by Allen, Jacob
My father’s glare fell upon me, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that you could just shake off and walk away from. When my father wanted someone to feel the pressure and judgment of his glare, thanks to his military background, he knew how to apply it full force.
“Well, you better enjoy it for now,” he said. “Your brothers are coming home during all of your spring breaks. I expect you to be here when they come.”
“Wait, what?”
I already all but had plans to hang with the Broad Street Boys at the beach house in Wilmington, North Carolina. We hadn’t fully booked everything yet, but that was just a formality; the Collins had connections to the owners of the house to ensure that we, not some random stupid Airbnb guest, would get the place. It was going to be one of our last hurrahs, our last chances at celebrating before the end of the school year.
And I was expected to end it for my goddamn brothers? The assholes who liked to make my life a living hell whenever they showed up? The ones who gave me many of my inadequacies and insecurities?
Absolutely fucking not. There was no fucking way that I was going to let that happen.
“Do I need to repeat myself, son? I guess I do, seeing as how hearing has suddenly become very difficult for you. When you go on spring break, Clarke and Andrew will be here. As we don’t get many opportunities for everyone to spend time together, we are going to take advantage of this opportunity. You’ll thank me—”
“I’m never going to thank you for this!”
I’d just screwed myself over. I didn’t give a shit. I had enough alcohol in me to strike back. Consequences weren’t as bad when you could blame it on the alcohol—though not that I was going to ever admit that to my father.
“This is my last year with the Broad Street Boys. We’ll all be around for a while. I’m going to go to North Carolina with them.”
“First of all, you and your little boy band or whatever the hell you are don’t mean as much as your own family. Second of all, you are not going to North Carolina. So help me God, Nicholas, if you go to North Carolina when your brothers are here, the hell that I will unleash upon you will be unlike anything you have ever experienced. If you want to take that risk, be my guest, but you would be a damn fool to do so!”
“I can’t believe you’d take this away from me!”
Provided, of course, Samantha doesn’t show. She won’t. Not after everything. But still.
“You want us to pay for your college education? You stay in Tennessee.”
“You cannot be serious,” I said. “You’re going to make my college tuition conditional on me staying here during spring break?!?”
My voice was cracking. I was struggling to keep my emotions in check, something of critical importance in front of my father. Tears were perhaps the greatest sign of weakness, the best way to ensure that my father would never let me go to North Carolina.
“That’s the deal.”
“Is there any way I can bargain for something?” I begged. “Let me come home early, or leave later? Please!”
But my father shook his head. I almost muttered “fuck you.” I almost gave him the middle finger.
I only kept myself in check because I knew, even buzzed, that if I did any of those things, he’d punish me, still keep me in Tennessee, and then add something more later for good measure. There was quite literally nothing good to be gained, not in the short term and not in the long term, from doing this.
“You will stay here during your spring break, and that is final,” my father said. “I do not expect any further discussion on this topic or anything related to it. Do I make myself clear?”
I gulped. Again, I wanted to push back, but again, I knew better, even in my current state.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
My father turned and went into the other room without another word, pouring himself a glass of water before turning up the television. I was numb, standing at the entrance. The last spring break I’d ever have in high school, with the friends I’d had since middle school, was going to be spent hearing about my athletic failures and how pathetic and much of a runt I was.
I went upstairs, but honestly, it felt like my feet were still glued to the ground. It was as if my spirit went upstairs and my conscience followed, but my actual body remained stuck in place, in numb and unable to move from its present location. When I got to my room, I reached for the unfinished bottle of Fireball and took a swig.
I can’t wait, I thought. For the day when my parents discover their militant raising turned me into a fucking alcoholic. I can’t wait until Samantha someday loses her virginity to someone far worse than me and realizes what could have been. I can’t wait until I’m far away from here.
I can’t wait until I have a job and I get to choose when I come home. I get to choose not to see my brothers. I get to choose to tell my father to fuck off.
They’ll all see. They’ll all fucking see!
As I drank more and more and the liquor started to hit me more and more, my thoughts got darker and darker. I went from saying I’d choose when I’d see my family to saying I’d never see them. I went from saying Samantha would miss me to saying she’d be begging for me with her dying breath. It wasn’t too dramatic for drunk Nick. Nothing was.
I had my phone in my hand and was so tempted to fire off more messages to that bitch. I had thoughts of daring her to send me a topless photo. Maybe I’d send her a dick pic. Who the fuck knew? She needed her boundaries stretched, among other things that needed to be stretched.
I don’t remember the exact time that I finally passed out, the liquor bottle on its side, with just little enough in it that it didn’t spill out. I don’t remember what my last thought was before I passed out, but I could say with confidence it wasn’t pretty. I don’t even remember if I passed out in my bed or if I decided to crawl on the floor.
What I could say, though, was when I had my first relatively sober moment since I came home, it was six in the morning, the mere motion of sitting up made me nauseous, and I just wanted to die. Perhaps not literally, but maybe if I slipped into a coma for a day or two to recover, that would feel pretty nice.
