Chapter 26
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, I do everything I can to keep myself busy.
I pick up a few extra shifts at work, I drop off lunch to my dad a couple of times, I help my mom stuff bulletins and we go see a movie and make plans to do it every Wednesday from now on, even after I start at Bower.
I play music in the shower and fall asleep to Netflix on my laptop every night, because whenever I find myself completely alone in the quiet, all I do is think about her.
And the more time I spend thinking about her, the harder it gets to keep myself convinced that being with her is a bad idea.
Because the truth is, while I was doing all that other shit this week, the only thing I really wanted to do was go see her.
To ride a four-wheeler.
To fix a fence.
To stick my hand in a disgusting vat of ground meat.
Anything to just be near her.
She lit something in me that day in the field and despite my best efforts to snuff it out, it’s been burning ever since.
It burns even as I look between my parents in the front seat of my mom’s car while we drive back home from St. Joe’s on Sunday.
It was weird being back at Mass after knowing the truth.
My freshman-year theology teacher was just a few pews ahead of us, and I kept replaying the entire stupid class period that he spent explaining why marriage should only take place between a man and a woman.
What would it even feel like to tell my parents?
Mom. Dad. I like Nora Martin.
My dad’s head would probably just explode right here in the car, brain matter and blood all over my mom’s fabric seats.
Kidding. I’m kidding. But it’s an easier image for me to swallow than the truth. In reality, he’d probably just disown me. He didn’t even want “the queers” on his television station, so I highly doubt he’d want one living in his house.
But my mom? She wouldn’t, right? I’m the one who shut her out, she would never do that to me.
I mean, I’ve seen her roll her eyes at my dad’s political rants…
but I guess she never stops him either. And more than that, there’s the Church, and the truth is her status at St. Joe’s means the world to her.
If having a daughter who got an abortion was grounds for Mrs. O’Doyle to step down from her post, certainly having a gay daughter would be catastrophic to my mom’s image and the progress she’s finally making.
Not that abortion and sexuality have anything to do with each other, but in the eyes of the Church, they’re both basically a one-way ticket to the fiery pits of hell.
But would my mom really choose the Church over me? It’s hard for me to believe, but I did choose to leave her behind for California… for Nora. So I must’ve really believed that she would.
It’s so hard for me to understand how something that feels so right could be seen as so wrong. If they could just get into my head for a second to feel how I feel about her, they would understand immediately. And maybe…
“Stevie?” my mom asks, adjusting the rearview mirror so she can see me in the backseat. “I asked if you want to get breakfast at the Dinor.”
“No!” I reply too quickly and too loudly. “I mean, uh… I was actually going to look at my class schedule this morning and see what books I need.” Nice save.
“I’ve gotta get into the garage by eleven, anyway.” My dad wipes a hand down his face. I’m starting to wonder if he looks tired or if he actually just looks older than I remember.
“Do you really have to go into work again, John? It’s Sunday,” my mom says with an edge to her voice.
“Babe, we talked about this… I have to take every job I can right now,” he replies, then the two of them start talking in hushed tones in the front seat while my attention wanders back out the window, grasping for something else to focus on. Like Ryan.
I haven’t spoken to him since… the incident. He must think I’m actually nuts or something, to jump him like that and then disappear. I know I need to call him. Apologize. I just… don’t know how to explain it.
He’s not just going to settle for an I’m sorry, and really, I could never even ask that of him. He deserves a real explanation, which is the one thing I can’t give him.
I think about that night at the Dinor, though, talking about growing up here, living here. If there’s another human being in this town that I could possibly talk to about Nora… it’s Ryan. Maybe… maybe he might even be able to help me figure out what to do, too.
I just hope he can forgive me first.
I’ve been nervously looking out the front window of my house for the past twenty minutes. I texted Ryan to ask if he could come over today to talk, so now he’s coming, but I still have no idea what the heck to say to him.
Hey, sorry I jumped you at work and made out with you beside a dumpster, but it was only because I actually really wanted to be doing it with a girl and was trying not to want that.
“Oh my God. I can’t tell him that,” I whisper under my breath, shaking my head at myself.
“Who you talkin’ to?” My dad’s voice scares the shit out of me as I whip around to find him directly behind me. He ducks his head to look out the window with me as he takes a big bite of a brownie from the batch my mom made yesterday.
“Dad. Jesus.” I hold my hand over my pounding heart. “How long have you been standing there?”
He shrugs and then moves on. “What are you doing?”
“Ryan’s coming over. I’m just waiting,” I reply.
My dad grunts as he tosses the rest of the brownie into his mouth and wipes his hand on his coveralls.
“He could actually ring the doorbell and come in. Don’t you think? Nobody does the right thing anymore.”
“When did you get so pessimistic? You know people can’t do the right thing if you don’t actually give them a chance to,” I say.
He furrows his eyebrows at me. “We’re just friends, Dad.
So you can stop with the grumbling,” I add with a sigh as Ryan’s white Honda Civic swings into the driveway.
I head out the door before he can say anything else.
As I approach the car, Ryan rolls his window down, but there isn’t even a glimpse of his normal sparkly smile, which I’ve gotten used to seeing.
“You want to go for a walk around the neighborhood?” I ask, flicking my head down the road.
