The Only Exception

by Abigail Moore

  “Alright, here’s the lowdown,” Dr. Kelly explains. “Your knee has healed enough that you can surf a little bit. I’d recommend it, actually, to get used to the movements again. But, at this point, I’d say it’s extremely risky to try regionals. It’s extremely physically demanding, because you will be pushed to do hardest tricks you can. Sorry, Andrea, but it’s just not safe.”

  “Great,” I say sarcastically. “Just great.”

  On the drive home, my mom calls. “Hey, sweetheart, I had a minute and wanted to see what you were up to.”

  “Oh, nothing,” I reply. “Driving home from the physical therapist. What’s up with you?”

  “Well, I found out that I am due for a vacation, so…” she begins. “I’m coming for your birthday!”

  “Really?” I say, excited at the prospect of having some time just to hang out. That is, if she knows what the definition of “vacation” is.

  “Really!” she echoes. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you in two weeks! I love you!”

  “Love you too,” I reply. “Bye.” I hang up as we go in the house.

  Over the next week and a half, my routine goes like this: Get up, go surf, come home, be depressed and aggravated, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. On more than one day, McKayla comes over to help cheer me up, even though she thinks I’m only depressed about my knee and regionals and doesn’t know what happened between Sawyer and I. All she knows is that we had a falling out and aren’t talking anymore.

  Finally, she makes an executive decision to get me out of the house. The two of us hop in the car and end up at the movie theater about twenty minutes later. “What do you want to see?” she inquires as we enter the building.

  “Do you even need to ask?” I retort. She smiles.

  “Good. Just checking you hadn’t been replaced by an alien,” she assures. “Two for Three Hours Too Soon.”

  The movie does cheer me up a bit. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t last long and neither does the cheery effect. My phone rings on the way home. “Hello?”

  “Hey sweetheart! How’s the knee?” My dad greets.

  “Hey dad, it’s good. What’s up?”

  “Well, I just sealed a deal with a huge client,” he begins. “And I can take a few days off, so I’m coming for your birthday!” he exclaims. My heart drops into my stomach.

  “Yay!” I exclaim, internally saying words that would get me grounded for life. “Can’t wait!”

  “I’ll be there in four days and stay for three,” he informs.

  “Uh, Dad? Have you, I don’t know, talked to mom about this?” I inquire, hoping to quench the inevitable fire before it starts.

  “No, why?”

  “She’s coming too,” I break the news. I can hear him blow air through his nearly closed lips, puffing them up like he does when he’s stressed.

  “Alright, I’ll call and talk to her,” he promises. “It’s your birthday. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “Okay,” I agree hesitantly. “Love you.”

  “Love you too. Bye.”

  Well, this is going to be the most interesting birthday ever.

  My parents haven’t been in the same room since they got divorced. They avoid talking to each other as much as possible, so three days in the same house will be… oh, who am I kidding, it could be a nuclear disaster.

  “What’s the matter?” inquires Mac.

  “Both of my parents are coming for my birthday,” I state.

  “Oh… Oh!” she responds, making a worried face at me. “Happy Birthday, I guess.” We laugh, as the alternative is to worry and my father clearly instructed me not to do that. “Happy Birthday, honey. I’m starting a war for your birthday! Don’t worry, it’ll be fine!”

  She drops me off at my house and wishes me luck as I head in. “Hey, I’m back,” I call from the entryway.

  “Hi, honey,” Grammy calls. “In the kitchen.”

  “Did my parents call you?” I inquire, entering the vanilla-scented room.

  “Well, your mother called a few weeks ago about staying here for your birthday. Your dad called this morning about the same thing,” she answers. I purse my lips and nod. “Have you talked to them?”

  “Yep. Mom called me a week and a half ago, and Dad called me on the way home from the movie,” I inform.

  “Do you want them both to stay here? I didn’t say anything to them about each other.”

  “I told Dad. He said he’d talk to Mom.” I head to the fridge and grab a can of Dr. Pepper, popping the tab and settling in on the couch.

