were old pals, and the longer he did it, the easier it was for me to fall into it.

Everyone just seemed to feed off the energy he was giving out, and I'd throw in a joke here or there. Whoever he was serving would laugh along with us, like we'd all met in college years ago, and we were just being reunited. It was infectious the way he smiled, the way his lips stretched and made his eyes light up jovially. Half way through the night, just as everything was reaching its peak, it was like we'd known each other for an eternity because he was already finishing my sentences.

I'd finally gained enough courage to start taking some of the more challenging drinks, and he seemed rather happy that I was acclimating so quickly. I didn't know why, but I loved the way most of the people looked at me, even the girls, because even as I saw a shimmer of indignation, I could tell that they were more than a little envious of all the attention we were getting. Every time I got a tip handed to me, it felt so much better than getting it as an afterthought at a restaurant.

When Derrick got a tip, he'd thank the girls sweetly, sometimes with a little wink, or a strong smile, and he'd thank the guys brotherly, sometimes with a mischievous smile as they told him who the second drink was going to. I could even see the way his eyes occasionally flicked over to the same guys, making sure they were behaving.

He was the perfect chameleon, and it was actually rather beautiful to see the way he could seamlessly shift. I didn't even know which parts were real, and which parts were fake, or if all of it was a different part of him. As everything started to slow down, he still had an unnatural amount of energy and I was beginning to wonder if he was purposely trying to put a show on for me.

As he was closing the doors and everything was unnervingly silent, he told me that I picked it up a lot faster than he'd thought I would. He told me that he was rather impressed, and when I commented on him being so energetic, he just laughed and told me how it was tiring to be that perky all day. It was a skill he'd built, he explained, that let him read subtle cues that everyone gave. Sometimes they liked flirtatious, and sometimes they liked serious.

We chatted a little about nothing in particular, and by the time he divvied up the tips, giving me an extra five percent for the assistance, I was falling asleep at the counter. As I was walking out the door with him, he patted the middle of my back and told me that I had the same hours for the next week, but I had Sunday and Tuesday off.

Getting into the car, I looked out past my windshield and saw that even though the sky was crowded with clouds, not a single snowflake seemed to have fallen. Passing by the motel, I saw it was packed and I was rather happy I hadn't decided to get into an argument with Brian tonight, because I'd never be able to find him in the mass of stained steel and glass.

Collapsing on the couch the moment I got home, my face got lost in the coarse fabric of the cushion and Jack got lost somewhere underneath my stomach. I still smelled of alcohol, and smoke, and I felt disgusting, but I was too tired to move as Derrick's auric energy faded away. Before I knew it, two days had passed in the exact same way.

Living on four hours of sleep and gallons of coffee was not nearly as easy as I'd thought it'd be. After the first day of it, I would always wake up with an inability to move and an inability to tell up from down. After a few groggy minutes, I'd try to get up, but I'd instead fall off the edge of the couch and lay there a few more groggy minutes.

By the time Sunday morning came and I woke up to Brain sitting on the couch, his back pressed against my side as he rubbed my arm, I knew that he'd probably figured out something was going on. With half lidded eyes, I looked at him, wincing at the overhead lights scornfully. The clock said it was a little before noon, and my eyes shot open as I tried to sit up; I was supposed to meet my mother for lunch at twelve and she was over half an hour away.

"Morning, sleeping beauty," he said as I rubbed my eyes and tried to stand, my legs a little weak beneath me, "I'm used to you being up before me, are you feeling okay?"

"Yea, I'm fine," I mumbled, looking at the traveler's mug full of coffee that Brian had made me, "just overslept, so I'm still feeling a little tired."

"I think you overslept because you're still tired," he said as I scrambled into the bedroom, looking for something clean to throw on. I'd need to do laundry when I got home tonight, so I'd have something to wear to work. Even on my day off I'd be getting to bed at one in the morning, because I still had to pay the bills since I promised Brian I'd do them, "slow down for a second, Kurt, you look like you're about to pass out. If you're not feeling good, why not call to reschedule with your mother to next week?"

"I can't," I muttered, stripping down so I could force myself into my clothes. In my periphery, I could see Brian leaning against the doorframe, looking at me with concern, but I pretended to not noticed, "she has to go... somewhere next week, I can't remember where. She'll be out of town for a week. Some conference or something."

"Do you at least want me to drive you, so you can nap on the way?" he asked while I buttoned up my shirt, feeling my back and neck strain painfully from sleeping on the couch. I turned to look at Brian softly, feeling my eyes sting from exhaustion but I forced myself to smile and kiss him.

"I'm fine, Brian," I said, walking into the living so I could grab the coffee and my jacket. Brian just turned around and stood in the open door sadly, "you stay home and enjoy the day off."

"Do you at least want me to get us a bigger mattress?" he questioned, barely above a whisper as he walked up to me and held me around the waist. He looked at me with his deeply emotional eyes that he knew made it impossible for me to say no, "I can use the money I was saving to visit my parents."

