Page 2 of The Way I Am Now
“Actually, if you have a minute, I’ve really wanted to talk to you. About the last time you were home. Look, I know I wasn’t there for you when you were dealing with . . .” He pauses, searching for the rest of a sentence I suspect also isn’t there.
I watch him closely, waiting to see if he actually remembers what it was I was dealing with the last time I was home. I make a bet with myself while I wait: If he remembers even a fragment of what happened four months ago, I’ll stay in tonight. I’ll talk with him like he wants. I’ll tell him I forgive him, and I might even mean it.
“You know,” he starts again, “when you were dealing with all that.”
“What is this, making amends?” I ask. “Step nine already?Again,” I mutter under my breath.
“No,” he says, wincing softly. “It’s not that, Josh.”
I sigh and set my phone back down. “Dad, I’m sorry,” I tell him, even though I’mnotsorry. But I don’t need him breaking his sobriety again just because I took a cheap shot, either. “Shit, I just—”
“No, it’s okay, Joshie.” He holds his hands out in front of his chest and shakes his head, just taking it. “It’s all right. I deserved that.” He backs up a couple of steps until he can hold on to my doorframe like he needs something to lean on. He opens his mouth to say something else, but the doorbell interrupts him. I can hear my mom downstairs now too, talking to Dominic.
“I don’t know why I said that.” I try to apologize again. “I’m sorry.”
It’s fine, he mouths to me, then turns toward the hallway, greeting Dominic like the picture-perfect father he sometimes really is. “Dominic DiCarlo in the flesh! Good season for you, I hear.” What he doesn’t say is howmyseason has been shit—he doesn’t need to say it, we all know. “Keeping this one in line, I’m sure,” he adds in that good-natured way of his.
“You know it,” Dominic jokes, shaking my dad’s outstretched hand. “Someone’s gotta keep him in line.” He’s all cheerful until he sees me, taking off my hat and trying to smooth the wrinkles in my shirt. “Man, you’re not ready at all.”
EDEN
My hands are steady now as they reach for the door handle. Steady as I flip down the visor in Mara’s car and swipe mascara over my lashes. Steady as Steve climbs into the seat next to me and interlaces his fingers with mine, smiling sweetly as he says, “Hey, I missed you.”
My heart has slowed now that the medicine found its way into my bloodstream. Even though I know it’s not a real calm, I guess it’s enough for me to do this for my friends. To be out and acting normal for one last night before I drop another bomb on them. And so I lie and say, “Me too.”
Mara’s boyfriend, Cameron, slams the passenger-side door as he gets in. He kisses Mara and then glances back at me and says, “We’re probably gonna miss the opening act now.”
“We will not,” Steve responds in my place, then leans toward me and kisses my bare shoulder. “I’m glad you decided to come.”
“Yeah, me too,” I repeat, feeling like I should mean it.
“It’s about time you got out again,” he says.
“That’s what I told her, Steve,” Mara chimes in, all smiles.
“Think of tonight as a new beginning,” he continues. “You’ll be back in school on Monday, and then we have the last couple of months of our senior year to enjoy. Finally. We’ve earned it!”
“Hell yeah, we have,” Cameron agrees.
They act like I’m recovering from a bad flu or something. Like now that I’m not keeping secrets, things can magically go back to normal, whatever normal used to be. As if finishing senior year is not the last thing on my mind right now. Or maybe they’re right, and I should just try to ignore all the rest of the shit and be a regular teenager for the next two months while I still can.
“Cameron,” I hear myself call above the music, and they all turn to look at me. “We bought the tickets for the headliner, anyway, right? So if we’re late, it’s still gonna be okay.”
Not that I care much about either, but I owed them a little enthusiasm.
He rolls his eyes and turns back around, muttering, “You meanIbought the tickets.” Cameron is the only one not pretending, not suddenly being nice to me just because of everything that happened, and I feel strangely grateful for that. “You can pay me back anytime, by the way.”
Our bickering somehow makes Mara smile, and Steve holds my hand too tightly, both taking this all as a good sign that I still have some fight in me. I clear my throat, preparing to give them the disclaimer my therapist helped me work out during my session this week.
“So, guys, um,” I begin. “I just wanted to say . . . You know it’s been a while since I’ve been around a lot of people, and I might, like, get anxious or—”
“It’s okay,” Steve interrupts, pulling me closer. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there.”
“Okay, it’s just that I might need to take a break and get some air for a few minutes, or something. And if I do, it’s not a big deal and I’m okay, so I don’t want anyone to worry or feel like we have to leave or anything like that.” It didn’t come out as smoothly as I’d practiced, but I said what I needed to say. Boundaries.
Now his nervous puppy eyes are back on me. And Mara squints at me in the rearview mirror.
“I mean, I might not. It’s hard to say,” I add so they’ll stop looking at me like that. “Or I could just get really drunk and we’ll all have a great fucking time.”