  “So is there anyone you’d like to have over on your birthday?” she inquires.

  “Maybe Mac,” I suggest. “Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll just do a family thing.” So my best friend doesn’t have to witness our catastrophic meltdown.

  “What about Sawyer?” she inquires. She had to bring him up.

  “No,” I reply immediately. Yes, of course. Throw him into the mix. Make me really go nuts for my birthday. “I’ll be back,” I stall, heading back to my room. I lean against the closed door for a moment and notice my board in the corner. The green hunk of foam reminds me of the board Sawyer made me. I still don’t know what he did with it. I wish I didn’t care.

  It’s not that I care about the board. My parents would probably buy me another one exactly like it. The problem is it wouldn’t be exactly like it, because he didn’t shape the rails. His hands didn’t guide mine in forming the foam. He didn’t make it. It’s like the sweater. I wouldn’t care about it for the most part, except that when I wear it, I feel like I’m back in his arms. I wish I didn’t care about these things, but I do. I can’t seem to stop caring, no matter what I try. I’ve tried to hate him, but all his name causes is an ache in my chest and a question in the back of my mind:

  What if it did work?

  Sixteen

  “Hi sweetheart,” my mother greets, waving on the right side my computer screen. My dad does the same on the left.

  “Hi,” I say, smiling and waving back. “Okay, you said you wanted to talk to me at the same time?”

  “Yeah. It’s about your birthday,” Dad begins. I nod, urging him on. “We know it’s been a long time since we’ve been in the same place, and we know that it’s going to be challenging, but we’ve called a truce for your birthday. This is about you, not us, and if you want both of us there, we’ll both come.”

  “I’d love to have both of you here,” I answer. “You’ll really call a truce for me?”

  “We promise,” Mom swears.

  “We decided we’ll come for three days: tomorrow, your birthday and the day after,”

  “Alright then,” I decide. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

  I click a few buttons and their images disappear. I take a deep breath and try to convince myself it will be okay. They’re calling a truce for my birthday, and if there’s one thing they can’t stand, it’s when my birthday isn’t perfect. I could’ve cared less if the pony at my tenth birthday party was white or grey, but my mother’s persistence that it had to be white is evidence that this might actually work because of that kind of dedication to making my birthday good.

  The next morning I wake up on the right side of the bed, confident that this week is going to be fantastic. I pull on a pair of dark jean cutoff shorts and my black Carrie Underwood Blown Away Tour shirt and head out to the kitchen. “Morning,” I sing.

  “You’re awfully cheery this morning,” Papaw observes.

  “Excited for Mom and Dad?” Grammy guesses. I nod. “Some packages came in the mail today. I guess your parents mailed your gifts here ahead of time.” Uh-oh.

  This is the one thing that could be the most dangerous to the truce. Like I said earlier, they compete with each other about gifts. Who’s is bigger, who’s I like better, who’s is more expensive, the stuff little kids care about.

  “So what do you want to do for the big day tomorrow?” Papaw asks.

  “
Well, we’re doing lettuce wraps for dinner,” I begin listing. “Maybe we could watch a movie or something?” Papaw nods and looks at me as if telling me to keep going. “I don’t know, we could go bowling in the afternoon?”

  “That’s a good idea,” Grammy comments. “Maybe that’s what McKayla could come do with us.” I nod.

  A few hours later, I shove my feet in my rubber slippers and hop in the car to venture to the airport. At the baggage claim, my mother opens her arms to me, which I run into gratefully. For all the complaints I make about her, she’s still my mom and nothing quite feels the same as a mother’s hug. Pulling back, she looks at me worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I reply innocently. “I’m fine.” She smiles and pulls me in for another hug.

  “Happy birthday, my sweet girl,” she says.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I reply. Over her shoulder, I see my dad with his business attire on. As I pull back and let mom get her bags, I wave to him. When he gets closer, he opens his arms and I run to him like I would when I was little. He lifts me up like it’s nothing and then pulls me into a hug.

  “I don’t know how you can do that to an adult,” I tease, smiling smugly.

