by Trish Cook
This got even Brittany on board. “Sometimes you have to take a few steps back to take a giant leap forward,” she told my parents. “And I do hope it was worth it. Because you are back on level one—”
This of course meant a Staffie would be following me around all day, even to the bathroom, until further notice.
“—and you and Justin are on communication block for the remainder of your time here at Heartland Academy.”
The first part of the consequence I could deal with. The second? Was a killer. Because it meant not only did Justin and I not get to be a couple from here on out, we didn’t get to speak or even be within twenty feet of each other.
But I also knew it was fair, because those were the rules, and we’d broken them. I’d just have to suck it up and deal. And maybe, just maybe, they’d take us off of comm block after we’d moved up a few levels. It would take time, but I kind of thought Justin was worth waiting for. “Okay. I guess I deserve that.”
One of the cops came over to where we were standing. “Are you pressing charges?” he asked. He had a ticket in hand, his pen poised above it. Today must have been the most exciting thing he’d ever dealt with in this back-ass town.
“No,” my dad said, outstretching his hand for a shake. “Thank you very much for all your help, and we are sorry for all the trouble.”
“Your daughter should be the one who is sorry,” the cop said, staring at me, then Joss, then my parents, then back at me with a confused look in his eyes.
It had happened a million times before. Usually, it felt like someone stabbing me. This time, though, I responded a little differently.
“Families are based on love, not looks,” I said to the cop, finally using my parents’ advice after all these years. Joss high-fived me, my parents beamed, and I felt like a lot of what had been holding me down went flying off into the atmosphere like a let-go balloon.
I WATCHED ACROSS THE PARKING LOT AS EMMY HAD HER REUNION with her family. I thought I heard Max tell me I was forbidden from being within twenty feet of Emmy. Because keeping depressed people away from people they connect with was pretty therapeutic, I guess.
Mom hugged me, crying, then pulled away and gave me this fierce look. “We’ll talk,” she said.
Patrick put his arm around my shoulders and whispered in my ear. “You’re in some shit, kid. I’m gonna try to talk her down, but just be prepared. It’s gonna be ugly for a while.”
I looked at him and smiled. Nice to know somebody was in my corner. I guessed my cover story of sneaking off to get some bought me some male allies.
Or maybe Patrick was just extra cool, because the other male in the picture did not seem to be my ally at the moment. “Get in the goddamn car,” Dad said through clenched teeth.
“Can I drive?” I asked. I mean, I knew what the answer was gonna be, but how often was I gonna get an opportunity to get behind the wheel of an Audi TT? Dad’s answer was a glare that actually scared the crap out of me, so I climbed in the passenger seat and shut up. I was glad it wasn’t a very long ride back to Assland.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dad said as we roared out of the truck stop parking lot.
“I’m admiring the exhaust note of the TT. They had sound engineers work on—”
The glare cut me off again. “I drive ten hours out here into the middle of nowhere, and when I get here, you’re not here. Are you just trying to humiliate me? I’m paying for this, you know. Is this your way of telling me—”
“Jesus, Dad, it’s not about you!”
“Oh yeah, sure. That’s why you just happen to choose the moment I arrive to—”
And something snapped, and, fear of the glare or not, I started yelling. “Why the hell would it be about you, Dad? Who the hell are you, anyway? Oh yeah! You’re the guy who moved eight hundred miles away from me! You’re the guy who disappears and pawns me off on every other relative when I come to visit! I don’t even know you! You’re not important enough to me to want to piss you off, okay? You’re just some guy with a sweet car!”
I guess if he really wasn’t important to me, I probably wouldn’t have had tears streaming down my face, but whatever. We rode the rest of the way to Assland in silence.
We had another family reunion in the Assland parking lot. Dad and I both slammed our doors and climbed from the TT with what I suppose were scarily identical pissed-off looks on our faces. Mom and Patrick joined us and stared from one to the other for a minute. Mom looked like she was about to say something, but Patrick placed a hand on her arm, and we all just stood there silently until Max told us we should head over to his office for a family powwow.
Across the parking lot, I saw Emmy and her family headed off for a similar powwow. We locked eyes, and she smiled at me, and I had something nice to hold on to through the meeting. She gave me the heavy metal horns hand signal, only with her thumb sticking out, too. I was a little puzzled, but I did it back. “Rock on,” I said under my breath.
Patrick whispered to me. “Wow. Already at the ‘love-you’ stage, huh?”
I looked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He looked at me and started laughing. “You really don’t know? She just flashed the sign for ‘I Love You’ at you, and you gave it right back.”
“I thought it was a heavy metal thing.”
Patrick patted me on the back. “Well,” he said, still holding his laughter in, “if it wasn’t serious before, it sure as hell is now.” He caught a look from Mom and fell back into step with her, leaving me in my isolation.
Except I didn’t feel alone. Not like I did before, anyway. I had a little warm feeling from seeing Emmy across the parking lot, and I put it down in my stomach where the pain and emptiness usually started, and I felt a little bit better.
