by M. F. Lorson
By the time Monday morning rolled around, I couldn’t find anything to care about. I climbed into my sensible four-door sedan and drove to school alone. Landon caught a ride with one of his friends and refused to look me in the eye since the party. I could only assume he was humiliated by how he treated my friends, but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to chat about it, so I didn’t ask.
Everything Sloane said haunted me that entire day. I was a coward, too afraid to stick up for myself or anyone else, especially when it meant there would be confrontation.
Speak of the devil, Becca stood waiting for me by the door to first period. She wore that perfect, plastic smile that stretched across her face. I felt like a jerk for not returning it, but I was fresh out of energy to care.
“Morning,” she smiled. I guess she didn’t hear about my new ride. This is the part where she would normally lean in for a kiss, a signature public display, but today, she only leaned in for a hug.
“You okay?” she asked, noticing my foul mood. “That party was crazy.” In true Becca fashion, she asked a question without giving me time to answer.
“That party was a nightmare. What are you talking about?” I barked a little loudly as passerby glared at us, noticing the wrinkle in the normally perfect fabric of our fake relationship.
Her eyes scanned her periphery before she leaned in. “You want to keep your voice down?”
“Why? So people don’t figure out that we’re not a couple anymore?” At least a dozen people heard that. By laws of social media, everyone and their cousin should know by lunch.
“You’re being a jerk today, Gabe,” she snapped at me before she turned to walk into class. “You really let that royalty go to your head.” She yelled that last part a little loud so that everyone milling around took notice. Once she was inside the classroom, I was left with a crowd of judgmental eyes all laser focused on me.
I let out a loud sigh and followed her in. This was what I got for trying to do things the easy way. Becca was mad at me. Landon was avoiding me. Sloane hated me.
My first stop was Ms. Mitchell’s desk. She was writing something frantically on her desk when I stepped up and cleared my throat.
“Good morning, Mr. Maxwell,” she said without looking up.
“I would like to be replaced as anchor,” I said boldly before letting out a loud sigh.
She immediately stopped her writing and looked up. Then her eyes floated across the room to where Becca sat alone, browsing through her phone.
“I see,” she said carefully.
“It has nothing to do with Becca,” I said. Shaking my head, I corrected myself, “I didn’t mind being anchor, but now I’d like to try something else—”
She motioned for me to sit and watched me for a moment, her eyes squinting at me like she was trying to figure me out. “Gabe, you have a lot of talent in digital media. I’ve seen your portfolios and the work you did at your last school.”
I felt myself slump in my chair. The last thing I wanted today was a lecture from a teacher.
“When you chose to be anchor, I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. I knew you did it for your girlfriend. But then...you paired up with Sloane on the project.”
My eyes lifted from staring at my clasped hands to Ms. Mitchell’s face. Hearing Sloane’s name come out of her mouth unnerved me for some reason, as if she had any idea how loaded this whole scenario had become.
Speaking of the red-head, Sloane walked into the classroom, made a dramatic show of not looking anyone in the eye and took her seat with her back to everyone in the room, including me.
Ms. Mitchell clearly picked up on all of it. Holding her palms up, she said, “Look, I’m not getting into any of what’s happening there. All I’m saying is...I’m really looking forward to what you come up with.”
I nearly stood up to walk away when she tapped her desk and spoke so no one else could hear. “Use this,” she said, jerking her head toward the two girls across the room. “Don’t be afraid to go a little off script. Remember to ask yourself: what do I want to say? And why do I have to be the one to say it?”
Carrying the teacher’s words with me as I sat down at the only empty table left in the room, I glanced at Becca to my left and Sloane to my right, both clearly going out of their way to ignore me. The words I wanted to say to both of them were so overwhelming, I didn’t know where to start, but after what Ms. Mitchell said, at least I had an idea of how I would say them.
Sloane
Gabe quit his job as anchor. I wanted to pull him aside and say congrats, way to stand up for yourself, but I couldn’t because the last time I had said anything to him it had all come out as yelling. People didn’t usually like you after that. I also couldn’t pull him aside because Parker had been tapped as his replacement. Now instead of camera girl number one, I was the only one.
It was a good thing Gabe and I had spent the last couple of weeks filming our segment, otherwise I would have been woefully out of practice when it came to quickly cutting from one angle to another. The not so good thing about all that practice was it was a complete waste. Our piece on student life was destined to live in the memory of Gabe’s iPhone from now until eternity. We sure as heck weren’t going to reunite to film the final scenes.
Becca I didn’t mind talking to, but Landon? I did not want to see his face in person or from the other side of the camera. If it weren’t for Landon and his stupid remark my two best friends wouldn’t be ignoring my texts, and Gabe wouldn’t be driving around town in his not-sports car pretending not to see me as our paths crossed in and out of the cemetery parking lot.
Now would be a great time for Molly to write me back with some redhead’s only advice, but like every other day my mailbox remained woefully empty.