  “You’re not an adult yet,” he corrects. “You still have twenty four hours left of being a kid.” I laugh and follow the rest of the group.

  “So, tell me all about what’s been happening this summer,” my mom demands, smiling from the back seat of the old beater.

  “Well, Mac and I have had fun hanging out,” I begin. “And I won two divisions at my first competition, and one in my second. Other than that, it’s been a pretty chill time.”

  “Now, wait, I want to hear the epic tale of what exactly happened to that knee of yours,” Dad interjects.

  “You remember Sally Emerson, right?” I inquire. They both nod. “So I was at a birthday party for a friend of mine and he and I were just hanging out talking, when Sally dared me to walk the ridgepole of his garage to prove I was brave, so I did and I made it to the end. But then she wouldn’t give me the ladder and told me to walk back to the other end with the ladder to get down. I was almost at the end and I twisted my foot in a weird way and it hurt my knee, so I fell and hit my knee on the edge of the garage roof.”

  “Why does it not surprise me that it was Sally?” my Dad laughs. “You two were always at odds with each other.”

  “So who’s birthday party was it?” Mom inquires.

  “Oh, it was the, um, the boy that came to see me in the hospital,” I reply, remembering her call in the middle of Divergent. “Sawyer.”

  “Oh, the complicated one?” she hints, smiling.

  “Yeah.”

  “Has it gotten any less complicated?”

  “Nope,” I respond bluntly. “In fact, it’s gotten more complicated than ever.” She purses her lips.

  “Complicated? A boy? I don’t like the sound of that,” Dad jokes. “What did he do? Do I need to beat him up?”

  “No, Dad,” I laugh. “Trust me, it’s fine. We don’t even talk to each other any more.”

  We arrive home and let Mom and Dad get settled, while I help Grammy with her Char-siu. Dad heads out to the garage with Papaw to take a look at the bikes he’s working on. Mom pulls me aside and asks to talk to me back in my room.

  “What’s up, Mom?” I inquire.

  “I want to hear more about your summer,” she chides. “Come on.” She pats the spot next to her on the bed and I cross the room to sit down.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “For starters, what happened with you and this Sawyer boy?” she asks. I sigh.

  “Really, it was nothing,” I reply, trying to fend her off.

  “I just want to help, if I can,” she prods.

  “The reason I said it was complicated was because we got off on the wrong foot,” I begin. “Then after a while, we became friends. We had a falling out a few weeks ago and haven’t talked since.”

  “I’m sorry that happened,” she comforts after a moment of silence.

  “It’s okay,” I reply. “I’m over it.”

  We end up making it all night with only a few stressed faces from either of my parents, which gives me hope that maybe it won’t be a catastrophic meltdown.

  It’s weird how one thing can worm it’s way into your mind and stick there. When I’m just laying here in the dark, the one thing that has stuck in my mind is the only thing in my mind and has been for weeks. Finally, I kick off my covers, take off my shirt and pull Sawyer’s sweater over my head. The warm knit fabric envelopes me and, even though I’ve had it almost a month, still smells vaguely like him. I feel as though I might cry.

  Instead, though, I simply twist the sleeves around my fingers and close my eyes, trying to convince myself that I did what I was going to have to do eventually. The nagging thought in my mind, though, is what I had to do.

  I broke his heart.

  Seventeen

  I am eighteen. I am an actual, legitimate adult.

  I sit up, yawn and stretch. Standing, I stumble out to the kitchen and take a seat at the bar. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Grammy says with a smile.

  “Morning birthday girl,” Dad greets. He’s dressed a little more casually for today, wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of his typical business outfit.

  “Hi,” I reply. “Mom still asleep?”

  “Yes, and Papaw’s in the garage working on something,” Grammy answers with a twinkle in her eye.

  Grammy dishes me up a plate full of chocolate chip waffles and a cup of orange juice as I hear the click of high heels on the wooden hallway floor. Mom’s not asleep now. Not unless she looks like a business-y Coco Chanel when she sleeps. She’s dressed in a sleeveless white blouse with a cowl neck, paired with a red pencil skirt and red Louboutin pumps. Her makeup is flawlessly done, the colors precisely chosen to match the outfit.

