Mostly MyBoss

by Doyle, S.

  He closed his eyes. “That night…that night…I got pretty drunk.”

  “Pretty drunk?” I said, calling him out. “He got so drunk Nicki had to take him to the hospital. Come to think of it, you never told me why.”

  “I don’t remember. But that was the night that everything fell apart. Really, that’s what changed everything between us.”

  * * *

  Harvard

  Ethan

  “What the hell happened?”

  Jules. That was her voice. Good, she was here. That was important. She would fix this for me.

  I’d done something stupid, and now I was pretty sure I was in a hospital.

  “We got into a fight and he freaked out.” That was Nicki talking. What had Nicki said earlier? About Jules. Something important about Jules.

  “He started drinking. I didn’t realize how much until he collapsed at the bar. I couldn’t get him to respond, so I called 911.”

  She totally overreacted. It was a spell. Just a spell.

  “Do you know if he’s on any medications?” That was from the nurse standing above me currently pointing a light into my eyes.

  I should answer this. I was on a lot of medications. But I hadn’t been taking them. I didn’t need them. I could usually control my emotions as long as I kept everything locked down.

  But I hadn’t been able to do that tonight. Tonight, Nicki had destroyed all that restraint.

  What had she told me? It was there and it was important but, through the haze of alcohol, I couldn’t grasp it. It was out of reach. That happened sometimes. I drank too much and I blanked out. Lost time.

  I needed to stop drinking, but sometimes it helped get me out of my head. I needed to be able to think freely. Pot helped, too, but I hated the smell of it. Vodka mixed with anything was much more enjoyable.

  “He’s been on Adderall, but I don’t know if he’s taking it now. He goes off and on.”

  ON!

  I didn’t tell Jules I’d failed another exam. My father was NOT going to be happy with my second-semester grades. Not that he was happy with my first-semester grades.

  Not that he was ever happy with me. Ever.

  But I didn’t need him. Not his approval, not his medication, not his insistence that, somehow, who I was at my core was flawed. Although, of course, I was. After all, my mother had been an addict while she was pregnant with me.

  Except, instead of being intellectually impaired by that, it had worked the other way.

  I was going to do great things. I was going to prove that my existence was worthy. I was going to show the woman who left the hospital after giving birth to me—without a word to anyone—that I was someone who shouldn’t be left behind.

  “You’ll need to stay here.”

  The nurse again. I was on a gurney. I could see the lights above and hear the squeaky wheels as I was moved through halls. The motion was making me nauseous.

  “Going to be sick.” It was all the warning I gave before I rolled over and vomited. On the gurney, on the floor.

  “Oh my God!”

  Nicki. Relax. It’s just some puke. Nothing to freak out over.

  Jules wouldn’t freak out. She could handle this. She could handle me. I’ve known from the beginning. Because of the seat she picked in class. She understands me.

  “Jules,” I groaned.

  “I’m calling your parents.”

  “Don’t!” Did that come out forcibly enough? I fell back onto the bed, then it was moving again.

  Stupid mistake.

  I was going to pay for this stupid mistake.

  Jules, please don’t call my parents!

  Hopefully she heard that. Did I say that out loud?

  Then I was pushed through some doors and, as much as I struggled to stay awake, the darkness took over.

  * * *

  The next morning

  “Oh thank God, he’s awake. Edward, he’s awake.”

  I opened my eyes and my mother was hovering over me.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “I told you this would happen. I told you we shouldn’t have let him go.” My mother was screeching at my father who was now leaning over me, as well.

  “Ethan? Can you hear me?” my father asked.

  I nodded.

  “You had a reaction to the medication mixed with too much alcohol. They pumped your stomach and put you on an IV. Can you understand me?”

  I nodded.

  “Jules?” I asked.

  “I’m here!” I could hear her voice, but I couldn’t see her. I turned my head, but there was only my mother on one side, my father on the other. Both of them hovering. Both of them angry for different reasons.

  I was such a fucking disappointment to them. Always. As an addicted baby. As an out-of-control child. As an adult man.

  “What did I tell you?” My mother was screeching again. “I told you not to let him drink. I told you that you had to watch over him!”

  “I wasn’t there,” Jules said. “I didn’t… I called you as soon as I could.”

  Don’t attack her. It’s not her fault.

  I tried to say those words, but it felt like I had cotton balls stuffed in my mouth.

  I moved my head and I could see her there, standing behind my father. Her hands twisted together. She looked upset.

  I didn’t mean to scare you.

  Wait, I was angry with her. Why? She did something…no, it wasn’t her. It was Nicki. Both of them. What was it? Something I should remember, but it was all blank. I really did need to stop drinking vodka. It was a killer.

  “Jules.”

  She moved around my father so that I could see her.

  “Ethan.”

  “You should go,” my mother barked at her. “He needs his family right now.”

  No, I didn’t want her to go. Jules was the only thing that made sense for me. It was something about her damn practicality. She was steady and constant, and she gave me a sense of balance I’d never had. She was my only friend.

