Today Tonight Tomorrow(44)

“Neil,” I say quietly, but he’s not finished.

“I was old enough to understand what was happening, lucky me, but Natalie wasn’t. All she knew was that our dad was gone,” he says. “Kids in middle school found out, and it was horrible. The jokes, the insults, people trying to pick fights with me. To see if I’d lash out like he did. Most days, I didn’t even want to go to school. We couldn’t afford private school, and because of zoning, I couldn’t switch schools, so I came up with my own plan. I distracted everyone by doing the opposite of what I wanted to do, which was disappear. I threw myself into school, became consumed by being the best. If I could have that label, I figured, then I could shake the ‘dad in prison’ label. And… it worked. If anyone at Westview even remembers, they don’t say anything about it.

“Some kids at Natalie’s school found out and were bullying her about it, so she fought back. Despite how many times I tell her that’s not okay, that we don’t want to turn into our father…”

“That’s not going to happen,” I insist. I can’t imagine that sweet girl being violent.

“So that was the family emergency you were asking about. I had to pick her up from school before Howl started.” His shoulders sag. “At least she’s having her friends over tonight. That’ll be good.”

All these years, he’s been wearing armor. His plan to hide so many pieces of himself clearly worked, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“It will. Thank you… for telling me this.” I hope I’m not saying all the wrong things. I hope he knows I’ll keep this as safe as if it were my own secret. No—safer.

“I—I haven’t told anyone in a while,” he says. “Please don’t act weird around me now. That’s why I stopped talking to people about it. Of course my friends know, and I used to talk to Sean about it all the time… but not as much anymore. Everyone would act like they wanted to ask questions but didn’t know a tactful way to go about it. So. If you have questions, go ahead and ask them.”

God, I have a million, but I manage to pick one. “Do you visit him?”

“Natalie and my mom do, but I haven’t seen him since I was sixteen. That was when my mom said I could decide for myself whether I wanted to see him, and I just… don’t. That’s why I want to change my name, too.” He continues messing with the blanket. “But it costs money, and it was a legal mess when my mom looked into it for Natalie and me. There was always something else that felt more important.

“I hate having his name sometimes. Even when he was here, we were never really close. It was clear I didn’t exactly fit his description of what a man should be. In his mind, there were ‘boy hobbies’ and there were ‘girl hobbies,’ and most of what I liked fit into the latter category. It was a crime that I wasn’t interested in sports, and if he knew I was getting emotional about this—” He breaks off, as though the weight of it all is just too heavy. He tries to take a deep breath, but all he gets is a shallow little puff.

I despise Neil’s father with every fiber of my being.

“You have every right to be emotional. About anything.”

He sits on the edge of his bed, gripping the blanket. His shoulders rise and fall with his labored breaths, and all I want is to sit down next to him, drape an arm around him, something.

“It’s okay,” I tell him in what I hope is a soothing voice. I hope that’s something I’m capable of when talking to Neil McNair. But it’s not okay. What his dad did was horrendous.

“That’s why I wanted to win so badly,” he says, voice breaking. “He—he wants to see me before I go to college, but the prison is on the other side of the state, and I’d have to stay overnight, and my mom’s already working overtime, and… I won’t be coming home that much in the next four years, and when I do, my mom and Natalie will be my priority. So… I almost feel like I need to say goodbye and close the book on that whole situation. And—and if I won the money, I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about dipping into what I’ve saved for school.”

This is what breaks my heart most of all: that he thinks he needs to use the prize money for someone who’s been so awful to him.

He’s crying. Not full-on sobs, just soft little hiccups that make the bandanna on his arm bob up and down. Neil McNair is crying.

And that’s what does it. The bed creaks as I sit down next to him, a good several inches of space between us. Still, I can feel the heat from his body.

Slowly, I lift one hand and place it on his shoulder, waiting for his reaction. It’s an odd boundary to cross. I’m even more aware of his breaths, their erratic rhythm. But then he relaxes into my touch, as though it feels good, and it’s such a huge relief that I haven’t misstepped, that I’ve reacted to this like a friend would. So I run my palm back and forth across the fabric of his T-shirt, his skin warm underneath. Then it’s not just my palm, but my fingertips, too, my thumb tracing circles on his shoulder. A hug would have been too much, too out of character, but this—this, I can do.

The entire time, I’m radically aware I am sitting on Neil McNair’s bed. This is where he sleeps, where he dreams, where he texts me every morning.

Texted me every morning.