Page 157 - In Five Years

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“She doesn’t mean it,” Aaron says. We’re sitting at a diner on Lexington, some
late-night one named Big Daddy’s or Daddy Dan’s or something like that. The
kind of place that can’t afford to be downtown. I’m on my second cup of strong

and bitter black coffee. I don’t deserve creamer.
“She does,” I say. We’ve been going through this script for the last twenty
minutes, since Aaron ran up to the hospital’s double doors to find me crouching

outside. “She always felt this way. She just never said it.”
“She’s scared.”
“She was so angry with me. I’ve never even seen her like that before. Like

she wanted to kill me.”
“She’s the one going through it,” he says. “Right now, she has to think that
she’s capable of anything, even alcohol.”

I ignore his attempt at levity.
“She is,” I say. I bite my lip. I don’t want to cry anymore. Not in front of him.

It’s too vulnerable, too close, too near. “I just can’t believe her parents are
behaving this way. You don’t know what they’re like—”
Aaron removes an invisible eyelash from his face.
“You don’t know,” I repeat.

“Maybe not,” Aaron says. “They seem to care. That’s good, right?”
“They’ll leave,” I say. “They always do. When she really needs them, they’ll

be gone.”
“But Dannie,” Aaron says. He sits forward. I can feel the air molecules
around us stiffen. “They’re here now. And she really needs them. Isn’t that what
matters?”