  “I’ll wait outside if that’s better,” she said.

  No. Outside wasn’t better. I needed her here. With me. I needed to know she was close then I could focus on how to calm my parents down.

  “I wouldn’t bother,” my father told her. “He’ll be discharged in a few hours and we’ll be taking him back to New York.”

  “No!” I tried to sit up, but my father put his hand on my shoulder with enough force to flatten me.

  “He needs to be watched,” he said. “Round the clock. I can’t count on anyone here to do that.”

  “I’ll do it,” she said, and there was a desperation in her voice that pleased me. Always with us, it was usually me relying on her. I liked it when it was the other way around. When I could sense she needed me, too. “I’ll watch him. I won’t let him drink. I promise.”

  “You already failed him,” my mother screeched at her. “Edward, tell her to leave.”

  “Calm down, Rachel. He’s going to be fine. Julie, I’m sorry, but it would be for the best if you left.”

  It’s Julia. Why couldn’t they remember that?

  “Ethan, I’ll text you.”

  “Jules. Don’t go,” I croaked out.

  “I’ll text you,” she insisted.

  “Don’t leave.”

  “Ethan, hush,” my mother said, again leaning over me so she was all I could see. “This is for the best. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Four months later

  New York

  Jules: Ethan? Are u there?

  I glanced at the phone, but quickly put it in my back pocket. They didn’t know I was talking to Jules and I didn’t want to risk them taking my phone away again.

  “I think this makes sense, Ethan.”

  I was standing in my father’s study. He was behind his desk, my mother stood near the window looking down at the busy street far below.

  “I don’t understand,” I said slowly as if I was dimwitted. “The semester start
s next week.”

  “Yes, but a year break is really nothing in the grand scheme of things. How many people your age take a year abroad before even attending college?”

  “Can I go abroad?”

  He sighed and removed his glasses as if I’d said something incredibly stupid. “You know you can’t.”

  I needed to think like him. I needed to be rational and calm. He was watching me take all my medications each morning before he left for Mt. Sinai to do his rounds. What he didn’t know was that I’d gotten clever at hiding them under my tongue.

  But at any sign of temper or frustration, he would suspect his treatment wasn’t working. I needed to act like someone drugged to the gills, even if I wasn’t. I was patting my thigh and forced myself to stop.

  “My concern with another year is that I’m already behind. I’ve been home now for four months. I missed all my finals from last semester. As it is, I’ll need to do redo my second-semester credits. Another year on top of that puts me even further behind.”

  “Ethan, we just don’t trust you—”

  “Don’t say that,” my mother snapped at my father. “We trust you. Of course we do, honey. We just don’t trust the other people who might be a negative influence on you. People who might not have your best interests at heart like we do.”

  “I haven’t spoken to anyone from Harvard in months,” I lied. “I should be clear of any negative influences by now. It was as mistake. A bad night I let get away from me. I don’t think I should be punished for a year.”

  My father shook his head. “Son, this isn’t a punishment. We’re trying to give you a chance to mature. To understand that you have to take certain precautions given your condition—”

  “I don’t have a condition,” I argued and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry. I just don’t see how putting off my education for a year is going to help anything.”

  “We think it’s better if you stay here with us,” my mother said. “Until you’re ready.”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket again.

  I nodded. Their minds were already made up. Any argument at this point was futile. My father was convinced I was at risk mentally and my overprotective mother got to keep me right where she wanted me. At home with her.

  A win for both of them. “I understand. You’re both right, of course.”

  My mother let out a sigh of relief and smiled. “You’ll see, darling. You’ll be better off here in New York. Harvard is always going to be there. And if not Harvard, there are a number of schools in the city that would work just as well.”

  I was never going back to Harvard as a student.

  “Can I be excused?”

  My father nodded so I left and headed down the hallway toward my bedroom. Once inside, I locked the door behind me and clenched my fists hard enough to turn my knuckles white. Hard enough to leave nail-sized crevices in my palms.

  This anger wasn’t abnormal. It was natural. I was being held prisoner by parents who felt they were doing the best thing for me, but they were wrong. It was one fucking night. I drank too much and got sick. I’m pretty certain I wasn’t the first fucking college student to ever do that.

  But it didn’t matter. There was no reasoning with him and if Mom had it her way, I would never leave the apartment.

  I pulled out my phone.

  Jules: Heading back to school. On the road for most of the week. See u on campus. What dorm did u get?

  It had taken over two months for me to earn my phone privileges back. It had almost been the thing that had broken me, but they hadn’t accounted for the fact that Jules and I were persistent.

  I’d sent a letter to her—the return address was a post office box in New York.

  I didn’t know if she would write back. I didn’t know if people our age knew how to write—letters really seemed so ridiculously old-school. But when I went to the post office three days later, there was a letter postmarked Massachusetts. Then, as the weeks went by, the postmark changed to Iowa.

