Chapter Fourteen #2
Parker’s seemingly aimless trail slows. He’s led them to a sprawling playground with big, wooden castle structures, rows of swings, jungle gyms, and winding slides.
It’s mostly empty; a few parents are pushing their children on the swings.
Zach can’t remember the last time he played on a playground—he was probably too little to remember, whenever it was.
All he can conjure up now are memories of crying in the car whenever his mom brought him to a park to play.
Zach wonders if Parker knows this park, or if they just ended up here by accident.
Did he ever play here with Paige when they were little, when things were less terrible?
Zach tries to imagine tiny Parker climbing on the wooden castle, swinging on the monkey bars, flinging himself off the swing at the highest point.
“Are… are you okay?” Zach asks quietly, following Parker as he climbs up the wooden castle structure.
They settle into a small nook, hidden away, their shoulders pressed together.
Parker’s body is sturdy beside him. He likes the weight of it pressed against his own.
It distracts him for a moment, from where they are and what they’re doing.
Which is skipping play practice. Zach hopes Bea doesn’t notice. His heartrate picks up at the thought.
Parker stares ahead, his lips pressed into a thin line. His jaw jumps.
“I just—” Parker exhales sharply, scrubbing both of his palms against his face. The next words come out muffled. “Just needed to be somewhere else.”
Zach can understand that desire more than anything. He waits for Parker to drop his hand before he nods. He nudges him with his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Family therapy sucks,” Parker says, stretching his legs out in front of him. The toes of his boots knock together. “Like, it’s good, I think, but it sucks so much.”
“Oh,” Zach says. He’s only ever had one-on-one appointments with his therapist.
Parker fiddles with a leather bracelet around his wrist. It covers up some of the old scars, the ones that make Zach’s stomach jump unpleasantly every time he thinks too hard about how they got there.
“I always used to think that, like… it was me, you know?” he says, his voice high and soft.
“Like, I thought that I was the poison in the pond, that I was spoiling everything in this family.” Parker’s voice cracks, and Zach feels a sympathetic ache in the back of his throat.
“Like, maybe if I wasn’t so fucked-up, then we could be happy. ”
Zach doesn’t get angry a lot, but he feels warmth rise inside of him.
It burns all the way up his throat. The feeling builds, making his face hot and pink as he squeezes his hands together in his lap.
It’s anger on Parker’s behalf, anger that anyone would make him feel like he was the sole reason for all the Reids’ problems.
“That’s—” Zach shifts a little, turning to face Parker more fully. “That’s bullshit. You know that, right?”
Parker laughs, the sound wet as he rubs his face.
“Yeah, I know that now,” he mutters. “Henry went off about how everything I do is just to get attention and Dr. Wilson was like, ‘Well, have you tried giving him attention?’” Parker exhales a rough, stilted laugh. “He looked like he was going to explode.”
Zach smiles wanly. “Are you? Trying to get attention, I mean?”
Parker shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe.” He looks at Zach now, and their faces are so close.
Zach can see the subtle green in Parker’s brown eye, the veins of his eyelids, the strong cut of his jaw.
His eyelashes are delicate, clumped together from tears that Parker doesn’t let fall.
Zach has gotten used to Parker’s face, to the point where now he can’t imagine not having him there all the time, at his locker, in the halls, during study hall.
The realization that this—their friendship, these conversations, Parker—could have not been a part of Zach’s life at all sends a terrible, unnerved panic pulsing low in his gut.
“Are you still thinking about…” Zach licks his lips, hesitating. “You know. The Dead Boys Club?”
Parker tilts his head back, looking up at the graying sky. “Yeah, I guess,” he says slowly, picking at his words. “It’s hard not to.”
“Yeah,” Zach agrees, his words nearly voiceless.
Parker looks down when something buzzes in his pocket.
He fishes it out, and Zach notices that it’s a new iPhone, like the one Paige has.
It looks brand-new, with a heavy-duty case.
Nothing like the cracked iPod touch that he’d had at the beginning of the year.
A text from Paige lights up the screen: where are you? ??
Come 2 the park after tech, Parker taps back. Coolin with zach.
Coolin with Zach. Zach doesn’t even know what that means. But they’re doing it.
After all that heavy talk, Parker’s mood lightens.
They crawl out from their little nook to climb over the rest of the castle.
Zach isn’t very coordinated and Parker is way too gangly, but Zach follows him through the structure dutifully.
Around 5:30p.m., Zach spots Paige’s car pulling into the parking lot, followed closely by Isaac’s.
Bea and Paige step out of Paige’s car, and Zach feels a smile pull at his face as his friends make their way to the wooden castle. Parker is perched on one of the ledges, swinging his legs.
“What are you doing?” Paige asks, watching as Parker drops from the castle, into the wood chips below. Zach climbs down carefully.
“Just needed to get away,” Parker says. Paige and Parker stand toe-to-toe, with only a few inches difference in height. “You’re not my babysitter anymore, remember?”
Paige purses her lips and crosses her arms, but she eventually gives into a reluctant smile. “Thank god,” she says, and gives her brother a punch in the arm. Parker laughs and dives for her but misses. Paige climbs up onto the castle, and Parker follows her, swinging up onto the structure.
“You shouldn’t skip,” Bea says to Zach sternly. “Or at least warn me next time. We had to have one of the freshmen work on the trees, and they do not look good. You’re going to have to fix it.”
“Sorry,” Zach says compulsively.
“It’s fine,” Isaac interjects, slapping him on the back. “The trees look great.”
“They’re crooked,” Bea insists.
“Come on!” Paige yells from up above them.
The autumn light fades quickly, the evening swallowing them in darkness as they climb and run and jostle each other on the castle. They halfheartedly play a game of tag, more interested in seeing who can wedge through the smaller spaces of the castle than they are in following any actual rules.
Zach is very bad at all games, even ones that are mostly made-up, but he feels a big, warm patch start to spread through his limbs.
He’s here, with friends. With people who look at him not because he happens to be in the way, but because they want to be looking at him.
People who seek him out, who talk to him, who notice when he’s not somewhere he ought to be.
When it gets too dark to see where they’re climbing, they hover around Paige’s and Isaac’s cars, talking, laughing. Zach doesn’t want the evening to end. He’s not sure he’s ever had an evening that he didn’t want to end.
Parker ignores two calls from his mom, which means Paige has to answer a call from their dad, and she rolls her eyes and shoves Parker as she holds the phone to her ear, saying: “Yeah. We’re fine. We’re with some friends. No. Yes. No. Okay, bye.”
“Want a ride home?” Parker asks Zach as the group starts to pack it in. They’re leaning up against Paige’s car, shoulder to shoulder again. Parker’s body is still so warm. He knocks his foot against Zach’s. Zach knocks his foot back.
“Isaac is my neighbor,” Zach reminds him for maybe the fifth time since they’ve known one another. “You should take Bea home.”
Parker’s face is half-illuminated by one of the streetlamps that outline the parking lot. He doesn’t say anything in response, just ducks his head a little, brows furrowing. Parker always makes these faces that Zach can’t decipher. Like he’s saying things that Zach can’t hear.
Isaac takes Zach home. There’s money on the kitchen table for pizza.
Everything is the same and different all at once.