Chapter 20
Brooks
I poured the macaroni noodles into the pan of boiling water. “Now what?” I had Mom on the phone, walking me through making macaroni and cheese from a box.
“Seriously, Brooks, you don’t know how to make it?” she laughed.
“Sorry, Mom.” Didn’t she get the clue that she was needed here at home? I had sort of hoped that if I called her with my pathetic attempt at making supper, she’d get in her car and drive back.
“But you made varsity?” she continued on, completely missing her cue to come home.
“Yeah.” Somehow, telling Mom seemed less exciting than when I’d told Brielle.
Even after we’d been caught in the closet by Janitor Dickson.
And what had I been thinking? I knew I’d been going in for a kiss.
But why? There was no one to see it, so why do it?
It did nothing but confuse the fake dating thing we had going on.
But Brielle had been so—Well, I think this is where the word “adorable” might work? I don’t know. And she tried so hard to be chill, but she was awkward. It had surprised me that when I found out I’d made the team, Brielle was the first person I’d wanted to tell.
Not Mom.
Brielle.
Not Reece.
Brielle.
Definitely not Dad.
Dad.
“Don’t let those noodles get too mushy, son.” Dad came up behind me and looked down into the pan. Then his attention swung to my phone. “Is that your mom?”
“Uh—yeah,” I nodded.
“Let me talk to her.” Dad took the phone from me, and I gave it up.
“Evelyn?” Dad turned and walked to the patio doors, where he stood, looking out as he talked. “Yes. Yes, Brooks told me. Of course. I mean, if baseball is what he wants—fine. When are you coming home?”
I listened closely. Please, Mom. Come home.
Dad cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t see why—” A pause. “No, I’m not telling you what to do.” Another pause. “Evelyn, we need to think about what that means for—no, that’s not what I’m saying.”
I stirred the macaroni in the boiling water.
Great.
Let another argument commence.
Dad left the room—with my phone—and I was scooping macaroni and cheese into my bowl when he came back and slid my phone across the counter toward me.
“Guess your mom is staying another week.”
I grunted.
“She said you made the team?” Dad broached the subject that carried the most tension between us—aside from mom.
“Yep.” I shook some salt on my pasta.
“Well. I’ll go ahead and cancel vacation plans for May.”
I looked at my dad. He sounded disappointed. As though I’d ruined something.
He looked back at me through his glasses. “I’d been planning on taking you and your mom to Florida.”
In May? Try in January, when it was frigid outside. But all I said was “Oh.” I mean, I guess Dad was trying. But now I felt like crud, making the team and ruining his plans. I was probably ruining their marriage.
See? Kids do feel like marriage trouble is ultimately their fault.
“You want me to quit?” I asked because I felt like I was supposed to.
Dad heaved a sigh and moved to the stove to get his own macaroni and cheese. We ate like kings when Mom wasn’t here. “No. No, I’m not saying that.”
He sounded irritated.
“Well, you make it sound like I ruined your spring.” I couldn’t help myself.
“I never said that,” Dad shot back. “I just get a bit sick of how sports dominate the American household.”
This again.
I scooped a mouthful of noodles into my mouth so I didn’t have to talk.
“Whatever happened to the pursuit of education? Of higher learning? Of stretching one’s mind and pursuing skills you can actually do something with in life?”
Maybe those were valid arguments. I didn’t know. All I knew was what I really heard Dad saying was, “Why can’t you be like me?”
“I might play ball for a career. You never know.” I shouldn’t have said it, but I did.
Dad gave me a sharp look. “And I was going to go to the moon.”
Ouch.
“Listen,” Dad sighed. “I just want you to be realistic about your future.”
“I am.”
“Are you?”
Macaroni and cheese never tasted so bad. I didn’t answer.
“Your mom sent me those videos going around on YouTube.”
“They’re not on YouTube,” I muttered. Dad was disconnected from life as my generation knew it.
“Baseball and girls? That’s a pretty low bar, Brooks.”
I kept eating. Not because I was hungry. I wasn’t. Not anymore.
“Think of it. You could be a lawyer, a doctor, a psychiatrist—”
“I’m not interested in those things.”
“Fine. An electrician, then. There is a lot of money to be made in trades these days.”
“Sure. Fine. I’ll be an electrician.” It sounded better than a doctor to me, and if it got Dad off my back . . .
“Baseball isn’t going to—”
“There’s a recruiter interested in me,” I interrupted. I gave Dad the only thing I could think of that might lend credibility to my dream.
Dad raised his brows. “What does that mean?”
“It could mean—” I stumbled for words. “Scholarships, maybe? Umm . . . opportunity for college ball? Minor leagues?”
Dad contemplated that for a moment. “One recruiter?”
Of course. He’d diminish any hopes to the odds of success.
“I don’t know,” I kept my answer vague.
“You really think, Son, that one recruiter will change your future? That you can be some—some media sensation and that will get you noticed?”
Wait. I lifted my head and stared at Dad. “I’m not dating Brielle to get instafamous so recruiters notice me.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then why are you allowing all those videos to go out there and make you look like a player—in more definitions than baseball, I might add.”
I stared at Dad. I was angry. Dumbfounded. Completely knocked off guard. “I’m not playing Brielle.”
“So you’re serious about this girl?”
What did I do? Lie? Admit it was fake? Dad would take that as a manipulative ploy, not for the reason why I’d originally agreed to date Brielle in the first place. To help out a cute girl who looked like she was about to get run over by a truck.
“Sure. Yeah. I’m serious.” As I said it, I realized it wasn’t as much of a lie as I thought it might be.
“Hmm.” Dad nodded then. Judgement and criticism had left his expression, and instead, he seemed to contemplate it all.
Then he shook his head as though he was done with the conversation—and maybe even me.
“I’m going to eat this in my office.” Then he left the kitchen.
He left me. He left. It was what both of my parents were good at.
Walking away when the conflict got out of their ability to control or understand.
I determined right then that I wouldn’t be like that. If things got tough—even with this whole fake dating thing—I wasn’t going to walk away. I wasn’t going to do that to Brielle. She was my friend.
Yeah.
At a minimum . . . she was my friend.