Call It What You Want(75)

Mom freezes.

Dad … well. He keeps on doing what he always does.

No one ever comes here for any good reason. I think about Maegan. Her father. The earrings. I didn’t hear sirens, but then there wouldn’t be sirens if they were coming to pick me up to take me to jail.

One of us is going to have to move. I place my napkin next to my silverware. “I’ll get it.”

Dread curls through my body as I approach the door. I remember answering the door for the paramedics after I found Dad, and while this is completely different, it’s also similar.

I throw the lock and yank the door open.

Connor stands on my doorstep. I’d be less surprised to find Santa Claus. My thoughts twist between anger at his presence and panic that he somehow figured out that I stole his mother’s earrings.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I say.

“Hi,” he says in response.

Mom must pick up on my tone or my tension, because she calls from the dining room. “Who is it, Rob?”

“No one.” I move to swing the door closed.

Connor catches it and all but growls at me. “Grow up.”

Mom appears behind me. “Connor! It’s been ages.” She pauses. “Rob? Invite him in.”

I want to refuse, but that will only make me look petulant, and Mom will get her way in the end. I step back and hold the door open. “Fine. Come in.”

“Are you hungry?” Mom says. “There’s plenty of meatloaf.”

His eyes flick to me and back to her, and he says, “Yes. Thank you.”

When he steps across the threshold I want to punch him in the gut. Or maybe I don’t. I’m not sure. He walks past me, unzipping his jacket as he goes, and hangs it in the front closet like he’s been coming for dinner every week this year.

I wait for him to be surprised by the sparse decor, the way Maegan was, but then I remember he was already in here two days ago, when he staked out my room to sucker punch me in the stomach.

Never mind. I do want to hit him.

He’s already in the dining room, though, and he pauses for a second when his eyes fall on my father, his feeding pump click-click-clicking. Mom has hurriedly prepared a plate for Connor in the kitchen, and she slides it in front of him with a smile.

He waits for her to sit before taking his own seat. It puts him directly across from me. Hooray.

“You still haven’t said what you’re doing here,” I say.

“Rob,” Mom says.

Connor takes a forkful of meatloaf. “I was driving around. I thought I’d stop by.”

I don’t believe that for a minute.

“How are your parents?” says Mom.

His eyes glance at my father, who’s still staring dumbly from the opposite end of the table. Connor is unnerved. He’s doing a good job of hiding it, but I can tell. “They’re—they’re great. Dad’s business has really taken off.”

Mom doesn’t say anything to that. Her hand tightens on her fork, and now she’s the one to stab at a piece of meatloaf. Connor’s father got a lot of my father’s clients when everything collapsed. Mr. Tunstall was apparently a real hero to people who still had money left.

“Sorry,” says Connor. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No!” Mom’s voice is full of false cheer. “It’s wonderful. I’m glad your family is still doing well.” She takes a gulp of wine from her glass. “Marjorie hadn’t mentioned that.”

“She probably didn’t want to be insensitive,” I say.

“No,” Mom says. “It’s—” Her cell phone rings from the kitchen, the happy chimes a direct contrast to the bizarre tension in this room.

She stands. “I’ll be right back, boys.”

We’re left alone. Connor eats, his fork scraping against the plate in a way that probably isn’t very loud but sounds like a circular saw in the quiet of the dining room. He hasn’t met my eyes since I opened the front door.

He can’t be here about the earrings. He would have said something by now.

All of a sudden, I’m tired. I don’t want to be at war with Connor. I don’t want to be hiding things from my mother. I don’t want to have cried on Mr. London’s desk, talking about how much I miss my father. I don’t want any of this.

“Hey,” he says.

I refuse to look up.

“Rob.”

“What?”

“I just …” He hesitates. “I’m sorry.”

I have no idea what he’s referring to, but the list of what he could apologize for is long and winding and he’s full of shit anyway. “No, you’re not.”

He frowns. “What do you even think I’m talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter.” My voice is full of acid, but I keep the volume down because I don’t want to start arguing and trigger something with Dad. “You’re not sorry. What do you want? Do you feel bad all of a sudden? What was the little show on the quad? You want a cookie?”

He doesn’t say anything.

I look back at my food. Jab my fork into my mashed potatoes. The worst part about this conversation is that a tiny scrap of my consciousness wishes his apology were real. Like we could snap our fingers and go back to the way things were.