Tell Me Something Real

  “Evie, stop. I don’t have any other friends like that.”

  “Like what, Colt? What kind of friends are we? Because you and Lincoln are friends, and you and Ford. Do you kiss them, too?”

  “Jesus, Rich Boy and I don’t kiss. We hit each other, like men.” He tries a smile, but Evie doesn’t budge. “Lincoln and I are family,” he corrects her, stepping in front of her now. His hands go to her shoulders, cupping them, but she stays stiff and unrelenting. I’m proud of her, even when I wish she would give in. Proud because she’s not afraid to look at Colt and tell him he’s worth it, even though he hasn’t said the same.

  “Then what are you and I? Because you’re more than my friend, Colt. At least, it feels that way. Sometimes.”

  He swallows—it’s hard to watch how unsteady the action is, so I look away. Ford nods his head and we begin grabbing our things, ready to walk away, and then we hear him say it.

  “You’re more than my friend, too, Evie girl. More than I deserve.” The admission is as unsteady as his voice, and my heart squeezes again.

  “Ask me, Colt. Ask me like you ask me to come see you at night, or during the day when you need to leave here.” Evie relents enough to reach up and grab his shirt with her fingers. “Ask me to Winter Formal so I can say yes.”

  His eyes are wide and unsure, but when he speaks, his voice is clear. “Do you want to go to Winter Formal with me, Evelyn Wright?”

  “God, yes.”

  She laughs, and he does, too, with a large exhale that betrays his nerves. I realize I’m squeezing Ford’s hand so hard that my knuckles are white, and I give him an apologetic smile. He just strokes his thumb over my hand, nodding his head at the door again.

  We stand, slinging backpacks over our shoulders, laughing when we hear Colt ask Evie if he can kiss her. “Only if you’re prepared to have my dad find you and give you Saturday school until the end of the year.”

  “Worth it.” And then there are no more words, so they must be kissing.

  Ford smiles at me when we walk out of the noise and into the less-crowded hallways. “Do you want to go to Winter Formal, Lincoln Brewer?”

  I play dumb. “With Colt? He’s got a date.”

  Ford squeezes my hand, pulling me to the side and stopping us. “With me. Because I want to go to Winter Formal with you, Lincoln. I want to dance with you.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  He just grins, tugging me close, both of our backpacks sliding down our arms and dropping to the floor. Ford puts his arms all the way around me. “I want to see you in a dress, and I want to spend too much money on flowers and dinner, and after the bad music and the slow songs, I want to take you to our spot in the field, and kiss you until the sun comes up.”

  I let out a shaky breath. “You want a lot of things.”

  He shakes his head, eyes intense when he pulls me closer. “Just you. I just want you, Lincoln.”

  “I just want you, too.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  I nod, whispering the word right before his lips fall onto mine.

  “Phone’s for you, Ford.”

  I look up from my bed where I’m leaning against the headboard, textbook open on my lap, while I pretend to be focusing on AP Physics. Truthfully, I’m thinking about Lincoln and what it felt like the other night when I spent thirty minutes kissing her after practice.

  My hands made their way under the fabric of her T-shirt to the skin of her lower back and stomach. Everything in me burned for her, and touching her heated skin like that…we both needed skittles afterward.

  Now, I focus on Maggie, who’s holding a real-life cordless telephone with an antenna out to me. It looks like something from the late eighties or early nineties, and I get a kick out of seeing it.

  “Who is it?” Since I got my first cell phone at age eight, I’ve never, ever received a personal call anywhere else. Not even at my parents’ house in Seattle.

  “Tommy—your father.”

  My mouth goes dry, and my palm is a little sweaty when I reach for the phone. It feels like I’m holding a brick to my ear. I wait until Maggie walks out of the room, clicking the door closed behind her.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, son.”

  I swallow to ease the dryness in my throat. “Dad.”

  And then we’re silent, five, maybe ten seconds, but it’s enough to indicate that whatever stood between us before is still there.

  “Is there a reason you’re calling? My cell… it doesn’t show any missed calls.”

