Tweet Cute(86)

Paul didn’t even call me to tell me, and I was too busy at the hospital to be monitoring the Hallway Chat the way I usually do on and off during the afternoons. By the time I saw it, it had a comment thread a mile wide, and multiple unflattering photoshops of Paul with bad captions alluding to him being on the dive team like, dumpster diving? and looks like someone dove in with two (hobbit) feet.

The first thing I did was break my one rule and trace Goldfish back to some girl named Helen, a known bully in the senior class. The second thing I did was email Rucker to turn her in—and myself right with her.

I should have known it would only make things worse. As far as I know, Helen’s off scot-free, Paul’s still embarrassed out of his mind and not talking to me, and not only am I suspended for a week, but—plot twist—Pepper’s suspended for two days for not ratting me out when she had the chance.

The TL;DR: Paul hates me. Pepper hates me. And it’s only a matter of time before it gets around that I made Weazel, and then the whole school will hate me too. There isn’t one corner of my life I haven’t actively sabotaged, and I’m so far past rock bottom, I’m basically in the earth’s molten core.

Hence, the most pointless father-son guilt trip in the whole of human history. My dad could literally start spitting flames right now, and I’d probably just tilt myself over and lean into the blast.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

And I am. I really am. Just not particularly at him, because it seems like he and Mom are the people least affected by this entire thing. And the people who are most affected, I could be spending this time getting in touch with, instead of being on the receiving end of a lecture within earshot of half of the morning egg-and-cheese-bagel rush.

“What were you thinking?”

I open my mouth to tell him just that, about what Weazel actually is—or was, I guess, since I disabled the whole thing last night. But he doesn’t even let me get a word in edgewise. Instead, he leans farther into the table, propping his elbow above the spot where Ethan carved a Superman logo when we were kids, and lets out a Dad-sized sigh.

“You’re on shift immediately after dive practice and every weekend for the next month,” he says, without even looking at me.

I laugh. On the list of appropriate reactions I could have had, this is so far down that for a moment my dad doesn’t even seem to process it, looking over at me, temporarily stunned out of his anger.

“Jack.”

The laugh has now dissolved into an undignified snort, and before I know it, I’m saying, “Honestly, Dad, if that’s ‘punishment,’ looks like I’m grounded for life, huh?”

My dad raises his eyebrows at me, warning and curious. He doesn’t say anything, giving me the space to keep going, which judging by the sudden heat of what seems to be about a decade’s worth of repressed insecurity bubbling to the surface right now, he probably shouldn’t.

I jam my finger down into the Time-Out Booth. “I’m already here every day. After school. On the weekends. My whole life is here, and you’ve made damn well sure of it.”

My dad closes his eyes for a brief moment, so wearily I’m not even sure if he’s hearing half of what I’m saying. It’s the wrong time and the wrong way and most definitely the wrong place, but it feels like if I don’t say it now, I might never get another chance.

“Jack—”

“You know, I’ve always wondered why you pushed me instead of Ethan to be the one who takes over this place. Because it’s always been that way. And at first, I didn’t get it.”

My dad is too stunned to say anything back, so I just keep going like a derailed subway car.

“But I caught on. Ethan’s the golden twin, the better one, the one who gets to go off and take over the world, or whatever. Because lucky for you, you made a spare, stupider twin to keep this place running.”

“What on earth makes you think working in this place makes you any less? Jesus, if that school is putting ideas in your head that working here is some kind of—”

“You just called it a punishment yourself! Which is stupid, by the way, because if that’s what this is, you’ve been punishing me for years!”

My voice is loud enough the egg-and-cheese crowd is staring at us like we’re some kind of side show. If we’ve stopped New Yorkers long enough for them to pull out their earbuds, we must really be a sight.

When I finally look over at him, my dad’s eyes are hot with the kind of fury I have never seen in them before. “Go upstairs.”

And just like that the anger that did such an annoyingly good job of grounding me a moment before is gone, crumbling out from under me so fast, I can’t latch onto anything else to replace it. It’s like I’m six years old again, senseless and stupid and running in and out of this conversation with no strategy at all, aside from saying things at him until I’ve finally run out of things I need to say.

“You don’t even care that I—that I did something cool. That I made something, something that actually helped people before it…” I’m floundering, my face burning, my voice starting to shift dangerously toward something close to a whine. “Dad, I’m good at this. The app thing. Good enough that it might be something I want to do with my life.”

He’s not even looking at me anymore. “Go. Upstairs.”