by Mason Deaver
“Whatever.” Meleika crosses her arms. “What are you doing here anyway? You’re painting, remember?”
“Mr. Madison said you had the spare key to the art room. Mrs. Liu was supposed to get us more paint, but I think it’s locked in her room.”
Meleika stares at him. “I don’t have a key.”
“You’re joking.”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
“But we need the paint, and no one else has a key.” Nathan rubs the back of his neck. “Stephanie’s going to go nuclear.”
“This Stephanie sounds like a piece of work,” I add.
“I’m honestly surprised she hasn’t demanded we call her Your Highness yet,” says Nathan.
“Just go get the key from Mrs. Liu.” Meleika holds up another poster, and I tape the corners down.
“They’re in the auditorium, and the door’s locked.” Nathan drags his hands over his face.
Meleika’s groans echo through the hallway. “What are we supposed to do, then? We aren’t going to have any other time this week to get it done.”
“I have a key,” I say.
They both just look at me like I’ve grown an extra head. “Why do you have a key?” Nathan asks.
“Mrs. Liu gave it to me so I could use the art room during lunch.”
“Great.” Meleika looks at Nathan. “Get the key from Ben and get the paint.”
“I mean, sure.” I reach for the ring of keys in my backpack. “But I’m going with you.”
“Awesome.”
“Oh, you are not ditching me!” Meleika stares at me, her mouth hanging open. “Ben!”
“I’ll be back, I promise.”
“Don’t trust me?” Nathan’s already got my arm, leading me down the hallway.
“I’m not risking anything.” I doubt Mrs. Liu would be angry with me, I mean, it’s just Nathan. But you never know, and I don’t want to risk losing this privilege.
We run to the art building, double-checking each of the doors. Sure enough, all three are locked. I peer through the small glass windows, and four huge cans of paint sit right there on the counter.
I unlock the door and walk in ahead of Nathan, snagging the two cans of paint, handing the other two to Nathan. “Come on, I need to finish helping Mel.”
“Which one is yours?” Nathan asks. It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about the paintings Mrs. Liu’s hung up on the wall.
I want to tell him we don’t have time, which makes me feel bad, because he’s been nothing but supportive of my art, but he’s only seen my drawings before. Never my paintings, at least not in real life.
“That one.” I point to the drip painting. “And that one.” The one of the cardinal is hanging on the other side of the room.
“Oh.” Nathan gasps, walking right over to the drip painting. “Hmm …”
“What?” I ask. For just the briefest second, I wish I could read minds. I mean, that’d open me up to a whole other slew of problems. But right now, I really want to know what Nathan’s thinking.
“Just … unexpected.”
Unexpected?
Nathan still looks awestruck. “And this one?” He crosses the room in just a few steps, staring at the one of the cardinal. Part of me wants to hide it, because I really don’t think it compares to the drip-style one.
“Yeah. What do you think?” I’m almost scared to ask. He’s liked everything I’ve done before, but I’ve never seen him react this way.
“They’re great!” he says, but something about the way he says it seems un-Nathan.
“They’re fine. It’s really no big deal,” I say. “I probably should’ve worked on it some more.”
“Yeah.” He scoffs. “Right, just don’t forget about me when your paintings hang in the Louvre or something.”
I laugh a little more loudly than I mean to. “Because that will totally happen.”
“Never say never, De Backer.” Nathan starts back toward me, his eyes bouncing between both of my paintings.
“Come on. Mel’s going to kill both of us.”
“Are you going to the game?” Nathan asks.
“It’s funny, Mel asked me the same thing.”
“And?”
I shrug. “Baseball and dances? Not really my thing.”
“You know, prom is in a few months.” He adds that out of the blue.
“Oh yeah?” It’s a hard thing to ignore. Student council’s already ambushing people inside the cafeteria to vote on the theme. “Do y’all ever rest?” I ask.
I’m not saying that two dances in three months seems excessive, but …
“Tradition is tradition,” Nathan says.
“Is that all student council is good for?” I tease him. “Planning dances?”
“Hey!” He sounds angry but his grin gives him away. “We plan other things. We did a bake sale last October.”
“Was there a dance?”
“No,” Nathan says, sounding totally unconvincing. “Technically.”
“How do you dance at a bake sale?”
“Stephanie managed to find a way. So, are you going?”
“To?” I ask, knowing full well what he means.
“To prom?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Really?” His smile fades. Is he actually disappointed?
“Dances,” I say again.
“Even prom?”
“Even prom,” I repeat. “I didn’t go last year either.”
We walk all the way across campus to the gymnasium, where there are a bunch of my fellow classmates running around, trying their best to follow the orders of the girl standing around in the middle with the megaphone. “I’m guessing that’s Stephanie?” I say under my breath.
“Nathan! There you are.” She runs toward us before Nathan can answer, eyeing the cans. “Is that the paint?”
“Well, Steph, it’s not chocolate pudding.”
“Funny,” she says, while aggressively not laughing. “Okay, you two go ahead and get to painting the stage pieces, we need those first.”
