Reluctantly, I made the changes Sparks suggested. My dad got hurt at his work (he was a blue-collar worker in this new version because that made me more sympathetic), he got prescribed painkillers for his recovery. He got hooked on those, then moved on to other drugs. He stole from the family. My parents broke up because of his addiction. He went to prison. He got out. He died. I was super sad about it.
It was garbage. And I felt like garbage even trying to fake the emotions that were supposed to come along with it. I guess it was like acting, in a way, but it felt more like lying.
Despite our hallway conversation, everything was off between Elijah and me, too. Since we didn’t have any classes together, and we still weren’t sure we could be seen together at school, we hardly saw each other. Mostly it was just awkward texts back and forth. I felt him pulling away from me.
Things weren’t great at home, either. Mom was taking on extra shifts, and I barely saw her in the evenings. When she got home from work, I was usually ensconced in my room with the door shut, catching up on homework or practicing my piece. I stayed up long after she went to sleep, going over the new lines, trying to perfect every little moment. Even when I turned the lights out, I couldn’t focus on anything other than my piece. It felt like a lead shadow was following me everywhere.
Luke had taken it on himself to start cooking the meals in the apartment when he wasn’t ingesting high-protein shakes. Usually I got home and the whole place smelled like roasting vegetables and cooking meat. He had completely eliminated all processed food and saturated fats or whatever and I hated it. He also managed to do a lot of pull-ups while cooking, which was disturbing. Luke wore little wrist and ankle weights everywhere and did an unfortunate number of lunges.
Still, the food was better than anything my mom or I could cook. Instead of relying on the parent casseroles in the faculty lounge, I usually had leftovers in my lunch. They were good. I hate to admit it, but the improved diet actually made me feel better. One day I contemplated a pull-up, then decided against it.
When he offered me a ride to go see my dad on Saturday, I didn’t turn him down.
“So… uh… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” he said on the ride.
“I don’t really want to discuss my fitness journey with you at this point.”
He laughed a bit. “That’s not what I meant. But I have seen you eyeing that pull-up bar.”
“Oh, God, stop it.”
“All right, all right. But you’d be amazed at what upper-body strength can do for—Okay, I’ll stop. Um… your mom is pretty upset.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t really want to get in the middle of this, but it’s a small apartment, and the vibe is seriously unharmonious right now.”
“Unharmonious?”
“Or disharmonious, I don’t know.”
“I don’t think either of those are words you should be using.”
“Anyway. She’s sad she didn’t get to see you compete, and she’s sad she’s missed all your meets, but I guess she doesn’t understand why you don’t want her to come.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Here’s what I’m thinking: Sometimes people do stuff because they’re afraid that they’re gonna hurt people. But when you do that you just end up hurting those people more. Right?”
I nodded.
“Like, if I got a client and he wants to do a four-hundred-pound dead lift, the longer he’s afraid of that deadlift, the more he’s gonna hurt himself. I mean, obviously, this scenario assumes that he’s been working toward that goal and has done the preliminary work. I guess maybe it’s a very good… um… word thingie.”
“Analogy?”
“Yeah. Damn. I’m sure that’s why you win. ’Cause you’re good with words.”
“It’s not really a vocabulary contest.”
“I don’t know what it is; you won’t let us go to the meets.”
“The next one’s in Kansas City, so I don’t know that you’re going to be able to make it, anyway.”
He puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, that’s tough. Shit. But—all right—talk to your mom. Please. I mean, really, actually talk to each other. If you want her to listen to you, you need to listen to her.”
I nodded. He was right. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Okay.”
“You want me to wait here for you? Give you a ride home after?”
“Sure.”
He smiled.
Dad looked slightly healthier than usual this time. His normally translucent skin had taken on the slightest sheen of brown.
“You got a tan!” I cried.
He examined his arms in surprise. “Once it’s warm enough, they let us walk the yard.”
“Ooh.”
“Yeah, I was thrilled about it. Getting outside is pretty nice.” He enveloped me in a hug. “Got some exercise.”
“That seems to be catching. Exercise. Everybody’s doing it these days.”
“You look good, too.”
“Except me.” I cut him off. I had seen myself in the mirror. An entire week of not sleeping and constant caffeine consumption was not doing my skin any favors. “I’m just maintaining a constant level of continuous freak-out, which helps me burn calories.”
“You still look nice,” he said, ignoring the comment.
I didn’t feel nice. I know I didn’t look nice.
“You all right?” he asked, noticing my discomfort.
I took a deep breath. “Why did you say I looked nice?”
“Hm?”
“You said I still look nice, but I haven’t slept the whole week, so it’s pretty obviously a lie.”
“I always think you look nice,” he said, perplexed. “It’s just a nice thing to say.”
“Is it?”
“You want me to say you look tired?”
“Yes. Because I am tired. If you said I looked tired, we could talk about why I looked tired. When you say I look nice, we don’t get to talk about why I’m tired.”
He looked utterly befuddled. This was not the way we were supposed to talk to each other.
“I’m just trying to be nice,” he said.
“But it’s not the truth. That’s what I’m getting at. We don’t tell each other the truth. Like, I come in here, and we basically lie to each other and then… I don’t know… maybe we should tell each other the truth about things.”
“Are you all right?”
“No, Dad. No. I’m not all right. That’s what I’m getting at. I’ve had a really crappy week and I’m not sleeping and I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, so… no.”
“Oh, well, um… sorry about that.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know what you want from me.”
I sighed. “I don’t really know what I want from you, either. But I think I need you to just hear things. I need you to understand what’s going on with me, because I can’t be going around protecting you, that’s not okay.”
I took a deep breath.
Just dive in. Tell the truth.
“I am not okay. I know I come in here and pretend like everything’s cool all the time, and put on a brave face and all, but… I am a fucking mess. I failed three classes in the fall. That’s the main reason I’m at the new school, all right? It’s not just ’cause Mom moved, it’s because I wasn’t really wanted there anymore. I’m gonna have to take a bunch of summer classes this year just to have enough credits to graduate on time. So this whole thing about college? I don’t even know if I’m going.
“And—you need to hear this—some of that is my fault, but it is mostly your fault. And I’m done hiding things from you, I’m done shielding you from things, I’m done pretending that I’m the parent and you’re the kid. You did all kinds of stupid, stupid shit that blew up our family, wrecked our lives, and is gonna result in me paying for a shit-ton of therapy in the event I ever get health insurance.
“I am angry with you. I push that down every time I walk into this room, and it goes all kinds of crazy directions sometimes—
I yell at Mom, I yell at my friends, I told a teacher he could go fuck himself a couple weeks ago, that was maybe a poor idea, and ALL OF THAT is because I don’t ever tell you to go fuck yourself.”
He took off his glasses and wiped his forehead. “I see.” He waited for a moment, waiting for another blow from me, but it didn’t come. “Is that what you needed to say?”
“No. I think there’s something else you need to hear.”
I took out my phone and pulled up YouTube.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“This is a piece I did… for speech.”
My heart almost exploded watching him watch me. He held my phone in his hand like an unbearable light, his eyes glued to the screen, his mouth frozen open. He alternated from smiling like an idiot, to laughing his butt off during the funny parts, to watching in shock. By the end, he was pitched forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clutching my phone with both hands inches away from his eyes. His breath was ragged and shallow; tears were rolling down his face. I heard my voice. “My dad’s a criminal, and I love him.”
When it was over, he set my phone down and pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose. His eyes were down. We both sat still for a long time, incapable of saying anything.