Chapter Bex
Bex
In the morning, Theo makes what must be an intentional racket as he gets ready for work, his way of saying Get the fuck out of bed, you lazy bitch. Though I might be assuming it because that’s what I’d be saying were our roles reversed.
I pull on running clothes. I’ve been forcing myself to do small runs through the neighborhood ever since Theo told me about the marathon because, theoretically, small runs will enable me to do longer ones.
I try to get them out of the way early as it’s the only way to avoid the neighbors asking how I am, in that tone implying I must be doing terribly.
And I am doing terribly—I’ve had that nightmare every night I’ve spent under this roof since the wedding—but I’m also… mad.
I know that I’m not supposed to be. I’d never admit it aloud. But I’m so fucking mad and I’m not sure with whom. In some ways, I’m mad at all of them.
I’m mad at Jessie for all the times she’d pat my knee when I got in trouble and say, “I’m gonna let this one go”—as if it made her a candidate for sainthood.
I’m mad at my father for not stepping in to parent me his own damn self.
I’m mad at Bronwyn for being so fucking good all the time, for being too wonderful to hate, for leaving me.
None of which I can say to the neighbors.
With my head down and my music loud, I follow my father and Bronwyn’s favorite three-mile loop.
In her he finally got the daughter he wanted: motivated, well-behaved, eager to please.
I don’t know if she actually liked to run or if she did it just to make him happy.
Either way, I’m glad they had each other, even if it made less room for me.
They’ll never jog this loop again.
My throat swells. I still have these moments when I think Bronwyn is off cramming for finals, when I expect a call from my dad during which he’ll discuss the tomatoes he’s growing and ask if I’ve given any thought to finishing my degree. But right now, I only feel their absence.
My dad’s never going to tell me about his tomatoes again.
I can’t run and cry at the same time. I slow to a walk and veer right, toward the elementary school, and perch on a bench outside the chain-link fence.
This is the place where it was established, quite thoroughly, that I was not gifted in any way, but instead troubled, rebellious, noncompliant, oppositional.
On the playground, I see the steps where I had to sit out recess for an entire week after shoving Michaela Spencer.
Just beyond that is the room where I was often sent for being disruptive or talking back.
But over on the far side of the building is a classroom with stained-glass windows, a room that does not at all line up with the rest of the school or the rest of the story.
Here’s the thing that I never discuss, something I’ve never even alluded to:
I wasn’t always the black sheep.
Maybe it’s simply that you can’t be the black sheep when there’s only one of you.
But when Bronwyn and I were in first grade, before my dad married her mom, I was sent to that room because I’d outpaced the highest reading group and the highest math group.
A psychologist met me there multiple times to see if I was “gifted.”
Ultimately, it came to nothing. I skipped no grades; I stayed at the same school.
But it needled Jessie for years, the way she couldn’t erase those facts.
I never understood why she kept bringing it up, why she kept creating arguments about how the teacher just didn’t like Bronwyn or would imply that I had, at age six, somehow cheated to get ahead.
But during that year, I didn’t go to the principal’s office once. No one had ever suggested I was a troublemaker or lazy or oppositional.
I turn to run home. It seems like something I’d be better off not remembering.
· · ·
Theo gets back late in a sweaty T-shirt and shorts, with a gym bag over his shoulder.
He looks ridiculously good in gym clothes.
I suppose he looks ridiculously good in all clothes, but the reminder that he is entirely constructed of muscles and tendons and male hormones beneath that fabric packs a punch.
That he’s one of the best-looking men I’ve ever seen in my life doesn’t hurt either.
I’m back under the throw blanket, reading The Paris Review while watching Love Island, though I paused the latter when he walked in.
“Do you ever get off the couch?” he asks.
“Man, twenty-four hours sharing a roof and you’re already acting like a real husband. Next you’ll be commenting on my weight.”
His sigh is heavy with disgust. “I’ll be leaving straight for the airport from the office tomorrow. So you won’t have to continue putting yourself out on my behalf.”
He’s leaving far sooner than I’d expected. I’m not sure why there’s this pinch of disappointment at the news instead of outright glee.
“Excellent,” I reply, unpausing the TV. “I’m tired of wearing panties in my own home.”
His downward gaze appears to be involuntary. I’m pretty sure he’s looking for the panties.
“I had an interesting chat with Lars last night by the way. He told me your mother was a really famous physicist.”
I stiffen, pausing the TV once more. “And?”
“And at first I thought, There’s no way that Rebecca is the product of a famous physicist, and then I realized that you and your mother are two sides of the same coin: she’s what happens if you do too much with your intellect, and you’re what happens if you do nothing with it.”
“I’d suggest that Jessie was possessing your body again, but Jessie would never have said anything flattering about my mom.” I hit play on the remote and crank the volume. I got the last word, but somehow I’ve still lost.
I always lose when my mother enters the conversation. Because what does it say when your mother was a terrible person who was going to leave your father—and probably you—and people still think you’re even worse?