by Ryan Gebhart
Jenny told me my eyes were red and that I needed to take a shower. We had sex in her bathroom. She brought Shugar over that same fucking evening.
My feelings for her were nothing more than a pathetic infatuation. Love isn’t meant for me. And, you know, that’s fine. It can’t happen to everyone. With so many people dying from wars or famine or disease, should I really think the universe actually cares if some asshole like me never finds true love?
Not bloody likely.
Mom’s car pulls up and she gets out with the most perplexed face. She’s holding a bag of Arby’s in one hand and a soda in the other and mule-kicks the car door shut. “Derek. What are you doing on the floor? Why is the garage open?”
I sit up. “Sorry.”
She walks into the garage like she’s assessing the damage from a tornado. “What’s the matter? What’s that smell?”
“Shugar came over.”
“Oh. Who was that girl who came over on Friday?”
“Um. Her name’s Jenny.”
“Did you two get in a fight?”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about this.”
She frowns. “Oh, Ducky. I’m going to make you an appointment with Dr. McDermott.”
My voice sharpens. “I’m fine.”
Tears start welling in her eyes and, God, she’s embarrassing herself. “Ducky, the things you’re doing, they’re not normal. And you ditched school again. I know you lied to me about not feeling well this morning. Probably just wanted to start your Thanksgiving break a day early.”
“No cankers here.”
“I see it in your eyes sometimes. The depression.”
“You can go now.” I switch the TV back to Game of Thrones. I lie on the couch and I’m going to pretend like Mom isn’t here and that I’m not freezing my ass off with the garage open and I’m not depressed, okay? I just kinda don’t want to live anymore.
She says, “What happened to my little Donald Derek? Do you miss Texas?”
I turn the volume up. In about fifteen minutes, Ned Stark’s going to get his head chopped off, and if Mom doesn’t get out, she’s going to ruin it.
She says, “Are you mad at me? Are you mad at your father?”
“That was a long time ago. I’m over it.”
She’s still hovering. She’ll never accept that my problems revolve around something other than the divorce.
I hit pause and turn to her. “Go eat your lunch.”
She takes her bag and her soda. “I really wish you’d stop talking to me that way.”
I mock her, but only in my head.
She says, “I’m leaving early from work so I can pick up your father and Avery at the Detroit airport. Will you be cleaned up and ready for dinner by six?”
“No.”
“Donald Derek!” But when I don’t respond, she turns around and mumbles angrily as she closes the door. I hit play, then fifteen minutes later she’s in her car again heading back to work. I shut both garage doors and turn the space heater to its highest setting, and the coils are a pissed-off red color.
Ilyn Payne swings the greatsword Ice, and Ned Stark is dead as shit.
Winter has come at last. It’s like the temperature dropped a solid ten degrees just from this morning. Maybe it’s because the earth is drifting away from the sun and I’m in love with Jennifer Novak even though I shouldn’t be.
Stop saying that. She loves me just as much as I love her. She just doesn’t know it, or she’s scared of her feelings, or something. I mean, Friday night she had her hands against my sides and she rode me and the look on her face said it all. And afterward she put her hand to my chest and told me she could feel my heart beating. You simply cannot give someone all of your love and then go and give it all to someone else the very same day. It’s not possible.
I don’t know how, but I have to help her discover who she truly is deep-down inside — devout, awesome, and mine. I have to, yeah. Because there’s no way I can go through another day like this.
I’m sitting in the shower, my arms wrapped around my knees, and water is dripping from my brow. I turned the shower off fifteen minutes ago, and goose bumps are rising on my forearms. There is no sound but the hum of the bathroom fan. I take a swig from the bottle of Glenlivet, grimace, and place it back outside the tub.
I’m thinking about Jenny, about the future.
When Jenny graduates from high school, she goes off to Ohio University for a double major in fashion and business, and I stay at home to work for an independent contractor. The distance sucks, but we make it work. We rotate weekends — I go down four hours to Athens on the first and third Fridays of the month, she drives up to Maumee on the second and fourth. Guys are hitting on her, but she remains entirely loyal to me and so do I to her, because neither one of us wants to be with anyone else.
