Page 102 of The Beautiful Collision
Then my phone rang.
And now the dark highway stretches ahead.
The exit for my hometown appears in the headlights, the familiar green sign now feeling like a grave marker. This is it. The place where the performance ends. Where I stop being Maine the charming, Maine the funny, Maine the guy who’s always fine, and become… what?
Just a son who couldn’t save his family.
I pull into the driveway, the headlights sweeping across the “For Sale by Owner” sign my dad must have hammered intothe ground. The sight of it—crooked, hand-painted because they couldn’t even afford a realtor—is sad and devastating.
The kitchen light is on. Through the window, I can see them at the table. The same scarred oak table where I ate thousands of meals, did homework, and learned that my value was in being easy, in never adding to the burden. Now it’s covered in paper, the physical documentation of our family’s slow-motion collapse.
I sit in the car for another minute, engine ticking as it cools, trying to summon the mask one more time. The easy grin. The casual slouch. The voice that says everything’s going to be fine, that this is just a speed bump, that we’ve been through worse.
But I can’t find it.
So with a sigh, I exit the car and head inside, and my parents look up from their ocean of paperwork. They somehow look even worse than they have for the last few weeks, holding vigil over Chloe in the ICU, like ghosts haunting their own life.
“Hey, bud,” Dad says, his voice forcefully casual.
Mom’s already moving toward the stove. “Are you hungry? I can heat up?—“
“Stop.”
The word comes out sharper than I intended, raw and cracked down the middle. They both freeze, Mom with her hand on the refrigerator handle, Dad with his reading glasses sliding down his nose, pen hovering over papers he’s about to sign.
I sink into my chair, the one I’ve sat in since I was five years old, the one with the wobbly leg that Dad always meant to fix. My head drops into my hands, and I feel the weight of every lie, every performance, every moment I chose pride over truth pressing down on my shoulders.
“I’m not OK,” I say.
The words fall into the silence like stones into still water. Three words I’ve never said in this kitchen. Three words thatbetray twenty-two years of being the son who didn’t need, who didn’t take, who didn’t burden. Who always gave, helped, and was easy.
Mom’s hand leaves the refrigerator. “Maine?—“
Now that the dam has cracked, everything floods out. “I’ve been drowning for months. I maxed out credit cards I couldn’t afford to get. I’ve been working sixty-hour weeks. I can barely make rent even with Maya paying half, and now I fucked that up too, and?—“
My voice cracks completely, and suddenly I’m crying. Actually crying in front of my parents. The sound that comes out of me doesn’t even sound human—it’s raw and ugly and broken, the sound of every suppressed breakdown finally escaping at once.
“I tried so fucking hard to handle it myself and not be another problem. To be the easy one, the one you didn’t have to worry about. But I fucked it all up. I can’t… I can’t fix this. I can’t fix any of it. I’m supposed to graduate in a few months and maybe get drafted, but what if I don’t? What if?—“
“Stop.” Dad’s voice cuts through my spiral. Not harsh, just… firm. Solid. He takes off his reading glasses, sets them carefully on the medical bills and the house paperwork, then looks at me with eyes that are red-rimmed but steady. “Son, stop.”
I shake my head. “The house?—“
“Fuck the house.”
I’ve heard my father swear maybe five times in my entire life.
The word hangs in the kitchen like a challenge to God himself.
“Richard—“ Mom starts.
“No, Susan. Fuck the house.” He stands up, his chair scraping against the linoleum. “You think I care about these walls? You think any of this matters compared to…” He gestureshelplessly at me. “We’re watching Chloe die, and we’ve been watching you kill yourself trying to carry everything alone.”
“That’s not—“ I pause, not knowing what to say, but knowing I need to say something. To relieve them, to make things right. “Dad?—“
“It’s true.” Mom’s voice is quiet but certain. “We failed you, Maine. We got so caught up in Chloe’s illness, in the bills, and in surviving each day, that we forgot you needed us sometimes too. We let you become the parent when you were just a kid yourself.”
“I’m twenty-two?—“