Mom dropped the twins off in the classroom that was serving as a daycare center for the weekend, and as we did the walk of shame down the hallway toward Max’s office, Diana suddenly appeared, coming out of the ladies’ room. She shot me a questioning look, and I nodded my head yes. She smiled, gave me the thumbs-up, and disappeared.
And then we filed into Max’s office. And I found myself in a dilemma. If I told the truth, it would probably show that I was making progress. I was actually proud of myself for the first time in, like, ever. I’d done a good thing, I’d helped Willy get a future, and I’d connected with somebody in a real way. Apparently I loved her. I tried that on for a little while. I mean, I hadn’t known what I was doing when I flashed the sign, and if I had known and had time to think it over, I probably would have thought myself into knots about what it meant and blah blah blah. But I’d said it. Or signed it. Whatever. And I thought it was probably true. And that felt good.
So if I could tell everybody what really happened, that it wasn’t about them, or even me, that it was about me getting my head out of my own ass for an afternoon and trying to do something good for somebody else, they might have gone easier on me. They might have even called that progress.
But there was no way to do that without revealing the whole sad story of Willy. And then everybody would get in trouble, nobody would get to go home, and the nice, if excessively hairy people at the Farm Asylum would probably go to jail. And all their animals would probably get killed and Willy would become bacon. I wasn’t like the greatest person in the world, but I wasn’t gonna have all that resting on my back. I could man up, lie and take my punishment, and be a hero, or I could weasel out of it by telling the truth and have just about everybody hate me and have the death of a bunch of animals on my conscience.
I was thinking about all this when Max said, “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Justin. The truth. Remember, it’s important to tell the truth.”
Actually, it was important to do no such thing right now, but whatever. “I mean, what’s to know? We snuck off, we made out for a while, we chickened out of having sex, we came back. I mean, do you want the play-by-play?”
Mom sobbed, and I felt bad.
> “No, Justin. That’s fine. Why’d you decide not to have sex?”
I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping this would at least get me out of additional SR sessions. “Well, I mean, it was like the first time we even kissed, you know, and it just seemed like maybe it was a little soon for a step like that. Also, I mean, a cornfield isn’t the most romantic spot. There’s a lot of dirt and bugs. It’s kind of a buzzkill, actually.”
Made that last part up, but whatever. Max smiled. “Well, in spite of everything else that’s happened today, this, if it’s true, at least shows you’re making some progress. But make no mistake, today is a big step backward. And the first thing you need to do is to hear from everyone about how your behavior affected them today.”
Mom said, “I’ll go first,” and her voice broke and tears ran down her face. “I was just so worried about you, Justin. I love—I love you so much. More than you can ever understand until you become a parent. And I was so—” She stopped to cry for a while, then continued. “So worried about you. I just want you to be happy and safe, and I … I hate not having you at home, Justin. It kills me. I cry every single day. And I was so excited to get here, and then you’re missing, and all I could think was that I lost my first little boy because I wanted to help him. I’m trying to do the best I can for you, and I can’t lose you, Justin.” And now she was sobbing.
And if I’d felt like a hero for saving Willy and keeping my big mouth shut about it, I now felt like the lowest, worst piece of crap in the world. I started crying. “I’m sorry, Mommy,” I said, the little kid name for her out of my mouth before I could stop it. “I’m really sorry. I don’t—I’m just sorry.”
She hugged me, and we both cried for a while, and suddenly there were tissues and water bottles next to us.
Eventually I settled back into my seat, and it was Patrick’s turn. He looked at me and looked at my mom and said, “You know what? I think I’m gonna pass.”
I felt relieved. I looked over at him. I knew he was worried about me and stuff, and he was probably mad at me like everybody else, but he took the chance to spare me some more aggravation. Maybe it was just because I was all messed up from crying and from feeling guilty about being such a shit to everybody who cared about me, but I just felt so grateful that he wasn’t gonna unload on me, too, that I flashed him the heavy metal “I Love You.” I’d never said that to him before. I mean, I guessed I hadn’t said it just now either. I’d signed it.
He smiled and flashed it back to me.
And then it was Dad’s turn.
I found myself getting mad. The hell with this guy and his “Boo hoo I drove ten hours” crap.
And then Dad said, “I was really worried. I wouldn’t have driven ten hours out here today if I didn’t care. Of course I was worried. Of course I care.”
He sounded defensive. I guessed it meant he cared enough to defend himself against the charges I’d leveled against him before. Which I guess counted as a victory, but it felt kind of hollow. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t explaining himself, and, even though there was this long, awkward silence where everybody stared at him, waiting for the rest, he wasn’t saying anything else.
Max gave me this look that I interpreted as Now do you get why I’m always trying to get you to talk about him?
And then he said, “Justin, do you have anything to say?”
“Yeah. I do. I guess I just want to say I’m sorry for making everybody worry. This was actually less selfish than it looks, but I can’t really explain that, so I’ll just say I’m sorry. And I guess I want to tell you for when you’re like, talking this over and saying how horrible I am and stuff, that this … little adventure is like the exact opposite of being depressed. I don’t—when I’m really bad, I don’t want to do anything. Going out, breaking the rules, kissing a girl, all this stuff I did today is like … I felt alive. You know?”
