by Alex Light
In the middle of the meal my dad broke the news. He said with his promotion came more responsibility. That he’d have to travel through the country to advise on different hotel locations. He said the company was relying on him and he had to impress them. He said he couldn’t say no. My mom looked thrilled. Just another thing to add to our family’s accomplishments. I was sad; it felt like my heart had dropped. I didn’t want my dad to leave for weeks. I didn’t even want him gone for a few days. But what was I supposed to do when they both looked so happy? Beaming at me and waiting for a reaction? So I told my dad that yeah, that was fine. That I was happy. That being able to travel the country for work sounded cool. He told me that someday I’d travel too, for football.
My mom ordered another bottle of wine and my dad carried her into the house when we got home. He left for his first trip the next weekend. It was in Buffalo, New York. A new hotel had opened right near the border with Ontario for travelers coming across. My dad packed his bags and they were all lined up in a row near the front door. He had his briefcase and his new custom-tailored suit. The taxi came up the driveway and my mom kissed him goodbye. She said she loved him and he said it back. And it looked like they meant it. It really did. I could see it in her eyes and the way he held her face in his hands. It was real.
My dad patted my shoulder and told me to watch over my mom while he was gone. Then he left, got into the taxi and headed off to the airport.
That first weekend without him was better than I thought it would be. Jeff and other guys from the team came over and we ordered pizza. We watched recordings of our last football game. Coach wanted us to study them, see where we went wrong and where we could improve. And my mom seemed okay, lingering around and checking in on us. My dad was gone, but we were fine. Sure, I missed him, but it was hard to miss someone too much when you knew they’d be coming home in two days.
When my dad came back, he brought me a new gym bag and some stuff he’d gotten from the hotel with the logo on it. Water bottles, key chains—those sorts of things. My mom was thrilled. I was thrilled.
But now I couldn’t stop thinking back to all those trips.
Over the past year, there had been dozens of them. And I kept trying to remember any sort of detail that would tell me when business trips stopped being business trips. Was there a day when my mom stopped seeming happy when he returned? Was there one trip where she didn’t say “I love you” before he left? I was so excited by the gifts he brought me that I didn’t even think to pause and check if they were actually from the state he was supposedly in.
I couldn’t stop looking back. I wished the past had been recorded like my football games. Then I could rewatch it all, rewind to the moment everything changed.
Then I remembered what Becca said about searching for answers to a puzzle that could never be solved. That sounded like complete hell. I didn’t want to look back five years from now and still not know the truth.
I had to know.
I decided to tell my mom.
I had the sinking suspicion she already knew. Looking back on the past few weeks, there were some signs. The crying. The way she seemed sad, quiet. Her spilling wine during dinner and my parents’ hushed conversations behind closed doors. It was all adding up, these little clues I was too busy to pay attention to before. But now they were there, impossible to ignore.
I hoped my mom didn’t know. Because if she knew about my dad’s lies all this time and decided to keep it from me, I wasn’t sure how I’d react.
And if she had known all this time and was suffering through it alone? That would make me feel even worse.
Another part of me hoped that my mom would have some answers. Like when I told her about seeing my dad with another woman, she’d have a perfect explanation for all of this and my life would return to its normal routine of football games and fake relationships. Like maybe it was an old friend of his. Maybe it was my mom wearing a wig. Not that it would make any damn sense, but it was a lot easier to think about than the alternative.
I made the decision to tell her when I was driving home from Becca’s apartment the next morning. Spending the night watching her and her mom changed something in my head. It was like a little bit of reassurance that no matter what the truth ended up being, there was still a chance my family would be okay like hers was. It made me realize that I wasn’t going through this alone either. I had my mom like Becca had hers.
I had Becca too.
Then there was that quietness between us after what I said last night, about having a crush on her. I wasn’t sure why I said it aloud or what even made me say it. But then the words were out there in the universe and they felt right. I was starting to care about her. How could I not after what she’d done for me? Sticking by my side for all of this? Our relationship was supposed to be fake. We had a clear contract that began and ended at school. But she’d given me more than that. She’d given me her weekends and her weeknights. She’d let me into her home. The girl literally ran over to my house because I needed her. And the dinner with her mom—putting me before herself like that? How could you not like someone with a heart so big?
But I knew Becca’s stance on love and relationships. Which was her exact reasoning for having a fake one. I didn’t know what to do now. How to act without pushing her too far and scaring her away. I was walking a thin line in all aspects of my life. And with my parents’ future dangling in front of me, like a string that was slowly beginning to fray, it felt way too selfish to even dig into my feelings for Becca right now.
I pulled into my driveway and my entire body tensed. My dad’s car was parked right there. He was home. And hell, it felt so weird to feel nervous right now. My dad coming home used to be the highlight of my week and now I was here, hiding in my car because I was too scared to walk into my own house and face the truth.
How could one night at a diner change my life this much?
I walked inside. “Mom?” I called, looking around warily.
“Up here!” she yelled from upstairs. I followed her voice into her bedroom, where she was standing in front of a full-length mirror wearing a dress. There was a man pulling the fabric around her hips with a tape measure hanging from his mouth.
