16 Things I Thought Were True

by Janet Gurtler

  I hurry down the pebbled walk. The front driver’s window is unrolled. Adam’s arm is resting on it. His glasses are slipping down his nose a little. He looks like a complete and total nerd, and he’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed. But I do.

  I run across the street toward the car.

  “Hey,” he says as I get closer.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Thought you might need backup,” he says.

  I look at the passenger seat and peer into the back. “Where’s Amy?” I walk around to the passenger door and climb inside the car. It still smells like Cheezies.

  “I asked Amy if I could take the car and go see my girlfriend,” he says. “I lied.”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  He glances down at his crotch. My eyes follow his. His phone is in his lap. Thank God. “I was worried about you. And I saw the tweet about your dad a second ago.”

  There’s a loud honking in the sky. I glance up at a flock of Canada geese flying in the sky. In a V formation. I watch them, envious of their ability to fly wherever they want to go. I wonder if birds stick with their families or if the parents abandon them. How do they decide who leads?

  “What happened?” he asks softly.

  I blink and forget the birds, turning back to Adam. I sigh. “What are you doing here?” I repeat.

  He lifts his shoulder and gazes straight into my eyes. “This is a big deal. Meeting your…father for the first time.” He reaches for my hand, but I pull away and tuck it in my lap and turn my head. It’s dark outside. Finally. It’s been one of the longest days of my life.

  I bite my lip. “Why did you come alone? Where’s Amy?”

  “I thought Amy might be, I don’t know, a distraction.” He pushes up his glasses. “She’s in the common room at the hostel. She made friends with two old ladies from England. When I left, they were talking about tea. I thought you might, you know…need someone. Either way it went.” He blinks, and his eyes are round and shine with sympathy. He lifts a shoulder unapologetically.

  I sigh and it’s so big and so loud that it seems to suck up all the air in the car. I open up my window a little, and a night breeze blows in. Bob White’s house looks different in the dark. The big, stupid house of the man who didn’t even know I existed until a few minutes ago. I imagine how much it must suck for him and try to think how it would make me feel. But it’s hard. I feel so alone.

  “What about your girlfriend?” I ask Adam. “You came all this way for her, didn’t you?” I half wish a boy would come and rescue me. I try not to wish it were him.

  He lifts his chin. “What happened with your dad?”

  “Adam,” I repeat. “What about your girlfriend?” It suddenly has more importance than it should. Even in the darkness of the car, lit only by the outside streetlights, I can tell his cheeks are red.

  “Well.” He glances at me and then grins. “Technically, I don’t really have a girlfriend anymore. If you must know the truth, she dumped me.”

  “She dumped you? When did you talk to her?” My knee bounces up and down, up and down. A tiny bit of happy leaks into the puddle of sad and confusion swirling inside me.

  “Um. At the end of school. She’s actually dating some guy who’s a shoo-in for Stanford Medical now.”

  I stare at him. “You haven’t had a girlfriend all summer? You’ve been pretending?” I have an urge to laugh—and then to punch him hard because I’m so sick of lies.

  “Well, it sounds worse when you say it like that. It was just easier to pretend to have a girlfriend at work. Some girls at work are super stalky. Like Amy.” He snorts, but when I narrow my eyes, he stops. I stay silent, my lips pursed, waiting for more. I’m good at silent treatments, taught by a champion.

  “But you told me you had a girlfriend at the hospital.”

  He looks out his window and clears his throat. “That’s because I, um…I was embarrassed. You were all worried about your mom and I was acting all weird, so I blurted out the fake girlfriend thing. It was dumb, I know…” He stops and doesn’t look at me.

  I can’t believe I’m sitting in front of my father’s fancy house, talking about this. It’s hard not to laugh. It’s also hard not to be a teeny bit happy, despite everything.

  “You made up a girlfriend?” I’d much rather talk about this than my dad.

  “I may have exaggerated my girlfriend status by a few months but she’s real. We broke up.” He lifts a shoulder and meets my gaze. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then it got too awkward to admit the truth.”

