Chapter 13.
Timothy—or TJ
The rain hasn’t stopped.
I don’t mind suddenly.
I’m in the car driving back to Spruce, wet as a dog, with the biggest smile stretched over my face.
I got him back. Austin. Chase. It doesn’t matter his name.
It’s the person behind the name. Aren’t we all in so many ways just people living behind names?
Why should I be so ashamed of mine? Why should he resent his?
I’ll call him Austin, call him Chase, call him Love, whatever tugs on his heart, whatever grounds him.
And he can call me TJ.
And I won’t be the boy I used to associate with that name, too clueless about the world to know right from wrong.
The sky flashes and the booms roll over the countryside and the clouds dump dirty rainwater all over my windshield as I drive down this long, dark stretch of highway, and I can’t feel more free.
What an amazing turn this whole day has taken.
From despair and abandonment to Austin on a stage serenading me.
Then the adventure of his drummer seeking me out after the show with a finger to his lips, dragging me through the door into the backstage area, and depositing me in his dressing room where he said, and I quote, “Seriously, if you can flip Chase’s mood around, that’d be great, because the poor guy’s been a miserable bag of dirt all day. ”
He didn’t want to leave me in the hotel.
He felt like he had to.
And now that I’ve got the full picture—or at least a bigger one than I was clinging to before—I can understand him.
He doesn’t have to deny himself anymore.
And neither do I.
Just thinking that fact has me giddy. Totally and utterly giddy to the point that I could laugh at the terrifying thunderstorm I’m in the center of tonight.
It’s possibly the most beautiful storm I’ve ever seen.
Better than the one at the Horseshoe when I thought Austin was just a fan unlucky enough to find me in a hallway.
That was Chase Holt I was dumping my life onto. Even back then. Chase Holt, just before his show, taking the time to listen to someone he didn’t even know, to comfort me however he could. What a gentleman.
And then to follow up by finding me in my hometown?
I almost cringe, thinking of how awful I was that first time we met and he bonked his head on the lamppost. I laugh again just thinking of it, overwhelmed with the feelings bursting inside me as I realize how much patience he must’ve exercised to stay with me while I bandaged him up at T&S’s.
Of course I fascinated him.
He’d never been talked to like that before.
But what he didn’t seem to realize at the time was how much he fascinated me, too. And he continues to do so, showing himself to me in so many broken, incomplete facets. I want to learn more. I want to know everything about him. I want to understand him.
The real Chase Holt.
The real Austin Love.
Yeah, I still think he bullshitted his last name. There’s no way on this planet that that’s his real name. Come on, now.
It’s still storming by the time my house comes into view. I pull into my driveway and snake under the covered part with the side door into the kitchen. I don’t know of anything important going on tomorrow, so I leave my car parked here, kick my shoes off on the mat outside, and head in.
I didn’t expect to find my mom right there at the counter with her phone. “TJ!” she shouts, out of breath.
I stop short. “Mom, hey! I didn’t expect—”
“It’s coming down like dogs and cats out there!” she cries—she always gets the saying backwards. “I have been calling you nonstop for hours! It’s well after midnight! Where’ve you been??”
The music must still be playing in my ears, Austin’s soulful voice, guitar, swimming lights and colors …
I find myself floating over the kitchen tiles, immune to my mom’s outburst, as I come up to her.
“Smooth sailing down the highway,” I answer her, a disarming contrast to her harsh tone of voice, and then I hug her.
“Thankfully not literal sailing, considering how much it rained,” I add with a chuckle.
Then I pull back. “I had the best time, Mom.”
She’s mystified. “Doing what?”
I grin. “Living.” Then I waltz to the fridge, pull it open, and help myself to a beverage I haven’t had in ages: a strawberry soda.
I have no idea what brand it is or where my mom gets it from, but she always keeps it stocked, probably because I fell in love with it when I was nine and she remembers everything, and the second I crack it open and sip its sugary sweetness, I’m grounded at once.
“Freakin’ love this stuff,” I moan after letting out a long, satisfying, slightly obnoxious exhale.
Thunder booms outside, right on cue. A new wave of heavy rain dumps over the house and slaps the windows in gusts.
Then it hits me. “Oh, I forgot, my phone died!” I pull it out and give it a mournful sigh, then frown at my mom.
