Page 109 of Escape Velocity
Joel sputters as he looks around the dinner table, with everyone’s eyes on him.
Joel gulps, wipes his mouth with his napkin, and leaves the table, rounding a corner and goes off into the nearby bathroom with a puff of dust trailing behind him.
Mason snorts and turns to his parents. “And you wanna know why I hid everything, huh? Because I don’texistto you outside of my writing.”
His mom opens her mouth to retort, but Mason stops her.
“All I’ve ever heard my entire life was ‘Mason you’re going to be a prolific writer like me someday’, ‘Oh Mason, don’t waste your time on silly equations, your writing will change the world’, ‘Mason, no one will care about whatequations you can derive, they’re going to care about who you touched with your words and the legacy of the Fanning name’. Like, are you really wonderingwhyI lied to you?”
His dad sighs through his nose and he swallows hard. His dad seems to realize the severity of Mason’s words. His mother, however, is still standing her ground and is rubbing her temples like he’s the most difficult son in the world.
“I have spent my entire life wanting to do physics. I love it with my entire heart. It’s all I think about. I think about changing the world with my research and teaching kids about how beautiful and amazing science is. I dream about doing nothing but physics for the rest of my life. And I’ve said it over and over andoveragain. But youneverlistened.”
His dad bites his lip. His mom licks her lips and nods, her neck and shoulders tense, but listening.
“You didn’t care! You said it was all a waste of time. That writing was what I had to do. That what I loved wasnotimportant.”
Mason’s voice breaks, like he’s about to sob at how hurtful it is to realize that his parents denied him for so long from what he’s always wanted to do and who he’s wanted to be.
He’s been so scared of them finding out and hiding everything that he’s forgotten how heartbreaking it is for his parents to look down on what he loves and deny him who he really wants to be.
“I like writing. It’s fun. But I don’t love it. It’s not my passion. So what do I do when I want to go to my dream school? I apply to both physics and journalism. You would never let me do only physics. I had to lie and—and cheat andhidemyself just so that you’d accept me and pay my way through school. That I didThe Goldberg. That people liked my writing. That I was getting good grades in journalism.Because that’s all that ever mattered and that’s all that everwillmatter to you both,” Mason says as he slams his finger on the mahogany table.
He sniffles as a single tear falls onto his cheek.
He swallows and backs away from the table. “Congratulations, Joel. You got exactly what you wanted. The truth!” he calls angrily down the hallway to Joel, who’s likely having a meltdown in front of the bathroom mirror.
He turns to the dinner table. “Oh, and thank youso muchMom and Dad, for pushing me so hard to do what you’ve always wanted me to do. Couldn’t have done it without you. Happy fucking Thanksgiving, everyone.”
He wipes the tears in his eyes as he leaves the dining room, shrugs on his jacket, opens the front door and slams it behind him, the jingling of the wreath on the door covering the defining slam of the door he left in his wake.
32
CALLUM
The grandfather clockticks on the other end of the dining room. Cutlery clangs against plates.
A gulp of wine and a cough from his father keeps him tense.
It’s another Brown Thanksgiving and no one’s saying anything. It’s just him, his dad, and his stepmom, Tammy.
It’s the loneliest Thanksgiving so far. Even after his mom died, the rest of the family showed up. Cousins, aunts, and uncles included. Now, it’s just the three of them.
His dad is good at burning bridges, especially with his mom’s side of the family, but Callum needs those bridges to maintain his sanity.
Now, he has almost no family.
He cuts into his turkey uncommittedly. While being a football player makes him eternally hungry, he doesn’t feel hungry at all. He’s just watching and waiting for his dad to say something. He hates sitting in the silence more than anything else, just waiting for the shoe to drop.
“Callum, how have you been liking your sophomore year so far?” Tammy asks in between another gulp of wine.
Callum nearly chokes on his potatoes as he swallows. “It’s been good. We’ve won all the games, as you’ve probably seen.”
Tammy smiles. “You’ve truly come into your own, you’re an even better player than you were last year.”
A smile almost plays on his lips. He just nods and says, “Thanks,” instead, and silence falls over the table again.
“Do you have your eyes on anyone special?” Tammy asks. Callum blinks, surprised that she wants to continue the conversation.
