Chapter 22
Lucy
On Wednesday morning, the apartment is quiet because Gianna left early.
My body actually aches. Holding my face still across a table from Benson Reeve for an hour and fifteen minutes yesterday turns out to be a thing the body remembers.
I lie on my back looking at the ceiling for a long time, and then I force myself out of bed because sulking in it all day will do absolutely nothing.
I didn’t expect he would still keep me as a tutor after how upset Gianna was, but I’m thankful he was the one who told her, not me.
She mentioned it in passing last night, and continued on like she didn’t want to talk about it.
After I make something to eat, I attend my classes and then I go to my mom’s house.
I help Bear with his homework while Mom and Tyr talk about his job on the couch.
I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that she’s been acting normal all these weeks.
I’m still waiting for her to drop the act.
Thursday, I have the second tutoring session of the week with Benson, and it’s the same as Tuesday’s.
Cold. Quiet. Work only. I read him a problem.
He does it. I check it. I slide it back.
He doesn’t look at me unless required, and I don’t look at him.
The clock above the whiteboard moves slower than it has ever moved.
At five o’clock, he says thank you, and I say you’re welcome, and we pack up at the same speed.
He leaves, and I leave thirty seconds after him, so we don’t end up in the elevator together.
I walk home with my shoulders tight. When I open the apartment door, Gianna is on the couch with the blanket and a half-pint of Phish Food.
She doesn’t ask about the session. She lifts the blanket on the empty cushion next to her, so I sit down.
We watch three more episodes, and I let the noise fill my head, so I don’t have to think about anything else.
Friday night the four of us — me, Gianna, Mara, a girl named Ainsley from Mara’s communications class — go to a Thai place near campus.
Gianna told Mara that we’re hitting pause on the Hawthorne House parties.
She complained, Gianna gave her a long face, and that was the end of that.
Now we’re here. I order noodles. Ainsley is sweet and slightly tipsy and tells a long story about her ex-boyfriend that does not require any of us to do anything except react.
Saturday, I stay in. Sunday, Gianna drags me to a pumpkin patch with Mara because we are seniors and we are doing fall things, Lucy, don’t make me beg.
I go and take pictures of Gianna and Mara in front of a haystack.
And more in the pumpkin patch. I buy a small white pumpkin myself, for reasons that are mostly that Gianna keeps looking at it and saying Lucy, that’s perfect for you, it’s small and quietly intimidating.
I bring it home. I put it on the kitchen counter next to the saltshaker.
Sunday night, I am at my desk in my bedroom with a Real Analysis problem half-finished, and the apartment is quiet because Gianna is in the bath. I stop mid-step on a proof and look at my own hands on the page.
I bought pumpkins today. I’ve been watching Love Island when I don’t really care about it. I went to eat Thai with the girls and suffered from a stomachache all night. I’ve been doing exactly what Gianna has wanted me to do.
I stare at my hands and think to myself about how I don’t know what I would do with a Sunday night if no one were watching.
I don’t know what kind of music I would play in this apartment if Gianna weren’t here.
I don’t know what I would eat for dinner.
I have built my life around being the person other people need me to be.
I’ve been doing it for my mom ever since I can remember, and I’m now doing it for my best friend.
This is exhausting. I feel dead on the inside. I close the notebook and go to bed.
Monday is normal. I go to class. I have two tutoring sessions for my non-Benson Reeve athletes. I see Gianna at home. We watch Love Island. I go to bed. Everything is back to how it was before, and I can’t help but feel the nagging feeling that I should stop living for other people.
Tuesday morning, I’m at my desk packing my tote when my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Bear.
I frown — Bear should be in second period right now. He doesn’t call me during school hours. He texts me memes during school hours, but that’s about it.
“Lucy.” His voice is small and echoey with a hollow sound behind it.
“Bear, where are you? Why are you whispering?”
“I’m in the bathroom. I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“Mom never paid for the field trip.”
I stop. “What?”
He says, “You said you gave her the money.”
“I did give her the money, and I gave her extra to make you a homemade lunch.”
“Everyone went on the stupid field trip, and I’m sitting in a classroom all day with a substitute teacher.”
I gasp at the idea of him all alone while his classmates are out on a field trip that I fucking paid for. “Are you serious right now?” But it’s not a question for Bear. Anger rises in my throat. “I’m going to handle this.”
