by CL Walters
“What brings you over?” I ask.
“You weren’t answering my texts or my calls, so I figured I had to come over and see if you dropping by my house the other night was real. How are things going?”
I shrug.
“Want to go for a drive? There’s this place I like to go when I need time to think. Maybe you’ll like it.”
I grab my coat and follow Tanner out to his truck.
Once we’re on the road, Tanner forces the issue. “So? How did it go with the girl?”
“Which one?”
“The one you like.”
“Terrible. She isn’t talking to me.”
“What did you do?”
“What you told me not to do.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” It’s rhetorical, but I say, “I told Bella I wanted to be a part of the baby’s life.”
I feel him glance at me as he drives us out of town. We’re headed toward the Quarry. The golden hour of the sun gilds the evergreens with shimmering golden light. Even naked trees look pretty in the starkness of the winter forest. The blue orange of the sky deepens as the sun begins its descent.
“I think that’s a good move. How did Bella take it?”
“She was surprised, I think. But open to it. She invited me to the ultrasound. It’s next week.”
He smiles. “That’s really great.”
His support makes me grin. “Yeah. I’m wrapping my head around it. Trying to help her out at her place. There’s a bunch of shit that needs doing before the baby comes, and it’s just her, her mom, and her little sister.”
“Wow. Cool. Let me know if you need help. I can probably get supplies.”
I take a deep breath, remembering what it feels like to have a friend. The way the world settles around you, stops spinning out of control, and becomes steady again. It makes me miss Max even more.
I watch the landscape rush past us as Tanner drives. “It’s weird. Feels like now when I’m going to do something, I think is this something I should do? Maybe that makes me boring–”
Tanner contemplates what I’ve said, mulling it about. “I think that just means you’re growing up.” He turns the truck onto an access road, and we bump along an unmanaged road through the forest. “I get it,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“One of the worst things—and the best things—to happen to me was when Emma ended it.”
“She did it?”
“Yeah. That night we went at it in the parking lot, I showed up at her job.”
“We were wasted.”
“Yeah. I showed up at her workplace. Not a good look.”
“Shit dude, I’m sorry.”
“Not on you, Griff. I made my choices, too. And lately, after spending time working on me, staying sober, staying away from sex, I feel way clearer about stuff.”
I nod. “I stopped drinking too. Started running.”
“Did you know we were so messed up?” Tanner asks.
The truck emerges from the cover of trees onto a plateau at the edge of the Quarry wall. Snow in various stages of decay stretches out piled against trees, rocks, and the roadside. Tanner finds a spot to reverse the truck so that it faces the Quarry, gets out, opens the tailgate, and sits down on the edge. I join him and take a deep breath. The view is beautiful, as if it were a pretty vista trapped in a snow globe. The setting sun lights it up, so the cold seems to glisten.
“I didn’t know we were messed up,” I eventually say. “I think I’m still figuring it out. There are these moments when I feel clear about it—like when I’m running—and then these moments when I shut down, because I don’t want to feel it. Like the other night with Max. So, then I do the same old shit.”
I sit next to Tanner, mulling the truth, the shame, and the skewed way I thought it meant to be a man.
“How come you’ve never brought me here before?” I ask.
Tanner, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, stares out at the landscape, then looks at me. “I was afraid.”
At first, I think maybe he means he was scared to admit his vulnerability, but I realize he was afraid of me, of how I might hurt him and this place he saw as safe. “That I’d make fun of it. Of you.”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
“You tried to talk to me, before. All those times, in different ways. I shut you down.”
“Yeah. Well, I was ready, and you weren’t.”
“I’m sorry, bro.”
“You already said it. There’s no need to say it again.”
“Yeah, but I feel like a piece of dirt for shitting on you.”
He jumps from the tailgate and walks a few steps forward, his boots crunching through the melted snow, the debris loosened by the elements. “Honestly?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say and prepare myself for whatever he might tell me that will hurt.
