Page 32 of The Way I Am Now
“Oh, sure. Okay, yeah.” I fumble with my words. “Can you let him know I stopped by?” I ask, and instantly regret it as his mom levels me with the most intense glare I think I’ve ever received from anyone and turns away without another word, leaving his dad there.
“S-sorry,” I stutter involuntarily, as I back away from the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“No, wait,” his dad says, and steps out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind him. “There’s no need to apologize, you just caught us on a rough morning here.”
I nod. Of course I understand. I’m having a pretty rough morning myself. I don’t say that, though. I look around, trying to get my bearings, and that’s when I realize his car isn’t here. “Is Josh . . . okay?” I ask, my eyes setting anew on the shattered screen of his phone in his father’s hand.
“He’ll be fine,” he answers, which worries me even more.
I feel my hand go to my heart as it starts racing with my darkening thoughts. “His car’s not here. Nothing happened, right? There wasn’t some kind of accident or—I mean, he’s all right. Right? He’s not hurt or anything?”
“No,” he’s quick to answer. “God, no. Nothing like that. He’s just nursing a pretty wicked hangover this morning.”
“Joshis?” My voice squeaks. None of that makes sense. “But I saw him last night. He wasn’t drinking. He doesn’t drink,” I tell his father, who continues looking at me in a way that’s eerily similar to how Josh looks at me when he seems to think I know more than I’m letting on.
“Well,” he breathes. “He sure did last night.”
“Oh.” I exhale and let my hand fall to my side. “Okay. Will you tell him I came by?” I ask again, pretty sure his mom isn’t going to let him know.
“I can see you care about him,” he says. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah, I care about him more than . . .” I feel a little embarrassed at my honesty, but it makes his dad take another step toward me and I think maybe he’ll tell Josh I’m here after all. “Anyone,” I finish.
But he doesn’t let me in; he nods somberly and sits down on the top step of the porch. “You got a minute?” he asks.
I nod. He gestures for me to sit down. I do. He doesn’t say anything at first, and I start to wonder if I’m supposed to be speaking. I really don’t know the parental protocol here. He pats his shirt pocket and pulls out a soft pack of cigarettes, which looks rumpled and crushed like it’s been around for a while. “Do you mind?” he asks me, tapping the pack against his palm, a lighter tumbling out.
“No,” I tell him. “It’s okay.”
He plucks a cigarette from the pack and brings it to his mouth. He lights it, and as the smoke swirls around us, I feel my heart pounding, craving that relief, the immediacy of it.
He inhales deeply and says, while holding the smoke in his lungs, “Always trying to quit, but . . .” and then turns his face away from me to blow the stream of smoke out of his mouth. I’m suddenly so tempted to ask him for one, but then he immediately stubs it out against the concrete step after only that one long, deep drag. I’m not sure I’d have that kind of self-control.
“I remember when Josh was a kid, he loved comic books.” He pauses, smiling as he looks out into the yard. “We’d always read them together.”
I smile back, but I’m suddenly entirely unclear about where this conversation is heading.
“Every superhero has a fatal flaw,” he continues. “The thing about Josh is . . . he’s always been one of those people who cleans up well, if you know what I mean. Always so together on the outside, it’s easy to forget it doesn’t mean that’s how he really is inside. I’ve always thought that was sort of his fatal flaw.”
“I know,” I tell him, and he looks at me like he’s trying to figure out whether I really do know that about Josh or if I’m only agreeing for the sake of being agreeable.
“He’s turned into such a good person—no thanks to me, I’m sure you know that, too,” he slips in, but quickly continues. “I’m so proud of him, but I’m worried about him,” he admits. “He just cares so much about everyone else. He wants everyone to be okay. But I think he can get so consumed with worrying about other people, he isn’t caring enough about himself right now. Which scares me.”
I hold my breath, then exhale a short, nervous laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re blaming me or asking me to help.”
“Neither,” he says, standing up, bringing the shorted cigarette with him. “I just thought you should know.”
“Okay.” I stand up too. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“It was nice meeting you, Eden,” he tells me.
“Yeah, same.” I take only a couple of steps before I turn around. “Um, maybe don’t tell him I was here, then. I’ll just—I can catch up with him some other time, I guess. A better time,” I add, thinking of his mom’s words.
He gives me a classic crooked Josh smile as he holds up the phone. “I’ll make sure he gets this.”
JOSH
I’m sitting behind the front desk at the athletic center, scanning in a student ID every few minutes, making sure the picture in the database matches the person entering the building. The afternoon sun is streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows, making me tired.