"Don't do that," I muttered, looking at the clock when I was sure he wasn't looking at me. It was a few minutes past noon and I was dreading the call from my mother, asking why I was always late, "you haven't seen them in over a year."

"I doubt they want to see me, anyway," he said with a smile, pressing his forehead against mine, making me wish I didn't have to leave. I just knew my mother would keep calling every ten minutes until I eventually picked up the phone, "I can call Bill from work. He has a flatbed and he could help me get it up the stairs. Who knows, if you're feeling up to it, maybe we could break it in tonight."

"I love you and your manipulative salesman talent," I chuckled, kissing him before he pulled away and I opened the door, "see you tonight."

"Don't worry about laundry or the bills, I'll take care of them," he said as I started down the stairs. Just as my day was getting a little easier, I got my first call from my mother, and she was insistent in reminding me that I was exactly twelve minutes late. Getting into the car and backing out of the driveway, I told her that I was just leaving the house now because I overslept.

After about five minutes of her complaining about my work ethic in ways that only mothers could, she finally hung up and I cruised along the highway, thinking more about Brian and work than I probably should have. At least one of them kept me awake and anxiously excited.

My mother had moved away from the dinky little town that Brian and I still lived in about as soon as we finished unpacking into our own apartment. She found a general hospital with an open position, so she was gone before she'd even had a chance to congratulate me on my new apartment.

So now it just came down to visiting her whenever we were both free, which usually ending up being Sunday. Even though Brian didn't really like it, I still went because she was my mother. I didn't know the real reason why he didn't like me visiting her, but I figured that it was either because he couldn't see his own parents, or because he knew the way she'd treated me my whole life.

After about three more calls asking me why I was still so late and having to explain that I loved her, but I'd rather not get into an accident and go sailing through the windshield, I got to the restaurant and parked near her car. I found her tucked into the same corner that she always sat, overlooking a vast sea of snow. After moving here, she was probably still looking for those breathtaking images that she'd been promised in the catalog, or perhaps she liked the boring sterility of it all.

"You know, Kurt," she started the moment I sat down. I folded my hands on the table studying the same white landscape that she was because I knew she'd avoid meeting my eyes as long as she could, "I managed to go to med school and keep a part time job, yet I was still never late for anything."

"Sorry, I had a rough night and overslept," I said as she finally sighed and looked at me, judging me just like she always did. I realized that it was sometimes pointless to try and make people change, because sometimes you just got so used to the craziness they emanated.

She'd been the same my whole life; tense, brash and more than a little narcissistic. She hadn't even tried to change after I'd left and inevitably went back home. I wanted to remind her what she'd left behind in her journey to self betterment, but I didn't. She's one of the few people that I learned it was never worth fighting with. She was the only person I knew in the world who was more stubborn than I was.

"I suppose it wouldn't be as bad if you actually returned any of my calls," she said, leaning forward to cross her arms on the edge of the table. With her perfectly tailored pinstripe suit and calculating stare, she looked more like a lawyer than a doctor, which now made me wonder if she was like Derrick, and changed who she was on the job. If she could be civil with them, why was I any different?

"I told you on the phone," I said, after my mother ordered her second drink and I got my first, "things have been rather hectic lately. Been having a hard enough time keeping up with myself."

"You're a waiter," she said with half a frown and I averted my eyes for a second, pressing my muzzle into my fist, "you can't really be working that much. I'm probably on call more hours a week than you actually work."

"I've been having problems with Brian lately," I started with a sigh, still not wanting to look into her cutting stare. A few years in school had entitled her to all the knowledge in the world, and now she liked to remind everyone that they knew nothing compared to her. She'd been doing it for so long that words weren't even necessary. All she needed was a perfectly timed look, "one second we're together, the next we're not. I lost my job, so that's not really helping much, either."

"You lost your job?" she muttered, turning her cold stare to me in slow motion, obviously disappointed that I didn't have her work ethic, "what did you do this time?"

"I got into an argument with Brian during my break," I replied, too tired and too frustrated with her accusing stare to think of a good lie. When she rolled her eyes at me, I decided to just tell her what she wanted to hear so we could move on, "my boss had been looking for a reason to fire me since he found out about Brian, and this was the first time I slipped up."

"Kurt, when are you going to understand that your job is more important than dating?" she asked, pausing as her salad and my spaghetti arrived at the table, "when he leaves you, and you have no job, what're you going to do then?"

"Mom, we've been together for four years," I stated matter-of-factly, poking at my food inconspicuously, having lost my appetite, "it's more than just dating, and he's not just going to get up and leave."

I felt an odd twinge of anxiety at my own words, but I hid it. We had fixed things for the most part now, but he had almost gotten up and gone back home, even if it would've only been for a little while. I hoped were too entwined to just break apart. Blinking slowly, I forced the thought out of my head because I wasn't going to let my mother get into my head and mess things up like she always did.