Tanner bends down and picks up a rock, then launches it into the Quarry. We stare at it, losing sight of the small projectile in the infinite expanse of the Quarry. He looks around for another rock. “I wouldn’t be where I am now if it hadn’t worked out that way, I think. So, whatever you did—didn’t do—helped me on my path. Don’t get me wrong, I was pissed at you.” He reaches over and pushes me so that I nearly fall out of the truck. He grins as he does it.
I reorient my balance. “Dude!” I laugh and get out to look for rocks with him. When I find one, I let it fly. It feels satisfying, letting it go and watching it until I can’t.
“The therapist asked me this one time, if I would change what happened between you and me and I was like, ‘Yeah. He was my best friend,’ and the therapist said, ‘What if it meant you remained unchanged?’ And I haven’t stopped thinking about that.” He throws another rock.
I toss another pebble and think about Cal’s wisdom: Shit happens.
Tanner stops moving a moment, just stares out at the Quarry as if waiting for something. He looks up at the sky, now streaked with blue and red and orange. He looks back at me. “If we’d stayed the same, on the same trajectory we were–” He stops, and I can hear the weight in what isn’t said. He’s right. We’d still be trying to do what we’d always done: party, drink, drugs, fuck, learning nothing until one of us did something we couldn’t recover from. Like getting a girl pregnant. Or, like Phoenix, going to prison. Or worse, dying.
“I’m glad it happened.”
Cal’s wisdom is right. Shit does happen. Fighting with Tanner was shit, but it was necessary because now, standing side by side at the Quarry doing something like throwing rocks over the ledge, talking about stuff that real, it’s the biggest, greatest, and most infinite we’ve ever been. Together.
“Me too,” I reply. It isn’t much—those two words—but in that moment, it feels like I’ve spoken a universe.
2
Pressing the video call to Danny is a step I need to take and have needed to take for some time. He never answered my text, and I know I need to clear the air with him like I have with Tanner. During my run, I got to thinking about how great it was to finally be talking to Tanner again, and after reconnecting and thanking Josh for trying to keep me connected, I realized I hadn’t heard from Danny.
After stretching and regulating my breathing, I sit on the frozen concrete of the front steps to my house, the Facetime call ringing. The cold bites my ass, but it feels sort of fitting as I wait for Danny to answer. My heart snaps about in my chest like a terrified dragon, but I take a deep breath to cool his defensive fire. When I see the word connecting, I panic a second, then force another deep breath.
Danny’s face comes into view. He looks different, his edges erased and redrawn in modified angles. His dark hair is shorter than I’ve ever seen it. He’s lost the babyface, replaced by someone who looks like a man.
He smiles, and the feeling reaches his eyes. “Hey, Griff.”
I offer him a smile back. “I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”
His eyebrows shift over his eyes. “How come?”
“Wasn’t sure if you’d be busy or–” I pause a second and commit to being honest– “and I didn’t really deserve it. I was pretty shitty. So, I wasn’t sure if you’d take it.”
His facial features adjust, becoming serious.
“I wanted to call you and tell you a couple things,” I add.
He nods, moving from wherever he is. I hear several male voices in the background, loud and raucous.
“Is this a good time?” I ask.
“Perfect,” he says and shuts a door. “Okay. I can hear you better.”
“I wanted to thank you, first.”
“Thank me?”
“Yes. Shit, Danny. I owe you for all the shit I’ve done. I took advantage of you and your kindness.”
“I’m your friend, Griff.”
I nod, then swallow down the unexpected tears that press against the back of my eyes. I shake my head and screw up my face a moment to fight the burn. When I’m under control, I say, “I know you are. The best, Danny. And I wasn’t. I wanted to thank you for telling me that night that Tanner and I fought.”
“I hardly remember what I said.”
I huff a laugh through my nose. “You told me everything was my fault.”