“Too tight?” he asked. I watched him stick a pin into the dress.
“That’s great. Can we shorten the length a little? I don’t want it to drag. Oh, hi, hon. Did you see your father when you came in? He’s somewhere downstairs.”
“No. What’s going on?” I asked.
“This is Carlos. He’s helping me with my dress for the hotel’s grand opening this weekend.”
“That’s this weekend?”
“Yes, Brett. Didn’t you see your father’s text? We’ve been calling you all morning. And where were you last night?” Before I could even answer, she was moving on. “The hotel’s opening this weekend and they’re throwing a party to celebrate. Your father and I will be there, of course, and you will as well. Go grab your suit and try it on. If you need a new one, Carlos will need to get started quickly.”
I didn’t move. I felt like I’d been sucked into another dimension.
“Brett? Your suit.”
They were both staring at me like I’d lost it.
“Can I talk to you for a second, Mom? Alone?”
“After you try on your suit.”
Slightly dazed, I went to my room and put on the damn suit. I kept listening for the sound of my dad walking up the stairs but everything was drowned out by my mom yelling my name every two seconds. “Brett! Hurry up!”
“I’m coming!”
It felt completely fucked up to be talking about suits and hotels and parties and dress sizes when I had this huge secret that felt like it was going to claw its way out of my mouth any second.
When my mom saw me, she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, Brett. You look so handsome. Isn’t he handsome? Come here. Let me see.”
I stood there while they hovered around, poking and pulling. “Hey,
Mom? Where’s Dad?”
“Thomas!” she yelled, tugging at the fabric on my wrist. “Maybe in the basement. Do you have a tie to wear with this? You can borrow one of your father’s.”
It all felt so wrong.
“Mom.” I said it firmer this time. “Can we talk for a second?”
Sensing that something was off, she stopped fixing my suit. Her eyes lifted to mine and she signaled for Carlos to give us a minute alone. “Something wrong?” she asked when it was just the two of us.
Now what? Where was I supposed to start? How did I even bring something like this up?
“Remember when Dad left for New York a few weeks ago?” I asked. My mom nodded, taking a seat on the bed. “I walked into your room that night and you were sleeping. You’d been crying, Mom. There were tissues everywhere.” She was just staring at me, not saying a word. “Why were you so sad?”
A long moment dragged by. “You know it’s always hard on me when your father leaves.”
It felt like a scripted response from a book. How to Pretend Like Everything is Okay.
“Because you miss him?” I prodded.
“Of course I miss him when he’s gone.”
“But you weren’t happy when he came home.”
My mom tensed, looked down at her lap. Then she patted the bed beside her and I sat down. She grabbed my hands. Hers were cold. I stared at the wedding band on her finger.
I tried to remember the last time we’d talked like this and couldn’t. I was always talking to my dad about football and college. My mom was always listening and smiling. That was the dynamic. And now I couldn’t even read her face to see if something was off because I didn’t know how to.
“I must have been preoccupied with something else, Brett. I’m always happy when your dad comes home. You know that.”
“But you weren’t happy. You just stood there. You didn’t walk down the driveway to talk to him. Then that night during dinner you spilled wine everywhere. You started to cry, remember? Then you went up to your room and Dad followed. And I heard you guys talking—”
Her hand tightened around mine. The ring cut into my finger. “You heard us?”
“Well, no. The doors were closed. I couldn’t hear much. What were you talking about?”
“Your dad and I talk about a lot of things. Many of them you don’t need to worry about. I must have been having an off night. That’s it.” She smiled, pulling herself together. “There’s nothing you need to worry about. Your father is home and the hotel is opening this weekend. This is a good thing, Brett. A happy time, okay? Don’t worry about me and your father. Everything is fine.”
No wonder I was good at pretending to be Becca’s boyfriend. Apparently being a good actor was genetic.
Now I felt even more lost than I had when I walked in. There were no answers. At least not for now. Maybe I should have felt relieved that my life would stay the same for another few weeks. But that didn’t really feel like enough anymore. That doubt was always going to be there in the back of my mind until someone gave me a reason not to be doubtful anymore.
“Mom,” I said, “if something was wrong between you and Dad, you’d tell me, right?”
“We’re fine, Brett.”
“But would you tell me?”
She sighed. “Of course.”
“And you’d want me to tell you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, if I thought something was off with Dad . . . you’d want to know?”
I could see it then, in her eyes. Because my mom was always gentle and soft-spoken. She never got angry or raised her voice. I couldn’t even remember a time when she’d yelled at me. Maybe that’s why it was so clear to me that she was upset.
“Brett.” Her voice was low and she kept glancing at the door. “Did you—” The door to the bedroom opened and my dad walked in. My mom jumped and whatever she was going to say was long gone. She stood up too quickly and smiled at him. All traces of anger were gone. “There you are! Brett was just trying on his suit for the hotel’s opening.”
My parents turned to me, waiting.
“Yeah. It, uh, fits.”
My dad dropped his luggage on the bed and pulled me in for a hug. I felt like I was suffocating. “How was your game?” he asked, releasing me.