“Oh, I’m not in—” I start to say, but she shushes me with a hand.
“Didn’t ask. I name you an honorary student council member, we’ll get you credit hours if you need them. Now get to work.” Stephanie points to the large wooden panels propped up on the stage. “Now!” she screeches into her megaphone when we don’t immediately run onto the stage. Stephanie almost earns herself a can of paint emptied on her precious gym floor for that.
“Sorry, she can be a little …” Nathan considers his words carefully. “‘Abrasive’ is the nicest word that comes to mind.”
“Meleika is going to kill me.” I climb the short ladder to the stage.
“When she finds out Stephanie dragged you into this, she’ll forgive you, no worries.”
“Why are you guys waiting until the week of?” I grab the screwdriver from the toolbox on the stage and pop open the paint can, reaching for the wooden stir stick.
“We were more behind than we realized, and now we’re scrambling.” Nathan eyes the boards in front of us. “At least we won’t need these pieces until Friday.”
“Are you going to dress up the rest of the week?” I swipe the excess paint on the edge of the can and pour it slowly into a tray.
Today’s theme was simple: school pride. Everywhere I looked, there were people dressed in royal blue and gold. Nathan’s sweater is less royal than azure, but with the gold trim at the bottom I don’t think anyone’s going to challenge him on the specific shade.
“Yes, and where is your blue and gold, my friend?” he asks.
“Don’t have anything,” I say. I probably should’ve dressed up. I have a feeling I’ll need the points in English.
“You don’t want to dress up? Tacky Thursday is going to be fun.”
“Tacky Thursday?” I eye him.
“You dress up in your tackiest clothes!”
“Of course!” I try to mimic his enthusiasm.
&n
bsp; “Where’s your school spirit?” Nathan pops the lid off his own can.
“Don’t really have any.” I roll my brush through the deep blue. “Are we just painting this whole thing?” I ask.
“Yeah, top to bottom, then we paint the gold stars.”
“Fun.” I let the brush roll onto the wood. “So how did the quiz go?”
He scoffs. “Which one?”
“You had two today?”
“Yup.”
“Oh, bless your heart,” I say. “How did Algebra go?”
Stephanie shouts something into her megaphone again. Thankfully it’s not directed at us, but it’s enough to make the two of us jump. Nathan just rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
His smile gives him away. “Passed. At least, I think I did.”
“Nice,” I say.
“The test was easier than I thought. I triple-checked everything too, and it came out the same almost the whole test!”
“I told you that you could do it.”
“Boys! You aren’t painting!” Stephanie’s voice echoes through the megaphone again.
“Yeah, yeah.” Nathan waves her off.
“So stop flirting and paint!” she yells.
I feel my face get hot and I turn forward, focusing on where exactly my brush is going. I’ve already missed a few spots anyway. “That’s great, about your test,” I say.
“I owe you, De Backer.”
“Oh, you don’t … really …” I stammer.
“Come on, let me treat you. Whatever you want to do, we’ll go out this weekend.”
“I’ve already got plans, sorry.” Hannah had mentioned going out and doing a little shopping. I wasn’t really planning on going with her, but it could be fun.
“Get to thinking, because I owe you. Big-time.”
“Okay,” I say, and try to get back to the painting, but every few seconds my eyes sort of drift down, and he’s there, right in the corner of my vision. I don’t want to grin, but I can’t help myself. And when he catches me, Nathan looks up, and he’s smiling too.
“So how has your week been?” is the first thing Dr. Taylor asks me when I sit down in her office. I’d been digging into my hands the entire drive over here. I can still count the eight crescent-shaped marks on both my palms. These sessions have been getting easier, appointment by appointment, but I still feel sick when I remember I have a visit coming up.
“Ben?”
I finally look up, lost in the zigzag pattern of Dr. Taylor’s black-and-white blouse. “Yeah? Sorry, it was fine.”
“Anything in particular happen?”
“Not really.” There were the theme days, and the pep rally, which everyone is forced to go to. “It was Spirit Week at school.”
“Oh, those are fun. Does North Wake do the dress-up days?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t really do any. Not my kind of thing.”
“Understandable. My class used to go all out for those kinds of things.” Dr. Taylor chuckles. “I never really understood the appeal myself, but everyone seemed to have fun.”
“Hmmm.” I really don’t know what to say next.
“How are things going with Hannah and Thomas?”
I shrug. “Fine. Can’t really complain.”
“They’re getting better about the pronouns?”
I nod. I can’t really remember the last time I had to correct either of them.
“I wanted to ask you”—she crosses her legs—“how you felt when Hannah left?”
I really don’t want to answer her. I want to move on to a different question, maybe ignore what she just asked me. I know the answer. I’ve known it for ten years, but now it just makes me feel guilty. Do I really have a right to be mad at her, to still be angry at what she did, after everything?
“I …”
“Ben?” Dr. Taylor eyes me.
“I was really mad at her,” I say.
“For leaving you?”
I can’t help but feel like this will somehow all get back to Hannah. Like there’s a bug on my clothes or something and Hannah can hear every word I say from her spot in the waiting room. Just feet away. “That’s pretty much what she did, right?”