I was mere seconds away from begging my Dad to order pizza and watch a movie with his friendless loser of a daughter when the doorbell rang. I thought it might be Reagan, anxious to pave things over between the three of us, but was beyond shocked to find Becca Landry standing on my welcome mat.
“Hey,” she said, smiling just a bit too brightly. “I was wondering if you had a sec to chat.”
A hard lump formed in my throat. This was totally the other shoe dropping. Reagan and Harper were ticked because I let my honorary membership in the khaki collective infringe upon our years of friendship and tradition, Gabe was ticked because I was trying to force him into doing and saying things he wasn’t ready for and now, his girlfriend was here to politely tell me to back up off her man. It was foolish to think my suffering had reached its peak without this last jab to the heart.
I gestured for her to come in and led her down the stairs to our den. The last time this happened I had been delirious with dayquil fueled fantasies of Gabe and I kissing. Today I was just hoping to get out of the conversation without a black eye or my own instagram hashtag. #notyomansloane or maybe, #stayonyourlevel. Either way, I wasn’t looking forward to the viral impact of what was about to happen.
Becca tucked her feet up under herself on the couch and rested her elbows on her outstretched knees.
“I’m sorry for coming over unannounced,” she began, “But school didn’t really seem like the right place to talk about this.”
I gulped a deep breath and nodded.
“I think you like my boy— I think you like Gabe,” she corrected.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but she was already pushing forward with the conversation. “At first I was kind of annoyed.”
“At first?” I asked, then mentally kicked myself for showing my hand so early.
“At first,” she replied, one eyebrow cocked in a knowing expression. “But then I realized he liked you too.”
I was beginning to regret the peanut butter M & M’s I had shoveled down half an hour ago. My already nervous stomach was kicking into anxiety overdrive as I contemplated how exactly I was supposed to respond to that.
“That’s when I got really annoyed,” she said. “And then at the dugouts
when you told me you felt the same…”
“That’s not exactly what I,”
“Let me finish,” said Becca. “That’s when I realized that Gabe and I were never going to work. When you talk he laughs, he listens, he even sings!” she cried, clearly remembering his impromptu rendition of Pat Benetar. “But when he’s with me, the laughter is forced and even though he smiles kindly and listens with great attention, I can tell he would rather be somewhere else, with someone else.”
She was looking at me expectantly now and I knew I should tell her she has nothing to worry about, that Gabe is hers, two years and counting, but I don’t because she has been real with me and I owe her the same.
“I’m sorry. I honestly never planned to have feelings for Gabe, or to come between you,”
Becca wiped a tear from her cheek with the sleeve of her Grover track jacket. “I appreciate you apologizing. But, I think you should be apologizing to Gabe instead.”
Now that took me by surprise. “You know about our fight?”
Becca rolled her eyes, “Not all the details, just that you told him to stand up for himself and stop pretending for the crowd.”
I laughed, “I wish I had put it that eloquently. It was mostly me red faced and screaming, calling him a coward.”
“Well, however you said it, it struck a chord with Gabe. He’s beating himself up over it and he shouldn’t be.”
Up until this point everything Becca had said was fair. Asking me to apologize though, that was a little outside the box. Gabe was acting like a coward. And his cowardice was the reason she was sitting on my couch with tears streaming down her face right now.
“I appreciate what you are trying to do, and I one hundred percent don’t deserve your kindness, but I meant what I said. He needs to grow up and start being real about who he is.”
Becca bit her bottom lip, “You’re really into that girl from The Breakfast Club right?”
I only vaguely remembered telling Becca about my Molly Ringwald obsession so it was a little surprising to hear that she had been listening so closely.
“Yes,” I answered, not quite sure what she was getting at.
“Well, not everyone has that. Not everyone has a guiding star or whatever you want to call it, to help them show the people around them who they are. The rest of us just make it up as we go. Gabe’s still learning, but he is trying. I had to pull the truth out of him, but he did come clean with me.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. Still not following.
“He broke up with me before Homecoming,” she said matter of factly. “He just didn’t tell anyone because I asked him to keep it quiet.”
My mouth gaped open.
“You look surprised,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“You kissed. On the dancefloor.” I said my eyes so big I thought they would pop out of my head for sure.
Becca shook her head. “We didn’t do anything. I pulled him in, the same as I always do, because I wanted people to think we were still the perfect couple. Gabe’s lips were there but his head wasn’t.”
That pain in my stomach was growing deeper.
“So he’s not such a coward after all,” said Becca, watching as s a half dozen questions swam behind my eyes.
By the time Becca left I was a puddle of emotions. On the one hand, she had just confirmed what I already suspected, Gabe liked me. We liked each other. On the other hand I had made a big mess of everything and as a result he may not like me anymore.
I had spent a lot of time these last days thinking about how the Khaki Collective and I were different. I’d determined they were all shallow and ungrateful when Becca’s visit proved the opposite. She had just shown forgiveness and compassion that I wasn’t so sure I had in me. Maybe I had it all backwards. Maybe I was the shallow one.