  I liked having her home address. It made me feel connected to a place out there in the country my parents had no idea about. They didn’t know her last name, let alone her actual first name. She was safe from their reach.

  We’d continued to write even after I’d been given my phone back, which worked out well since I knew my father was monitoring any phone activity on the account.

  I’d only reached out via text to let her know I would be back before the semester, which I’d assumed was the plan all along.

  But today, when I asked about having one of them drive me up to campus, they explained that wasn’t going to happen.

  Which meant they’d left me with no choice.

  Always, always the idea of leaving home had been a last resort. Work within the system. Get them to see reason. Make it to college and gain my independence.

  There was no way to get back into Harvard. The administration staff I had in my back pocket could reroute a few calls, come up with a few lies. But something like my enrolling in classes again would be too much to cover.

  Besides that, I wasn’t ready to blow the rest of what I made mining Bitcoin on tuition. Which I would have to do without my parent’s support. That was supposed to be investment money. Now I needed it for another purpose.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There was no going back after this. I could stay and try to sit it out another year, convince them I was as docile as they seemed to need me to be or…leave.

  Jules wasn’t going to like it.

  But we didn’t have a choice anymore.

  Me: I’ll see u there.

  * * *

  Harvard

  “Jules!”

  I saw it happen. When she heard my voice and turned around to look for me. The jolt in her body like she was excited or nervous, maybe both.

  Then her eyes found me, and I raised my hand to wave to her. She started to run but quickly changed to a swift walk. Running was far too dramatic for her. This was just a simple reunion between friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

  Just that. Nothing more.

  She stopped in front of me, her smile wide, her blue eyes clear, and in that small moment, everything made sense again. Like I could finally, after all these months, breathe.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’re back. I didn’t know what classes you were taking—don’t know why you wouldn’t tell me—so I had to guess. I actually enrolled for twenty credits, but I figure I can drop what I need. I—”

  “Jules,” I said. “I’m not coming back.”

  “What do you mean? You’re here.”

  “I’m here to…say goodbye. For now.”

  “Ethan, what are you talking about?”

  “They’re weren’t going to let me go. They wanted me to stay home. Another year.” I shook my head. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Your parents weren’t going to let you come back to school because you had one bad night?”

  “That’s what I said. More than one bad night, though. A few where I didn’t remember… I’m not drinking anymore. They’re right about that. But I can’t do the meds. I can’t stay in that apartment with them. And I can’t be here. They could come and it would get ugly. I don’t want that. I didn’t want to say goodbye in a letter or, worse, a text. So here I am.”

  She crossed her arms over her stomach and looked away from me. I knew I was hurting her, but I also knew there was no other option.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t come up with the big plan yet, but now the pressure is on…so maybe soon. I can’t stay in Boston. They’ll look for me here. I’m thinking the West Coast. I’ll let you know once I have a place.”

  I pulled out my new burner phone and sent her a text so she would have the number. My other phone I’d left at home so they couldn’t trace me.

  “They’ll try to get in touch with you,” I said. “Possibly hire a private investigator. Or they might go so far as to tr
ack you down here. Don’t be freaked out. It’s not like they can do anything legally. I’m over eighteen.”

  “Ethan…what about your degree?”

  So practical. Jules couldn’t deal with the thought of me leaving my parents in a way they wouldn’t be able to find me. With leaving her, too, for that matter. It was so like her to focus on the paper instead.

  “I don’t need it. It was just a way to leave home. Steve Jobs didn’t have one. Gates didn’t have one. I’ll figure it out.”

  She looked away from me again and I would have paid any amount of the money I had to know what she was thinking. Was she angry? Sad? Heartbroken?

  I wanted her to be heartbroken. I wanted to matter that much to her.

  “So that’s it? You leave and that’s it?” she asked, her voice becoming a little shrill.

  I shoved my hands in my jeans pockets. I wanted to be strong, stronger than I was. In the end, though, I wasn’t. I cracked.

  “It doesn’t have to be it. You could come with me.”

  “Ethan,” she said, clearly exasperated.

  “Jules, I’m serious. We can do this. I have plenty of money for us to live on. I’ve already got ideas of areas I want to explore. Come with me and we can do this together…”

  She lifted her hands up in the air. “Ideas, Ethan. Lots of ideas. That’s all you ever have. Ideas that involve Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. That’s not realistic!”

  That pissed me off. I’d thought she understood me better than that. “So all last year, you were what? Humoring me?”

  “No. It’s not that I don’t think you’re amazing and you’re going to do amazing things. I just…I can’t leave school on the hope that’s going to be true. Remember, this is my lottery ticket.”

  “School is a waste,” I said, disgusted with the restrictions of it suddenly. When my parents offered me the out of college, I’d grabbed it. I’d applied everywhere and naturally accepted Harvard’s invitation. It was the best. Now it was lost, and I couldn’t let myself feel as if I’d regret something. “It’s a piece of paper to prove something to people when I don’t have to prove anything other than what I can create.”