Call It What You Want(12)
I couldn’t leave him there like that. I cleaned him up the best I could.
It was my seventeenth birthday.
Now, I’m used to it.
I sigh. “I’ll get the stuff,” I say.
In a weird way, homework is a relief. My bedroom windows are dark and cold, reflecting my studious self bent over a physics textbook. Dad’s in bed, his clothes are in the laundry, and Mom is downstairs falling asleep in front of the television. The house is silent.
Too silent.
I’m jittery, thinking about what I’ve agreed to do for my mother. When I went to the art therapist, I remember telling her about finding my father, and she kind of paled and said, “Wow. I’m not really sure what to say.”
If a professional doesn’t know what to say, I sure don’t.
I haven’t talked to anyone else about it. Everyone knows I found him. They don’t need the details. I’m perfectly content to keep those locked up in a corner of my brain, collecting dust.
Except … those memories aren’t content to stay locked up. They come out when it’s quiet. When I’m stressed. When I’m lonely.
Like right now.
Do you ever see Connor anymore?
I keep thinking about the ten dollars in the cafeteria. The expression on his face when I tried to give it back. How, for one flickering moment, he thought I was going to hurt him.
I dragged your ass a mile through the woods, I want to say to him. You couldn’t pick up the phone when my dad almost died?
My phone is sitting on the desk beside me. Dark and silent, much like the house.
The only person who ever texts me is my mother. And she’s downstairs.
I wonder what Connor would do if I texted him.
I don’t even know what I’d say.
I don’t know what he’d say.
Knowing him, it would be a smartass response.
Or more likely, no response at all.
I can’t focus on this homework. My brain is spinning out like a top gone wild. I don’t want to talk to anyone, yet I’m also desperate for someone to talk to. But who wants to hear about a wild evening spent changing your father’s overflowing diaper? No one.
I shove my physics book into my backpack. I’ll be up at the crack of dawn anyway, so I can do it then. I yank free An Ember in the Ashes, my latest fantasy read.
A piece of notebook paper was stuck to the book, and it flutters to the ground. I snatch it off the carpeting.
Maegan Day’s phone number.
Without thought, I type her number into my phone.
ROB: Did you ask Mrs. Quick for a new partner?
Her response appears almost immediately.
MAEGAN: Who is this?
ROB: Are you trying to avoid multiple partners? Who do you think?
No answer comes back.
Maybe I was kind of a jerk. I’m not exactly swimming in remorse about it.
Okay, maybe I am. A little.
ROB: It’s Rob
MAEGAN: The attitude gave it away
ROB: So did you ask for a new partner or not?
MAEGAN: Not
ROB: OK
Nothing. Though I haven’t given her much to respond to.
I don’t really know why I texted her. No, I do. Desperation. The need to send words into the world and get a response.
But I don’t know her. It’s not like I can spark a conversation. We’re from opposite ends of a spectrum. Or we used to be. I skidded straight off the end of the spectrum last spring, and I’ve spent the last eight months drifting.
But she’s the only other person in my message list.
MAEGAN
MOM
Before, it was just Mom.
This is so depressing.
ROB: When do you want to meet?
MAEGAN: Anytime
ROB: Wegmans in 30?
MAEGAN: 30 minutes? It’s after 10
ROB: They’re open til midnight
She says nothing.
I wait. And wait.
ROB: You said anytime. Sorry. So when do you want to meet?
Nothing. I sigh and pick up my book.
We’ll get through this.
Mom means well, but I feel like we’ve been trapped here for all eternity. Through implies an ending point. Dad won’t get better. He won’t die either, not for a while anyway.
She should have said, “We’ll survive this.”
That’s not a relief, either. Is survival the best we can hope for? Isn’t that what Dad’s doing? Maybe he’s the lucky one in this scenario. He barely knows what’s going on.
Lucky. I consider the mess I helped my mother clean up after dinner. And to think he wanted to put a gun to his head before.
But at least he doesn’t know. Only we do.
Without warning, my chest tightens. My eyes burn.
Hell, no. I am not crying over this. And why? Because some girl I don’t care about didn’t want to meet at Wegmans to measure drop distances? I’m so pathetic.
I sniff it back. Clear my throat.
My phone chimes.
MAEGAN: I need time to get dressed. See you at 11.
CHAPTER TEN
Maegan
Mom is asleep, but Dad is up, watching SportsCenter. There’s only one thing that would get my father to let me borrow Mom’s car at eleven at night without too many questions: tampons. Even still, he says, “Can’t you borrow some from your sister?”