The sun was high up in the sky when I woke the next morning to the sound of my cell phone buzzing on the nightstand next to my bed. I reached over and picked it up, answering with a groggy, “Hello?”
“Julia, it’s Serena.”
I fought to open my eyes and let them slowly focus on the clock. Almost noon.
“What is it?”
“Are you asleep?”
“I was.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was just calling to check in.”
My brow furrowed. “Check in … why?”
Then it sank in. She was calling because of me storming out of the warehouse last night. A stab of anxiety shot through me.
“Um … you seemed pretty upset last night.”
“Don’t worry about it, Serena.”
I didn’t want to say, it’s none of your business. Even though it clearly was none of her business.
“Sorry,” she said, “I don’t mean to pry. I just wanted to make sure … that we’re okay. The band.”
I blinked. “Of course we are.”
“You and Crank, um …”
“Serena, listen. What happened between Crank and me is … private. Okay? I don’t want to talk about it. But it won’t affect our business relationship.”
“Oh. I’m glad,” she said. She didn’t sound glad. Or relieved, or anything else. Finally, she said, “Just so you know … Crank’s as … upset as I’ve ever seen him. He’s really torn up over you leaving.”
I closed my eyes, lying back against the pillow. My heart was thumping in my chest, and an unaccountable sadness ran through me. “And that’s exactly why I had to leave. And I’m not saying another word about it, all right? If Crank’s upset, tell him to go pick up some girl, I’m sure he’ll get it out of his system.”
Before she could answer, I disconnected the call. I curled up on my side, staring at the wall. I had what I wanted, didn’t I? I had my independence. I had my security: no ties to break me apart. No risk, no overwhelming, out of control emotions taking hold of me and making me do things, making me allow things that I didn’t want.
So why the hell did I feel so heartbroken?
My arms were curled up in front of me, and I could easily trace the lines of the scars on my wrist from that hideous year when I’d finally given up and willed myself to die. Looking at the scars gave me strength. It reminded me that being dependent on people you love is nothing but a crutch. It reminded me that the inevitable result of love is heartbreak. It reminded me that the other side of those overwhelming emotions was death.
And I wasn’t willing to go there. I wasn’t willing to do that harm to myself ever again. Never again would I watch my own lifeblood pouring out of me into a bathtub because I needed people in my life. I was going to live life on my terms or not at all.
It was bitter, like dust, a bare moonscape inside my heart instead of flowers or bunnies or hearts or whatever the hell other people wanted to feel like. But it was also survival; it was life. And it was mine. No matter how much my heart yearned for Crank, no matter how much my body wanted him, my mind knew that he was a mistake.
Watch you go (Crank)
I made it amply clear I wasn’t in the mood to talk with anyone the moment Julia left. Mark and Pathin avoided me carefully all day Sunday, until Serena finally barged into my room and demanded, “Aren’t you supposed to be moving back in with your brother today?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ll go hop on the T in a little while.”
She waved her hands at all my crap. “What about all this stuff?”
I shrugged. “I don’t give a shit right now.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Will you snap out of it, Crank? I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Fuck off.”
“No thanks, asshole. Pack your stuff. Maybe your dad can shake you out of this mood before he leaves.”
I sighed. Guilt got me moving. My dad was leaving first thing in the morning. And wouldn’t be back for a year or more. Julia or not—I had to get over there. For Sean.
“All right,” I said, sitting up. I started to stuff loose clothes in a bag.
“I talked with Julia,” she said quietly.
“That’s funny,” I said. “Because she won’t answer my calls.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on with you two.”
I shook my head. “That makes two of us.”
She walked over to me and pointed a finger at my chest and poked. “Well, don’t let it screw up the band, Crank. Do you hear me? She’s the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time.”
The thought that went through my head was this: Screw the band. But no way was I voicing that out loud. Or even internally, if I could avoid it. The band was my life. Julia was just a girl.
That’s what I tried to tell myself. But I knew it was utter bullshit. She was anything but just a girl. Somehow, in a matter of just a few weeks, she’d turned my life upside down. And I didn’t understand why or how she was willing to just walk away.
I finished stuffing things in a bag, and Mark gave me a ride to my dad’s. We were silent during the ride. I was brooding, and he seemed distracted, almost angry. Probably was. As far as the band was concerned, Julia walked on water and shit gold bricks. Anything that pissed her off made them go ballistic.
Screw them. They didn’t write the music, I did. Without the music, there was no band, no contract, no nothing.
Yeah, I was in a crappy mood.
It was about four o’clock when I got to the house. I hoisted my bag on my shoulder and said the first civilized word I’d said all day. “Thanks.”
Mark nodded, put the van in gear and drove out of there. I turned and trudged up the stairs.
Dad was in the kitchen, like always, but I could tell it was different because Sean, abnormally, wasn’t in the living room on a game or reading a comic. Instead, he was sitting at the kitchen table. I yelled, “Hey,” and took my bag upstairs and flung it into my old bedroom. My new bedroom, I guess. Then I headed back downstairs.