“I’m so sorry. Of course you were worried.
I didn’t mean to do that to you. And you stayed up all this time waiting to hear back from me, and with this crazy storm …
” I collapse against the counter with a frown.
“I’m so sorry for putting you through that.
How horribly irresponsible of me. I thought it was charging in the car, but I guess it wasn’t, and I didn’t realize it until way too late, and … ”
All the windows shake from another boom of thunder. Only my mom startles, her wide eyes on me, like she doesn’t recognize her own son.
Maybe in many ways she shouldn’t. I’m a new person.
“I promise I won’t do that to you again,” I assure her, then add, “if I can help it.”
She seems surprised to discover her hand over her chest, then drops it and attempts to regain her composure. “TJ … I … the past couple of days … really ever since you’ve been home, actually …”
“Yeah, I know … I’ve been weird.” I take another enthusiastic slurp of strawberry soda.
It’s hitting so perfectly tonight. “But after tonight, trust me, everything is … so … so much better now.” I’m pacing in a circle around the kitchen, I just realized, as light on my toes as a goddamned ballerina.
I choke back a giggle as I settle in front of the sink, hugging my can of soda. “So much better.”
My mom is carefully planning her means of attack. I see her strategizing. “Sweetie … last night, you didn’t come home. I know you said you went to meet a friend, but wouldn’t say who. Or what exactly you were doing in … in Fairview. I know you’re an adult—”
“Bowling.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “Bowling …?”
“And a movie. One of the late-night ones. But we missed most of it. And spilled the popcorn. Then figured it was too late to drive all the way home, so we made the very responsible decision to stay over in Fairview. Wasn’t that responsible of us?” I giggle again.
“I know you’re not drunk,” she states, as if convincing herself, “as you wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel, of course, but I’m having a difficult time … understanding the way you’re acting.”
“Me too,” I say with absolute honesty.
She sucks in her bottom lip in thought, then lets out a little sigh. “Alright, fine, I’m just gonna ask. Is it a girl?”
I take a satisfying slurp of soda, swallow it like it’s heaven, and after another crashing boom of thunder, answer: “Nope.”
A long and steely silence passes, as if she’s giving me a chance to confess the existence of a girlfriend. When it’s clear that no confession is coming, she says, “Well, that’s something, at least.”
She sounds strangely relieved. “Something …?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighs out. “Guess I don’t have to worry that my son is running off having sex with girls in distant towns.
I will go back to assuming it’s just … some pal you grew up with …
if you still insist on not telling your mom things anymore.
” She drags a finger over the screen of her phone, which sits on the counter.
I bet it’s been there all night. She’s been circling it, waiting for me to call back.
I feel guilty for causing that. “After all, never know what you’re up to at school half the time.
You seem to be calling home so much less often, and I’m—” A boom of thunder interrupts her.
She looks up at the window, startled, then seems to forget what she was saying.
And it’s probably true. I have been calling a lot less often. But shouldn’t she understand? I have a life up there at school. Friends. A community. And a sense of autonomy that, if I’m being honest, I don’t really have much of at all down here.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to communicate. She worries about me. She just wants me safe and happy, right?
I take my soda right up to her. She turns to me just in time to receive my hug. She hugs back, though distractedly, too tangled in her own worries to grip tighter. “I’ll try to call you more often,” I promise her. “I really don’t mean to be a stranger. It’s just—”
“You’re busy, you’ve got a life, I know, sweetheart.”
The angle at which I’m hugging her, I have a perfect view of the upstairs landing. All the bedrooms. All the spare rooms we call guestrooms. The game rooms. Studies. Craft rooms. And space and space and more space.
My parents had dreams of filling all this space. So many sons and daughters. All of their kids, and someday, their kids’ kids. The in-laws staying for holidays. The nest never empty. This enormous space full of life and laughter any day of the year.
Now it’s just a big box of half-empty rooms.
Unfulfilled dreams.
And here’s me, their only pride and joy, and I’m gifted the big blessing and burden of all their crushing love.
“I’m just glad you’re home and safe,” she tells me, “and out of that god-awful storm.”
I’m out of the storm outside, that much is true.
But maybe I’ve found myself in a totally different one tonight.