One day during her Christmas break, we’re walking down the towpath and talking about her latest T-shirt ideas. I get down on one knee. She covers her mouth and the rims of her eyes get teary. Her hands tremble and my voice wavers with emotion when I say, “Will you marry me?”
She says yes. Absolutely. Of course.
One year later, Jenny’s walking the aisle holding her bouquet of white roses, her face hidden behind a veil. As manly as I try to present myself in my tuxedo, she just makes me feel so childlike, and I can’t wait to do the things we do when no one else is around.
I begin flipping houses on the side to earn extra money so I can build a nest egg and a comfortable place for us to bone. We do it on the couch, on the floor, on the kitchen counter or wherever.
She gets pregnant and emotional and lets me put my ear to her belly to hear a tiny heartbeat. We don’t want to find out if it’s a boy or a girl. I drive her to the hospital when her water breaks; I hold her hand and kiss her sweaty forehead as she goes through labor. It’s a girl. She cries. Jenny cries. I cry. The doctor bundles up the writhing, amorphous mass of human in a blanket and hands her over to us. She’s a little bit me, a little bit Jenny. She’s our love in the shape of a child.
Even when we’re eighty and grandparents and Jenny’s breasts are like two plastic bags half filled with oatmeal, I still rest my head on them and call them my best friends.
I’m losing it. Jenny isn’t devout at all. For Christ’s sake, she just had her mouth around Shugar’s dick two weeks ago. What are the other things she hasn’t told me?
I’ve got my birthday dinner at Red Lobster tonight. Me and Mom. Dad and Avery. Divorced parents and half-brothers. How am I going to survive this? My chest is in so much pain. It’s like there’s an actual physical burning in my heart, and half a bottle of really good scotch so far hasn’t put the fire out.
I have to get out of the shower and towel off. Put on a nice shirt — maybe something with buttons. Underwear. Guh. And pants. Motherfucking pantalones. My feet are still wet, and I can’t get one of my legs through.
I’m sitting in the passenger seat and Mom’s perfume reeks. She’s got on earrings and a fancy blue dress. Why is she wearing so much makeup just for my birthday dinner? There’s this really distinct line behind her jaw where you can tell she stopped putting it on, and then there’s normal skin.
I laugh. Shugar got me socks for my birthday. That’s too funny and it’s funny that Jenny had sex with him and it’s funny that I’m so in love with her. And it’s hilarious that I talked to an alien because that should be the most life-changing thing. My life sucks worse than ever.
Fuck it. I’m texting Adriana. She wants my nuts and a message from me would probably make her happy.
ME: You’re cute.
“How do you make someone faithful?” I say. I’ve got Karo’s jam that goes like clip-nah rrrip takakakaka on repeat stuck in my brain, and my head’s moving along to the beat.
“Derek, are you drunk?” Mom says.
“I’m just asking . . . for a friend.”
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
Mom’s yelling stuff and then we’re walking
into Red Lobster and then other stuff happens and then —
“Double D! There’s my boy!” Dad gets up from his seat. He squishes me into a hug. “I take that back. You’re eighteen today. I suppose you’re not a boy anymore.”
“Hi, Dad.”
clip-nah rrrip takakakaka
“Whoa, looks like somebody has already been celebrating.” He looks at Mom. “You been letting him drink?”
Mom sighs. “I don’t know where he gets it.”
Dad shrugs it off. “Ah, well, if you’re old enough to die for our country, I suppose you can have a drink or two.”
“Or ten.”
“I’ve missed you, son. Been too long. How you been?”
“Oh, you know. As good as anyone can be on the verge of war.”
Dad draws out this confused noise, like he’s not sure how to respond. He walks us to a booth.
My phone buzzes.
ADRIANA: Haha okay.
ADRIANA: Thanks?