Sean was still in the kitchen. He was talking, without pause, about one of his manga. Dad usually tried to slow him down or deflect the subject, because otherwise the one-sided conversation tended to get mired in excruciating details, but tonight Dad seemed content to just listen.
I didn’t interrupt. Instead, I walked in, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down at the table across from Sean.
A couple minutes later, Sean paused his monologue and said, “Where’s Julia?”
Shit.
I sighed, looked at my father. He raised his eyebrows.
“We had a fight,” I said, my voice sounding defeated.
“She’s not coming?” Sean asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
He stood up and shouted, “I knew you’d screw it up. I finally make a friend, and you screwed it up. Well, screw you!”
“Sean!” Dad shouted.
Sean was already gone, stomping upstairs. I sank my head into my hands.
Dad grumbled for a minute, then sat down at the table diagonally from me.
“All right, kid. What’s going on? You look like somebody just pissed in your Cheerios.”
I squeezed my eyes shut hard, then opened them and looked up at my dad. He had a look of real concern on his face.
I opened my mouth to talk and couldn’t even start. I muttered, “Shit,” and looked up at the ceiling.
“I know I’m not seeing this. Dougal, you look like you’re about to cry.”
I grunted. “Would you believe … I got a record deal, Dad. Three-year contract, and we’re opening for the biggest rock band in the business on tour this summer.”
He opened his mouth, but I spoke first.
“And … I just want to curl up and die.”
Dad sat back in his chair. He didn’t say anything, just waited for me to continue.
I didn’t, so after a couple of minutes, he said, “Why? What hap
pened?”
I looked at him. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit,” he replied. My dad’s such a sensitive guy.
I shook my head. Then I told him. “I told her … I told her that I love her. And she ran like hell.”
He stared at me, dumbfounded. Then he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table and rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking as if he was searching for something to say. Finally, he asked, “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you love her?”
I didn’t need to think about that. I just answered, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Tell me why.”
“What the fuck, Dad?”
“Don’t use that language with me, you little shit. I can still bend you over my knee. Tell me why.”
I sat back and took a deep breath. “For the first time in my life, Dad, I want to be … more. Not just the band, though that’s part of it. She … makes me want to be a better person. I love how smart she is. Her integrity. Her compassion. And the sex is out of this world.”
“I don’t want to hear about that,” he interrupted.
“Yeah, well. Anyway, that’s what happened. I told her I loved her. And she … just ran.”
He leaned forward, close, and looked me in the eyes. “You’ve told me all about you. What about her, Dougal? What do you want for her?”
I swallowed. “I want her to be happy. I want her to … I want to see a smile on her face. Always.”
“This is going to sound like a cliché, kid. And it sucks like nothing else in the world. But if you love her … you have to give her what she needs. Even if that means letting her go.”
Oh, damn. I thought about my mom and dad, holding each other in the door, heads bowed together, as tears streamed down her face. I thought about how much it must have hurt for him to let her go. And this time my eyes did water.
“Dad, you suck.”
“Yeah. Sometimes the truth sucks.”
“I don’t want to lose her, Dad. No one has ever meant this much to me.”
“Then do the right thing. Do the thing she needs. And maybe she’ll come to you. If she doesn’t … well … it wasn’t meant to be.”
Both of us started when the doorbell rang.
“Enough of this moping shit,” he said. “I’m leaving for Kuwait tomorrow, in case you missed it. This is our last family dinner for a while. Go get the door, it’s probably your mother.”
“All right.” My dad got up, turned the heat back on under the pots on the stove, and I walked out of the kitchen. I paused in the doorway. “Dad?”
“What?” he answered, in an annoyed tone. That was the dad I knew and loved.
“Thanks.”
“Get the hell out of here and get the door,” he said in a gruff voice.
I walked to the door and opened it.
If there were flies in Boston in the cold at the end of November, one could have flown right in my mouth and settled in for a nice stay. Because it wasn’t my mom at the door. It was Julia, wrapped up in her red and black checked coat, a muffler around her throat, cap on her head.
I just stood there, gaping.
Her eyebrows moved together, forming that crease in her forehead she sometimes gets before calling me names. “Are you going to invite me in, or what?”
Automatically, I stepped away from the door. “Come in.”
She walked in and peeled off her scarf and coat. “Heater’s out in the stupid rental car.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She looked at me, our eyes meeting just long enough to break my heart. Then she said, “Your brother and dad have treated me like family. Like … like my family never did. Whatever happens between us, I … I wouldn’t not show up.”
“Can we talk later?”
She closed her eyes and said in a near monotone, “There’s nothing to talk about, Crank.”
Then she handed me her coat and walked into the kitchen.
Damn it.
I wanted to walk in there and grab her arm and ask her what the hell was she thinking? I wanted to demand answers. I wanted to insist she tell me why the hell it bothered her so much to have someone say those three little words. Words I’d never in my life said to a woman, except for my mother.
