MY MOM wants to go to the police about the assault. We argue into the early morning over it. I lay out all the reasons why it won’t work. When that doesn’t convince her, I tell her that if she forces me, I won’t talk. The same thing happened with Seth. She wanted me to press charges, but I wouldn’t, because I didn’t want Seth to get in trouble. This time it’s different. I don’t think it will matter. And I don’t want a bunch of strangers poking and prodding me, asking me questions, getting all up in my business and making me defend myself.
I don’t want to see Trent’s face or relive it. To press charges would mean having to experience that pain and humiliation over and over again with no guarantees he’d even be punished for it.
And what if Trent tries to put it on Berlin?
I tell her I’m tired and I need to go to bed. It takes forever to fall asleep because the drugs are wearing off and the pain in my chest is back, and I can’t stop thinking about Berlin’s face when I told him it was over. Ending it with him was my only option, but I don’t feel good about it.
I gave in to my addiction. I went running back to Seth.
My mother wakes me up around eleven in the morning with tea and breakfast in bed. She wants to see my chest. I lie and tell her it isn’t that bad, that Berlin overreacted. My dad seems to know what I’m shielding her from and tries to calm her down. It’s one of those rare moments when he and I are on the same side. My dad tells her to respect my privacy, and at last she lets it go.
Later, when my mom’s gone out food shopping, my dad comes up to my room. I’m backing up my footage in preparation for my departure. I want to make sure I can access my work from wherever I end up. There’s no telling what my dad will do with my setup once I’m gone.
“I thought this move would be good for you,” he says stiffly, but I know how to read between the lines with my dad. This is his way of apologizing. Maybe he feels guilty, like if they had stayed in Austin and just sent me to a different school, it would have been enough. But I know it wouldn’t. The temptation is too great.
“You did what you thought was best,” I say, which is my way of accepting his apology. “I’m not going back to that school.”
“You need to finish out the semester. Then you’ll have enough credits to dual enroll.”
“I’m not going back,” I say again. Even though this fight is pointless, I’m not backing down. My dad has been trying to run my and Mai’s lives since birth. She obeys. I rebel. But on this matter, there’s no negotiating.
“You don’t want to ruin your transcripts, Hiroku.”
“Fuck my transcripts, Dad.” I’m in survival mode, and I need another hit soon or the withdrawal will start kicking in. My transcripts are the least of my concerns. I expect Dad to get on me for my language, but he just presses his lips tightly together and takes a deep breath through his nose. I think Mom made him go to some kind of anger management counseling after our blowup last spring.
“We don’t have to decide anything right now,” he says, still not relenting. It seems he doesn’t grasp the depth of my hatred for that school, and vice versa. Maybe he needs to see my chest in order to better understand what I’m dealing with.
I’m not going to show him, though. I don’t want anyone to see it, ever.
“I’ve already decided, Dad. I’ll fucking kill myself before I go back.”
“Don’t say things like that, Hiroku. What would your mother say?”
“I wouldn’t say it to her, but I’m telling you.”
He takes a few deep breaths, exhaling through his nose, and I wait.
“Very well. We’ll figure out another situation. But Monday morning, your mother’s taking you to the doctor.”
“Can you do it? I don’t want her there.”
“Fine. I’ll leave work early. We’ll go in the afternoon.”
Seth better not be late.
My dad comes over then and lays a hand on my shoulder. I almost flinch. I can’t remember the last time my dad touched me. “I love you, son,” he says.
He squeezes my shoulder, and my eyes kind of sting for a second. It sucks that I have to endure something like this for him to say it. Still, it’s nice to hear. “You too, Dad.”
If I don’t argue with him again before I leave, then this will be our last conversation.
I can live with that.
MY PARENTS aren’t going to force me to go back to school. I can stay with them and dual enroll in the spring, carve out some half-realized existence for myself in Lowry. But Seth has an ace in the hole. When I left him Friday night, he sent me off with one more dose for Saturday, just enough so that by Sunday afternoon, I’m feeling restless and moody. By nighttime I’m climbing the walls, needing more. I barely sleep that night. By Monday morning I’m getting chills and body aches, sniffles and a runny nose. I tell my mom it’s just a cold and convince her to go to work. I have a doctor’s appointment that afternoon anyway.
I keep looking at the clock. Seth is late.
He finally arrives around noon, comes inside just long enough to get me high and comment on how ugly our new house is. His eyes rove over my bedroom, perhaps looking for some remnant of my relationship with Berlin, but there is nothing except my black cowboy hat, which I’ve strung to one of my duffel bags. If Seth asks about it, I’ll tell him I bought it myself.
Seth nods to my phone. “Better leave that here.” My parents will be able to track me with it, but it’s also my lifeline. If I leave it behind, it’s one more way I’ll be dependent on Seth. I scroll through my contacts until I find Spencer.
Check in on Berlin Webber for me, I text him. If Berlin and Trent don’t make up, Berlin’s going to need a friend, and Spencer has a direct line to Lowry’s gay community. Then I find Berlin’s number and memorize it. I’ll check in on him in a couple of days.
“We’ll get you another one,” Seth says, perhaps noticing my reluctance to let it go.
I clear out my phone and leave it there on my desk, next to the note for my parents. Seth helps me load my video gear into the back of his van. He wants me to leave my bike, but there’s no way in hell I’m going without it. I need an exit plan this time. Standing in the doorway to the house, I have second thoughts. It’s easy to do now that the drugs are coursing through my veins. They offer me the luxury of choice, but only until they leave my bloodstream. I’m tossing the dice with my addiction, but I’ll be creating the kind of art I want again, and there will be moments of sheer fucking bliss. Isn’t that enough?
Besides, I don’t want to try so fucking hard anymore. To stay off drugs, to keep away from Seth, to blend in to whatever the local norm is. Berlin was doing well enough before I arrived in Lowry, and after the dust settles, he’ll be better off without me.
I’m the stick of dynamite that blew Berlin’s world apart.