Gabe
Landon catches a ride home with his friends again after school, and if I had to guess, I’d be willing to bet they went to the dugouts instead of home, further proof that Landon would literally rather be anywhere than around me. After a horrendous day at school, I realized that I needed to start making things right, with baby steps if needed.
I stopped my car at the baseball diamond and noticed that there was only one couple at the usual hangout spot, and although they were practically fused into one silhouetted figure, I could tell neither of them was Landon.
Pulling out my phone before the worry set in, I took a quick check on the app Dad made us download. It showed our locations on a map with tiny pictures of our faces. It was my dad’s way of parenting without really knowing what he was doing. It sounded good in his head, so he enforced it. Landon’s face popped up right over the logo of a burger and a little red barn.
Finding Landon at Burger Barn was not surprising.
Finding Landon sitting alone in a booth at Burger Barn with only some onion rings and a strawberry shake to keep him company was very surprising.
When he glanced up to see me walk in, he immediately rolled his eyes and started to gather his things like he was about to leave. I held up a hand to stop him and quickly sat down across from him.
“Just wait a second,” I pleaded, and after a moment of consideration, he put his food back on the table and sat down.
It was awkwardly silent for a moment. I didn’t exactly know how to start these things. I always assumed heavy conversations would just occur naturally like they did in cheesy movies. In Ferris Bueller, his best friend finally had it out with his dad, not because he wanted to bury the hatchet, but because he accidentally drove his car out the window. I guess I was just kind of waiting for a “car out the window” moment between Landon and me so we could finally put some of this resentment between us to bed.
No such luck.
He just stared at me with a bored expression, and I suddenly saw that sad little kid who didn’t talk to anyone for a full week after Mom died.
“Look, Landon…” I started, not exactly knowing where I was going next.
“If this is about the HoCo party, I don’t want to hear it. It was a party. We were supposed to do stupid—”
“No, it’s not about that. Well, it’s kind of about that.”
He glanced around nervously to make sure no one was listening. There weren’t a lot of people in the restaurant and the ones who were there were mostly old couples and families with kids. No peers to record this and post it on Insta tomorrow.
“What do you want, Gabe?”
“Why did we have to have that party anyway, Landon? Why do you care so much?” I could see him start up with his same old excuse ‘to keep things the way they always were,’ but I held a hand up to stop him. “It’s not just the party, either. It’s everything. Dad can’t afford this extravagant stuff anymore, but it doesn’t mean we’re poor. It doesn’t change anything about us, Landon.”
He leaned forward so he could whisper shout at me. “It changes everything about us.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that she’s gone,” I whispered back, and I might as well have punched Landon in the face with how his expression changed. He swallowed, sitting back and clenching his jaw to avoid letting out a little emotion.
Come on, Landon. Say something. Let me have it.
“Well, what did you expect?” he snapped, keeping his eyes down. “You left. Dad’s never home.”
“I came back.”
“You moved into the pool house,” he deadpanned, and for the first time, I realized that my reckless, self-absorbed brother might have actually missed me. Or more than that...he needed me. Though, he’d never admit it.
His eyes shifted back down to his hands. “What else did I have? I couldn’t lose my friends.”
“They’re hardly your friends,” I muttered. I watched his cheeks start to redden, and I suddenly worried that this maybe wasn’t the best place to have this conversation. Landon had two temperatures: cool and in flames. Being that this was the first time we actually spoke sincerely to each other, I had no idea which one I
was about to get.
“Yeah, well people pay attention to me. I’m never lonely. If I want a girlfriend…”
“These are people who care about your money and status, not you.”
“Does it really matter?” he snapped back. “Who really cares at all? You don’t.”
My eyes shot up to meet my brother’s angry stare. “Of course I do. Look, I’m sorry for leaving. It was selfish, and I just wanted to escape too, but I didn’t think about you. I should have.”
A heavy breath fills my lungs as I realize that I can breathe a little easier. Just getting those words—that greatly needed apology, off my chest was like a weight. Leaving my little brother when he needed me most drove a thorn between us, splintering our entire family. And while this little diner session wasn’t going to brush it all away, it was a start.
I noticed him take a heavy breath too, and I hoped it had the same effect on him.
“I’m going to move back into the house,” I said softly. “And I’ll get a part-time job. We can talk to Dad about all of these trips he’s on. Maybe we can just let him know that he doesn’t have to make it all back.”
“Let’s not get crazy,” Landon said, stopping me. And for a second I was afraid that nothing I just said got through, that he would always be the same vain, materialistic punk, but then he cracked a smile. He held out his onion rings for me, and I grabbed one.
“What if we have to sell the house?” he said, the smile disappearing.
There was the inevitable question, the one that I’m sure haunted our dad day and night. “The house” always carried a heavier meaning when someone who lived in that house was gone. I wished I could answer that for him and settle his fears, but if I learned anything this year, it was that there was nothing valuable in avoiding the big what-ifs.
“Well, then at least the three of us will be together. In much smaller quarters.”
I took a bite of the onion ring as my brother broke out in a laugh before dramatically acting like I just delivered his death sentence.