by Jay McLean
“We need time, Joshua. We all need to be patient. It could take weeks—months even—before a court date is set.”
“And in the meantime, what happens to Tommy?”
“I’ve called her lawyers already. Nothing changes in the meantime. Natalie doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize her case.”
Mom huffs out a breath. “The little bitch,” she whispers.
My eyes widen. So do Jack’s. My dad doesn’t seem surprised at all.
Then Jack chuckles. “Remind me not to put your mom on the stand.”
★★★
Weeks pass while Jack’s law firm gathers the evidence and I gather character witnesses. The only ones I have are the same people who I’d tried to push away the night that started all of this; Chazarae, Hunter, Chloe, Rob and Kim.
I make the most of every day—between work and meeting with the lawyers, I spend every waking second loving the absolute crap out of my kid. Then, one night—out of the blue—I get a text.
From her.
Becca: SK8F8 in two days.
I hold my breath and stare down at my phone, my heart thumping a thousand miles a second. Endless scattered thoughts race through my mind while I try to come up with a response.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
I miss you.
I need you.
Instead, my fingers skim the screen quickly and come up with the only thing I feel safe enough to send.
Joshua: I’ll go if you go.
Seconds, minutes, hours pass while I grip my phone tight, waiting for her to respond. Finally, it comes.
Becca: If I go, you talk. I listen.
Joshua: Anything.
Becca: Okay.
33
-Becca-
break
breɪk/
verb
separate into pieces as a result of a blow, shock, or strain.
Josh freezes mid-step when he sees me waiting by his still half beaten truck the morning of SK8F8. I came home, or at least the closest thing I have to a home, yesterday when he was at work. I didn’t tell him I was there. I asked Grams not to tell him either—but I knew she wouldn’t. She wasn’t happy about me being here, neither were the nurses—apart from Nurse Linda—at the psych hospital. Or, as they liked to call themselves, “the home for personal development.”
He clears his throat, his eyes on mine, and his lips pulling to a half smile. I look away because it’s already started—the stirring of old feelings that I don’t want to feel.
I get into his truck the second he unlocks it and put on my seat belt, my gaze on the dash in front of me. After getting in, he starts the engine, but he doesn’t do anything else. I sit up a little higher, preparing for what he’s about to say. “Hey,” he says, his voice so low I almost don’t hear it.
I don’t respond. I wasn’t kidding when I told him that I’d go if he talked and I listened. Apart from not actually being physically able to speak, I don’t have anything to say to him. At least nothing I want to share.
He exhales loudly and changes gear, then reverses out the driveway.
For the entire two-hour drive to the SK8F8 grounds we sit in silence. It’s not until he finds a spot and parks that he turns to me. For seconds, he just looks at me. I keep looking at the dash. Then he shifts, moving closer to me and I flinch, pressing my side against the door. He curses under his breath before reaching into the back seat and placing a black backpack between us.
“It’s yours,” he tells me.
I settle the thumping of my heart before turning to him, but he’s looking down at his hands, his jaw set.
Confused, I unzip the bag and peer inside, and then I close it quickly and shove it back toward him, my heart hammering again.
He turns to me slowly, and if beauty could be found in someone’s frown, it would be his.
“I can’t,” I mouth.
“Please, Becs. I need you to have it. I tried to get yours back because I know it’s sentimental but the pawnshop had already sold it and this is everything you had, just updated I guess…” he trails off, his eyes on mine again.
My chest heaves, my breaths loud.
“I charged it all up for you. I got you the lens you wanted, too. The one you said was good for action shots. And I know you probably won’t use it after today but…” He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I just need you to have it because…” He sucks in a breath. “Because I know what it’s like to sacrifice something you love. And you sacrificed it for me. I can’t live with myself, knowing that I can at least take away some of that loss for you. Besides, you’re going to need one in St. Louis, right?”
★★★
I take the camera because I know he won’t move on unless I do and I walk beside him as he makes his way to the registration area. “Joshua Warden,” he tells the younger guy at the desk, and as soon as his name is said all three guys at the desk as well as two in the lines beside him all turn to him.
“The prodigal son returns,” the guy practically sings. “We didn’t believe it when we saw your name.”
Josh just shrugs and stares down at his feet.
“You his photographer?” the registration guy asks, motioning to my new camera in my hand.
I copy Josh’s shrug.
We get handed an envelope each. One for Josh (competitor) and one for me (press).
We find seats high up in the bleachers and make ourselves comfortable. It doesn’t take long for the comp to start and when it does, Josh leans forward, his eyes narrowed and focused, and he seems to get lost in a whole other world. His knee bounces—a sign I’ve learned means he’s nervous. “This guy’s good,” he mumbles, pulling out his phone. He hits a few buttons and holds the phone in the air. “I can’t get any more details on him. My phone’s got shoddy reception. Can I use yours?”
I grab my phone and the second I hand it to him I hear his name being called. I don’t think Josh hears it, though, because he’s too busy looking down at my phone. I hear it again only this time I can see the source. Chris, I think his name is. The guy from the skate park is climbing the steps, his eyes wide as he approaches.
