West [ COMPLETED ]

XXII

" What kind of job?"

"I don't care, anything. Can I work with you?"

"Heck no. Girls don't do construction."

I walked around the back of the chair and faced him. "I could. I used to help dad all the time."

"Okay what's the difference between cutting a board and ripping a board?" He shot at me.

"Cutting is like, cutting it in half with a chop saw and ripping it would be down the middle with a table saw. Usually." I answered, unduanted.

"Hmph."

I started to smile.

" I can paint too. Dad said I was one of the best painters he's ever had."

"Yeah yeah...I don't know maybe...I'll think about it," he said, waving me away. " Now move I'm watching something."

I grinned and flopped down onto the couch next to him.

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

A week later I was riding shotgun in his truck, on the way to work with him.

He told me to find the ugliest clothes I owned and don't talk to anyone on the job site and I could come.

I eagerly complied and changed into a baggy pair of jeans and and an oversized t shirt, and pulled my hair back into a secure ponytail.

It was getting really long, down near my hips, but I didn't want to cut it. I either wanted it really short or really long, and currently I was going for a personal record so I wasn't ready to cut it yet.

" Now the only way I'm going to be able to bring you on this job site is if you actually pretend like you know what you're doing. If you have questions, don't ask anybody but me. "

"Okay," I nodded.

"Mostly you're going to help me out, but if you show yourself competent, I might give you projects of your own."

"Got it."

"Good. And remember, every guy on this job is a filthy creep, except for Ed, he's chill, but as for the rest of them, ignore em."

"Ten four."

He rolled his eyes.

We drove into the nearest big town and wove our way through the suburbs until we made it to a row of upscale, three story homes, and parked in front of one with several other vehicles lining the street.

I got out of the truck and followed Scott around the back to his trailer, and stood next to the door while he loaded me up like a pack horse.

I had two nail guns and a box of nails, a tape measure, and two extension cords draped over my body.

"Follow me," Scott said, tucking a pencil around his ear and starting up the sidewalk, carrying nothing but a level.

I rolled my eyes and stumbled after him.

We went around through the back and climbed several flights of stairs, bypassing a clear elevator that went up through the spiral in the staircase.

"Dude... These people are more rich than our cousins even," I breathed.

Scott snorted. " Our cousins pretend to be rich Avery... It's called living above your means."

I dropped the extension cords when we finally stopped inside a gorgeous bathroom and I observed that this was the construction site.

"Really now. They seem plenty rich to me," I shrugged.

"Ah, I'll tell you about it sometime, right now, I need you to go get some new ram board and tape it down, all the way down the hallway."

I nodded and went back downstairs, back to the trailer, and hefted two rolls of ramboard onto my shoulders and headed back upstairs.

I was trotting up the stairs when someone turning the corner slammed into me, causing me to stumble backwards, trying to stabilize my load.

"Oh I'm sorry little lady, didn't see you there, let me help you!" A man profusely apologized.

"It's fine, I got it, thanks," I said, sidestepping him and moving up the next flight.

"If you say so..." He said, trailing off.

Creeps, I reminded myself. They were all creeps.

He looked like one for sure.

For the next several months I rode with Scott to work most of the days of the week, doing the small, monotonous jobs allotted to me, and hardly caring, other than that I was making money, because my goal was to make enough to help my dad get out of debt. I knew I wasn't going to make it in construction, but I could use what I made eventually to do something else. That's what I was hoping.

The days dragged on, punctuated by an occasional call from my dad, but the thing I always hoped for, the notification I always subconsciously looked for, never showed up. I eventually stopped looking, and deleted all my social media accounts so I would stop going to look at his page over and over. It only hurt, to see him so close but my pride not allowing me to reach out to him.

Anyone who actually cared about me had my number, they could text me.

I hated construction, however, my brother paid me well, and I became rather good at painting and some other things; one week Scott paid me to stay home and chip up all the old tile in his house with a chipping hammer and re-grout and tile the whole thing. It was fun in a way, measuring and fitting the tiles, getting covered in grout and not having to care. I was proud of that floor.

After a year I convinced myself I wasn't in love with Weston anymore. I barely thought about him, however if this was a result of constantly forcing myself to give up thinking about him or a natural thing I avoided considering.

I began to smile again, and one day, as I was getting undressed after a long days work, I paused and looked at the silver dog tags that lay between my breasts, the tags that seemed to be the last little tie I had to Weston; I looked at those tags that always caused a little heart clench, and I took them off, shutting them in a  box full of miscellaneous little treasures I'd kept since I was a kid, and shut the drawer.

Now he could become a memory, and nothing more. A bittersweet symbol of things better let go. I had told him I would get over him, maybe he had taken me at my word. I wished he wouldn't have.

I didnt know what to make of all that stuff Weston had said to me those last two days, whether he'd been sincere when he said it or not, but it seemed clear to me now that he wasn't coming back, and that I was probably nothing more than a passing fancy in his long line of discarded, meaningless affairs. I told myself that so I wouldn't continue to mourn for him, the way I felt when I was with him, the good memories we'd made.

I told myself that enough times that the original pure admiration and childish infatuation I'd held for Weston slowly formed into a small, bitter, painful little knot of love I held in a deep corner of my heart. I didn't touch it often, because of the pain that came with it, but I did sometimes, every so often, when I felt the need to cry, when I was overwhelmed, I'd touch those bittersweet memories and feelings I used to have for him and the tears would flow, hot and bitter.