40. Grant
Grant
The next time I’m at The Break, it’s Felix’s turn to be the most annoying sibling. I’m supposed to be doing tax paperwork today, but I can’t even get into my office because Felix has pushed all four tables together.
He’s unrolled maps of the park project across them. The corners are being held down with a stapler, a tape dispenser, and some miscellaneous teacups. Felix has a pencil behind one ear.
I’m pinned in the doorway. “Why are the tables blocking my office?”
He blinks through his glasses. “They’re not blocking it. They’re just in front of it.”
“That’s what blocking is.”
“We needed a bigger surface.”
“We?”
“Dylan’s meeting me here.”
“Great,” I mutter under my breath.
“We’re trying to overlay his site inventory map with my concept plans. We’ve got topography, hydrology, and vegetation. Over here is the trailhead access map. Too big for one table.”
“So you came here and took over The Break.” My teeth are clenched so tightly it makes it hard to get the words out.
Felix makes a pencil mark on one of his maps. “We scheduled it with June.”
“I have accounting to do. Bills to pay. Taxes. You know, running a business?” I gesture wildly enough to make him flinch. “Everything I need is behind that door.”
“You can get to it,” he says. “Just go around.”
There is no around. The table stretches wall to wall. He’s barricaded me out of my own space. My fists are tight. So are my shoulders. Heat rises through me, gathering right behind my eyes. I glare at my brother. “God, you’re such a child.”
“I’m working here,” Felix says. “This project is important.”
“To you.”
“To everyone. This is our future.”
“And that gives you the right to steal my space? You didn’t check. You just came in and took over. No respect at all.”
Silence stretches between us. Felix’s jaw works. It takes him a moment to speak. When he does, his voice is low and steady. It’s infuriating. “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but don’t pretend it’s this.”
“This is my problem. You’re my problem. There’s nothing else.” I grab the corner of the nearest table and shove it out of the way.
Felix scrambles around, picking up his makeshift weights and rolling up his maps. “Damn dude,” he says. “Calm down.”
I stop pushing. “What part of me is not calm?”
“I get it.” Felix taps the end of a rolled map. “We’ve all had our hearts broken before. But you’re—”
“Get out,” I snap.
“No.”
“I said, get out.” I’m done with this. Felix and his stupid maps. Dreams of what we can accomplish this spring. Hope for the future. It’s such a waste of time. Nothing’s going to get better.
I yank on one of the tables, trying to put it back where it belongs.
“I’ll pick up the maps,” Felix says. “I’ll put the tables back where they were. But I’m not getting out. I don’t think you should be alone right now.”
I straighten and take a sharp breath through my nose. “I’ll be as alone as I want to be.”
“That’s it, right there.”
“No, there is no it,” I say, hands on hips. I like being alone, which is just as well, because I’m going to be alone forever.
I don’t say that. I don’t say any of that. Why would I? I’m fine the way I am. People like this version of me. I’m responsible. I take care of other people. I’m a goddamned pillar of the community.
Nobody benefits from me getting emotional. So I don’t.
Felix picks up the teacup that was holding down his map. He stretches his arm out to the side, looks me straight in the eye, and lets it go. It hits the floor and breaks in half.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I growl.
“Oh, you mad, bro?” Felix picks up another cup. I recognize the pattern. It’s from the same set Annabelle used to make her tiered tray. Felix waits a beat, then drops this one and grinds it under his boot.
“Stop it.” I keep my voice low, keep the emotions on simmer.
“You gonna make me?”
“I can still kick your ass.”
Felix gives me the smarmy grin I hated at age six and hate even more now. “Do you want to?”
“What’s your problem? What are you even—”
“I’m trying to get a reaction out of you.” Felix punches my shoulder. “I’m trying to see if you’re an actual living human. You’re holding so much in, I don’t know how you’re still functioning.”
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do?” I howl.
We stare at each other. I make the first move. I shove the table out of the way, push past my brother, and go into my office. I slam the door and lean on it. No. This isn’t happening. I just got triggered when I saw that china pattern. I’m not mad at Felix. I’m not mad at all. I won’t allow it.
Felix taps on the door. “Uh uh,” he says. “Not this time.”
“Go away,” I tell him.
“Jesus, Grant, you’re so close to it. You’re almost there. It’s right on the other side of this building. A whole entire rage room, just for you.”
I crack open the door. “Get the fuck out.”