“Well …” Dr. Taylor’s head sort of bounces. “Is that what you felt happened?”
“Maybe you should ask Hannah about all this.” I don’t mean for it to sound rude, but I really don’t want to talk about this.
“Ben, I can promise you that I don’t discuss anything that goes on in this room with her.”
“Sorry.” I dig my nails into my palms again, trying to fit them in the same exact places. “I … I get why she did it,” I say, guilt washing over me. “And I get that she really couldn’t take me with her. But it still hurt, you know?”
“Of course.” Dr. Taylor jots something down. “Perhaps it is unreasonable for a college student to take on the responsibility of adopting their younger sibling, but that doesn’t invalidate the hurt caused. How do you feel about her now?”
“She’s trying.” I stare down at my hands. “And isn’t that what matters?”
“Does that matter to you?”
I nod.
“Can you tell me about a good moment you shared with your parents?” Dr. Taylor says, basically out of nowhere.
“Why?” I ask.
“Well, a lot of our discussions on them have focused on the negative, with reason, of course. But surely you had to have good moments with them, over the years?”
“I mean … yeah, kind of.” I rub my palms on my knees. Of course we had good moments. There were a lot of them actually. Moments where I could forget just how bad they could be. Where we could laugh at something on TV, or joke around with one another, or spend the day out and about, just enjoying one another’s company.
Times where I actually thought they might love me for me.
“Tell me about a good moment you had,” she says. “Doesn’t have to be anything big or anything. Just a nice thing you remember.” Dr. Taylor smiles.
“Well, it isn’t really just one specific memory,” I say. “But my mom works at a hospital, and during a lot of my summers I’d have to go with her to work. I guess she didn’t trust me to be alone with Hannah.”
“Afraid of Hannah’s influence, I’d imagine.”
I manage a chuckle. “Probably. But Mom would let me help out. She mostly did paperwork, so she taught me where things go and how to make sure they were in the right order.” I feel a smile creep up on me. “She even let me shred stuff. That was my favorite part.”
And then everything sort of stops, and for a split second, I feel numb.
“Ben?” Dr. Taylor looks at me.
“It’s nothing.”
Except the tug I feel on my heart.
The Friday nights we’d go out to dinner, Dad watching his terrible old Western movies way too loud or forgetting what he was talking about mid-sentence and Mom and I laughing about it. The days Mom and I would work in her garden, coming back inside sunburned. Entire days we’d spend alone, Mom shopping for something and me following her around, cracking jokes. “Sorry,” I say, wiping my eyes.
“It’s fine.” Dr. Taylor pushes over the box of tissues, but I don’t take one. I can’t be crying, not about this. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
“No.”
“It’s natural to miss them, Ben. They are your parents, after all.”
“Just … after what they did.” When I thought I could trust them. “I thought … I thought being their child would be enough for them.”
“I know, I know. But you lived with them for eighteen years, they raised you, and it seemed like they loved you.” Then Dr. Taylor leans forward. “Did you love them, Ben?”
I want to tell Dr. Taylor no, and I want to be able to say it with confidence. I don’t love them, I didn’t. Not after what they did. But they are my parents. I’m supposed to love them, no matter what, right?
“Do you think they miss you?”
I have no idea.
“Can they? I mean, they kicked me out.”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t miss you. If that really was them outside Hannah’s house that night …” Dr. Taylor doesn’t finish her statement, but it’s the first time she’s brought up that night since I told her about it. “Are you feeling well, Ben? Physically?”
“I haven’t really been sleeping.” This morning I woke up around two thirty, and the night before that it was around three. It’s getting harder to keep my eyes open during the day now. I’ve even thought about faking being sick one day just so I could try to catch up.
“It’s getting closer to the end of the school year. Things can get pretty busy.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you tried any over-the-counter medication?”
“I’ve taken some NyQuil, but it only works for a few hours.” That was the only thing Hannah and Thomas had in their medicine cabinet. Besides, the stuff tastes like ass, and I don’t want to make that an everyday thing.
“Not much of an acquired taste?” She chuckles. “Is this the first time you’ve experienced something like this?”
“Sort of. Last year, when I had the PSATs and final exams right after each other.” I rub the back of my head. My hair’s gotten longer, longer than Dad would’ve ever let me grow it. “I usually just watch TV or draw until it’s time to wake up.”
“Would you like to try medication?” she asks.
“You can do that?”
Dr. Taylor nods.
“I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought about it a lot. I don’t love the idea personally; it just doesn’t feel right for me.
“Well, if it’s this bad, then maybe we should consider it.”
“Do you know what’s causing it?” I ask.
“I have an idea, yes.”
“And?” God, why do I even ask?
She exhales slowly and almost seems reluctant to tell me. “I think you’re dealing with depression, but to me, anxiety seems to be the biggest issue.”
“Oh.”
“And that’s perfectly fine. Everyone deals with anxiety, Ben, it’s just—”
I finish for her. “Some people don’t know how to cope with it?”