  “Your grandmother called me to talk about some things. Then she said I should talk to you—ask you about school.” Right. Maggie. Because B.T. Slaughter wouldn’t think of calling his own son after nearly three months apart. “How are your grades? Better than last semester’s I hope.”

  “All As,” I tell him, and wonder why I hold my breath afterward.

  “That’s something, then. Of course, the caliber of schooling wasn’t amazing when I went there, so it’s not what you’re used to. I should hope you can receive high marks in a small town school more concerned with farming than educating.”

  My back stiffens immediately at the underhanded compliment. “AP exams are the same nationwide—I guess we’ll know how great the schooling is in May when I take those.”

  “Your grandmother said something about football.”

  I nod, reminding myself he can’t see me after a second. “Yes. With Colt. Your nephew?”

  I don’t know what I was hoping for, a pause or missed beat to tell me that my statement held some sort of shock value, that my father had forgotten about these people and that’s why he never told me about them. But he doesn’t pause.

  “I thought he was in prison. Trafficking girls and drugs and all sorts of other behavior I’d expect from Nick’s son.”

  My hand grips the phone so tightly I hear the device grimace in warning. “That’s his older brother—Cash. Colt is my age; a senior.”

  “Well, I guess it’s good he’s on the football team instead of following his mother and brother to jail.” I hear a small rustling, and I can see him in my mind, shifting stacks of paper, impatient to get back to them.

  I stand, holding my breath, phone pressed violently to my ear while I listen to the muffled movement on the other end and wish for something I can’t name.

  “Your grandfather still working in the dirt every day?”

  The question stumps me a minute, and then I realize what my father’s asking: does he still work on the farm? “Yes.”

  “How early is he waking you up to do something like haul hay or ride a tractor through the fields in the dark? God, I hated that place. Nothing but dirt and grass seed for miles. No one around, and nothing new happened year after year.”

  I think he’s talking to himself, which is good, because now it’s not just the way I’m wishing for something from him that feels violent—it’s me. Maybe it’s because of Lincoln and Colt, or Beau and Maggie. Or maybe because I’ve lived both sides of the socio-economic line now, both as king and laborer, but whatever the reason, my father’s words hit me hard.

  “You mean the nearly thousand acres of land he owns, manages, sublets, and works to turn a profit for his international business? That dirt?” I swallow to make sure my voice stays level. For the first time, anger isn’t shutting my emotions down—it’s enraging them and I want to scream into the phone, asking my dad when he became such an entitled asshole.

  But, because I’ve been where he is—the guy who knows it all—I understand that question won’t affect him, just as none of the things I listed will change his opinions. This is really the largest difference between the wealthy and the working class; the wealthy don’t have to listen, because they’ve already decided what they know is right, and their money means everyone else will agree with them. The working class pours sweat and time and money into their trade every day, and they’ll continue doing it, even when someone like B.T. Slaughter
deems their life’s work nothing more than digging in the dirt.

  A man like his father—like my grandfather—would never measure up in his eyes, no matter how successful. Because he wields a broom or a shovel or wrench when he needs to, and manual labor always makes a person less in the circle I come from.

  After nearly a minute of silence, I let out a breath and close my eyes. “Dad, I have to go.”

  “Me too.” He doesn’t offer a reason why, and neither do I. I wait again, like a child, for that unknown, thinking maybe now he’ll ask about his mom or dad, or more about me. Instead, he clears his throat. “Study hard, Ford.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The line goes dead right after I say the words, and eventually, a dial tone begins in my ear, reminding me this phone doesn’t just click off with the call. I pull the phone back, searching for OFF and not finding it. There are tons of small buttons, half of which don’t have writing because it’s so old the numbers or letter rubbed off over time.

  My pulse is pounding at my temple, and my muscles are all clenched. No sound comes out of my mouth, but I can hear the incessant drone of the dial tone, and I can’t stand it. A second later, it’s quiet, the phone in tiny pieces on the floor, a small divot marking the wall where the receiver smashed into it.