“No. You’re coming with me.” Felix’s foot is in the door, stopping me from closing it. “It’s time to take this out on something that won’t fight back.”
“I can’t.” I grip the door handle and try to retreat to my own space.
“You can and you will,” Felix insists. “Suit up. It’s time to smash.”
Emotion curls around me like smoke, choking and hot, making each breath a battle.
The helmet is too tight, the gloves are uncomfortable, and the faceplate’s messing with my peripheral vision.
The weight of my unspent anger bears down on me, coiling in my chest, squeezing my heart and pressing it flat.
The air tastes metallic. The walls hum with judgement.
Every object leers, mocking me with silent accusations, so I swing. I thrash. I strike.
The first bits of release barely scratch the surface. So I smash more, and it opens up something inside me. It feels bad. It feels bad for a very long time before it starts to feel like anything else. But I’ve released a dam, and floodwaters are rushing through. Unstoppable. Destructive.
They also feel righteous. Earned.
I reach for a Noritake teacup with a missing handle. I hurl it at the wall. That one’s for Coach Dewitt. I throw the matching saucer after it. That one’s for Triss. I empty the box I brought in here, throwing with both hands. Triss. Dewitt. Triss. Dewitt.
But I feel worse, not better. I don’t like the chokehold the past has over my emotions.
I keep going, letting myself feel everything.
I’m furious now, but it’s flavored with regret that I ever got involved with Triss, and plain old disgust that Dewitt is supposedly still with her, and confusion at how I could be duped.
It’s mixed with a ton of grief. I could have been a different person, one with healthy relationships and a better sense of self. Instead, I closed myself off, and missed out on so much. That’s on me.
Underneath it all is Ricky, and the shame of hurting my best friend. Old CD cases splinter under my sledgehammer. I smash a cognac bottle. It’s me, me, me. I need to be smashed. I deserve that.
Annabelle. She offered me her heart, and rather than share mine with her, I shut down. I let her walk out of my life instead of telling her I love her. I’m a selfish bastard who deserves all the misery I’m feeling right now.
I put my self-blame into a wine bottle and pitch it at the wall. It splinters into green shards. I enjoy it in a grim way, as I picture myself shattering along with it. I try another. This is me. I’m breaking.
I hurl a third bottle and a fourth. I’m heaving in short, quick breaths, like I can’t get enough air. Sweat pools under my arms and slides down my back. No matter. I have to keep going. I have so much more to do, and it’s the best. So satisfying. Why didn’t I ever try this before?
I know the answer to that question. Fear. I thought if I allowed myself to experience the anger I had at age eighteen, that I’d be angry like that all the time. I was afraid that if I didn’t lock it down tight, it would feed on itself and grow until I couldn’t contain it.
I was right. It’s growing. It’s huge. Monstrous. I can’t control it. I don’t want to. I’m letting it all out, letting it consume me. When this is over, there might not be anything of me left. That’s an outcome I’m fully prepared for. I’ll keep going until I’m finally, finally, finally done.
I’m up to my ankles in broken pieces. I have to kick them out of the way if I want to smash more.
Good God, do I want to smash more. I yell for Felix to turn up the music.
I yell for him to bring me more breakables.
June gives me all the salad plates we have left.
When those are gone, Blake and Cole are at the door, handing me empty bottles.
Who called the little boys? No matter. I keep smashing.
My dad appears with a box of Precious Moments figurines.
I pull out handfuls, ready to fling them at the wall, but stop short when I see my mom standing behind him.
Her eyebrows are knit together and her mouth is turned down.
I’ve seen that worried expression so many times.
At my bedside when I broke my leg in sixth grade.
That time I got lost in Green Bay. When I had my sleepwalking phase. She’s scared for me.
For a long time, I was scared for myself.
But not anymore.
It’s over.
I put down my weapons. I signal Felix to turn off the music. The silence lands like a slap, making my ears ring. For a moment, the only sound is my own panting. My neck and back are coated in sweat. I tear off my gloves and remove my helmet, dropping them both on the floor.
More people crowd in behind my parents and siblings. Dylan’s here. Lia and Sophie too. Dove Jackson has come over from the bakery. She’s gripping Roy’s hand. Michelle’s here from the thrift store. Nick Goudreau. Fred Garcia. There are people here I haven’t seen in years. Old classmates. Friends.