Unlike everything else that had happened.
Man, you have got to get your shit together. You’re going to let your family fuck you over like this? You’re going to let some crazy prudish cunt fuck with your mind? Come on man. Get it together.
That was a lot easier thought than said, let alone done, when just the very act of putting one foot in front of the other was enough to send the vomit in my stomach roaring back up. Thank God my parents were still asleep and the bathroom was unused, because as soon as I got there, I didn’t even make it to the toilet. I just aimed for the bathtub, figuring it gave me a larger target to aim at.
I didn’t just throw up the Fireball from last night and the ice cream. I wanted to believe I was puking up all of the bullshit from the last semester. I was puking up my attachment to certain things. I was puking up the need to feel an attachment to certain things. I was purging myself of all the toxicity of the last semester.
Fuck, you sound like Jackie, I thought in between dry heaves.
A knock came on the bathroom door.
“Nick?” my mother said.
Thank God. If it was Dad, I’d probably have to puke on him.
“Are you OK, sweetie?”
Let’s just say there was absolutely zero chance of me saying anything about whiskey, Fireball, liquor, or anything remotely resembling any of those topics.
“Just ate something bad last night,” I said. “I’ll be OK.”
“You’re sure? I can come in—”
“It’s fine, thanks,” I said, trying to prevent her from coming in and smelling what I smelled.
Granted, she would eventually, but at least I could pass it off as confused and sick then.
“Might have the flue, still not feeling great.”
At least that was true.
“OK, let
me know if you need anything, dear.”
She shuffled back to the master bedroom, and I collapsed to the ground in the bathroom.
This was fucking rock bottom. And no one or nothing was coming to rescue me—no change of heart from Samantha, no surprise scholarship, no cancellation of plans from my brothers. That was the epitome of wishful thinking at this point.
So, like I had begun to think last night, I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps.
I would do well enough in school to go wherever I wanted to. I was not going to Vanderbilt, because fuck my brothers, that’s why.
When they showed up, I was not going to cower and let them push me around, much as they had for the first fifteen or so years of my life. I was going to fight back, perhaps literally if I had to.
And as for Samantha… ironically, she had given me some of the best advice yet in suggesting the Ivy League schools for athletics. I’d already applied to a couple of those schools, though admittedly mostly as long shots than anything else. In that sense, I had to thank her.
But there was no chance, none whatsoever, that we could find up at the same school. Her mere existence would bug the hell out of me, constantly remind me of the most awkward flirting I’d ever had in high school. If she was so much as within the same town come August, I would want to shoot myself.
So long as we didn’t wind up at the same school, I could forget her, she could be weird wherever the fuck she wanted to be weird, and we’d be fine.
And if we did?
Well, standing up for myself and fighting back wouldn’t just include my family.
15
Samantha
“Be safe.”
Three weeks had passed. It was the first Saturday of spring break. Even I, maybe the only person still trying to keep good grades in her last semester in high school, was relieved to have the break. I’d finally get the chance to hang out with Emily and Jackie alone for a few hours, and even when Adam and Kevin joined us, at least Nick would be far, far removed from me and any drama.
“I will. Thanks, Mom.”
It wasn’t the sincerest thanks. She hadn’t wished me a fun time. My father wasn’t even present to send me off. This was so typical for my parents, it was almost depressing that they couldn’t change up just once in a while.
Still, I guess I was grateful for the quick departure. I grabbed my bags and headed outside, waiting for Emily to come around and pick me up. Depending on how college decisions went, this could be one of the last times we had a neutral conversation.
That was only about a week and a half away, and every day that got me closer and closer had me more nervous than the last one. It was terrifying to know that there was nothing more I could do. I couldn’t submit any more letters. I couldn’t submit any more grades. I couldn’t improve my SAT or ACT scores.
I couldn’t send anything in explaining why I’d gotten suspended for a week.
In fact, at this point, all of the schools had my application file and likely had an “Accept” or “Reject” status next to it in their systems. The question was now just making sure all of their numbers lined up, not in if I belonged or not. What I would have given to be able to hack their systems and see if I’d gotten in or not. I wouldn’t even have tried to change anything—I just wanted to know.
“Hey girl!”
I swore I heard Emily’s voice long before I heard her car. Granted, on my street, because of the set-up of the houses, cars weren’t often heard until they had actually turned the corner, but still.
When she pulled up, she rolled down the window, showing off enlarged, pink sunglasses and a white tank top.
“Ready for Spring Break 2020?” she said with a huge grin.
She looked like a fashion model or a celebrity with her shades, her long hair, and her wide, pearly-white grin.
“Duh!” I said as I walked over, also boasting a smile, albeit one that was nowhere near as cute. Emily knew how to dress to match the occasion; I was dressed in a plain green shirt and shorts that, perhaps, showed off my legs, but mostly just showed off my utter lack of fashion sense.
I peered inside at Jackie; even she was wearing sunglasses and a nice top. For this car ride, at least, she’d ditched her typical hippy clothes in favor of a beachier vibe.
