The Before Now and After Then

by Pen Name Publishing

  I blushed and continued eating my food. When we were done, we cleaned the dishes for his mom while she helped Carlos get ready for bed. Afterwards, Rusty took me upstairs to meet his sister.

  When we walked into her room, I was surprised to find it looked like the epitome of a little girl’s bedroom, instead of the hospital room I had conjured in my head. Almost the entire room was filled by a pink, canopy bed. Posters of Disney movies were on every wall; The Little Mermaid, Tangled, Frozen and Brave. Mya wore a pink nightgown and was tucked into her bed tightly, reading The Secret Garden, which she closed when we walked in. Her face was puffy and round.

  “Mya, this is Danny,” Rusty said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  I just stood there, not sure what to do.

  “Are you Rusty’s new boyfriend?” she asked, watching me closely.

  “I, uh…”

  “Yes,” Rusty said, surprising me with his answer.

  “Good,” she said as she patted the edge of her bed, motioning for me to sit down next to Rusty. When I did, she took my hand and folded it into his, forcing us to hold hands. “I want Rusty to be happy.” For 10 years old, Mya seemed much wiser than her age. It wasn’t just what she said, but how she said it, making me wonder if there were many times when Rusty hadn’t been happy in the past.

  “Do you want me to put in a movie?” Rusty stood up and walked towards the television.

  “The Little Mermaid.”

  “Again?”

  “It’s my favorite,” she gasped, her lungs searching for air as she spoke. “I’m still waiting for Ariel to make Eric turn into a merman and come and live with her under the sea. It’s so unfair.”

  I laughed and stood up as Rusty put the movie in the DVD player and started it. The whole time, Mya watched me standing in the door. Finally, she said, “Please make him happy.” And instead of smiling, she looked scared.

  I nodded. “I’ll try.”

  It made me think of the inscription Alex had written in Rusty’s book. Why were so many people worried about me and Rusty hurting each other? Did we seem so incredibly fragile to the rest of the world?

  We said goodbye to Mya and walked into the hallway. Rusty closed the door and walked into another room. “This is mine,” he said, flicking on the light.

  If Cher’s room had surprised me, I was totally amazed by Rusty’s. His room was surprisingly clean, with the occasional piece of clothing thrown around on the floor. Covering three walls of his room, was a continuous mural of a huge wave, rip curling just over his bed. Tons of blue and white pillows filled his bed, giving the impression that his bed was part of the mural. In the middle sat an opened laptop, which he quickly shut and put on his desk. Stacks of books were lined up against the wall and in the corner was a pile of large, crazy looking stuffed animals, with jagged teeth. He noticed me looking at them. “Have you seen the movie or read the book?”

  I shook my head.

  “Where the Wild Things Are. It’s probably my favorite book and movie of all time. Well, next to Suburban Wasteland.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” I said, in awe of his bedroom, literally feeling like I was standing inside of Rusty, seeing his every thought.

  “You’ve really never heard of Where the Wild Things Are?” he looked shocked.

  I stared at him blankly.

  “I own the movie. We’ll watch it together sometime.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Sometime, I guess,” he replied with a shrug as he sat down on the bed.

  “Can we watch it now? Here?” I couldn’t explain it to him, but I felt incredibly safe in his room. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to curl up under his blankets and fall asleep in his arms while we watched a movie.

  “Sure, I guess.”

  And that’s how we watched Where the Wild Things Are for the first time and how it became my favorite movie. Rusty turned off the lights and lit candles all around the room, locking the door so we could cuddle under the sheets in just our boxer shorts. He sat up against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, while I leaned up against him, feeling him breathe in and out, the faint smell of soap and sweet sweat. I smiled when he laughed at all of his favorite parts, not realizing I was watching him watching the movie. He put his hand on my head and ran his fingers through my hair as the night grew late, and I thought about the rest of his family watching TV and going to bed and how his family felt like a real family, unlike my own. It felt nice. It felt safe. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke up in the middle of the night, with Rusty holding onto me from behind. His breath was warm on the back of my neck and even though I didn’t want to leave, I knew I had stayed too late. I grabbed my jeans off of the floor and got my phone, hoping it wasn’t too late.

  4:18am

  There were nine missed calls from mom. Standing up quickly, I put on my clothes as Rusty stirred and turned over. “Rusty,” I whispered. He didn’t move. I reached down and grabbed his shoulder, slowly waking him up.

  He wiped his eyes and looked at me, confused. “What’s wrong? What time is it?”

  “It’s really, really late. Almost 4:30,” I said.

  “Shit!”

  “I know!” I said, as I finished getting dressed. He stood up and put on a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top he grabbed from the floor.

  “Are you going to be in trouble?” he asked.

  “Probably. My mom’s called a bunch of times.”

  He walked me down through the dark house and out to the car. “Even if you get in trouble, I wouldn’t trade it in for anything,” he whispered as he reached down and kissed me. “Text me when you get home so I know you’re ok.”

  I waited until I was halfway down the street to call Mom.

  “Where in the hell are you?” She was seriously pissed off.

