Chapter Twenty-One
On New Year’s Eve, Zach gets another five-way phone call from the group, wherein Parker begs them all to come to the Reids’ for a New Year’s Eve party.
Apparently, it’s something that the Reids host every year and Rebecca and Henry only invite their rich, old friends, so Parker and Paige never have anyone to talk to.
It’s a testament to family therapy that Parker has convinced his parents to allow Zach, Isaac, and Bea to come over at all. Paige chimes in that Cool George is coming, too, except she doesn’t call him Cool George. That’s just what Zach has been unable to stop calling him in his head.
Zach doesn’t know if he has anything nice enough to wear for a New Year’s Eve party thrown by rich people.
He has exactly one blazer, and it no longer fits.
He digs out a button-up and tie and puts on his nicest slacks, the special-occasion ones his mom bought him, which have actually seen very few special occasions.
Zach knows that Parker and Paige won’t actually care if he dresses up, but he is newly invested in making a good impression on their parents.
Zach walks over to Isaac’s driveway after his mom has already left for her shift. She had promised to think about him exactly at midnight.
“Ugh, you look nice,” Isaac mutters. “Why are you trying to show me up in front of the Reids?”
Zach smooths down the front of his shirt under his open winter jacket. Isaac’s wearing a really garish New Year’s-themed sweater. “I’m not trying to, I just… I need the Reids to like me, so.”
“I don’t think Mr. Reid is ever going to like the guy screwing his kid,” Isaac points out, clapping Zach on the shoulder and giving him a little shake. Zach’s face burns and he doesn’t correct Isaac’s assumption. He doesn’t need to give him any more ammo for jokes.
The Reids’ house is decorated beautifully, and the adults gliding through the sitting rooms and dining room are dressed way nicer than Zach could have even hoped to dress, even with a blazer.
He and Isaac find Parker, Paige, and Bea hiding in the kitchen.
Bea is in a sparkly black dress, wearing her hair in fresh box braids that go from black to red ombre.
Paige is also in a black dress and stockings, and Parker looks like he’s been bullied into wearing a white button-up and black tie. This is the first time Zach’s seen him in anything other than his layers of dark clothes. His hair is even brushed and neatly parted. He looks nice.
“Holy shit,” Isaac says when he sees the twins and Bea. “Nobody told me I had to look nice.”
“I think your sweater is very festive,” Bea assures him.
“No, it’s awesome,” Parker agrees. “Did my mom look like her eyes were going to pop out of her head when she saw you?”
“Ugh,” Isaac grumbles, slumping into one of the stools at the kitchen island.
Cool George arrives about twenty minutes later, a plain black T-shirt tucked nicely into his dress pants. It’s exactly the sort of outfit a cool newspaper editor would wear to a fancy party. When Isaac sees him, he groans and tugs at the front of his gaudy sweater.
“Hey,” George says, grinning. He leans in and kisses Paige on the cheek as Zach politely looks away and Parker pretends to gag.
This is Zach’s first New Year’s Eve party.
They hang out in the kitchen and talk, eating the rich-people finger food that Mrs. Reid had catered for her rich-people guests.
Paige sneaks out into the dining room and pinches a glass of champagne that they all share among themselves.
Even Zach takes a sip, the bubbles tickling his nose.
He sits beside with Parker at the island, their knees bumping, elbows rubbing.
At five minutes to midnight, they shuffle into the dining room with everyone else. At least, Zach tries to, before Parker tugs him toward the staircase off of the kitchen.
“Come on,” he urges, a hand at Zach’s elbow.
“What—we’re going to miss it,” Zach says worriedly, glancing over his shoulder before he lets Parker lead him upstairs.
“We’ll go back down in a sec,” Parker promises.
They go to Parker’s bedroom. His door has its handle back. Cordelia is asleep on the bed, her smushed nose making her breath whistle softly on each inhale.
Downstairs, Zach can hear everyone start to count down from ten.
“We’re missing it,” Zach points out. Parker steps further into his space, crossing his wrists over Zach’s shoulders.
Nine! Eight! Seven!
“Yeah, but I wanted to, like… do the whole kiss-in-the-New-Year thing,” Parker says. Zach winds his arms around Parker’s waist. That doesn’t sound so bad.
Six! Five! Four!
“Oh,” Zach says. Parker fiddles with the hair at the nape of his neck. “We can do that.”
Things are good. Zach is a normal seventeen-year-old boy about to kiss his boyfriend at midnight, and everything is so ridiculously good.
Three! Two! One!
Parker pulls Zach in and kisses him. Below, the entire party bursts into cheers. Someone blows a noisemaker. Zach is overwhelmed by Parker’s soft hair and the smell of his shampoo and the feel of his mouth. He never thought he could have something like this in a million years. And now he does.
They emerge a few minutes after midnight, hurrying back downstairs as Parker tries to smooth out his hair and Zach redoes the first few buttons of his shirt.
They greet their friends in the din of the celebration, and Zach accepts bone-crushing hugs from both Paige and Bea.
Even Isaac, who is kind enough not to comment on his rumpled appearance, pulls him in for a brotherly, sideways embrace.
