It’s past nine and Mom and Marco still aren’t back.
It was still light out when I got here and I didn’t bother turning any lights on, so right now I’m sitting on the bed up in the loft. Scrolling through my Notes app in the dark. I’ve been trying to come up with some new jokes, but so far all I could think of is this:
Rich people make no sense. Their lives are so easy, they have to invent ways to feel pain — like jumping into freezing lake water and calling it a “Polar Bear Plunge.”
Meanwhile, actual polar bears are out here dying at the hands of global warming. And rich kids are just trolling them, like, “Ha ha, bitch! Our species wasn’t even built to withstand this level of frigidity but we’re doing it for fun because we’re bored. Anyway, have fun with extinction.”
Lame. Needs work.
But I can’t focus. Mom hasn’t answered any of my texts since I got back here. And my calls keep going straight to voicemail. I’m trying not to freak out, but also: I’m freaking out. It was a stupid idea for us to split up. Like, yeah, that spontaneous boat adventure was a cute little reprieve from reality — but it didn’t change the fact that my phone is no longer a phone — it’s a tiny dread machine just waiting to explode with news of our tragic fate. Mom needs to be here with me when that happens.
Bzzz.
I get a text but it’s not from her.
WILL: hey
WILL: I still feel weird about what happened today
WILL: wanna come over and make me feel un-weird?
I groan with residual embarrassment from earlier. Why is he still trying to talk to me? He should hate me so much right now.
ME: sorry — tired
His typing bubble pops up but then disappears. Now I feel bad. I start to write a follow-up text about how maybe we can hang out tomorrow, but then I hear the front door swing wide open and see a glow of light flicker on from the kitchen.
“This is why I couldn’t stand being with you, Marco.” Mom’s voice whooshes into the house like a tornado. “This right here!”
I sigh in relief at the sense of her presence. But then my chest tightens back up as I realize she is literally mid-battle.
“Calm down,” Marco says.
“Fuck you, calm down!”
“Joey?” he calls out. I close my screen and bury myself under the blanket, keeping my muscles as still as possible so as not to induce any creaks from the bed’s weathered wooden frame. “He must still be next door.”
All I hear is shuffling — the fridge door opens and closes and someone pours a drink — until the fight starts back up again.
“You always talked down to me like you were better than me,” Mom says. “You think I don’t know how to raise my son? I’ve been doing it for eighteen years.”
This fight is about me? Seriously? What the hell did I do?
“Gia, you’re drunk.” He sounds frustrated but not quite as manic as she does. “All I was saying is that you should be a better influence. I wasn’t trying to start a fight, but come on. You said he’s been down at Rutgers every weekend this year sleeping over with some college guy. Then the poor kid gets his heart broken and your solution is to trash the guy’s car? What kind of example are you setting?”
She told him about the car! Is she insane? What the hell has she been drinking all night? Honesty Potion? Truth Juice?
“Why do you care so much?” Mom asks. “You lived with him for a few years and you think he’s your son or something. Newsflash, asshole. He’s not your son!”
“But he is yours!” Marco yells back. “Instead of acting like his mother, you act like some kind of friend — and not even a good one. You’re like the bad influence who smokes in the bathroom and gets expelled.”
Okay, you know what? Fuck Marco. We’ve been here for two days and he thinks he knows everything about our current relationship. Mom has literally devoted her entire life to me. Sure, she can be messy sometimes. But same goes for all humans. I don’t need a mom who’s a “good influence.” I need a mom who loves me unconditionally. And she always has.
“And you were a saint in high school?” Mom spews. “I can’t believe you. The whole time we were together, you always tried to act like you’re so holier than thou, so much better than all the other assholes I dated. Meanwhile, you’re just like them. You’re worse!”
“Worse? Joey’s scumbag father pushes you down the stairs when you’re pregnant, every guy you get with after that treats you like dirt… but I’m the worst.” Marco does one of those pissed-off sarcastic laughs. “I did everything for you. We had a good life together. And then you cheated on me. Remember?”
So now he’s straight-up lying. Marco knows that Mom is always the one who gets cheated on. She would never do that to him. Or anyone. Ever.
“How could I forget?” she says — not denying it. What? No. That’s not possible. “You only reminded me every fucking day until the end.”
This bed suddenly feels like it’s made of razor blades. It takes all the strength I have not to jump out of it and confront them both about the bomb that was just dropped.