  “I was at Rusty’s. I fell asleep while we were watching a movie. I’m on my way home.” All I could hear was Mom crying before the phone went dead.

  When I got home, I found Mom, Dad and Alex sitting at the kitchen table. As soon as they saw me, they all stood up.

  “I’m fine. I just fell asleep,” I said.

  Mom started to cry, tears choking her words as she spoke. “Do you have any idea how scared we were? We even called the police and made a report.”

  Dad walked over to me and put his arm around me. “I know you need your freedom buddy, but you can’t do that to us. Not after everything that’s happened.”

  I pulled away from him. “I fell asleep. It wasn’t like I planned it.” I started walking up the stairs.

  “Get back here!” Mom shouted. I turned around and faced her. She was sobbing. The look on her face reminded me of how she looked after the policemen had told her that Sam had died. “Don’t get all cocky with us. We sat here for hours without you calling or texting us back. We had no idea how to get ahold of Rusty or his mother. I sat here for hours thinking some policeman was going to ring our door at any moment.” She grabbed a pack of cigarettes off of the counter and walked out onto the patio.

  “She was just really scared,” Dad said. “We all were.” He walked over and gave me a hug. “I’m going to go home now and get some sleep. We should all just get some sleep.” He leaned down, kissing my forehead and then he left.

  I looked over at Alex who stood in the corner of the kitchen with his hands in his pocket. “That was an asshole move.”

  “Seriously, we fell asleep,” I said.

  “Seriously, I don’t care. It was cruel and thoughtless. You might not like the fact that you have different expectations because of Sam, but the fact is that you do. That’s just the way it is.”

  I looked down at the ground. I had never meant to scare anyone. My perfect night had turned into a disaster.

  “Did you at least have fun?” Alex asked as he lit a cigarette.

  “Yeah, it was really good.”

  He poured a glass of wine from a bottle on the counter.
“If you were my kid, I’d ground you until next year. But that’s probably why I don’t have kids. Let me give you some advice. Just don’t fall too fast.” I didn’t say anything but caught his stare. “Is it too late?”

  “Maybe.”

  He sighed, “Yeah, that always happens to me too. Just enjoy the ride, then. Wherever it takes you.” He turned and walked out onto the patio.

  Upstairs, I took off my clothes and got into bed. Even though I had scared everyone, I couldn’t help but smile about my perfect day. I texted Rusty, telling him that I had made it home. Several minutes later, I fell asleep with the phone still in my hand.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend!” Cher screamed, standing outside of my locker. She was dressed in all black and had a veil of lace safety pinned over her hat, covering her face.

  “I’m not sure if he really is yet or not.”

  “And you got that fantastic car,” she exclaimed as she dramatically threw herself up against the locker. “Life is so unfair. While everything wonderful is happening to you, my life is falling apart.” She motioned to the veil. “As you can see, I’m in mourning for the loss of the love of my life.”

  “I didn’t even think you liked him that much anymore.” I shut my locker and we started walking down the hallway.

  “I didn’t,” she sighed. “But, what else do I have to get upset about.”

  We reached our last class, English, and sat down next to each other. “Maybe you’ll find someone you like better.”

  “No. I’m destined to be an old maid.” The girl next to Cher stared at her like she had never seen anything like her before. “Can I help you?” Cher said, dismissing her with her hand. “There are no real guys for me my age anyway. I think I need an older man, maybe someone in college or medical school. Hey, maybe we could ditch someday and go to some campus or hospital and walk around like we’re college students and then I’ll try to find a boyfriend.”

  I laughed. “Sure,” feeling my phone buzz in my pocket.

  It was last period and I hadn’t seen Rusty all day. He hadn’t responded to my text from the night before or any of my texts I had sent throughout the day, making me a little worried that something was seriously wrong.

  I pulled out my phone, hoping it would be Rusty, and read a text from Mom telling me she was going to Dad’s and wouldn’t be home after school. I didn’t know what was going on, but they had been spending a lot of time together and I wondered if they were trying to work things out. When they had first separated, they had told me that they were just “taking a break”, explaining that it wasn’t just about the affair, which I obviously knew about, or Sam’s death, but that they had just grown apart.

  “But we’re going to work on things,” Dad had said. “We’re not divorcing. We’re just taking a break for a while.”

  Mom had nodded, but I wasn’t sure how much I believed either one of them.

  I glanced back over at Cher and caught her applying a thick coat of red lipstick. We were reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which we had read at my old school as freshmen, and it was still one of my favorite books. After we had finished the book, we watched the movie and I had fallen more in love with the characters after seeing them come to life on the screen.

  That year for Christmas, Mom bought me the special edition DVD of the movie and I had watched it every night for months. To me, the book represented a perfect childhood filled with mystery and innocence, much like the childhood Sam and I had growing up. I loved watching the scenes where Scout, Jem and Dill would talk about Boo Radley and try to figure out how they were going to see him. At the time, I had even wished we had some Boo Radley type person, misunderstood yet gentle, living in our neighborhood.

