40 family group chat
By Wednesday night, my entire family apparently decides my emotional suffering counts as entertainment.
I'm sitting at my desk pretending to look at practice notes while actually rereading the same sentence over and over again because my brain keeps drifting back to Everly standing in the middle of our dorm the night before, arms crossed tightly over herself, quietly saying, I heard your phone call.
Things between us still aren't normal.
They probably won't be for a while.
But she talked to me.
Actually talked to me.
And somehow that's enough to make everything inside my chest feel different.
My phone buzzes with Mom's contact flashing across the screen.
Right.
Thanksgiving.
I answer, and chaos immediately blasts through the speaker loud enough that I have to pull the phone away from my ear.
Dad's yelling something in the background.
The TV's on too loud.
Jenny's laughing at something.
Mom sounds approximately three seconds away from losing her mind. "Can someone tell your father the smoke alarm means something is burning?"
"It means the oven's working," Dad argues.
"That is objectively not what it means."
Then Jenny notices I picked up.
"Oh my God," she says dramatically. "The prodigal son returns."
"I'm hanging up already."
"You say that every single time."
"Because every single time you make me regret answering."
Dad laughs somewhere in the background while Mom finally gets control of the phone again. "Hi, honey."
"Hey."
"You still coming home Thursday morning?"
"Yeah. Coach gave us the rest of the week off after practice."
"Good," she says warmly. "Your father was pretending not to care, but he's been asking all week."
"I literally asked one time," Dad shouts.
"Six times," Jenny corrects.
"Traitor."
I shake my head, smiling despite myself.
My family's insane.
It's weirdly comforting.
Mom starts talking about logistics - when I'm leaving, how Jenny brought laundry home again like a criminal, whether Dad's going to burn Thanksgiving dinner for the fourth consecutive year - and for a few minutes, everything feels easy.
Normal.
Then Jenny ruins it.
"So," she says casually, "how's Everly?"
I close my eyes immediately.
There it is.
"She's fine."
"Mm," Jenny hums. "That sounded emotionally repressed."
Dad snorts.
Mom tries and fails to hide a laugh.
"You told them about her," I accuse flatly.
Jenny gasps. "Wow. No trust in this family."
"You absolutely told them about her."
"Maybe a little."
"You told them everything, didn't you?"
"I'm a storyteller, Jackson. It's my art."
I lean back in my chair, dragging a hand over my face while all three of them laugh at my suffering.
"This is unbelievable."
Mom ignores me completely. "So how is the roommate?"
The emphasis she puts on roommate is deeply annoying. "She's good."
Jenny makes the loudest fake coughing noise I've ever heard in my life.
Dad joins in immediately.
"Okay," I say slowly. "I actually hate all of you."
"No you don't," Mom says.
Unfortunately, she's right.
Jenny's voice gets louder like she stole the phone. "Have you told her you're in love with her yet?"
I nearly choke on air. "Oh my God."
"What?" Jenny says innocently. "We're all thinking it."
"Nobody was thinking it."
Dad immediately goes, "I was definitely thinking it."
"YOU ARE NOT HELPING."
Jenny's laughing so hard now she can barely breathe. "He sounds stressed."
"Because you people are insane."
Mom's still laughing softly in the background, but when she speaks again, her voice gentles a little.
"You okay, honey?"
And annoyingly enough, that question almost gets me.
Because I'm not sure I've been okay for weeks.
I stare down at my desk for a second, tapping my thumb against the edge of my phone.
"Things are complicated," I admit finally.
The line quiets a little after that.
Not silent, just softer.
Jenny still sounds smug when she says, "Complicated is code for emotionally catastrophic."
"Thank you for your insight."
"You're welcome."
Dad clears his throat. "You hurt her?"
Straight to the point.
Always.
I exhale slowly through my nose. "Yeah."
No point lying about it.
Not anymore.
"And?" Mom asks gently.
I think about Tuesday night again.
Everly sitting across from me on her bed.
The way her voice shook slightly when she admitted how badly I'd hurt her.
The fact that she still stayed anyway.
"I think I spent so long trying not to need anybody that I screwed up the one thing I actually cared about," I say quietly.
Nobody talks for a second after that.
Which honestly feels worse than the teasing.
Then, from somewhere farther away, Jenny says, much less joking this time, "Well. That was disgustingly sincere."
I laugh once despite myself, shaking my head.
"There he is," Dad says immediately. "That's the first time you've sounded alive in a month."
"Thanks. Very comforting."
Mom's voice softens again. "Jackson... complicated usually means important."
The words settle heavily in my chest.
Because she says it so simply, like it's obvious.
Like maybe the reason this hurts so much is because it matters that much too.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling while the noise of my family fills the background again - Dad arguing with Jenny now, Mom telling both of them to behave like functioning human beings for five minutes.
Warm.
Chaotic.
Familiar.
And somewhere in the middle of it, my eyes drift toward Everly's side of the room without meaning to.
Toward the dim desk lamp she left on before heading to the bathroom earlier.
Toward the hoodie hanging off the back of her chair.
Toward every little thing that's started feeling tied to her somehow.
Jenny suddenly shouts, "Invite the roommate for Christmas!"
"Goodbye," I say immediately.
Dad starts laughing again.
Mom protests through her laughter.
Jenny yells, "HE'S BLUSHING-"
I hang up before any of them can say anything worse.
The room goes quiet afterward.
Not empty quiet, just still.
I stare down at my phone for a long moment before opening my messages again without thinking.
Everly's name sits near the top now.
Not buried anymore.
Not avoided.
My thumb hovers uselessly over the screen while Mom's words replay in my head.
Complicated usually means important.
And for the first time in weeks, thinking about the future doesn't feel quite as impossible as it used to.