But then I heard my dad say, “Hey, kiddo,” to her. I walked to the kitchen door and glanced in. He was hugging her like she was a daughter. I stepped back, out of sight, then took her coat to the closet and hung it up. My dad called upstairs, “Sean! Julia’s here!” as if there had been no blow up before, no discussion, no heartfelt confessions. I went up the stairs. If Sean had his headphones on or was playing a game, he wouldn’t hear.
As I suspected, he was sitting at his computer, headphones on. I knocked on the doorframe and waved at him. He popped one earphone off and I said, “She’s here.”
He nodded then popped the headphones back on.
Whatever. I wasn’t in the mood to chase him too.
The doorbell rang again. That would be either Mrs. Doyle or my mother. For years, Dad had been hosting Saturday night dinners for anyone who would come. This week, it was Sunday, in honor of the fact that he wasn’t going to be here next week, or any week in the near future. Tony would be here tonight for sure.
It was my mom. “Hey, Mom,” I said. I still felt … very awkward. She was moving back into the house after her lease ran out in January and had promised to be around before then. But five years of anger and disappointment didn’t just disappear. We were making small strides by being in the same room together.
She hugged me, awkwardly. A few minutes later, Tony arrived and announced it was okay to start the party, and not long after that Mrs. Doyle joined us.
Finally, everyone was seated at the table, and dad was serving, and it felt like every other Saturday night. Except that every once in a while, I felt like I had eyes on me, and I’d glance to Julia, and she was always looking somewhere else. Except once, I caught her and our eyes met, and I swallowed, trying to keep from jumping out of my chair, because looking in her eyes was bringing out the worst in me. Especially because, despite the fact that she was smiling and laughing with everyone, something about it seemed fake. The laughter didn’t reach her eyes.
I wanted it to. More than anything, I wanted her to be happy.
Dad was right, but as I looked at her, I realized there was one thing he forgot. It was one thing to let her go. Okay. I could buy that. It was right. If she was going to be happier, then fine, I could live with it, even if it tore my heart out. But I wasn’t going to let her go without telling her exactly how I felt.
After we finished, my dad cleared his throat, a sound that made me wince, and then he stood up. “All right, everybody pipe down a second.”
Tony balled up a napkin and threw it at my dad. Dad made a fist, sticking one finger out and pointing it at Tony. “You too, bub.”
We all quieted, and I watched my dad.
“All right. I want to say a couple things to you. But first, Crank’s got some news. You want to tell them?”
What. The. Hell? He seriously wanted me to announce that Julia and I had broken up? In front of everyone? I looked around, desperate, my eyes darting to Julia, and she flushed, her face going red. Then I saw some sense. What the hell? It was a measure of just how screwed up I was over Julia that the biggest news of my life had been overshadowed by her.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, so this week Julia took over managing the band.”
Tony let out an obnoxious cheer and I said, “That wasn’t really the news.”
“Huh,” Tony said and took a long drink of his beer.
“The news is, on Friday, she negotiated a recording contract. A big one. We’re opening for Allen Roark on his summer tour.”
That elicited gasps, then real cheers from Tony and my mom and Mrs. Doyle. My mom turned and hugged Julia, then said, “I’m so proud of you!”
“We couldn’t have done it without her,” I said. “I sti
ll can’t believe how fast it all went down.”
“All right,” Dad said. “Anyway, what I wanted to say was … this … you guys are my family. All of you.” He said the last as his eyes went to Tony, Mrs. Doyle, and finally Julia. “Julia, I know we’ve only known each other for a couple of months. But I want you to know, I think of you like a daughter. You’re always welcome in my home.”
His eyes glanced toward me, and I wasn’t sure how to translate whatever the hell he was trying to say. Was it … here, Crank, I’m doing you a favor by inviting her over? Or was it, don’t screw it up, Crank, because she’s here no matter what you think? I didn’t really have any way of knowing.
“Anyway, enough of all that. You all know I’m headed out in the morning. Hopefully this won’t take too long, and they’ll find whatever they’re looking for and this thing will end and I can come back home. And soon. But in the meantime, I want you all to watch out for each other, all right? No bullshit.”
Tony leaned forward. “Jack, you’re making me want to cry little balls of syrup. Just shut the hell up and come home safe, all right?”
“You got that right,” Dad said.
After dinner, we settled into a serious game of Monopoly, until about eight, when Julia said, “I’ve really got to get going. Class in the morning.”
She looked up at Dad and smiled, and he grinned back at her.
“I’ll walk you out,” I said.
“It’s not necessary,” she replied.
“I want to.”
She shook her head in a jerking motion.
“Really,” I said. I fought to keep my voice firm. “I insist.”
Rather than make a scene, she rolled her eyes. I’d take that as acceptance. So I got her coat and scarf, and she bundled up. Dad walked over to her and grabbed her in a bear hug. “You take care,” he said.
She sniffed. “Be careful over there. Come home safe.”
“Ah, none of that crying business.” He nudged a tear off her face with a knuckle. “I’m going to be just fine.”
She nodded and turned toward the door. I opened it for her and walked outside. It was freezing. Her car was half a block down, pulled into one of the few spots. We walked beside each other, silently.
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