  I hate it. I hate every speck of professionalism in her manner as she walks towards the bar to sit next to me. I hate the fact that there’s not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in her clothes. But she’s trying. She’s here, isn’t she? “Happy birthday, baby girl!” she says excitedly. I smile and return her hug when she opens her arms for one. She looks strangely at my sweater. “I don’t recognize that sweater. Where’d you get it?”

  “A friend gave it to me,” I reply, internally questioning if it’s the truth.

  She turns down Grammy’s waffles, opting for a cup of coffee and some kind of oatmeal-looking mush, explaining to Grammy all about her diet. I call it the EBN diet (the Eat Basically Nothing diet). No gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, sugar or artificial sweeteners. Not me. I’ll stick with actual food, thanks.

  The doorbell rings approximately eleven times before we leave to go have lunch at Tara’s, every single one being a package or delivery of some sort that one of my parents take back to his or her bedroom. McKayla and her family are the twelfth ring, ready to go to lunch and go bowling. Tara’s is fun, and my parents even show a little glimpse of their pre-divorce selves when greeted by some old friends. They converse easily and my mother actually relaxes a little bit. She still turns down the bowling though, in favor of watching, so Mac, her little brother, my dad, Mr. Atwood, Mrs. Atwood, Papaw, Grammy and I all duke it out in two games of bowling. I’m a terrible bowler, but it’s still fun.

  When we get back, Grammy kicks it into high gear in the kitchen, making my favorite Chinese lettuce wraps for dinner. They sound like some veggie dish, right? Wrong. It’s this spicy filling of ground chicken, onions, water chestnuts and some other vegetables, wrapped in a leaf of lettuce topped with a sweet and spicy sauce. It’s amazing.

  After dinner, we have cake and ice cream, then my parents go back to their rooms and bring out tons of boxes and bags, all brightly (and commercially) wrapped. Grammy and Papaw add another package to the mix and bid me to start opening. I pick the package closest to me which is tagged “Love, Mom” and start ripp
ing the paper, revealing a big box full of perfumes like the whole “Daisy” line by Marc Jacobs, Taylor Swift’s new fragrance and One Direction’s new scent. I smile and thank her, being careful to select a box from Dad next. Inside is a tutorial book on how to dye your hair and a box full of dyes, from plain bleach, to bright pink, all the way to midnight blue. I don’t know what gave him the impression I wanted that, but I smile and thank him anyway.

  The rest of the boxes contain lots of instant film for my Polaroid camera and few photography books, lots of makeup, a set of Beats by Dre studio headphones, two boxes of clothes and shoes and a collection of gift cards.

  Finally, my Dad hands me an envelope as his last gift. “Now, there’s only one, because I just couldn’t leave my company for that long, but I figured you’d still want to go,” he explains. I slit the top curiously and pull out a sheet of paper that contains the information for what looks like a trip to Australia. My heart soars, even before I notice the dates.

  “Is this for real?” I inquire.

  “Pull out the next page,” he instructs. I do so and find the ticket information for one ticket to the Quicksilver Pro Gold Coast. No. Way.

  “What is it, honey?” my mother inquires in a voice she’s fighting to keep sweet.

  “I’m going to Australia for the Quicksilver Pro!” I exclaim. My mother’s mouth drops open slightly and she glances at my father.

  “Australia?” she repeats.

  “It’s only for two weeks,” my father assures her. I hand her the papers and she immediately reads them.

  “It’s in the middle of the school year,” she protests. “You can’t leave in the middle of your senior year for two weeks just for some surf competition!” My heart sinks, and not just because she said I can’t go. I feel my eyes start to sting.

  “Some surf competition?” my father echoes. “Hold on just a second, you pull her from school and take her to Paris, Milan, London and New York Fashion Week almost every year and now, suddenly, I’m evil for taking her somewhere she actually wants to go?”