I watch him leave, more confused than ever. He took what I said the wrong way. He took it completely out of context.
But then as his tires kick up gravel and dust, I hear his voice: You won’t be staying. You’ll be gone within a year. Two if you’re stupid.
And of course I just confirmed his suspicions.
Chapter Twenty
Monday morning after dropping the boys at school, I get a call from Dane. “I’m going to be in New Mexico for the next few days,” he tells me. “Will you let Cooper know I’ll be gone this week but I’ll call him once I’m back and we’ll resume training?”
“Of course.” And then I bite the bullet and ask, “Do you have plans for Christmas?”
“I’m scheduled to be in Brazil.”
“Brazil?”
“I’ve been working with PBR Brazil and agreed to participate in their big summer rodeo.”
“How long will you be there?”
“One week. Maybe two.”
I’m so disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to spending Christmas with him, picturing us sitting on the couch, sipping mulled wine and listening to carols. Hokey, sentimental stuff, but also romantic. “If I didn’t have the boys for Christmas, I’d beg you to take me along,” I tell him huskily, my chest tight, tears not far off.
“If you didn’t have the boys, I’d insist you come along.”
“Do you ever wish I didn’t have them?”
“That’s a ridiculous question. And no. Never. Ever. And don’t ask that again.”
“Okay.”
“I better go. They’re boarding my flight. I’ll call you when I’m back in town.”
Dane’s gone, but the pup is here to stay. She immediately bonds with the boys and takes to sleeping with Bo in his bed. I warn Bo that she won’t always be so small, but he loves the company and is adamant that Lacey, or Spacey Lacey, as they like to call her, is his dog.
Over the next few days, Bo spends so much time in bed with Lacey curled next to him that I begin to worry about him again.
He’s very low, and strangely lethargic, but I’m determined not to project my worries onto him. Kids are full of hormones. Problems are part of life. I’ll let Bo come to me when he’s ready to talk.
But the week passes and he doesn’t come to me. He just retreats further, living in his dark, cavelike room.
I open his door late Thursday afternoon and he’s in bed, in the dark, just as he was yesterday afternoon. “What’s going on?” I ask quietly.
“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
“Are you coming down with something?”
“No.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
“You’re okay?”
“Yes.”
I leave him then and return to the kitchen to finish addressing Christmas cards. He passes on dinner and I don’t press, but by bedtime when he doesn’t get up, I’m really uncomfortable.
I return to his room, open his door, and find him texting in the dark. “Who are you texting?”
“No one.”
“Bo, you’re texting someone.”
“Just a kid at school.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Suddenly, I’ve had it. With the phone. All his texting. Never mind his attitude. “You’re taking a break from your phone. I want it for the weekend. You can have it back on Monday—”
“No!”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Take the computer. My Xbox. Take away TV.”
“But the phone is the problem. I want the phone.”
He loses it then, loses it in a way I’ve never seen him lose control. Shouting. Crying. Begging. I’m shocked. Horrified. But the more upset he gets, the more determined I am to take the phone. His attachment scares me. He’s behaving like an addict who could resort to violence.
“What are you doing?” I’m practically yelling to be heard over him. “Have you lost your mind? It’s a phone, Bo, not oxygen.”
“It is to me. Just let me have it. Let me have it. Please, Mom—”
“No. Now give it to me.” I hold out my hand, palm up. “Bo. Now.”
As I’m talking he’s wildly deleting messages, clearing out his in-box and sent folders. I try to snatch the phone from him, but he turns away. This has become a contest of wills, but I’m the parent. I cannot lose.
“You have to the count of three, Bo, or I tell your dad to cancel the service and it’s gone forever. And I mean it. One. Two. Th—”
Bo thrusts the phone into my hand, and he’s crying, sobbing as though I’ve just destroyed his world. “Just don’t read any of the messages, Mom. Promise me you won’t read them.”
“You’ve erased them all.”
“But if they come in. Don’t read them. They’re not meant for you.”
“And they’re so bad I can’t read them?”
“Just promise me.”
“I can’t make that promise, Bo. I’m sorry.”
He lets out an anguished cry and I walk away, desperate to escape. The whole situation is impossible. I go to my room, hide the phone in my nightstand drawer behind my sunglasses and pedicure kit, and then pace the bedroom floor, trying to process what just transpired.
Bo’s totally out of control. His addiction to his phone scares me. How can any kid be so attached to a piece of technology? And what kind of messages is he sending and receiving that I can’t see?
I wonder if they’re about drugs or alcohol. Or are they possibly sexual? I can’t imagine him engaging in phone sex, but you never know… kids are exposed to so many things now that I never was.
I wish I could call Dane, would love to talk to Dane about this, but I need to be able to handle my kids’ problems on my own. I want him to realize that I’m with him not because I need him to solve my problems or handle the tough stuff for me, but because I love him and enjoy him and want to be with him.
I’m still worked up even after the boys have finally gone to bed. I read for a while to try to calm down, but my mind can’t stay focused on the story.