“Damn, Griffin. I’m sorry for that.”
I shake my head. Tanner had this right. I’d needed Danny’s anger. “No. No. Don’t apologize. You were right, and I needed to hear it. I think you were probably the only one of us I would have listened to. You were always there for us, Danny—for me. Always, and when you pushed me with some tough-love shit, I finally had to look in the mirror.” I pause. “So, thank you.”
He isn’t looking at the screen—at me—but I see him swallow and when he does finally look, he nods.
“And I already said it, but I need to make sure to say it again to you. I’m sorry, Dan. I was an awful friend, a user, and you deserved better from me. I want to be a better friend.”
He smiles. “We’re bros, Griff. Always.”
The dragon in my heart heaves a great big puff of relief, and I stand to walk back into the house, talking with Danny some more. We catch up. I learn about basic training and his new job. I tell him about fixing things with Tanner and Josh, about Bella and the baby. The rhythm of our conversation isn’t grounded in the past, however, because I’m new, and I suppose he is too. We’re changing as people, which means we’re reorienting with one another. The past, as heavy and difficult as it is, is the past, and now we’re finding a way to move forward.
3
Max still isn’t talking to me. I’ve texted. I even tried calling, but my calls ring through to voicemail. The only reason I know she’s alive is because Cal has mentioned small details. At the farmhouse, Cal and I are on the final stages of the bathroom renovations. Then we’ll be ready to roll out with the painting and putting everything back together, just in time for Max to have a brand-new space when she gets home for spring break in March. Except Cal let it slip that he didn’t think she’d be coming home, something about spring break with friends.
I’m at Bella’s to install a closet system in the baby’s room, but I’m in a foul mood.
She calls me out on it. “What is up with you? You’re acting like a baby.”
I grunt at her and use the level to mark a spot for the screw.
“I don’t want your foul mood around the baby.” She’s beginning to show, just a tiny little swell in her lower belly. She rubs it as if protecting the baby from my mood, and I feel like a selfish jerk. “They say the baby can feel it, you know.”
“Sorry,” I say and drill in an anchor. “Girl trouble.”
“Oh!” Bella sounds giddy and sits in a rocking chair. It creaks as she moves it back and forth. “Tell me everything. Is this the girl from the Quarry?”
I glance at her and nod.
“I don’t think she liked me very much.”
“Well, you didn’t come across as a very nice person that night in the bathroom. What you said and all.”
She reddens. “Yeah. I hate that I said it.”
“Shit happens,” I tell her, drawing on Cal’s wisdom, holding up a bracket and screwing it into the wall. It reminds me of Tanner and my quarry-side conversation, of how sometimes you have to go through the awful stuff to get to the better, more honest stuff. But I’m not sure I’m going to get the chance with Max.
“You were with her, when we?” She stops. “Oh shit, Griff.”
“No.” I repeat the process for the next bracket.
“But you seemed cozy at the Quarry.”
“Just friends. She didn’t like what you said and was trying to help me.”
The chair continues to squeak as Bella rocks, then it stops. “Griffin?”
I stop and look over my shoulder at her.
She’s frozen, both hands on her belly. She looks up at me with wide eyes and smiles. “I think I just felt the baby move!” She holds out her hand.
I move to her side.
She grabs my wrist and draws me closer so I can lay my palm on her.
I don’t feel anything, just notice the strange way the swell of her belly is hard rather than soft. Then suddenly, there’s a light flutter, soft like the caress of eyelashes against my palm. My heartbeat quickens, a gentle quickening to match, and my eyes raise from our hands to Bella’s face.
She’s smiling. “Oh. Feel that?” She whispers the words as if the sound of her voice will make it go away.
I nod. “Yeah.” I smile.
“She’s telling us that her momma is right; she can hear us talking.”
“She?”
“Just a guess. And I like it better than saying ‘it.’” She releases my hand. “So, when did you and Quarry-girl get together?”