“I didn’t get the memo to dress for the beach,” I said as Emily popped open the trunk and I stuck my bags inside, having to play a little bit of Tetris to get everything to fit.
“Oh, we won’t get there tonight for the beach,” Emily said. “Even if we sped 100 miles per hour, we wouldn’t get there until late evening. No girl, we just want to be in the mood!”
As if to further cement the mood that we were on, Emily turned up the car radio, blaring Katy Perry’s “California Girls.” Sure, we may have been heading away from California, not toward it, but it did set the mood—a mood of goofiness, of girls being teenagers, of friends being friends.
And for the first time since probably the previous summer, even if only for a few days—even if for only a few hours before Adam and Kevin showed up—I could fully and finally let my guard down completely.
There were no tests to worry about. There were no boys to worry about. There were no friends in crisis. We were just three teenagers dancing and singing to silly songs, ranging from the new songs from the Jonas Brothers to songs going back to “Ride Wit Me” by Nelly. I was sure we got plenty of amused looks from the other people on the highway, and I was equally sure that all of us would dance and sing all over again even if we knew that everyone was watching.
There was just something very freeing about the fact that we also knew this was a pocket of time that wouldn’t last forever—and, for that matter, was soon coming to an end. It hadn’t really hit me what it would mean to say goodbye to my best friend and my other good friend in just a few short months, but once the summer came to an end, there was a very good chance we’d then only see each other a few times a year, not a few times a day. Yes, the summer would allow for a lot more free time, but…
“Girl, you wanna drive?” Emily asked me, interrupting my thoughts.
“Already?” I said. “Sorry, I have no idea how long we’ve been on the road for.”
“Three hours, actually.”
“Wow, I really had no idea,” I said. “One more song and then I can drive.”
“OK, you got it. Jackie, let’s pick… oh, this, this, this!”
Curious to hear what was about to be played and wanting to feel more connected than I was in the back, I leaned forward, surely violating a few safety rules of the car.
I recognized the beat as soon as it began. The meaning of the song, especially as it related to me versus the other two, was not lost on me.
“Summer lovin’, had me a blast…”
And so it began, the song that told me the two girls were as much looking forward to this vacation to spend time with their boyfriends as they were with me. Sure, they weren’t going to totally ignore me, and I suspected Kevin and Adam would be on their best behavior. But I really belonged in the back as the fifth wheel of this trip.
I faked it well enough. I wouldn’t let Emily and Jackie realize that the song left me feel a little left out. I sung—poorly—Sandy’s parts with enough verve and enthusiasm that Emily and Jackie, having never suspected I could have let loose so easily, cheered and applauded me. I got enough of a kick out of that to keep going.
But as soon as the song ended, I felt so exhausted that I didn’t even want to drive. Getting out of the car helped, and I used the excuse of stopping to stretch and use the restroom to gather myself, but the thought still lingered.
It lingered so much so, in fact, that I never even gave the car to Jackie for her third shift. I didn’t want her to be back in charge of the radio and to pick some sappy, romantic song that would have the two of them singing along and have me faking it for the sake of not exacerbating my loneliness.
We did stop for dinner, allowing us to talk about what this weekend was go
ing to entail. Adam apparently had brought enough liquor to last a month, while Kevin had brought beer. I really wasn’t interested in either; I just wanted to get some quality time at the beach in, have some good conversation, and otherwise escape the harsh reality of having my life’s fate in the balance a week and a half from now.
Fortunately, from the conversation, it became pretty apparent that I would get that in spades. We would be there from today, Saturday, until next Friday. There were sure to be some tense moments, but for the most part, it would be fine.
I took over driving again on the last leg of the trip, powering us through North Carolina and coming to the town home. Adam’s Corvette was already parked outside. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about Nick being here—that alone eliminated 80 percent of the potential stress.
“The ladies have arrived!” Adam shouted as I opened the front door. “About damn time, we were about to smoke weed ourselves and pass out!”
I came into view first, and it was strange to see that Adam didn’t seem disappointed by that. Of course, he was a lot happier when Emily came into view—he moved past me, his grin growing, his eyes narrowing, his kiss loud—but that he hadn’t looked disappointed to see me first… maybe he was a little more genuine than I’d given him credit for.
Kevin was the same way. In fact, Kevin was even better, because he gave me a hug. I won’t say it was the greatest hug ever; I was pretty stiff, and the whole thing felt awkward, but still! I didn’t even care that I was the fifth wheel for a bit there. The feeling, though probably short-lived, made me feel a lot better.
“Grab yourself a drink of whatever you want, you sexy bitch,” Adam commanded as he patted Emily on the ass. “We’re about to play Up and Down the River.”
“The what?” I said.
“It’s a drinking game,” he explained. “I’ll do a practice round with you all, but it’s pretty straightforward. Even Kevin could pick up on it pretty fucking quickly.”
A practice round? Is this the Adam that I know?
I went to the fridge, waiting for Emily to come close. I put my arm around her and pulled her in.