Minutes pass and I’m still on the same page, rereading the same paragraph over and over. I give up on reading and turn out the light. I’m just starting to fall asleep when my bedside drawer buzzes and then, a minute later, buzzes again.
Bo’s phone.
I look at the clock. Eleven twenty-five. That’s so late for him to be getting messages. I’m tempted to look at the message, but it doesn’t seem right. I’ve never been a snoop. It’s not my place.
But Bo was so hysterical. So panicked that I’d see his messages. What could be so bad that I’m not allowed to see it?
I’m still debating what to do when the phone vibrates again. Another text message has come in. I glance at the clock. Eleven thirty-three.
That’s it. I want to know, have to know. I turn on the light, open the drawer and retrieve the phone. It takes me a moment to figure out how to find his in-box and then how to read new messages. And when I do, the message is so strange that I read it once and then again.
You are so pathetic and ugly. No one likes you. No one wants you. Why don’t you just kill yourself?
My hand shakes. My eyes burn. My heart feels as if it’s going to explode, but I go to the next message.
Hey asswipe. Are you dead yet?
Oh my God. Oh my God.
How can any kid write that? How can any kid suggest such a thing?
I cover my face, press my hand hard to my mouth to stifle the sound, and scream.
I scream my rage, scream at the injustice, scream for my son, who has so much sadness inside of him and yet still has to deal with children who are driven to inflict pain.
How does this happen?
And where are all the parents?
I don’t sleep.
I don’t even try to go to bed. Instead, I call Verizon and turn off his phone. I uncover Bo’s Facebook password and take down his page—noting as I do the num
ber of put-downs that pass as “funny” comments.
I know I’m not cool; my boys tell me that all the time. But I always thought Facebook and MySpace were supposed to be for friends and friendship. This isn’t friendship. This isn’t socializing. This is just one more example of kids being given too much technology and a false sense of power.
Bo’s going to be upset when he wakes up and finds out what I’ve done. He might even decide to return to New York to live with John, too. But if that’s the case, fine. I’m going to do what I need to do, and that’s protect my children while they live in my house.
In the morning, Bo and Cooper are at the breakfast table eating their breakfast when Bo asks me how long I am going to keep his phone.
I’ve been waiting for this moment since eleven thirty-five last night.
I drop the damp sponge I’ve been holding into the sink and go sit at the table in a chair next to Bo’s. My heart’s beating hard, and I flex my fingers ever so slightly, anticipating the scene that’s about to unfold.
I look at him a moment, watch him eat, thinking he has no idea how much I love him. My emotional, awkward red-haired boy.
God, I love him. Love him with all my heart.
And then I think of Delilah and how she’s fourteen, too, and struggling. But unlike Bo, she has no one on her side, no parent there to help her fight the good fight.
“I can give you the phone back, Bo, but you should know it’s no longer in service. I called Verizon last night and had them disconnect your number.”
His spoon clatters from his hand into the nearly empty bowl, but I just keep my eyes on his face. He has the darkest blue eyes, eyes so intense that they look navy, and the thickest lashes. If people only took the time to really see him, they’d realize he’s beautiful.
“You had two texts come in late last night,” I continue, praying I can keep my voice steady. “They were horrible messages. I’m sorry I snooped, but not sorry to know the kind of awful, hateful things kids have been saying to you.”
His jaw works and I’m waiting for him to explode, waiting for the shouting and the anger, the rage and the blame. “What did they say?” he asks at last.
Coop’s listening intently, and part of me thinks this discussion is best in private. But then another part of me thinks if we’re going to make it as a family, then we need to act like a family, which means fewer secrets and more support.
“They were mean,” I say, unable to repeat the messages word for word.
“Come on, Mom, tell me.”
I can’t look away from Bo’s face, can’t look away from the boy I made. He may be fourteen, but he’ll always be my baby. “I can’t repeat it.” My eyes fill with tears, but still I hold his gaze. “They broke my heart.”
Cooper gets abruptly to his feet, knocking the table and sending his juice sloshing out of the glass. I don’t stop him from walking out.
I don’t blame him if he’s upset.
He’s the youngest, but he worships his big brothers. He’d fight their battles if he could.
“How long has this texting stuff been going on, Bo?” I ask.
I don’t think he’s going to answer me, but then he looks at me and his eyes swim with tears. “Since October.”
Two months. Two months of hate.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
“I guess I thought I could make them stop. Make them go away.”
I reach out, brush his thick hair back from his broad forehead. “Who is doing this?”
“Just some kids.”
“Which kids?”
“Does it matter?”
Yeah. It matters a lot. Everything that affects my kids matters. “Would I know any of them?”
“You might know some of their parents. I think you went to school with them.”
And that just makes me crazier. Who are these parents who let their kids text so much hate? “Do you know why they’re doing this, Bo?”
“No.” He looks at me, and I see from the confusion in his eyes that he’s genuinely baffled. “I guess I’m just not cool.”