  I sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s not like I’ve never done anything stupid.”

  Adam doesn’t say anything.

  I stare at the house Bob lives in. On the outside, it’s so beautiful. “He didn’t even know about me,” I say quietly. “My dad. As in…my mom never told him she was pregnant. Eighteen years ago. And nothing since. He had no idea.”

  Adam gasps. “No way.”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s really, really crazy.”

  “You think?” I say and attempt a smile.

  “I’m sorry, Morgan,” Adam says after a long silence. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  We look at each other. “Thanks,” I tell him. “You’re a good guy.”

  Adam reaches over and pats my leg. I should be embarrassed, but under the circumstances, it’s too much effort.

  “So now I have to process this, that my dad didn’t really ditch me. My mom ditched him—and never told him she was pregnant. He didn’t even know.” I laugh, but it sounds like a sour burp. “You know what he did when he found out?”

  “What?”

  I stare down at his hand where it rests on my leg. He has a silver ring on his thumb. I’ve noticed he always wears it. “He went for a run,” I tell him softly. “He left me with his wife, slipped on a pair of sneakers, and ran away as fast as he could.”

  “He shouldn’t have left you like that.” He leans across the console and half hugs me. Our faces are inches apart. I smell chips and soap. He stares into my eyes. I stare back. Blinking. Confused. Emotionally naked.

  “No one should leave you like that,” he whispers.

  There’s some crazy chemistry in the air. I wonder if he feels it or if it’s just me. I hold my breath. I’m filled with an absolute certainty that I must kiss him and I must do it now. I don’t care if he lied about his girlfriend. I don’t care about my dad. Or my mom. I tilt my head, and next thing I know, his lips are pressed against mine. It’s incredible and crazy and real and…Oh. My.

  “Holy,” he says, pulling back for a second, and then with one hand, Adam rips off his glasses and throws them on the dash and then his arms are on my back and he’s kissing me harder. I’m leaning into him, over the console, pushing on it to get closer to him. Everything else disappears. My mom. My dad. Amy’s car we’re steaming up. All I want is this.

  Adam.

  I never want to stop. His hand reaches under my shirt. My head is arching back and he’s kissing my neck and I’m so into this I could rip off all my clothes and toss them.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  There’s knocking on the driver side window. We pull away from each other and stare up at the man outside—the one my mom ditched without mentioning she was pregnant.

  Daddy-o.

  Apparently he went for a short run.

  “I need to talk to you,” he says.

  chapter seventeen

  11. Personal lives should always be kept personal.

  #thingsithoughtweretrue

  The next morning, we take the car to the shop to get a real tire put on for our trip home. We’re all at Melody’s Tea Shop in downtown Victoria.

  After Bob interrupted the make-out session the night before, he asked me to join him and his wife for tea. I told Bob there would be five
of us for tea. He didn’t argue. Adam was the one who recovered from the embarrassment first, and Bob kept his thoughts about our groping in the car in front of his house to himself.

  Afterward, Adam and I drove back to the hostel and talked about my dad and not about what happened between us. We found Amy in the common room with the English ladies. One look at my face and Amy said farewell to her new friends and followed me back to our room. When I told her what happened with my dad, she cried and sat beside me on my bed, holding me tight, refusing to let go. She never even asked why Adam showed up at my dad’s.

  So I brought my friends to tea and here we all are.

  Bob and his wife, Camille, are tucked on one side of the table; Adam, Amy, and I sit across from them on the other. Bob is wearing a golf shirt and Camille is wearing expensive jeans and a sweater with beautiful accessories. They look rich and classy.

  Camille and Amy are having a conversation about tea as they sip from delicate china cups. I’m staring at a coffee mug in front of me but feel Bob’s eyes on me, checking out my features the way I check out his, trying to verify his part in my existence. Adam’s leg is pressed up snugly beside mine. Camille and Amy are nibbling at pastries and chatting, but I couldn’t eat for a million dollars. Adam isn’t eating either and is sitting almost as stiffly as me. I wish Bob would try to make conversation. He’s the grown-up after all. I want to ask a million questions but I’m afraid.

