Chapter 22 – Waylon
chapter
twenty-two
Waylon
I was so fucked.
Marcus wasn’t wrong. I did want her. And she was still his.
Get it together, Johnson. You have a job to do.
She was already set up when I got to the tutoring center on Tuesday afternoon.
Highlighters in a color-coded row, laptop open, earbuds in.
She had the tutor face on, the one that said, “You will learn, or so help me,” and I had to work to keep my face blank as I dropped into my chair across the room.
My student wasn’t here yet, and neither was hers. It was just the two of us and the hum of the fluorescent lights.
I pulled out my notes and pretended to read them.
What I was actually reading was the line of her neck above her hoodie collar and the way she was nodding along to whatever was in her earbuds, pen moving in slow circles on the corner of her notebook.
She hadn’t looked at me yet. She was making a point of not looking at me, which meant she knew exactly where I was sitting.
I had her whole setup memorized by now: the highlighter rainbow, the slow pen circles, the nod that meant she liked the song.
I knew her desk routine way better than anyone should know another person’s.
It was the same game as always, just a different day.
Carter, a sophomore with zero interest in Sports-Comm Theory and a major that required it, finally turned up and we got to work. Across the room, Josie’s student arrived, and they fell into step. I kept my eyes on Carter, mostly.
She laughed at something the girl said and that smile changed her whole face. I fuking forgot what I was explaining for about three full seconds.
Carter gave me a look. “You okay, ma?”
I cleared my throat and turned my attention back to Carter’s paper. “Speed of play,” I said, recovering. “How it affects real-time coverage decisions.”
He didn’t look convinced. But he wrote it down.
Carter’s sourcing was a mess. He’d cited a recap blog as evidence for a media-framing argument, and I caught it immediately.
But his hands were shaking, and he’d already told me twice that midterms were killing him.
The last thing this kid needed was me piling another correction on top of everything else.
I saved it for the written feedback, where he could take it in without an audience.
When the session wound down, Carter packed up. Josie’s student was asking about scheduling.
“I have a conflict on the fourteenth,” the girl said. “Is there any chance we could do a makeup before break?”
Josie flipped through her phone. “The rest of that week works. Just not the eleventh. That’s my birthday, so I’m not doing anything school-related.”
So her birthday was November 11th.
I didn’t move or look up. I just filed it away the way I filed everything about her, right next to Gabby Thomas and the shea butter scent and the way she ran hills like she had something to prove.
I was already planning something for November 11th. That was how fast it happened.
My phone buzzed on the table. It was Mom.
“I have to take this.” I stepped toward the window.
“Hey. What’s up, Doc?”
“Nothing’s up.” My mother’s voice had that brightness it got when she was running on fumes and didn’t want me to know. I’d been hearing it my whole life. “I just wanted to call while I had a minute. Miss you, Wrecker.”
The nickname made me smile. I’d been more than a little rambunctious as a kid. Hockey had been a great way to channel some of that energy. But my Uncle Dave had always talked about how I was a one-kid demolition crew. Which had earned me the nickname.
“How’s the new rotation?”
“ER nights are ER nights. Total chaos, but it keeps me on my toes.”
“Mom, are you getting any rest? Is your attending cool at least?”
She was quiet for a second.
“The attending is a little difficult.”
Mom had gone back to school when I was a kid.
She’d always wanted to be a doctor, but my dick of a father had knocked her up with me.
He used to brag that he’d dumped her and stuck her with me.
A real winner. She should have resented me.
But all she did was pour love into me and protect me. I was so proud of her.
A little difficult meant she’d been managing somebody else’s ego on top of full night shifts.
“How difficult?”
“Waylon, I’m fine. This is the price. Besides, I like the challenge.”
“Are you sleeping?” I knew she didn’t like it when I pushed too hard.
“I sleep during the day.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She laughed. The laugh was real at least. “I called to tell you I’m not going to make it to the game on Friday. I have a shift, and there’s no trading it.”
I turned toward the window. “It’s fine, Mom. Regular-season game.”
“It’s not fine. It matters. Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re doing the thing where you make it smaller so I don’t feel bad. I can hear it.”
I got that from her, apparently.
“It’s one game.”
“I’m still sorry.” She meant it, too. “Is Trace going to be there?”
“Yeah. Sure. Trace is all over me to take care of myself.”
“Good. You let that boy look out for you for once. You hear me?”
I did. But I still wasn’t going to allow it.
“I hear you.”
“I mean it. Twenty years old and you still act like you have to do everything yourself.”
“Mom.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I know. You can skip the lecture. You take care of you. I’ll take care of me.”
“I’m the mom.”
“Okay, fine. But next time you call, can you tell me you did some cool heart procedure or something?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Love you, Doc.”
“Back at you, Wrecker.”
I hung up and stood there with my hand around the phone.
When I turned around, Josie was still there.
“She okay?” Josie asked.
“Rough rotation. She’s fine.”
Josie nodded. She didn’t push, and she didn’t do the thing where people said, “Well, if you ever want to talk about it,” just to feel like they’d offered something. She just stood there and let it be quiet.
She held my eyes for a second, and then she walked out.
The door closed, and I stood in the empty tutoring center, with the fluorescent lights buzzing and my mother’s voice still in my ear, saying, “You let that boy look out for you for once,” and Josie’s voice right underneath it, saying, “You think about what everyone else needs.”
Two women in one afternoon telling me the same damn thing from different angles, and I was starting to think they had a point.
My phone was still warm in my hand when a text came through.
Trace: You running this morning?
Me: No. I think I need to give her some space.
Trace: Maybe a good idea. But…
I read his text three times before answering.
Me: But what? You already told me to stay away.
Trace: No. I said it would be better. But man, after last night, no one should be stuck with him.
Trace wasn’t wrong. Neither was Marcus, and that was the problem. Until she kicked him to the curb, I had to stay away.
The real question was whether I could. I already knew the answer. I just wasn’t ready to say it.