“Because I gave you the best life you’ve ever had!” Marco says. “And it still wasn’t enough for you. You couldn’t stand being with someone who actually gave a shit about you.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means love is wasted on you, Gia!” he fumes. “Love is wasted on you because you hate men. You love Joey, and that’s it. Fuck everyone else. You’ve always been that way.”
“So now I love my son?” she asks. “Two minutes ago you were telling me I was the world’s worst mother.”
“Just because you love him doesn’t mean you know what’s best for him.”
“And you do?” Mom yells back. “You’re a fucking weird, sad freak, Marco! You live in isolation in the middle of the woods!”
She lets out a furious scream and slams… something… on… something. I can’t see anything from up here in my dark cocoon. But there’s a loud noise. Followed by crying. And then she sighs in that way people sigh after they realize they just said the most damaging thing they could think of and now have to figure out how to undo it.
My body is still frozen in place, but my mind is an explosion of questions and emotions. Each one is like a piece of shrapnel with the power to cause fatal destruction if it moves even a millimeter. I don’t know who I feel more betrayed by. On the one hand, Mom has been a secret cheater this whole time. How could I even begin to process that fact? I thought Luke was horrible for lying to me every day for ten months. Meanwhile, my own mother has been lying to me every day for eight years. At least. Who else has she cheated on? Our entire shared identity as the victims of shitty men is now a giant question mark.
And then there’s Marco. I had no idea he could be so mean.
Objectively, I understand he’s the one who was cheated on in this scenario and so of course he must hate her. If the roles were reversed, we’d be saying all bets are off — this lake house may not even exist, because we’d have burned it down by now. But still. It’s Mom he was yelling at. Hearing him verbally eviscerate her felt like a bullet to the heart. Love is wasted on you. Who says that to someone?
My thoughts are interrupted by another loud slam. This time it’s the very recognizable sound of a door being kicked shut. The vibration echoes throughout the open structure. The kitchen lights turn off before I hear the slamming of another door in the opposite direction. I guess that answers the question of whether they’ll be spending the night together again.
Now that they’re gone, I take my phone back out and check my texts.
WILL: ???
It takes all the strength I can muster just to reply with maybe tomorrow before placing my phone on the little table next to the bed. This day has been a damn marathon.
My mind continues to race and race until it’s finally so burnt out that it starts to collapse into itself from sheer exhaustion. My eyelids eventually follow suit.
My subconscious keeps going, though.
Suddenly I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Luke’s car as he speeds down the turnpike. He’s wearing his New Jersey Devils hat and Rutgers hoodie, smirking. It’s one of those dark, twisted, scary smirks that subtly sets the tone for an all-out nightmare.
I look behind me and see Nonna in the backseat. She’s mouthing at me to “get out” but not actually saying it out loud.
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “I’m fine.”
She slaps me on the arm in response — a gesture that means Don’t be stupid! in Nonna — but still won’t speak a word. She doesn’t have a voice. I refocus my attention on Luke’s side profile and feel safe.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you, too,” I reply.
There’s this unspoken understanding between us that bygones are bygones — the cheating is forgiven, the windshield doesn’t matter, we’re back to normal.
“Joey,” Luke says.
“Yeah?”
His serial killer smile returns. “Tell me a joke.”
My face burns up and I can’t breathe.
Now I’m standing in the middle of Marco’s living room with Will. We’re looking up at the loft for some reason, as if we’re expecting something. And then — all at once — it bursts into flames. Not the house. Just the loft.
“Good,” Will says. “It’s contained.”
The flames are small and delicate. Calm. The reds, oranges, yellows artfully spread themselves onto the bedskirt, nightstand, lamp, carpet, railing — in perfectly contoured patterns, almost like an invisible painter is applying them with a brush.
I stand there, transfixed, feeling safe again.
And then one of the flames catches the chunky wooden ladder that leads down to the living room.
An outbreak of new flames follows — growing more and more intense with each rung of the ladder consumed. The fire is no longer delicate. It’s raging. The ladder has become nothing more than a flaming tower of chaos. Smoke fills the entire space around us. I blink and Will is gone.
Mom appears out of nowhere.
She wraps her arms around me as the flames spread down to the hardwood floor and engulf the worn-out area rug directly below our feet.
“We’re fine,” she says. “We’re fine.”