  I’m still staring at the pieces when there is a knock on the door, and Maggie steps through. Beau’s right behind her, his face far more serious.

  Maggie glances at the phone paraphernalia, and then raises a brow at me. “I was looking to finally get a new phone.”

  I bark out a laugh, but the sound is raw coming from my throat.

  “Sorry. I’ll get you one.”

  Her smile is gentle. “Ford,” she begins.

  “He’s such an asshole.” Scraping my fingers through my hair, I grip the strands until my scalp pinches.

  “Your father is very driven,” she corrects, but I interrupt her.

  “To be an asshole. I mean, Jesus, is it too much to just respect people? Or to ask how I am? His only son who hasn’t talked to him in months. And he only talked to me now because he talked to you, and you didn’t give him a choice.”

  She sighs, those kind eyes still focused on me. But it’s Beau who speaks. “Affection is hard for some people, Ford. I didn’t… know how to balance the compliments and the criticism when he and his brother were younger.”

  “Well, you should be glad to know you rubbed off on him somewhere then, because he didn’t balance at all. Nothing was good enough for B.T. Slaughter. Still isn’t,” I mumble.

  Beau tries again. “Your father is a brilliant man. Being here, on this farm, wasn’t what he ever wanted. He wanted to build bigger things, do bigger things. Even in high school projects, he was always more focused on the outcome than the people and the process.”

  “Yeah—and this outcome disappointed him.”

  Neither of my grandparents says anything, and I’m grateful they don’t try to hide the truth, or make excuses and tell me I’m wrong.

  My father had a son, and instead of being the top of my class with exemplary grades and extracurriculars, I’ve been suspended from school for fighting more times than he can count, and, regardless of what the settlement papers say, I almost killed a girl because I was driving recklessly.

  “What’s stupid is that I used to be his minion,” I say. Now that the words have been uttered, the truth that I’m a disappointment and not much else to my father, I can’t seem to stop the rest from coming. “I used to be the four point oh student, the kid who won spelling bees and math competitions, one who created the best science project in the seventh grade, and won first place at the robotics competition when I was thirteen. And he still wasn’t happy. So, I stopped caring, just like him.”

  “Your father cares about you, Ford.” Beau’s voice is sure and clear.

  “That why he called to ask you if I could stay through graduation, rather than just the end of the semester?”

  Maggie’s eyes go wide. “How did you...?”

  “He just wants what’s best for you,” Beau says, and I can see he doesn’t believe it. First lie, but I let it go because I know he’s doing it to protect me.

  “Maybe he does—or maybe he’s just happy to not have anyone else to worry about while he takes over the world. I’m okay with staying,” I add. “I was going to ask if I could anyway. If you don’t mind, since both Colt and I are living here now.”

  Maggie steps forward, wrapping her arms around my waist briefly before stepping back. “You’re always welcome here—both of my grandsons are. We love having you, Ford.”

  I nod, swallowing. “Thank you.”

  Whether he understands that I need space, or he is just as uncomfortable with deep emotions like I am, Beau grabs Maggie’s hand and tugs her gently toward the door. Before he closes it behind them, though, he looks back at me. “Your grandmother is right, Ford. We love having you here.”

  I nod, working the words “thank you” from my throat. He nods once and then clicks the door behind him. On a shaking breath, I sink down on my bed and pull out my phone, texting Lincoln.

  Me: Tell me something.

  I wait, staring at the phone, relief blowing through me when conversation bubbles pop up. This statement has become our lifeline, the thing that helps steady us. Whenever one of us seems to need something to help, this is where we go.

  Lincoln: I bought a dress for Winter Formal.

  Me: Picture.

  Lincoln: I’m not the selfie kind of gal, Rich Boy. Besides, what kind of demand is that from a girl? Picture of her dress? Totally takes away the reveal on the big day.

  Me: Color?

  Lincoln: Don’t beg, Ford, it makes you look whipped.

  Me: Maybe I am. Whipped.

  Lincoln: Maybe I am, too.