ME: You wanna hang out sometime?
ME: Tonight?
“Have a seat,” Dad says.
There’s a pile of presents and fancy gift bags on the floor. I sit on the bench and someone slides in next to me. It’s Avery. Holy shit, this kid’s gotten tall! I wrap him in my arm and kiss his cheek.
“Dad, Derek’s bro’ing out,” he says. “Tell him to stop.”
“What’s up, Little Stink? I like your new glasses.”
“You stink.”
“How tall are you now?” I look to the other side of the table. “Mom, Dad, look at this. He’s almost as tall as I am. Did he just have a growth spurt?”
Dad shakes his head with a little smile. “Do you want to open your presents now or wait until after we eat?”
“No, here,” I say, nudging Avery out the booth. “Stand up. We gotta see who’s taller.”
He groans. “I’m five foot eleven.”
“Yeah, right. I’m five foot ten. You can’t be taller than me. I won’t allow it!”
I look at everyone else. No one’s laughing but me.
Losers.
“Let’s do back-to-back,” I say.
“No.”
“It’s my birthday. Come on. I get to do what I want.” I stand up and it’s like all the blood rushes out of my head. I stumble over the presents, catching myself on the booth’s back. I turn Avery around. The backs of our heads, our shoulders, our butts, and our heels are touching. “Dad, who’s taller?”
“Looks like Avery’s the winner.”
“Where does he get it from? He’s only thirteen. I mean, me and you are the same height. Is Abby’s side of the family really tall?”
“How about we decide what we want to order,” Mom says.
The waitress comes by with our water, and I order Alaska king crab legs with buttered mashed potatoes and maybe asparagus too, then my phone buzzes again.
ADRIANA: Um I already made plans.
ADRIANA: Maybe.
ADRIANA: What did you want to do?
I type out: We should have sex lol. I delete it.
ME: Do you drive?
“Here, open me and Dad’s present,” Avery says, and he moves aside my lobster biscuit plate and knife, almost tipping over my water glass. He plops a box wrapped in the funnies section in front of me.
“You didn’t have to get me anything.”
I peel through Baby Blues and Garfield, and there’s a Nintendo Switch sitting in front of me with a copy of the new Mario Kart taped to the box. I can’t explain why, but it makes me sad. It makes me think about starving kids in Africa and people working in factories who don’t want to work in factories.
“Thanks,” I say. “You didn’t have to spend that much on me. You could have just saved up for your own Switch.”
Avery shrugs, and then he’s messing around on that sweet watch he got for Christmas. “I got the Switch the day it came out. I like the new PlayStation better. Nintendo doesn’t make many good titles.”
Dad puts it back on the floor with the rest of the presents, and my phone buzzes again.
ADRIANA: Yeah why?
ME: I’m at my birthday party at Red Lobster and it sucks. You should come pick me up.
Mom puts an unsealed white envelope in front of me.
“What’s this?” I open it and there’s no card or note or anything. Just four tickets. The one on top says: Sunday, November 26. Baltimore Ravens vs. Cleveland Browns. Section 321. Row 20. Seat 7.
“No way.” A bitter bile taste is forming in the back of my throat. I’m salivating a bunch. Shit, I’m about to barf. My breathing’s getting heavier and —
clip-nah rrrip takakakaka
— my ears are ringing and there’s sweat on my brow and I’m pretty sure I’m about to die.
I get out, “Mom, how’d you —? These seats are in the Dawg Pound.”
“I don’t know why you got me a ticket,” Avery says. “I told you I hate the Browns.”
Mom says, “Maybe Derek can invite Andy or —”
Somehow I make it to the bathroom. I lock the door for the handicap stall and blow barf all over the toilet. Less than half of the bulk makes it into the bowl. The rest lands on the metal handle, the wall, the floor. I spit out this dry, acrid chunk — probably a piece of my stomach — and I fall to the ground.
I unbutton my shirt and fight it off me. I undo my belt and slide my jeans off. I hug the linoleum floor, embracing the radiating coolness.
