Whit #2
I press my fingertips to the space between Jonas’s shoulder blades, gently encouraging him to start moving toward the exit. “Let’s go talk about this somewhere else.”
Theo takes that as his cue to leave, scurrying away while the three of us head out of the gym and into a quiet hallway.
We walk down the dimly lit, narrow corridor.
It’s lined with lockers and posters promoting school functions, the entire place has a faint odor of sweaty socks, and it feels like forever before we come across somewhere to sit.
A bench that’s fittingly outside the principal’s office.
A bench Jonas has spent a lot of time sitting on.
He and I plop down onto the slatted wood, and Colt sinks to the floor, stretching his feet out in front of him. If he lay down on his back, he’d probably reach clear across the small hallway.
“Okay, what’s going on? I feel really out of the loop. I’m your mom, and I should know when someone has been bullying you.”
Jonas shrugs.
“Please don’t shut down on me. Maybe I can help, if you tell me what’s going on.”
“You always believe the other kids, so why do you care now?”
“What do…Oh…Logan’s the kid from the park, right?”
The weight of my head rests in my hand, but it’s the heaviness in my heart that’s unbearable. It’s harrowing to know I’ve been right about something I knew in my heart to be true, though I hoped endlessly that it wasn’t—I failed at the only job I’ve ever wanted to be good at.
I sniffle at the sting in my nostrils. “Jonas, I’m so sorry I assumed. I’m…I should’ve heard you out. I always wanted you to talk, but you’re right…I wasn’t listening.”
With a wary glance in my direction, Jonas scratches his head, mussing up his blond locks. “Logan wrote something on Theo’s desk today. He, uh, stopped picking on me after what Colt told me to say to him at the fair.”
I look over at Colt, who’s now leaning back on his elbows, listening intently to my son.
Nodding along as Jonas gives me a synopsis of Logan’s bullying the night of the fall fair.
He already knows all of this, because he’s gotten to know Jonas better over the past few months than his own dad does. Better than I know him.
Because Colt’s been here. He’s here now. Always.
“So Theo and I were trying to get into the classroom to erase it before school tomorrow, but we heard a teacher or somebody coming, so we ran.” He breathes heavily, as if still running.
Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose, willing away the impending headache. “If you would’ve gotten caught, you know Principal Maher would’ve made you take all the blame for this. You might’ve gotten kicked out.”
“Mom, I…I don’t want Theo to get the same crap I do. They’re only making fun of him because he’s friends with me. It’s not fucking fair.”
I choose to ignore the F-bomb, instead looking into his eyes.
Somewhere in the glassy pools of green is the heartfelt little boy I’ve missed for so long.
The little boy who demanded snuggies every night at bedtime until he was eight.
The little boy who gifted me a frog figurine because I’d mentioned once that I liked frogs.
The little boy who cried on his first day of kindergarten because he didn’t want to be away from me.
“No…” I sit up straighter. “It’s not fucking fair, to you or to Theo. Let’s see if we can’t clean that desk up.”
Neither of the two guys make any jumps. Not until I’m striding down the hallway toward the sixth-grade classroom, and they’re suddenly jogging to catch up.
“The door was locked,” Jonas says, striding between Colt and me.
This far from the gym, we’re operating under the cool illumination of emergency floodlights, moving largely in the shadows until we turn a corner and my hand falls to the cool metal of a door handle.
After a couple test jiggles, rattling the door lock mechanism around, I suck my teeth at the discovery that he was right.
“Told you,” Jonas unhelpfully whispers.
I pluck two bobby pins from the small braid neatly secured to my head and tuck the suddenly loose strands behind my ear. My stare cuts between Colt and Jonas threateningly. “I never want to be questioned about how I know how to do this, got it?”
Jonas looks genuinely scared. “Got it.”
“Looks like it’s time to commit a little misdemeanor.” Colt’s palms swipe together, like the sound of enthusiastic cricket legs in the otherwise quiet hall.
Rolling my eyes, I get to work bending one pin, then the other. Crouching, I squint at the lock, working one bobby pin into place before fiddling with the other. Slowly but surely, the inner workings of the lock tick into place, and the mechanism turns gently to the right.
The deadbolt clicks open, and with a gentle shove of the heavy door, the three of us are slipping into the pitch-black room. Colt ensures the door shuts softly while Jonas flips on the lights. With a collective wincing, we blink to let our eyes adjust.
“His desk is right here,” Jonas says under his breath, beckoning Colt and me across the room.
Sure enough, Theo is gay is scrawled across the desk in black ink. On top of the kid being a homophobic piece of shit, he needs to work on his penmanship because it’s barely legible.
“I actually hate this Logan kid.” I join Colt in trying to rub the marker off with my fingertips, stopping for a second to lick my thumb before trying again.