Cool. Cool. Oh, my God, who is cool? And who gets to decide who’s not cool?
This blows my mind.
I swallow back my fury, determined to keep focused on what matters most—Bo. But I’m going to look into this, to get to the bottom of it. “You think you can handle school today?”
He shrugs carelessly. “Sure. Why not? Things can’t get much worse.”
Coop corners me in the hallway just before we head out to the truck. “What did the messages say?” he demand, eyes bright with anger.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does, because I know who sent them. Carly and April, two girls in his social studies class. They’ve been mean to him for weeks now.”
“You knew?”
He hunches his shoulders. “Bo told me it was just a joke.”
“Telling someone to kill himself isn’t a joke.”
Cooper’s jaw clenches. “They told Bo he should kill himself?”
“I thought you said you knew.”
“I know what they were saying a couple weeks ago.”
“And what was that?”
“That he was so ugly and stupid that no one would ever want to have sex with him.”
I suck in a breath. These are eighth graders saying these things. Eighth graders. “You should have told me, Coop. You should have come to me—”
“Bo told me not to. He made me promise.”
“I don’t care. I’m the mom. This is something I needed to know.”
I’ve just dropped Cooper at his school and am on the way to Mineral Wells to take Bo to his junior high when Bo says in a very quiet voice, “I want to die.”
The words hang between us, and time seems to freeze so that I have a moment of stunning clarity. Bo slunk against the cracked vinyl seat next to me. The 180 shrouded in fog. The fields around us glittering with frost.
“Bo,” I whisper in protest.
“It’s too hard, Mom. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
The world has shrunk to just us. The truck is old and the heater coughs weakly and my son is exhausted by life.
My son has just said he wants to die.
I hold the steering wheel as if it were a dangerous thing, but it’s not the truck that’s dangerous. It’s our hearts.
Bo doesn’t realize I couldn’t survive without him. He doesn’t realize my world is him.
“How long have you felt this way?” I ask.
“A while.”
The despair in his voice reminds me of the sea on a moonless night. Endless and dark and suffocating.
“When were you going to tell me?” My voice is gentle, belying my resolve. I love him.
“I didn’t want to tell you. Didn’t want to worry you. I wanted to fix it on my own.”
And isn’t that just like my family? Always trying to protect one another, even if it means burying the pain, denying the truth, killing the self? “I’m your mom. It’s my job to worry.”
I slow and then brake, pulling over onto the shoulder of the road. I leave the engine running so the heater stays on. “I’m going to help you,” I tell him. “We’re going to fix this—”
“How?”
“We’ll get you help.”
“Take me to another counselor?”
“Yes. A good one. And maybe talking will be enough, or maybe the counselor will recommend something else. We’ll figure it out. All I know for sure is that we’re going to do whatever we have to do to make you feel better.”
He looks at me, and his dark blue eyes burn with a hell of his own. And I feel that hell, that fire, burn me. I reach out, touch his cheek. He flinches but doesn’t pull away, and I trace the line of cheekbone to jaw. He’s still baby-faced, still no beard despite his last growth spurt.
“Okay,” he answers. “I’ll go to counseling or take medicine or whatever I have to do, because I don’t like feeling this way. It scares me.�
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It scares me, too. But I keep that to myself.
Bo goes to class, and I go to the school office to request a meeting with Paul Peterson. The front office is decorated with holiday lights and wintry décor. It’s obvious today’s the last day of school before break, as even the office staff are giddy and munching Christmas cookies and wearing earrings that light up and play music. I try not to watch as two of the office secretaries exchange gifts and open the packages in front of me.
I don’t want to be here for this. I don’t want to be feeling like this. It’s almost Christmas, yet I’m absolutely panicked. My son is suffering. My son is talking of dying. How can anyone wear silly light-up earrings and a reindeer antler hat?
Paul Peterson finally ushers me into his office and closes the door. “You’re upset,” he says.
I nod and open my mouth, but nothing comes out. How do you tell someone something like this?
“I need your help,” I whisper, my throat constricting, making it hard to get the words out.
“Tell me.”
And I do. I tell him everything. The text messages. The bullying, including the sour milk incidents and the fight earlier in the fall. I tell him that Bo’s depression has returned and I’m going to get help outside the school for it, but I need the school’s support. I ask that he alert the teachers, and if he can’t, then I will contact each of his teachers individually. “I don’t want to turn Bo into a freak show, but people need to be aware that he’s more fragile right now than we’d like.”
“I will handle this,” Paul promises me, “and I’ll be discreet.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you already working with someone?” He pauses, reaches into his desk, digs through a file folder, and pulls out a sheet of paper. “If not, we do have a list of counselors in the county that work with children. I can’t personally vouch for any of them, but I know families have been pleased with the top three names on this list.”
The conversation with Paul at school is the easy one. Calling John is so much harder, and I put off phoning him until I’m back home.
“Hi,” I say when he answers. “Do you have a minute?”
She’s Gone Country Page 27