  This is so not how I pictured my family reunion.

  “My dad started giving me tea when I was about ten, only decaf though, herbal teas,” Amy is telling Camille. “He says they’re good for lots of things that ail us.” I look over, and Camille smiles at me but nods her head at Amy as she continues on.

  Melody’s is a warm and cozy teahouse and restaurant. The old building is rustic with dark, delicious wood, and under most any other circumstances, I’d love the ambiance. The smells wafting in the air are incredible—teas, coffees, and pastries.

  “I need to call your mom,” Bob blurts out, breaking the awkward silence at our end of the table. “Can I have her phone number?” His voice is loud and barky, as if he’s used to people doing what he asks. Amy stops talking and we all stare at him. Adam presses his leg closer against mine, takes off his glasses, and cleans them with a paper napkin. All eyes turn to me.

  “Uh. Sure. I guess.” I write out the number on a napkin and hand it to Bob.

  He takes his phone from his pocket and, with his back to us, dialing as he goes, steps away from the table.

  He walks off into the teashop connected to the restaurant. I don’t take my eyes off him. The phone stays on his ear and his mouth opens and shuts, talking. She obviously answered. I wonder what she’s saying. His eyebrows tilt down as he listens, and his lips are pressed so tight they almost disappear. He stops walking, and his foot taps up and down on the tile floor.

  “It’s going to be okay, Morgan,” Camille says to me. “He’s going to make this right.”

  I want to ask how she thinks he can do that. Time travel? Amy blinks and looks as if she’s about to start crying. I struggle to keep my emotions under control, pretend my whole world hasn’t shifted.

  Soon Bob strides back to the table and stands in front of his empty chair. “It’s all true,” he says to his wife. “She was pregnant when she left me. She says she’ll submit to testing. But I don’t have to, do I? Look at her.” He lifts his hand and finally looks at me, really looks at me. “How could Maggie do this to me?”

  I know what you mean, I think. It’s hard to tell by his tone if he’d be happier if he had never known. Is he sad? Pissed off? Impossible to read.

  Camille stands and wraps her arms around him, her head resting on his shoulder. He puts his chin on her head and closes his eyes. Under the table, Adam puts his hand on my knee and squeezes. I close my eyes, pretending it’s all okay, that this is under my control.

  “Well, this is really nice for the two of you,” Amy blurts out. “That you have each other to lean on and all. But what about Morgan? How do you think she feels?”

  I open my eyes and see a tear roll down her cheek. My own eyes are scratchy with the ones I’m holding in.

  She glares at Bob. “She drove all this way to find a big mess.” She’s quivering with anger on my behalf.

  “It’s okay, Amy,” I tell her and swallow again and again over a new lump increasing in size in my throat.

  “No. She’s right.” Bob lets go of Camille and they sit. He leans on his elbows and stares across the table, studying my face. I want to look away from him, but it’s pointless. I can’t. We stare at each other in a deep intimate way, and a shiver runs down my back. “Where do we go from here?” he asks.

  A waitress walks close to us, but she pauses. She must pick up the tension in the air because she turns and wanders in the direction of another table.

  “Are you a nice person?” I ask softly. It’s a stupid question, but I want to know. I want to know so badly it scares me. Because he still has the power to hurt me. He is the one calling the shots here. I’m just a kid with my heart on my sleeve.

  “Not always,” he answers with a small smile. He picks up his tea and takes a sip and then goes on. “I’m kind of a workaholic and I have a temper. And I go running at inappropriate times.” The hint of a smile reappears at the corner of his lips but disappears quickly. “What about you?”

  “There’s a viral video of me dancing in my underwear online,” I tell him.

  “But the video wasn’t her fault. Her friend posted it. Ex-friend.” Amy sighs. “And at least Morgan’s a good dancer.”

