Chapter 37 #3
“You can’t just tell us to get out. You don’t own this town,” my father insisted as Brinsley neatly boxed up her salad.
Chairs around the restaurant pushed back from tables.
“I don’t need to own this town. I belong to this town.
So does Zoey. You’d see that if you thought of anyone but yourself.
It hasn’t once occurred to you that it’s pathetic to pay a stylist to pretend to be your girlfriend?
” Gage said, going toe-to-toe with my father.
My dad had significantly more belly mass on him, but Gage had height and muscle in his favor.
“I knew it! I knew she wasn’t your girlfriend,” Mom said triumphantly as she shoved her leftovers and a shaker of parmesan into the box.
“And you,” Gage said, turning his ire to her. “What the hell kind of mother feels the need to put down her daughter every sentence?”
“You don’t understand how difficult she was,” Mom said, digging her heels in like she always did whenever someone told her she was wrong.
“Maybe you don’t understand that what she needed was support, not criticism.
Maybe you look at her and you see how beautiful and vivacious and interesting she is, and a small mean part of you envies that,” Gage said coolly.
“It doesn’t really matter, because no one here wants to spend another minute with you. ”
My mother gasped. “I am a delight. It’s not my fault that she’s so sensitive. No one could give her all the attention she needed. It’s not my fault.”
“You’re, like, a really bad mom,” Wes said, standing next to Gage. “Like so bad I wanna go home and hug my mom.”
The cross-country team nodded as they formed a line behind them.
“We have something to say,” Scooter announced from behind me before blowing his pitch pipe. The Warblers hummed in harmony and then broke into an a cappella version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “So Long, Farewell” with the creative twist of replacing night and bye with well-timed mouth fart noises.
My parents huffily made their way toward the door as they were sung out of the restaurant by the Warblers and a dozen other restaurant patrons.
Brinsley lingered behind.
“Okay, so I DMed you my top three recs on serums for dry skin,” she said, sliding her phone into her bag.
“I also included two of my favorite moisturizers and an eye shadow palette that would look amazing on you. And I threw in the contact info for my therapist. She does virtual appointments, and she can undo a lot of this.” Brinsley waved a manicured hand in the direction of my parents.
“Thanks for a lovely afternoon. Follow me on Insta!”
And with that, she was gone.
I put my head on the table and prayed for invisibility. Gage sat down next to me and put his hand on my back.
“Zoey, that was…really shitty.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” I groaned to the tabletop. “Like I don’t even know which part is the worst. My parents being my parents. The entire town witnessing it. You picking a fight with them. Gage, they are going to make me pay for that for the rest of my life.”
He pulled me up, his green eyes searching mine. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not!”
“Fine. I wish I was sorry. But, Zoey, they were horrible. Every time I think about you dealing with that on your birthday alone every year, I wanna punch someone.”
“They’re not that bad. I still had a roof over my head and food on the table,” I insisted.
What kind of person am I if my own parents couldn’t love me?
It was the question I’d asked myself for as long as I could remember.
I’d often wondered if there was some inherent flaw in my DNA.
That maybe it was for the best that I couldn’t have kids because there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be able to love them.
At least the feelings of inflicted inadequacy would end with me.
“Sweetheart, that’s a low fucking bar. Providing the bare minimum for survival doesn’t make them good parents. And you needing more than the bare minimum doesn’t make you a burden. You were never too much. They just weren’t enough.”
His words tickled a spot deep inside me that I thought I’d healed a long time ago.
“You’re going to be a really good dad someday,” I said quietly.
“I’m more focused on being a good partner right now.”
I blinked and locked in on his face. This was a man who collected dimes just so he could hide them for his sister because he knew they gave her comfort.
A man who showed up uninvited to my birthday lunch because he wanted to share the day with me.
A man who not only willingly waded into my family drama but told off my parents for their shitty behavior.
A good partner.
Before I could ask him to clarify in explicit detail exactly what he meant, our moment was interrupted by the arrival of the entire waitstaff—including grumpy Jessie—and a cannoli flattened under the weight of an excessive number of candles.
“Just because your parents suck doesn’t mean your day has to,” Wes said, placing the plate in front of me.
“‘Happy Birthday’ on three, people,” Scooter announced before pulling out his pitch pipe again.
While a restaurant full of my neighbors sang to me, the man who had witnessed my darkest parts smiled at me like I was something special.