“Now you see why I wanted to push him off the slide,” Colt quips.
“And his holier-than-thou mother, too. The way she acted like her little boy is a perfect sweetie pie. Honestly, this checks out.” I stop for a second, jabbing a finger at the offensive stain.
“The hair and makeup should’ve been a dead giveaway for the type of person she is.
She looks like the type to know better than to say slurs in public but rattles them off in the comfort of her home. ”
“You should hear the shit Logan says.” Jonas walks over with a disinfectant wipe, handing it to Colt to scrub across the desktop. It doesn’t make a difference, but at least the air’s lemony-fresh.
“Okay, just because Logan is a turd who says nasty things doesn’t mean you suddenly have permission to swear like a sailor.
” Running my knuckles over the small of my back to stretch out the discomfort from hunching over for so long, I look around the room.
“Wait. I remember having to remove permanent marker from whiteboards when I was in high school. We used a dry-erase marker over it.”
“Were you doing the removing because you were a teacher’s pet, or because you were the one defacing school property?” Colt smirks over at me.
Slaloming between desks, I glare at him over my shoulder. “That’s neither here nor there.”
Beefy dry-erase marker in hand, I triumphantly scurry back to them and pop the cap off.
Just like the times I was caught writing something unsavory—though never anything mean—on the whiteboard as a rebellious teen, I trace Logan’s ugly words and erase them with the lemon-scented wipe, taking the permanent marker along with it.
By the time I’m done scrubbing, there’s a bit of a black stain on the upper left of Theo’s desk, but regardless of what angle you look at it from, there’s no indication as to what was originally written there.
I drum my fingernails on the shiny, clean surface. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
Once we’re safely back in the hallway, meandering our way toward the sounds of music and chatter, I wrap an arm around Jonas’s small shoulders. “I’m really sorry I didn’t give you a space where you felt comfortable coming to me.”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
But it’s not fine. For so long, I’ve carried around a fear of failing my son, and of being like my parents. I let that fear convince me I’m too damaged to give him what he needs, and without my realizing it, that fear led to this disconnect.
Fucking hell. Alex was kind of right. Gag.
I was so caught up in proving I could be a good parent, I lost sight of what actually makes a good parent.
“Hey, you know I love you, right?” I ask softly. “No matter what. Nothing can ever make me love you less.”
In a whisper to match mine, Jonas replies, “I know, Mom. I love you, too.”
I tighten my hold, leaning to kiss his head.
He immediately shoves me away with a disgusted snarl, and all I can do is laugh.
Something shifts in my chest. I may not always get it right, but I’ll never stop trying.
Loving him the best way I know how, through the frustration and mess and heartache.
Because despite it all, he deserves to be loved.
And so do I.
“You know I gotta talk to your teacher and Principal Maher about this—about what’s been going on with Logan.”
Jonas looks past me to Colt for reassurance, and though something tightens around my heart with the knowledge that I’m not his go-to person for advice, a weight simultaneously rolls off my shoulders. Because Colt is here.
“Your mom’s right,” he says. “She always is.”
Turning the corner, we’re thrown into the event chaos, with music crackling through worn-out speakers and an overwhelming number of food smells.
A group of kids whiz past us, seemingly playing a game of tag.
And Theo’s sitting on a bench outside the main gym doors, looking worried as hell.
His eyes brighten upon seeing us without a teacher escort or handcuffs or whatever his worst-case scenario daydream was.
“Yeah…You can tell them.” Jonas grimaces. “If you really have to.”
My lips purse, head bobbing slightly. “I really have to, kiddo. Go let Theo know we cleaned his desk up.”
Watching him walk away, I speak softly from the corner of my mouth. “Thank you for that.”
“You are always right, in case you didn’t know.” Colt steps in close to my side, filling the gap Jonas left.
I snort softly. There are so many things I’ve been wrong about.
“I wasn’t right when I said it would be easier if you left.” I angle my head to catch his face in my periphery, and something warm rushes over me when I find him staring back. “We’ve missed—I’ve missed you.”
“I’m still here. Even if it’s only as your friend right now.” His voice roughens, and the slow lick of his bottom lip demands my attention.
“You really look like you want to kiss me, friend.”
“If you want to keep me around, you better get used to it. I know I promised an Oscar-worthy performance, but it turns out I suck at pretending I don’t want to kiss you every waking moment of the day.”
My head and my heart are a mess. For years, I was a shepherd of my heart, unintentionally leading it away from happiness for fear of pain. For fear of this.
Before Colt it was easy to convince myself that apathy was as close to true happiness as most people happened to find. Then he came in and saw beyond the mess. There was candy and wildflowers and laughter and, for a moment, hope.
“Guess that makes two of us.”