“We won.”
“And your girlfriend?”
It took me a second to remember he knew about Becca. My mom, however, did not.
“What about her?” I asked.
“I’m assuming she’s coming this weekend,” he said, unpacking his clothes. They were stacked perfectly in his luggage. It reminded me of the papers on his office desk. The snooping. The lies. “Your mother and I want to meet her.”
I was torn between keeping Becca away from this mess and selfishly wanting her there. The entire reason I started this fake relationship was for this exact purpose, having my dad think I was dating. But now, spinning a lie to impress him seemed like a mistake. At least lying was something we had in common.
“She’ll be there,” I said, forcing a smile.
By the way my dad smiled back, he didn’t suspect a thing.
Becca
THE WEEK FLEW BY. SUDDENLY my fake relationship with Brett was starting to feel more like two amateur detectives solving a mystery neither of them was qualified for. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have thrown a few mystery books into my weekly mix. Maybe then we’d have more to go on than an iffy parking lot spotting and a gut feeling.
It was Monday afternoon and we were walking through town. I had a stack of Hart’s Cupcakes flyers between my arms. Brett was holding the tape and stapler. Mom was so proud to find out that the extra advertisements had worked (thanks, Jenny) that she had us sticking them up anywhere we could. Half the lampposts in Crestmont now had a pink sheet of paper stuck to them.
When we had none left, I suggested we reward ourselves for all this intensive labor. Naturally, we ended up back at the arcade. Brett was playing Whac-A-Mole. He was hitting them way too hard like he had a personal vendetta against fake moles. There was no way he wanted another stuffed whale that badly. He was also ranting about the hotel’s grand opening this weekend and some guy named Carlos who was poking him with pins. I needed more context on that one.
“She was completely clueless,” he was saying. Whack. “I dropped so many hints, Becca, and my mom just sat there like she had no idea what I was talking about.” Another whack. “But she knows something. I know she does. I just don’t know what she knows because she won’t tell me that she knows it. So how am I supposed to tell her that I know what she knows?”
I blinked. “What?”
Another whack. The game ended and Brett ripped out the tickets, shoving them into his pocket. A few fell onto the floor and I picked them up quickly. He may not have wanted another stuffed whale but I definitely wanted another bag of those sour gummy worms. Or another ring.
“My mom knows something,” he said again, walking over to the air-hockey table. “I just don’t know what it is.” He put in a token, dropped the puck. I picked up the red striker and slid it across. “Why can’t school teach us about this? Like how to uncover secrets from parents who think you’re too young to know the truth?”
“You’re thinking of spy school,” I said with complete certainty.
Brett slammed the puck. It went straight into my goal. Dammit.
“How is knowing about atoms and molecules going to help me stop my family from falling apart?”
“Well, technically that’s the point of atoms. They build stuff, keep everything together.” I looked up. He was giving me a look. I used the opportunity to slam the puck into his goal. “What? I’m in AP Bio.”
Brett snorted. Then he started chuckling. Then he was doubled over, completely out of control. He dropped onto the floor with his back against the table and kept laughing.
I thought he’d officially lost it.
I sat beside him. Our legs bumped against each oth
er’s. I remembered what it felt like when he said he had a crush on me, the way his lips parted when we kissed at Lovers’ Lake. And I really wished I was a detective because maybe then I could figure out the mystery that was my heart and whatever these feelings blooming inside me were.
“You know the term ‘climax’?” I asked.
“Yes. But I think it’s a different ‘climax’ than you’re referencing.”
I set myself up for that one.
Ignoring him, I said, “Miss Copper was talking about it during class yesterday. Basically in every book, there’s a sequence of events that happens to build up to one monumental moment. That’s called ‘rising action.’ It leads up to the story’s climax, which is, like, the most intense moment, when something crazy happens and the reader is left in shock. Like the characters break up, a secret is revealed—that sort of thing.”
“Oh, Becca. I love it when you get all geeky.”
I swatted his arm.
“The point is that after the climax, the final stage of a book is the resolution. It’s where all the problems are solved, the characters are happy again, and there’s this sense of relief, Brett. What’s happening right now with your family? Think of it as the climax, when everything gets crazy. What I’m trying to say is that you need to hang in a little longer, wait for the resolution. Because then, everything will be okay. You’ll be okay.”
Brett put his arm around my shoulder. “You’re kind of amazing, Becca Hart,” he said. I started to laugh before I saw the serious look on his face. No teasing this time, no poking fun. He really meant that.
The butterflies were back.
I shrugged, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt. “I told you to pay attention in English.”
“Why pay attention when I’m dating the smartest girl in class? You’re like my own personal textbook.”
“Wow, I am so flattered. Is that all you like me for?”
“No,” he said. “Not at all.” Then he quickly jumped up and tugged me to my feet with him. The tickets all fell out of his pocket but he didn’t care. He held on to my hands, forcing me to face him. He had that crazy look in his eyes again. This time he was smiling. One hundred watts and all. “Come to the hotel’s opening with me this weekend.” He said it all in one breath.