My phone buzzes from inside my pants, the ones all the way at the end of my feet. I grab them with my legs like scissors and maneuver them to within arm’s reach.
It’s Jenny.
My heart would be racing if it could.
JENNY: Hey I’m at Red Lobster.
JENNY: Your dad tagged you and I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. What table are you at?
Water. I go to the sink. Three splashes on my face and it drips down my chest. I clean off all the vomit I can find on my face and, damn, there’s even some in my hair. It takes me at least five minutes to put my pants on because they’re like a Chinese finger trap. I grab my shirt from the handicap stall and inspect it for vomit.
I magically open the door with my hands like a wizard, and now I’m at the host’s desk with all the menus and Jenny’s standing there with a present in her hand.
I have to ignore her and pretend like she isn’t worth my time. I have to —
“Hey, babe,” I say. There are two of her here, right? No, just one. Focus. There’s only one Jenny.
She says, “Your shirt’s inside out.”
“Thanks.”
“I got you a present.”
“Really?”
My phone buzzes. I ignore it.
We go outside and sit on a bench. The cold feels amazing.
Jenny says, “Here, open it.”
Inside the box is a T-shirt with a picture of a smiling geek on a Segway scooter. The caption reads WALKING IS FOR LOSERS.
Oh, my God, I said that to her when we were walking to her place after Dorton’s party. I was high-wiring it across the curb and I said, Walking is for losers.
My phone buzzes again.
I say, “You remembered. Thank you so much.”
“Only took me like ten minutes. I just used some transfer paper and wrote the caption in Sharpie.”
“I thought you weren’t paying attention to me. You were on your phone the whole time.”
She places her hair behind her ear, but it falls back in place right away. “I was texting Mark.” She says this like a confession.
“I know. Was it about your physics project?” I try so hard to contain my sarcasm, but my words are dripping in it.
She reaches into her purse for a cigarette. She lights it and inhales deeply, then rests her head on my shoulder, her knees tucked into her chin. Maybe it’s because I’m hammered, but her touch feels numb. “Mark told me he told you.”
She’s not referring to the physics project.
I say, “Is it t
rue?”
“I just — you know, I don’t remember either of us saying we were exclusive. If you want to mess around with other girls, go ahead. That’s none of my business.”
“So if you saw me making out with Adriana Rosales, you wouldn’t have a problem with it? She wants to make out with me, you know. She wants my nuts.”
“That’s . . . awesome. Go for it.”
That’s not what she’s supposed to say.
I say, “Have you hooked up with anyone else since we’ve been hanging out?”
“Mark Shugar, you, and . . . Kyle.”
“You hooked up with Kyle? When was this?”
“We just made out a little.”
“Jesus.”
“Why shouldn’t I try out my options? I don’t know what I want, and I just . . . I fucking hate all these rules society forces on us. Graduate high school, go to college, get married, have a couple of kids. Life should be about exploration.”
“Why couldn’t you have told me?”
“I didn’t want to lose you. I still don’t want to lose you.”
“Oh, I get it. So you just want everything.”
“It’s just — I didn’t think you were my type, but turns out I was wrong. I’ve never met anyone who shared my sense of humor as much as you.”
I could have sworn I said the exact same thing to her at some point, but the memory’s not coming to me.
I say, “What would it take for an exclusive relationship? What do I have to do to be your one-and-only boyfriend?”
She sits up and sighs as if I’m asking the wrong question. “Derek, I’m really fucking sad. Any day now, we’re going to deploy two hundred thousand troops, and there isn’t anything anybody can do to stop it.” She rubs her cigarette out on the ground, then lights another. “You know I don’t tell people about Alex because everyone would think . . . you know, people call me a slut.”
“No, they don’t.”
She glances at me and shakes her head like I’m an idiot.
I say, “Who says that?”
“Now that people know my brother died, they’re probably saying, ‘Oh, that explains why Jennifer took off her top’ or some BS like that.”