“Lu—”
“I’ll handle it, Bear. Text me later.”
“Okay.” He hangs up.
I sit on the edge of my bed with the phone in my hand.
My ears are ringing, my hands are shaking, and I feel like I could burst. I call my mom, but it just rings until it hits the voicemail.
I call twenty minutes later, same thing.
I close my eyes and shake my head. There’s nothing I can do about this now, but I’m pissed off about it.
I stand up, grab my things, and leave the apartment. I power walk to the library, and when I get there, I sit on the second floor and finish my homework. It’s hard to concentrate, but I manage.
Thirty minutes before my tutoring session with Benson, I call my mom. She picks up on the second ring with the new voice, the bright voice, the voice she has had since Tyr.
“Lucy. Hi, everything okay?”
I put my notebook and pencils in my bag and run out of the library. “Mom. Give me one second,” I say as I exit the doors. I find a bench nearby and set my bag down.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I huff, out of Camdenth. My pulse is in my fingertips. “Bear called me from the school bathroom this morning to tell me you never paid for the field trip.”
“What?”
“Mom!” I warn, not wanting to deal with her lies. “I gave you the money and extra for lunch. You signed the freaking paper, but you didn’t pay for it?”
She sighs. “Shit. I must’ve forgot.” There’s a long pause. “When was this?”
“Not that long ago, maybe a month. Actually, I have the Venmo payment date.”
She stops using the voice. “God, Lucy. I don’t need you to tell me the fucking date. I clearly forgot about. It must’ve slipped my mind.”
“So, what did you do with the money?”
“Lucy, the way you’re talking to me right now—”
“Mom. I work multiple tutoring jobs to keep food on the table and to be able to afford Bear to go on field trips. Do you understand that? I have been the parent in that house since he was born. I am twenty-one years old and still fucking doing it, and now you are lying to him about it. I gave you the money! Where is it?”
“Lucy,” she says in a deep voice, dropping her act.
“You’re going to be quiet and listen to me.
You think you’re all high and mighty because you buy a gallon of milk for the fucking week?
Well, I pay rent. So who’s more important here, Lucy?
The one who buys the occasional groceries when she’s feeling heroic, or the actual mother who is paying for a roof over his head, water to shower in, and electricity for the boy? Hmm?”
I scoff, swallowing the words down my throat.
“Watch the way you talk to me, Lucy. I’ve been nice these past few weeks, but if you step out of line, I have no fucking problem putting you back in your place.”
“Back in my place?” I tremble. “Back in my place!”
“Yes!” she screams. “You’re the daughter, and I’m the mom! That’s the fucking end of it.”
I stare into the distance, ignoring the people who are staring at me. I’m lost in my own mind. I’m shutting down.
“Look who’s quiet now,” my mom scoffs. “Nothing to say to me, Lucy?”
I swallow. “I can’t believe you right now.”
“It’s one fucking field trip, Lucy. He’ll get over it.”
“Then I want my money back,” I say.
She laughs. “I can give you your money back, no problem.”
“Do it with me right now on the phone.”
I hear her make a sound of disbelief.
“Give it back to me, Mom!”
“You’re so miserable, aren’t you?” she says in disgust. “Always so above me. You think you’re better than me because you’re in college and know math problems?
Guess what, sweetie, you’re in for a real treat once you graduate.
You won’t have teachers to report to, and you’re going to know exactly why I was depressed for fucking years. ”
“I’ll never be like you,” I seethe, but even as I say it, I don’t believe myself. I see myself in her. And I guess that’s the sad part. She had no one to report to, and now that she has Tyr, she’s found a purpose again. “You’re––” the words are at the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say it.
“I’m what?” she snaps. “Tell me, Lucy. Tell me what I am to you.”
Pathetic.
She says, “Hello? Are you still there?” She’s using her condescending tone. “Lucy?”
I stay silent, staring across the quad.
“Hello?” she says one more time, and then she ends the call.
I stand on the sidewalk with my phone in my left hand. People are walking past me. I’m numb. I don’t know what to do. I can’t move.
“Lucy.”
I think I know that voice, but I’m staring at nothing, so I don’t process who’s near me. I’m not even crying, I’m just frozen.