  “This class is so boring,” Cher said. “I hate this book.”

  I thought it was funny how something you loved so much, was so disgusting to someone else. “It’s one of my favorites,” I told her, but it fell on deaf years, as she was already searching through her backpack, flipping through sheets of paper.

  After school, I gave Cher a ride home. “Have you started to fix up your room yet?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe you should just let it flow out of you organically,” she suggested, as she puffed on her cigarette while getting out of the car. “Just do whatever feels right. And do not make me wait for twenty-four hours to find out about any major life events either.”

  I drove immediately to Rusty’s house. He still hadn’t texted me and I assumed he had just slept all day since we didn’t get much sleep the night before. By the time I got there, I still hadn’t heard from him even though I had texted him twice and called him three times on my way over. I rang the doorbell and waited, but nobody answered. Just as I was about to walk away, his grandma answered the door.

  “Is Rusty home?” I asked.

  She just stared at me.

  “Um, is Rusty here?”

  She continued to stare at me for another minute and then she closed the door. I waited for a few seconds before deciding to leave, confused and having no idea about what was going on. I sat in my car and looked up at Rusty’s room, but the blinds were drawn. I called him one more time and left a message. “Hey. It’s me. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day, but you’re not calling or texting back, so I’m starting to worry. Call me when you get this.”

  After that, I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I decided to drive home since I didn’t have anything else to do. I started wondering if I had done something wrong or if maybe he got into trouble because his mom knew I had stayed so late.

  I parked in the driveway and was grabbing my backpack from the backseat when I saw the record Rusty had bought me on the floor. I grabbed it and walked inside. Mom was sitting in the kitchen, writing in a notebook. “What’s up?” I said. “I thought you were going to be with Dad?

  She looked distracted and held a finger up, silencing me, writing something in the notebook and then closed it. “I’m writing a song. Alex and I are thinking about starting up our old band.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. Wasn’t Dad in the band too?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, opening the notebook again and writing something else inside.

  “I thought you texted me that you were hanging out with Dad today? What’s going on with you guys anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” She walked over to the refrigerator and took out a Diet Coke.

  “You guys have just been spending a lot of time together,” I pried.

  “No we haven’t,” she said, defensively.

  “You’ve gone over there a couple of nights.”

  Mom sighed, “We’re trying to decide what each of us wants before your dad moves out. We’re just going through old stuff.”

  “You didn’t ask me to go through anything.”

  “You can have anything you want, Danny,” she said softly as she crossed the room to sit next to me. “Maybe we should go over there and go through your room, together.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to box Sam up and put him away. “When do you want to do it?”

  “We can go right now, if you want,” Mom suggested.

  “Right now?”

  “Sure.” Mom grabbed her purse from the kitchen table and put on her sunglasses.

  “Alright,” I said, standing up and following her out to the car.

  We were silent on our drive over to the house. I hadn’t stayed there in a few weeks and it felt strange to pull into the driveway in my new car. Somehow, the old and the new just didn’t weave together comfortably.

  Our old house wasn’t brand new, like the house Mom had bought. It was dated and in an older part of town, where the lawns were long and the trees bloomed differently in every yard. I had always loved the neighborhood because it felt like it should be in a Halloween movie, with kids trick or treati
ng up and down the streets in the late afternoon.

  The house was white clapboard with a large wraparound porch. We walked up the front steps and Mom unlocked the front door. I was surprised to find that much of the furniture in the house had already been moved out, leaving the rooms barren.

  “I should have told you that your father and I have been moving stuff into storage this whole last week.”

  It felt like a secret that everyone was keeping from me and until that moment I didn’t realize how much the house had felt like a member of my family for so many years. I walked up the stairs, each step putting a strain on my breathing as I thought back on the day of the accident.

  I remembered the red polo and jeans Sam was wearing when he ran down the stairs that morning and him throwing a hacky sack for Griffin to catch in the front yard, because Griffin would catch a hacky sack, but never a tennis ball or stick. I remembered him winking at me and giving me the thumbs up as he backed out of the driveway. I remembered sitting on the front porch and I remembered listening to Mom and Dad’s fight. I remembered the policeman at our front door and I remembered Mom collapsing into his arms. I remembered going to the hospital and I remembered sitting in the backseat of Mom’s car on the way home, holding Sam’s belongings, his watch carefully placed in a zip lock bag on top of another zip lock back containing Griffin’s collar, spotted with blood. I remembered taking the watch out of the bag and putting it on my wrist. I remembered it all.

  It was too much. I grabbed the bannister and stood in place. I tried to catch my breath.

  “Are you OK, honey?”

  I shook my head. Mom told me to sit down, but I couldn’t move. She kept talking but I could hardly hear her, she sounded extremely far away.

  What I had avoided feeling for so many months rushed into me and I felt like I was drowning from the emotions. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

  “I’m going to get you some water,” Mom said, running into the kitchen. I gripped my fingers around the edge of the wooden stairs, trying to steady myself, but the staircase seemed to get longer and longer. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest I felt like it would explode and I was afraid of being there alone.