“I guess I'm glad you told her. Though I'm not sure if that is going to make anything better or worse. She might stalk me down to give me another talk.” He tried to say it lightly, but there were too many things weighing him down for him to think anything was very funny at the moment. Though he was glad that Jo was in on their farce, that at least wouldn’t raise more eyebrows if she happened in to the bar and saw the two of them acting.
Or heard Harry say something.
Or witnessed a moment again.
And he was angry about his feelings. The inexplicable jealousy he’d felt twice now.
He stood up from the couch, feeling like he couldn’t be sitting anymore with her standing, and moved around the room.
“That’s not the only thing, though, Mary. If that was all that was hanging over my head, maybe I would be able to handle it better.”
Johnny held up his hand to stop her from speaking, he knew her well enough by now to know that she wasn’t going to let it rest. He was going to explain, fill her in. He just needed a moment to figure out how to put it.
“There’s a lot of shit that we’re all dealing with. I know that. I’m not the only one who has things to figure out, or the only one who isn’t exactly comfortable. You, Jo, everybody who was in that room has to deal with the idea of never ageing, never changing. Maybe a couple in there already know what that feels like, but the rest of you just got hit with the same fucked up scenario I did, kind of.”
He waved his lifted hand, not dismissively, but to convey silently that he knew that she knew what he meant.
“And there’s more, of course. Everybody has their own shit.”