Ryan nods before climbing out of his car.
I know my dad is probably still standing at the window watching, so I don’t say anything for the first minute as we make our way a few houses down.
My street is so quiet that we walk right down the middle of the road, taking turns kicking a stone out ahead of us again and again until it tumbles into a storm drain.
“Thanks for coming,” I say finally, looking over at him.
“Kinda left me hanging.” He shrugs, his shoulders drooping more than usual.
“Yeah…” When I don’t elaborate, he gives me a look like Well, are you going to explain or what? So I tell him the only thing I know for sure now.
“I’m sorry about what I did. I was just… having a really bad day. That’s not an excuse, either. It was a really weird thing to do and I know I probably hurt you and embarrassed you in front of your coworkers. I really am sorry, Ryan.”
“It’s okay.” He says it so easily. The words I couldn’t say to Nora no matter how many times she apologized to me.
“Pete, the cook, calls me Casanova now. So thanks for that,” he adds, making us both laugh, and the air feels a little lighter between us as a result.
But there’s one more thing I have to say.
“So, uh… I was thinking maybe we could just be friends,” I say.
“I think maybe that’s a good idea,” he replies without much hesitation. I expect it to sting, but it doesn’t.
I lead us down a quieter street that’s mostly empty lots that were never sold, overgrown weeds shooting up all around us.
“So that’s it, huh? That’s all you’re going to give me? You know, now that we’re friends, maybe you could talk to me about what was going on,” he says.
I take a deep breath and open my mouth. I guess this is where I have to take a bit of a leap of faith that he’s the guy I’m hoping he is.
“Can I, umm… ask you something that’s kinda… well… Can I just ask you something?” My throat is suddenly almost too dry to speak.
“Sure,” he replies, looking over at me as we move to the side of the street to avoid an oncoming pickup truck, black smoke rolling out of a rusty muffler. I swallow hard.
“Can you like… not look at me?” I ask, letting out a nervous laugh.
“Uh, okay.” He looks down at his feet hitting the tar-and-chip road. I check over both of my shoulders and all around us to make sure no one is within hearing distance.
Every front yard is empty, but even so I keep my voice barely above a whisper. “Do you think it would be really weird if I liked… a… not a boy?” The second the words leave my lips, I instantly regret them and I clench my teeth so hard that I think my jaw might bust in two.
Why would I ask him that? Why would I ask anyone that? He’s going to think I’m—
“I don’t think it would be weird at all if you liked not a boy.” I see him swing his head over to me out of my peripheral vision.
“It’s okay if you do,” I reply, too embarrassed to make eye contact.
“Well, first of all, it wouldn’t be okay. And second, Stevie, it’s not weird.” He puts his hand out, lightly catching the front of my arm to stop me from walking. I sneak a glance to find him squinting at me suspiciously. “Nora Martin?”
My cheeks instantly feel warm and I look away quickly, panicked. “What? Why would you think that?”
“Uhh, let’s see. You spent all of your money at the fair on the chance to possibly cheer her up.
Your entire face lit up the couple of times you talked about her.
And also, Nora doesn’t exactly strike me as the straightest pencil in the box…
if you know what I’m saying. I won’t tell anyone, Stevie.
” I look up at him and he looks back at me.
“I promise,” he adds, and I believe him.
I take a deep breath and plop down on the side of the road, wrapping my arms around my knees and pulling them in tight to my chest.
“I guess we were like… together. Before the accident, in the time that I can’t remember.”
“Whoa. Are you serious?” he asks, his eyes wide as he comes to sit next to me.
“Right before I came to the Dinor, I found this box…” I tell him everything that happened, about the photos, my confrontation with Nora, and finding out about UCLA and California, the truth and all the lies Nora told me since I woke up.
The only thing I don’t tell him about is the kiss, because somehow I know saying it out loud would just make it sound small.
“Holy shit. So what are you going to do?” he asks after I finish.
“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.” I shrug, feeling frustrated.
“Well, didn’t you say you like her?” he asks.
I let out a laugh at that. Of course I like her. I didn’t even know it was possible for me to feel this way about another person, but… “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I could ever actually…”
“Why not? You already did once,” he replies.
“Well, for one thing, my parents would disown me, Ryan.” I state the obvious. “I don’t want to leave my whole life behind. I don’t understand why I ever said I would.”
“Did Nora tell you how you came to that decision?” he asks. “I imagine there’s a reason.”
I think back to how quickly I left that day, and her trying to tell me more. “I didn’t really stick around long enough to get many answers.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
I think about that as my phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out to find a text from my mom.
Ribs will be done in 20. Ask Ryan to join us! I won’t be weird I promise lol
“My dad’s making BBQ ribs with our… winnings. You want to stay for dinner?” I ask.
He looks at me deadpan. “Oh my God. You want me to eat that adorable cow that I watched you pet at the fair?” I just stare back at him until his face breaks into a smirk. “Eh, why not. Sign me up,” he finishes, making me laugh. I hop up onto my feet and pull him up off the ground.
“Just so you know, my dad kinda thinks we’re dating. So he might be cleaning his shotgun or something when we walk in.”
“And here I thought that only happened in the movies,” he replies as we stand up to make our way back to my house.