- - - - -
School starts up a few days after New Year’s, and Zach tries his best to ignore the fact that the end of his senior year is fast approaching.
All Zach wants to focus on are nice things, like how Parker has more good days than bad ones, and when he has bad days he still looks to Zach for reassurance; like how Bea gets the first of her dream school acceptance letters, laying the big packet from Yale out on their lunch table; like how Paige has gotten their parents to agree to a gap-year, excitedly talking about planning a backpacking trip through Europe.
One night, Zach is cleaning up his old laptop for his mom when he stumbles over his email chain with Parker.
Something compels him to open it. Maybe a desire to see how far they’ve come?
He scrolls back through the emails, his heart racing a little.
It’s not that he doesn’t still feel these things anymore.
He’s pretty sure that if he sat alone for long enough, all the bad stuff would return like an incurable rash, itching at his brainstem.
Still, now when his intrusive thoughts whisper to him that everyone would be better off, your mom would be better off, no one would care, no one would notice, it would be so quick, so easy, Zach can think of Paige, and Bea, and Isaac—and Parker.
It doesn’t fix it. Zach is pretty sure nothing will ever really fix it. But it makes moving forward feel less impossible. Maybe one day he won’t feel so overwhelmed by all of his thoughts and feelings. And right now, one day actually seems achievable.
He doesn’t delete the emails right away. He should. He will, someday. Just… not right now.
After he closes his laptop, Zach gets ready for bed. As he crawls underneath his comforter, he imagines Parker sitting up in his room, probably still awake, maybe reading, or drawing, or sitting with Paige in one of their big, empty, ornate rooms.
The next day is so routine that it feels like it blows by.
He meets his friends by his locker, just as he does every morning: Parker with his wrinkled brow and sleepy eyes, Bea going over the latest English assignment, Isaac chugging the last of an energy drink, Paige flipping through the printout of her latest newspaper article.
In study hall, Zach watches Parker draw on his homework instead of filling it out. He walks with Bea and Isaac to lunch, listens as Isaac monologues about the new video game he bought over the weekend. He eats with Parker, Bea, and Isaac, pressing his knee against Parker’s underneath the table.
He passes Paige in the hall between periods and she sticks her tongue out at him as she hurries to lunch.
He takes diligent notes during Calculus and reminds himself to ask Bea to help him study.
At the end of the day, Zach walks with Parker and Isaac to the senior parking lot while Bea catches a ride home with Paige.
Zach’s eagerly awaiting the heat from Parker’s seat warmers, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets. But when they walk out of the front of the school, he spots his mom’s car in the pickup lane.
Zach blinks, stopping at the top of the school steps.
“What?” Isaac asks, noticing that Zach has fallen behind.
“My mom,” Zach replies slowly. He half jogs down the steps and crosses to the pickup lane. His mom rolls down the passenger-side window as he leans in.
“What—” Zach starts, cutting himself off when he catches sight of his mom’s face. She’s pale, and her eyes are red like she’s been crying. His heart immediately rockets into his throat. His legs feel like they’re going to give out from under him. “Mom, what… what’s wrong?”
Zach’s mom wipes underneath her eye with one palm before she unlocks the doors. She’s not looking at him. “Get in,” she says softly.
Zach glances over his shoulder at Parker and Isaac, who are hanging back.
He gets in the car.
The drive is quiet. Zach feels like he might die right there in the passenger seat.
He tries to ask what’s happening, but his mom just shakes her head, her knuckles white where she grips the steering wheel at ten and two.
Zach clutches at the bottom of his coat, breathing harsh and quick through his mouth.
Someone’s died. That’s all Zach can think. Someone’s died, like maybe his dad. Maybe his dad got into a horrible accident and now his mom has to find a way to break the news.
When they pull up to the house, Zach’s mom gets out of the car, still silent. Zach squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and tries to get his racing heart under control before he follows her into the house.
The first thing he sees is his old laptop on the coffee table. He immediately feels guilty, because he hadn’t finished clearing it for his mom last night and he wishes he had. But then his mom sits down in front of it, taps one of the keys to turn the screen on, and turns it toward him.
His email is still open to the thread he’d left up the night before. The thread of his emails with Parker. Bile climbs up Zach’s throat. He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again.
“I went to use your old laptop,” his mom says quietly. “And I found these.”
Zach knows exactly what those emails say. He’s read them over and over and over again.
so whats your damage really? why did u write that note. and don’t just be vague like u did the other day. why do u want to join the dead boys club?
im glad we r going to do it together because i dont want to fuck it up this time.
I was really tired, and I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe everything would be better if it all just stopped.
This is undeniably his inbox, open on his computer. There’s no way for him to lie his way out of this. Even as he struggles to come up with an explanation, he can see that his mom has already come to her own conclusion.
His mom looks at him with red eyes, her face contorted in confusion and devastation.
It’s everything he’d been so terrified of her finding out—that there’s something so much worse about him than what she knows.
He’s dreaded this moment his whole life.
And now it’s here and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.
A slow-motion train wreck, and he’s the one standing right on the tracks.
“Zach,” she says, voice broken. “What is this?”