  I squirm, and Adam reaches over and puts his hand over her mouth. She makes strangled sounds, and for the first time since I’ve ever thought about the video, I laugh. Adam laughs too.

  Camille’s eyes open wider and Bob watches me. “Nothing like jumping right into the rebellious years,” he says. I can tell he wants to ask more, but he doesn’t.

  “No. You missed those too,” Amy tells him with a sniffle. “They say the worst years for teen girls’ parents are between thirteen and sixteen. After that, they become human again.”

  Bob and Camille exchange a glance, and then Bob catches my eye and we both smile. Amy is a gift.

  “Morgan’s really popular online you know. She’ll have five thousand Twitter followers by the end of summer,” she adds.

  We all look at her. It sounds silly in this context, but I love her for it.

  “She’s quite the tweeter,” Adam says.

  “I don’t even like Twitter,” Bob says.

  I realize I’m glad for that. Last thing I need is a parent monitoring me online after this long. Parent? I realize I thought of him as a parent and it makes me want to cry again.

  “So.” Bob turns back to me. “How are you feeling about all this?” Camille reaches for his hand on the table, but Bob pulls away, focused on me. There’s a tiny surge of satisfaction in my belly at her hurt expression and I frown at my reaction. I reach for my purse and dig for my ChapStick.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him as I take the cap off.

  He watches me. “Why did you come all this way to see me?” he asks softly.

  I jab my ChapStick at my lips, stab at them. I glance at Adam and Amy, feel a blush in my cheeks.

  “Tone, Bob,” Camille says, and he glances sideways at her and then back to me.

  “You must have been angry,” he says in a quieter voice. “Thinking I abandoned you,” he prompts, a trace of impatience in his voice. I guess he’s not used to dealing with teenagers.

  I shrug again. He’s right. I must be angry, but it’s impossible to feel much of anything.

  “Of course she’s angry. All this time she thought you ditched her as a baby,” Amy pipes in. “She didn’t know you had no idea she existed. This is a huge turn of events. Huge.”

  “Amy.” I glance at
her. “Don’t speak for me, okay?” I say softly.

  Her bottom lip juts out, but other people’s words don’t belong in my mouth. Not now. Not again.

  “I only want to help,” she says.

  “I know.” She’s being amazing, but I need to do this on my own.

  “It’s huge for both of us. We have to figure things out,” Bob says. “I have no idea where to begin—or if we even can at this point.”

  Those words land hard, a direct hit. My heart stings. It’s one thing to be rejected when he’d never even met me, another entirely to be rejected all over again. I drop my head down and study my cup of coffee, cold, forgotten. More weight settles on top of my already-heavy chest.

  “Yes.” I force myself to sound harsh and uncaring. I lift my chin, narrow my eyes, as if this whole thing isn’t ripping my insides apart. “Maybe I don’t want anything to do with you either.”

  Bob clears his throat and coughs. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Morgan!” Amy says.

  Tears squeeze out of the corner of my eyes, and embarrassed, I wipe them away. “I don’t know what to do—or what to say.”

  I will myself to stay strong. I want to keep the hurt from my face. From my voice. From my heart. I may think I’m brave, but deep down, I’m afraid he’ll still leave me. Now that he knows about me.

  “This is hard for me too,” he says.

  “Congratulations,” I blurt out, and then my cheeks burn at my rudeness. “Sorry,” I add softly, without looking up.

  Amy makes a funny high-pitched noise and clamps her hand over her mouth. I feel Adam’s eyes on me but don’t look at him.

  “It’s okay. But this is difficult. You live in Seattle,” Bob says.

  It’s not a question, but I correct him. “No. Tadita. You should know the geography. After all, you lived there too, long enough to get my mother pregnant.” I drop my eyes so I don’t have to look at him. I hate that I sound so bitter, so defiant. But I can’t help it. I’m so afraid—and emotionally naked. I want to cover myself up.

  “Morgan,” Amy says. “You’re being mean. All you ever wanted was a dad.”