He smiles at me.
I don’t return it.
“Warden,” he says, clapping Josh’s shoulder.
Josh’s gaze lifts, just for a second, before going back to the phone. “What’s up, man?”
“Rumors said you were competing. It’s good to see you back in the circuit,” Chris says.
“Do you know who’s on right now?” Josh asks him.
Chris’s response is instant. “Curtis Chutlick.”
A half hour later, all three of us are watching the fourth person, after whoever the hell Curtis Chutlick is, and Chris and Josh are deep in conversation about the competition. Chris—he’s kind of like a walking Wikipedia page on all the competitors and the skate circuit as a whole.
“How do you know all this shit?” Josh asks him.
“Planning for my future,” is all Chris says, and it seems to be enough of an answer. “What are you working with?”
Josh clears his throat and lazily points to the humongous bag at his feet. “I trashed all my good boards. I got gear that was shit four years ago.”
Chris’s eyebrows pinch as he looks down at the bag. Slowly, he reaches down and starts to unzip it. He only gets half way before his face contorts with a look of disgust. “Jesus Christ, Warden,” he mumbles. He looks at his watch. “I’ll be back,” he tells us, and leaves.
Ten minutes later he’s back carrying a bag just as big as Josh’s. “I keep my stuff in the car. It’s not the best but it’s better than what you got,” he says to Josh. “I spoke to one of the volunteers. There’s a training ramp in the corner of the lot. Let’s go,” he orders, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.
Josh looks from me to Chris, and back again. “You coming?”
I nod.
What else am I going to do?
Josh flies through the first round, and t
hen the second. By lunchtime, word’s gotten around that the Joshua Warden is present. Chris follows Josh between his rounds and gives him insight into the competition and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I keep quiet, obviously. At one point Chris leaves to get us all drinks and that’s when Josh faces me—and without a single emotion on his face, he says, “Thank you, Becca.” And that’s all he says to me for the rest of the competition.
The day goes by in blur. Everything’s rushed and we’re constantly on the move. Chris is always by Josh’s side, talking to him—training him, almost—and I trail behind. Josh—he’s focused. So focused. Sometimes he turns around when he feels me lagging behind and he stops and silently waits and when I catch up, he moves on. He barely speaks a word throughout the entire thing and then he gets on the pipe and I have to force myself to lift the camera and take the shots because God, he’s such a beautiful sight. I feel so many things just watching him but then I’d look at him and nothing.
It’s as if he feels nothing.
Even when he gets on the podium, the crowd cheering his name while he accepts the second place trophy—he shows nothing.
And when the sun starts to set and the crowd starts to leave, he thanks Chris for his help and offers him a cut of his eight thousand dollar prize—to which Chris declines because, apparently, he doesn’t need money.
We walk to Josh’s truck in silence and I wonder when it is he’s actually going to start talking to me. He opens the door for me and once I’m settled, he shuts it and then throws his gear along with his trophy in the back seat. Then he starts to drive home and I start to believe the nurses from the hospital that warned me it wasn’t such a good idea to do this because while I wait for him to talk, I keep looking over at him—at the lines between his eyebrows and the frown on his face and the heaving of his chest and the muscles, tense, in his arms. “My dad—he has chronic kidney disease,” he says, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to continue. “He was diagnosed a few months before my mom came to see me that night. He was on dialysis but it didn’t seem to help and he made the choice to quit taking treatment and just…” His gaze drops before returning to the road in front of him. “…And just wait to die.”
I release my breath, my fingers itching to touch him.
“When my mom came over, she asked me to get tested to be a donor. It didn’t work out, so now there aren’t any other options and I guess we just wait. I don’t really know why I kept it a secret from you,” he says, his voice hoarse, “I think I just didn’t want to seem weak, that I could so easily forgive a man who turned his back on us. It was like my pride kept me from sharing my weakness with you and I don’t know why because I know now that you—” He chokes on a breath and slowly pulls over to the side of the road, wiping his eyes as he does.
He turns to me once the car has stopped.
But he doesn’t look at me.
I, however, can’t look away.
I see you, Josh.
“You stood by me through all of my bullshit baggage and insecurities and I should’ve told you because I know you would’ve been there for me but I couldn’t. I couldn’t express how I felt because I don’t think I let myself feel any of it. I pushed back everything I felt because I didn’t want to admit it—that watching a man I love, a man I looked up to my entire life give up hope and just…” He sniffs once, his eyes wide as he tries to push back the tears. “He just gave up, Becca. And that’s where I was all those times I told you I had to be somewhere. I was in his room staring at the walls trying to figure out something to say to him to make him stay. To beg him to try. And I thought my presence was enough. That if he saw me in there he’d somehow want to make it—for me. Because I was his son and he was my dad. And it should’ve been enough. But I’d go in there and it just—it wasn’t enough.