"If you're not together, where's he staying?" she asked, drinking her water slowly to let her words sink in, "you don't really expect him to stay there forever, do you?"

"He's staying at our apartment right now, because we worked everything out," I said, already knowing it wouldn't be that easy to get her to accept that I knew how to work in a relationship. Just because she'd never been able to keep one, or even look for one, she figured no one knew how to, "he was at a hotel before, but that's not really an issue anymore."

"I take it that you want to ask me for money?" she stated blatantly, making me wish I'd taken Brian's advice and stayed at home. But, that's how this always happened. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt, then she'd deflate my ego until there was nothing left, and she'd finally pay the bill so she could leave me without any remnants of self-esteem.

"No," I mumbled, masking my annoyance as I talked with my mouth full, which I knew she hated. She looked at me intently, knowing I was only doing it to try to frustrate her, "I've been getting four hour of sleep a night because I've been studying for my new job."

"What kind of job?" she asked, and I buried my face in my hands, feeling her eyes burn me more than Brian's could. I knew that if I told her, I'd have to put up with a disappointed stare, even though mother's were supposed to support you regardless of what you did.

"A bartender," I grunted, not even bothering to look up at her. I'd seen the stare so many times that I could picture it perfectly well in my minds eye; it was the stare where she wondered how she could have had a child who didn't want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an astrophysicist, but one that just wanted to be happy, even if it meant serving booze for the rest of his life.

"And what about Brian?" she asked, shifting the focus because she knew there was nothing else she could say. She wanted to keep me here as long as she could, so she could watch me squirm and hopefully realize that love and happiness were a fantasy, and that were was only limitless perseverance and hard labor.

"We're living together again," I grumbled, not wanting to say that all my problems could be brought back to her deciding she wanted to move here, even when she knew we didn't have a way to survive on our own. I guess I'd gotten past the point in my life where I could blame my problems on my mother, but I wasn't ready to accept that it actually was my fault, "everything is perfectly fine again."

"I'd be weary, Kurt," she said, picking at the bottom of her salad as I drank my soda, feeling that my stomach had shrunken so much I couldn't fit food into it, "it's impossible to know people have changed. Your father said that for the first month, and look how well you know him now."

"Yea, but that's different; I know I've changed, and I'm confident that he has, too," I sighed, just pushing my plate away agitatedly. She didn't really understand how it was possible to trust that someone wouldn't hurt you and stab you in the back given the right opportunity. Even though I'd done it before, I was going to try to be a better person now, for Brian and for myself.

"And just how do you know that?" she wondered aloud, and I fought the urge to just walk away, even if I knew it'd feel like defeat. There was no way I'd be able to explain to her that something other than school had helped me learn a lesson in strength, and I'd have an even harder time explaining that I understood love a little better now.

"A little girl gave me a stuffed animal, and I thought it was cute at first, but it really got me thinking about things," I said under my breath, but I knew she heard me quite well, "and I patched up things with Brian by trying to be a better person."

"A little girl gave you a stuffed animal and you actually took it?" she chuckled and my face heated up with a mixture of embarrassment and outright anger, "did you at least try to give it back?"

"She told me to keep it, so I did. I gave her father my number in case she wanted it back, but she hasn't called yet, so I'm keeping it."

"You should get rid of it, or at least put it away somewhere. You don't know how dirty it is, or where it's been, or what kind of germs are on it. It's just a stuffed animal, if you want one that bad, just go buy another one."

"Brian said the same thing," I spat back, my toes curling up under the table as I stared at the table cloth, wishing it'd ignite into flame so I'd have a reason to leave.

"You should listen to him more often then, because he's right," she said importantly, stirring the straw in her water pompously, like she knew she was right and didn't even have to worry about any kind of legitimate debate, "I'm a doctor, I would know."

"You know, mom," I spat angrily, giving up on any pretense of calm, "most people are given stuffed animals because they want it to mean something, and they want to make the person they're giving it to feel better. You just gave them to me because you didn't want me to hate you for never being there. So, yea, it's just a stupid stuffed animal, and it can't take the place of someone else like you'd hoped it would, but at least it was more comforting than you. Did you even think for a second that maybe I wanted you to be my mother and not my devil's advocate?"

The air was tense as we stared at each other, my lips twitching angrily while her's only pursed almost unnoticeably. She was used to dealing with all the obstacles that life threw at her, and was used to always taking things in stride, acting like nothing ever hurt her. After all, she was who I learned it from.

"I hate to cut it short, but some people actually like to keep schedules so they can keep their lives in order. I'll pay the bill and be on my way."

She walked up to our waiter and talked to him shortly before disappearing around the corner. I just fell even further into my hands, clutching at the fur beside my ears, resisting the urge to tear it out in chunks and go around the room, upturning tables or rip down chandeliers. All these years had passed and she couldn't even feel slightly bad about how everything had come before me.

Now I knew how it was that Brian felt when it seemed that everything came before him, and all his worries, and all his fears only fell onto my back as I turned to walk away.