Nobody said anything. So maybe they didn’t know.
I headed back to my room. Tracy wasn’t there—I guessed he was off with his parents somewhere. So I sat on my bed, all alone. I felt pretty good about today. But then I started thinking about what would happen next. All my friends would leave, except for Emmy, who I wasn’t allowed to see. I was proud of what we did, but I didn’t think I realized what it was going to cost me. I guessed if I had to do it all again, I probably would, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
I thought about the next several weeks. How was I going to get through it with nothing at all to look forward to?
For the next two days I had more group therapy stuff with the family. And then they’d leave, and everybody else would leave. Life seemed pretty bleak right now. And then there was a little knock on the door.
“Enter,” I said, and Dad poked his head in.
“Hey,” he said. “So I’ve gotta go. Big meeting tomorrow afternoon, and I just can’t risk the traffic. So I’m gonna drive through the night. Probably shave an hour off the travel time.”
He looked at me like I was actually supposed to give a shit about his travel time. I didn’t say anything.
“I brought you this … a little container of Cincinnati’s best.” He had a Styrofoam cube in his hands. “It’s probably against the rules for some reason, so you’ll probably have to eat it quickly, but somehow I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.”
He set the cube on my bed, and, even though I was trying to keep a sullen face on to show him what an idiot he was, I couldn’t resist peeking inside. I pulled the top off, and dry-ice fog came rolling out. I blew the fog away and saw four pints of Graeter’s mocha chip ice cream … my favorite. Best ice cream in the world. Best thing about three weeks in Cincinnati in the summer. And yes, I was counting time with the old man.
“So listen,” Dad said. “You do what they tell you, don’t get in any more trouble, don’t get anybody pregnant, stuff like that, you’ll probably get to go home at the end of next term. Or maybe spring term. I talked to your mom, and she said it would be okay if I pick you up and we drive the TT back to Mom’s place in Boston.”
“When you say ‘we,’ does that mean I get some time behind the wheel?”
“As much as you can stand.”
Oh, Dad. Trying to buy my love with material things. Didn’t he get that I’d rather spend time with him than drive his hot-shit car? And then I realized that a road trip to Boston was going to involve at least twenty-four hours of driving in the TT, plus meals and stuff. Probably the most time I’d spent with the guy since he moved out.
“Sounds good, Dad.”
He ruffled my hair like I was some little kid. “Alright, buddy. I’ll see you, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t ask him why he didn’t stay, why he couldn’t put me ahead of whatever stupid meeting he had and why he thought anybody cared about how long he drove. He turned and left. I looked at the ice cream and realized I didn’t have a spoon. I wondered how the hell I was gonna steal one from the cafeteria.
A few minutes later, there was another knock at the door. “Yep!” I said. It was Mom.
“Hey Mom. I’m sorry.”
“I know, sweetie. You don’t have to keep saying it. I forgive you. You lost your off-campus privileges with your little stunt, but they let me bring in some sandwiches.”
“Where’s Patrick?”
“He’s back at the hotel with the twins. I told them I wanted some time alone with you.”
“Ah, Mom, does that mean we need to talk about our issues and shit?”
Mom laughed. “No, sweetie, it doesn’t. We’re gonna do that all day tomorrow. I just want to hang out with my boy for a while. Here.” She handed me the bag of food, and I pulled out a sandwich and some fries.
We ate in silence, but it didn’t really feel awkward. I just hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I smelled french fries. Finally, I’d wolfed the whole thing down, and Mom was only about halfway through her sandwich, and she’d eaten like three french fries.
“You gonna eat those?” I asked.
Mom laughed and dumped them onto my plate.
I vacuumed them up, and then I remembered we had ice cream. “Hey. Dad brought ice cream. But I don’t have a spoon.”
Mom dug into the takeout bag and pulled out a couple little plastic bags with a napkin, a spoon, and fork, and little packets of salt and pepper inside.
“Why’d you get cutlery for sandwiches?” I asked.
“You never know,” she said. I tried to dig into the ice cream with one of the plastic spoons, but the ice cream was rock-hard from being in a cooler with dry ice, so the spoon broke. “Let’s wait for it to soften, shall we?” Mom said.
And then the silence got awkward as we stared at the ice cream together. “Mom,” I said.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Dad’s kind of a tool.”
Mom sighed. “I know, honey. That’s why I divorced him. He really does love you though, you know.”
“I guess. He’s just crappy at showing it.”
“He does the best he can. It’s just that his best isn’t really very good.”
I laughed. “You got that right.”
Mom laughed. We killed a pint of mocha chip together, and then she gave me a hug and left. “See you at the epic therapy sesh tomorrow,” she said.
“Can’t wait,” I said.
A few minutes later Tracy came in, patting his stomach. “Steak dinner! I got the it is in a major way! So. Did you get any?”
I smiled and didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” he said. “Keeping quiet. I see how it is. Looks like somebody’s in love!”
I punched him, and he laughed. “You’re just proving it now. Look, he’s fighting for the reputation of his lady love.”
I laughed and flopped back on my bed. “Dude, shut up, will you? Or are you just trying to make me happy that you’re leaving?”