Page 88 of The Way I Am Now
“So, when you headed back to school?” Dad asks, pretending the tension isn’t happening at all. “Do we at least get you for the weekend?”
I take a sip of my plain coffee, let it burn the roof of my mouth. “I think I’m gonna head out pretty soon, actually. Maybe I can make my last class today, and then I won’t have to miss tomorrow.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
“I just don’t want to have so much to make up.”
“And I’m sure you want to get back to Josh, too,” Mom adds. “Your brother showed me his picture online—”
“Mom,” Caelin interrupts. “I didn’tshowher,” he says to me. “She needed help searching for him on the team website—”
“Oh, fine,” Mom interrupts him back, tossing her napkin in his direction. “I was snooping.”
“Stalking,” Caelin mutters through a fake cough.
Dad actually laughs.
“Anyway, he’s a very cute boy,” Mom says. “I don’t blame you for wanting to rush back to him.”
“Well,” I begin. “I really do have work to make up.”
She grins at me from across the table.
“So, Eden,” Dad says. “When do we get to meet this very cute boy?”
“Maybe after you all quit calling him a very cute boy.”
“Hey.” Caelin holds his hand up. “For the record, all I’ve ever called him is adecent guy; I never called him a very cute anything.”
And just like that, we’ve had our first semi-normal family interaction in years. I send a silent thank-you across the state to Josh, who’s probably walking to his first class right now, for being so damn decent and handsome, he let my family salvage our last morning together.
After breakfast I help clean up, start the dishwasher, try not to act like I’m in a hurry to leave. I pack up a bag of fall clothes, my soft scarf and matching gloves, a heavy coat, and some of my long sleeves and sweaters from the back of my closet. I have to pull out my old clarinet case to get to my boots, and as my fingers fit around the handle, I have this vivid flashback of freshman year, carrying this thing with me everywhere I went. I set it on my bed next to my other bag and open it up.
Like some kind of time capsule from another life, I find the sheet music I was working on when I decided to quit, the booklet still folded open to the exact page. I take each item out and hold them in my hands for a moment: the plastic case for my reeds; polishing cloth, soft against my fingers; the tiny screwdriver everyone always needed to borrow from me because no one else ever had one; the tube of nearly empty cork grease that Mara once mistook for lip balm; the mouthpiece, barrel, bell, upper joint, lower joint . . . all the pieces of the clarinet disassembled and put away neatly. Exactly as I’d left them, not knowing that would be the last time I played.
I’m not sure why, but I take it with me, along with my fuzzy socks and warm clothes.
I say my goodbyes. Caelin hugs me for the first time in months. Dad tells me he just transferred two hundred dollars into my account, for which I am wholeheartedly thankful. Mom walks me out to the car, tells me, “Take care of yourself. Be safe. And let me know when you hear anything from the DA, okay?”
“I will.”
The drive home, back to Josh and my new life, which has nothing to do with this old one, feels so long. Too long. My eyes just want to close. I only make it an hour and a half before I have to pull off at a rest stop. I push my seat all the way back and pull one of my big sweaters from the bag in the passenger seat, wrap myself up in it.
Just as I’m feeling myself fading to sleep, I’m back in the courtroom, eyes locked on Kevin’s. Then I’m back in my old bedroom, that night, with him looking down on me.
My eyes snap open.
The tree I’m parked beneath is letting the fluttering light filter through the windshield onto my face. It feels so gentle, I allow myself to close my eyes again. The judge is telling me I’m dismissed. “Dismissed.” That was the word. How appropriate, I thought, even then.
How had I forgotten this part?
But I can’t move. Not until Kevin’s dickhead lawyer whispers something to him, making him break eye contact with me. I see Lane and Mara standing up, waiting. DA Silverman nodding, watching me as I step down from the box.
I stare straight down at my feet, but I still feel his eyes on me the whole time.
When I wake up, I’m in the shade now, cold and somehow more exhausted than I was to begin with. I pull my seat upright again and put the sweater on all the way, trying to gather some warmth around me. I dump my travel mug of cold plain coffee from my house and go inside the rest stop for something with sugar and caffeine and calories.
It gets me through the rest of the drive. I make it home in the middle of the afternoon while everyone’s still gone for the day. I trudge up the two flights of stairs with my arms full, unlock the door, make it to my room, and sit down directly on the floor.