  Lincoln: Not in a weirdo, Fifty Shades way, tho;)

  The laugh rumbles out of me, and I trace my thumb over those words. This, right here, is the reason I’m a different person. I just hope I’m better at holding onto my first love than my father was.

  I stand in the bleachers for the first time all year, watching while the football team lines up, their blue and gold helmets sparkling under the lights.

  Parents line the field, waiting for their senior’s name to be called so they can walk out onto the field and hug them. I see Beau and Maggie standing at the end, hands clasped together while they talk with the couple in front of them.

  They’re standing for both Colt and Ford today. The sons of their sons.

  I watch them, observing the way they hold hands, how Beau always keeps Maggie slightly in front of him, blocking her from the wind that’s sure to bring the rain back. She’s almost a head shorter than he is, but even with eighteen or twenty years on all of the other parents standing near them, they look young and in love.

  And, despite the gossipers who love to point out the failure of the original Slaughter boys, when it’s their turn, Beau and Maggie walk onto the field with pride to stand with their grandsons.

  “I shouldn’t be announced. It’s not like this is a big deal for me—I’ve only been here for three months.”

  Colt had looked at Ford when they were talking about this at lunch earlier in the week, and shaken his head. “Rich Boy, what in the hell are you talking about?”

  “At the senior game,” he said. “I shouldn’t be announced. I should stand on the sidelines with the rest of the juniors and sophomores while Beau and Maggie stand with you.”

  “Why? You embarrassed to be seen with them?”

  Ford looked ready to punch Colt. “No, dickhead, I’m not embarrassed. Beau and Maggie…” He looked down then. “They’re amazing. But it’s your team—so it should be your moment.”

  Colt’s face told me he understood what Ford was doing—stepping back so for once, the Slaughter boys weren’t the topic of conversation, just one Slaughter boy, and his four years of dedication to his sport and his team.


  “Rich Boy, it’s your team, too. Just like they’re your grandparents, too.”

  That—right there—hit Ford hard, and he didn’t respond with more than a nod of his head when Colt finished with, “So shut the fuck up about not being announced. We’re walking out together. Got it?”

  Now, they stand shoulder to shoulder, Colt’s buzzed hair the same color as Ford’s near mane of chestnut brown, their broad shoulders and chiseled jawlines testament to the god-like genetics they share. Colt is broader in the chest, thicker in the arms, where Ford is toned and lean. But both of them stand tall and beautiful under the lights, two boys whose circumstances aren’t so different, though their stations in life tell you they should be.

  Ford’s dad isn’t here—and he’s never mentioned his mom, which tells me she either is no longer, or never has been, a major part of his life. Like Colt’s parents who were too wrapped up in who they were, and what they needed, to see their son, Ford’s parents have missed this moment and too many others. But it doesn’t matter, not right now when the two cousins stand together as the family they have become.

  They wait at the fifty-yard line while Beau escorts Maggie out to them, his large hand still holding hers. Colt hands her a rose first, before swooping down to wrap her in a hug and kiss her cheek. When he releases her, he turns to Beau and shakes his hand, pounding him on the back. Then it’s Ford’s turn, and he hesitates only a second before following Colt’s lead. The announcer booms their respective history over the loud speaker, and my eyes sting when he reminds the crowd that Tommy and Nick Slaughter once graced this same field their sons now stand on.

  “We lost Nick years ago, and Tommy couldn’t be here, so Colt and Ford Slaughter are greeted tonight by their grandparents, our very own Beau and Maggie Slaughter, owners of the iconic S Farm, which has been producing most of Albany’s grass seed for more than a hundred years now. Let’s clap for this beautiful family, folks, and send these boys off in style.”

  When the hugs are done, the announcer asks us to rise for the National Anthem. On the field, Beau and Maggie stand with Ford on one side, and Colt on the other, their arms around their grandparents’ shoulders while they look to the flag, honoring fallen soldiers from our community while the band plays. Nicholas Slaughter’s face fills the screen for a minute, and the hushed crowd goes completely silent.