Seven Ways We Lie(69)

I can’t help it. Something grabs me somewhere in my chest and fastens tight—warm, escalating rage—and before I know what I’m doing, I’m beside Angie’s car, and I’m snatching the cigarette out of her hand and flicking it to the asphalt and saying, “What’s your problem?”

Her startled look twists fast into anger. All of a sudden, there’s pepper spray in her hand—what the hell, did she have that prepared?—and she says, “Keep talking.”

“Like you’re gonna hurt me with a million people standing around,” I scoff, and Angie says, “Self-defense, bro—you’re seeming real aggressive,” and I say, “I’m not being aggressive; I’m telling you to shut up about my friend,” and she says, “Friend, huh?” and she gives me this stupid wink, and why does my neck feel hot with embarrassment? I’m not even gay, and it’s just a type of person, for Christ’s sake. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Before I can fulfill my heartfelt wish to give Angie the finger, some guy’s voice calls from behind me, “Hey, fag, you his boyfriend?” and his friends laugh, and for a second I’m flabbergasted, like, wow, I thought that was the sort of dumb shit people only did in movies.

My opinion about gay rights has always been that it’s none of my business. My mom raised me not to hate anyone for who they are. She said it, and they said it in church, so I learned it, and before this exact second, I sort of thought the rest of our school felt the same, because as far as I knew, nobody was getting beat up or bullied. But I guess I was wrong.

I turn toward the person who called me a fag—some zitty guy with glasses I think is on tennis—and say, “Man, someday you’re going to have a friend you don’t know is gay, and you’re going to say some shit like that around him, and he’s never going to trust you again.”

His smirk wavers for a second. He comes back with, “So . . . you are his boyfriend, is what you’re saying?” and his friends hoot with encouraging laughter. My lip curls. “So what? Better being someone’s boyfriend than being some dumb-ass homophobe.”

People mumble to one another as I look around for Lucas, but he’s already gone. I head for my car, disgusted with everyone and everything.

By the time I get home, my disgust has whittled itself down to tiredness. I hike up to the porch and yank open the door, letting a crack of afternoon light into our musty living room. The air smells like salt and boiling water, and Russell sleeps on the couch, his dark hair curling at the tips like mine used to when I was little, and I ruffle his hair before heading down the hall.

“Mateo, ven aquí,” comes my mother’s voice from the kitchen. Weird. She rarely speaks in Spanish unless she wants to hide something from Russ. Weirder is the fact that she’s in the kitchen at all. When I walk in, the lights are clouded with steam, and I dump my backpack on the faded rug, sit at the table, and say, “What’s up? Why are you—” and she says, “Wash some plates, will you? I’m cooking dinner,” like it’s obvious, like we don’t eat out of the microwave seven nights a week, and I’m like, “Uh, okay, but why—” and then I break off, because her hands are shaking, and I’m embarrassed I didn’t notice from the careful control in her expression that something’s wrong.

“?Qué pasó?” I ask, standing, and she looks up at me and says, “Nothing,” still in that light, careless voice, and I say, “Mom, seriously,” and she says, “I asked you in here to help with the cleanup,” taking on a warning tone, and I say, “But tell me what—”

She slams the wooden spoon onto the stove and says, “Mateo, do what I told you, and stop asking questions!” and in the reverberating wake of the cold, empty clang, I turn, trancelike, to clear off the table with clumsy hands, and there they are, the divorce papers, lying on top of the newspaper like any other printout. When I turn back to look at my mother, she’s half facing away, her body held slouched like a sagging tent, and I can’t do a thing but stare as she hunches over the counter. Her back gives one huge shudder. A tear drips down her baggy cheek. Her knuckles fly up to her mouth, and she bites on one hard, and then she starts shaking and trembling like water under thunder, and I think she might just dissolve.

I’m silent.

Sometimes you go a long time having fooled yourself into thinking that you’re as grown-up as you’ll ever be, or that you’re more mature than the rest of the world thinks you are, and you live in this state of constant self-assurance, and for a while nothing can upset you from this pedestal you’ve built for yourself, because you imagine yourself to be so capable. And then somebody does something that takes a golf club to your ego, and suddenly you’re nine years old again, pieced together from humiliation and gawky youthfulness and childlike ideas like, Somebody please tell me what to do, nobody taught me how to handle this, God, just look at all the things I still don’t understand, and you can’t muster up the presence of mind to do anything but stand there, stare, silent, sorry.

Or maybe this doesn’t happen to everyone. Maybe it’s only me waiting to learn all this, waiting to find a place where I’ll understand everyone and everything and how it all works and why I’m fumbling through life’s pages with too-thick fingers, and maybe it’s only me who’s stuck in this emotional paralysis because I’m so busy trying to seem grown-up and feel grown-up I haven’t done any growing up, and maybe it’s only me standing in a small, dimly lit room, watching someone I love break down in front of me and not knowing what to do or where to turn or who I’m supposed to be.