I crane my neck to see into the booth. Felix is up there, along with my cousins Callie and Hugo. So is Oscar Point and three or four other people. I blink. Is that Stenhower? What’s the mayor doing here? What the hell is happening?
I take a step. Glass crunches underfoot. This is what’s happening. I am.
“You all came to gawk?” My breath is wheezy. “Is there nothing else to do in Echo Creek, that you’ll stand around watching me lose my shit?”
Blake scoffs. “There are plenty of better things to do than this.”
“Then why are you here?”
My Dad shifts the box in his arms. “Because you were in there for two hours.”
I put my hands on my knees, still trying to catch my breath. Two hours? No wonder I feel like I’ve been beaten to hell and back.
I straighten. Lia is standing in front of me. “I came over to tell you to turn down the music,” she says. “When I saw what you were doing, I called Sophie.”
“I called Michelle and Dove,” Sophie says.
“Felix called the rest of us,” my mom says.
Blake claps my shoulder. “We were worried about you.”
“Scared to death, more like,” my mom says.
“I’m fine,” I say. I’m not. I’m exhausted down to my bones. I’m woozy with it. I need a shower. I need a nap. I don’t even have the energy to be irritated that I’m the star of the dumbest show ever. I can’t find a whisper of anger.
That’s not all that’s missing. The deep well of shame that I kept buried is also gone.
My mom hands me a bottle of water. I stare at it a moment, not sure what to do with it. Drink it? Yes, that’s what you do with water. I take a gulp. It feels like a miracle. Like a blessing.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asks.
I nod and drink more water, standing in a mess of broken pieces among people I’ve known my whole life. They’re here to help in any way they can. This is Echo Creek. This is what we do. When someone needs something, the town shows up.
It almost breaks me all over again. Everyone is here because everyone cares.
My family especially—my parents, siblings, cousins.
But also my friends. This is Nick Goudreau parking his dogsled and answering the call.
This is Michelle and Oscar putting the “closed” sign on their stores.
This is my parents leaving their classrooms to be here.
Everyone’s crowded into a smelly rage room on a random Tuesday in March because I need them, so they’re here.
And if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
I can feel it shining from them, flowing over me, in a way I don’t know if I deserve, but I’m willing to accept.
That’s the ugly truth. I said I don’t believe in love, but it’s worse than that. I thought I wasn’t worthy of it. But I’ll never say that again. This proves it. I know it.
Love is real.
Things get a little blurry at the edges of my vision. “I need to sit down for a minute,” I say.
“Ope, we’ve got you.” My dad grabs my arm. Blake’s on the other side. Everyone backs out the door and they move me to the maker space, where I collapse in a chair. I’m still holding the water bottle. I gulp down the rest of it.
“We’ll take it from here,” my mom says to the crowd.
Oscar and Dove leave first. They have businesses to run. Michelle pauses with a hand on my mother’s arm. “Take care of him,” she stage-whispers. Lia makes sure my parents have her number. Hugo asks Felix to keep him updated. Callie briefly pats my shoulder before disappearing with the rest.
I don’t know why they’re so worried. I don’t need taking care of. I’m fine. I’m more than fine, because I have a plan.
I’m going to win Annabelle back.
I never thought I’d be a man who chased someone, but up until today, I didn’t think I was capable of love, either. I didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself, but I love Annabelle. I’ve been in love with her for a long time.
“June?” I ask.
She’s immediately at my side. “What do you need?”
“Can you run The Break for a few days?”
“Of course. Get some rest.”
“I don’t need rest,” I say. “I need to see Annabelle. If I can find her. Do you know where she is?”
June rolls her eyes. “Like she doesn’t FaceTime me every day? She’s in Ann Arbor. Duh.”
I map it out in my head. Over the bridge and across the whole Lower Peninsula. It will take the better part of a day to get to her. No matter. I’m going. And I’m bringing her tiered tray with me.
I go behind the front counter and get the box that holds the broken pieces. I sit at a table and start unpacking it.
“Hold up,” June says. “That’s my project.”
“Not anymore. Pass me the E6000, will you?”
June hands me the glue along with tweezers and a can of compressed air to get the dust off. My dad sits on one side of me, telling me to sort the pieces by size, while my mom sits on the other side, clapping her hands and saying how much she enjoys puzzles.
I lift my head and regard my messy, meddling, wonderful family. “I have to do this myself,” I say. “But I appreciate the help, and I love you for it.”
That word is getting easier to say.
I can’t wait to say it to Annabelle.