I stand and return to the closet. I stare at the holes I’ve made in the drywall for a moment to register what I’ve just experienced, the whiplash of Bella moving through topics. I clear my throat. “Her name is Max. After Thanksgiving.”
“And she ran away because of the baby?”
I shrug, not sure how to articulate it. “I think it’s more complicated than that.”
Bella is quiet for a while, then says, “Girls aren’t any more complicated than men.”
“How do you figure?” I finish the bracket and turn to look at her again.
She looks cute, more settled, and comfortable than she ever has. What I once thought was confidence was just a wall like the one I’d put up. Bella and I aren’t that much different from one another. “We just want to be safe; you know? Not just physically safe, but emotionally safe. We want to know that when we need our guy, he’s got our back.”
“Like to fight or something?”
She laughs. “No. Like a hug or a kind word, or something romantic. A gesture.”
I hum, not exactly sure how to respond to that but think about it, wondering how I could possibly find a way to extend a romantic gesture when the girl won’t talk to me.
I finish the closet.
After I get home to sample some of Phoenix’s grub, I low-key gag at Mom and Bill cuddling on the couch and follow that up with a shower. Once I’m in bed to sleep, I check IG and see Max has posted a story.
I’m not sure what to do, what she wants from me. I think about Bella’s claim that a girl just wants to know I have her back, but if she won’t talk to you, then how are you supposed to show her? I press on Max’s story. It makes me want to throw my phone at the wall. She’s walking into a party with Renna, her boyfriend, and that stupid shmuck from the pizza parlor. Fucking Ben.
I don’t care that I’ve showered.
I don’t care that it’s as cold as the devil’s balls in the Arctic Circle.
I don’t care that I could slip, get lost and die in the snow that has decided to fall.
I put on my running clothes and stomp through the house.
“Where are you going?” my mom asks from the couch.
“What does it look like?
” I growl. “I need a run.”
“Griffin. It’s too cold and dark.”
“I have to go,” I tell her and push through the door, close it behind me, run.
I run, the ground slick, and grueling enough to help me refocus my emotional hurt on the physical pain instead. My deep breaths freeze my lungs, hardening them into glass that comes out my mouth like ice crystals. But still I run.
I run. I run. I run.
I run from this tiny town and all its tiny expectations.
I run from the fact I’m going to be a dad.
I run from my fear and my hurt and my insecurity.
I run from my longing for a girl who doesn’t want me back, and it’s because I didn’t trust her.
I stop running.
I didn’t trust her.
I was afraid.
I take several deep breaths finding my center.
I didn’t trust her.
I was afraid.
I can see the truth in it.
I didn’t have her back and tried to protect my own.
When I feel the calm again, I turn around to run back.
I run toward my family.
I run toward the house where I know I’m safe.
I run toward the idea that I get to see my baby’s ultrasound soon and smile thinking about the feel of it—her—moving under my hand on Bella’s belly.
I run toward the realization I will be a dad soon.
I run toward the hope for Max and me but accepting it if there isn’t. I have to trust her, and most importantly, I have to trust me.
4
The white and black truck in front of my car crawls over the road. I glance at the clock on my dash and will my breathing to find calm. I’m not late—not yet— but time is short. Right after class, I jettisoned straight to my vehicle and got on the road. A trip between the clinic where Bella is getting the ultrasound and my campus in the city is about 45 minutes from door to door. I know because I timed it a few days ago. I didn’t factor in a fucking, slow-moving semi.
Shit.
I tap the steering wheel to the music, but it’s less to keep time and more to center my impatience. “Shit,” I say aloud to no one since I’m in the car alone, then “Move!” to the truck ahead of me, not that the driver can hear me. I know there’s a passing lane about a mile or so ahead, but I glance at the clock again and feel the pressure of beginning to freak out. I can’t miss the ultrasound. Bella trusts me to show up. My first job as this kid’s dad is to fucking show up.