“And then Natalie came and, God, Becca—I didn’t know she was back in town when she was at the hospital. She’d just come back that day and you have to believe me when I tell you that nothing ever, ever, happened with us. And I know it means nothing to you now but I don’t want you to think that I’d ever do anything to hurt you—not intentionally. It’s just the shit with my dad made me think of Tommy and the future and if anything happened to me… Fuck!”
He punches the steering wheel.
And then he breaks.
The boy I love breaks.
And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything to change it.
“I just want Tommy to have everything and I thought I was doing the right thing, even if I hated doing it. Even if I hated having her there. Even if I hated her. I just wanted to do the right thing. And I got so selfish—so caught up in the bullshit of my life that I didn’t think about you. I should’ve thought about you because you’re the only thing that makes sense. Having you here, with me, is the only thing that makes sense and I can’t have it. I can’t have you. And I don’t deserve you. I never did. And I’m so fucking sorry, Becca.”
My cries match his.
Not because he’s sorry.
Or because I forgive him.
But because I see him.
“And I feel so pathetic right now because I know about you, Becca. I know about your life and everything you’ve been through and, fuck, my issues are so fucking insignificant in comparison. And I just—I know it means nothing. Not anymore. I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s over between us and I have to let you go because you’re my drug, and I’m your poison.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes.
He shakes his head. “I just need you to know that I loved you. I loved you the first moment I saw you with my son. And I’m still in love with you now. There are so many things in my future that absolutely terrify me, but loving you for the rest of it isn’t one of them.”
I face the front of the car, my eyes wide, and my heart bleeding for him.
Without another word, he pulls back on the road and continues the drive home.
I grab my journal from my notepad, the one Nurse Linda gave me, and I do what she told me to do. I write down what I want to say—but can’t, and when he pulls into the driveway, the same one we’ve spent so many days in falling in love, I tear out the page and hand it to him.
He starts to open it but I cover his hand. “Later,” I mouth.
Then I open the door, but he grasps my wrist gently, making me face him. He’s looking down at the note, flipping it between his fingers. “It was good, right?” he whispers. “For a while… you and me… coasting?”
I nod, my eyes filling with tears again.
He sighs. Then stares straight ahead, his jaw set and his lips pressed tight. “I hate him, you know that right?”
He turns to me to gauge my reaction. “Who?” I mouth.
“The guy who’s going to win you over. The one you meet at some Starbucks on campus. The one who’ll take a picture of his stupid coffee and upload it to his stupid Twitter and hashtag ‘Frappuccino’ like it’s some fucking cure for world hunger. He’ll walk to the exit with his phone in his hand and that’s when he’ll see you sitting at the table with your laptop in front of you and he’ll see you for the first time the way I’ve often seen you… with your brow bunched and your bottom lip between your teeth. And he’ll know right away that it’s not because you’re confused. It’s because you’re focused. And he’ll know because he can see it in your eyes—the passion and the heart in what you do. But not just that, he’ll see your eyes. He’ll see your emerald eyes, Becca, and he’ll want to ask you a thousand questions, and then a thousand more, just so he can be around you. So he can spend a second longer getting lost in your eyes and you’ll love that about him. You’ll love that he pays attention to you and makes you feel like you’re the only girl in the world. Because to him, you are. And two weeks later, he’ll take a photo of you taking a photo of him and he’ll post it on Twitter and hash tag ‘mybeautifulgirlfriend’ and
you’ll fall even deeper in love with him.”
I wipe my tears, my hand pressed against my heart trying to ease the pain.
“And you’ll come home and he’ll meet your grams and your grams will love him as much as you do. And even though you try to avoid me I show up anyway. So you have no choice but to introduce us. I’ll smile. I’ll shake his hand. I’ll make small talk and I’ll store the little secret you’ll keep buried and hidden from him and from all your college friends because I’ll still love you. But I’ll hate him. I’ll hate him because he’ll give you everything I can’t. And I’ll hate him because he’ll have you and I won’t.”
He looks away.
“You deserve all of that, Becca. You deserve the coffee shop and the campus and the college education and all the experiences that come with it. You deserve for someone to look at you the way I have and love you the way I do. You deserve all of it. Even the stupid fucking hash tags.”
34
-Joshua-
“I entered a skate comp today,” I say, bringing the chair closer to Dad’s bed.
His eyes move to mine, then just as fast, go back to staring at the wall.
He doesn’t mind when I come over for the lawyer appointments because he makes an effort to look normal. Healthy, even. And even though he hasn’t spoken to me since the day I brought Tommy here, he at least acknowledges me now. He’ll speak to my mom and to my lawyer when I’m in the room. Just not to me. He hates my impromptu visits—the ones where he has no choice but to lie in his bed while I sit with him, watching him die, because he’s too unprepared to fake it.
I clear my throat and ignore the knot in the pit of my stomach. “It’s the first one I’ve entered since I found out Natalie was pregnant.” I wait for a reaction and when nothing comes, I continue, no longer afraid of what I want to tell him. “It was kind of a last minute thing. Something I completely forgot about until a couple days ago. I was unprepared but luckily there was this guy there—Chris—he kind of knew me from the skate park…