Chapter Twenty-Three
Parker is absent from school on Friday too.
It’s been three days since Zach has seen him, and he feels like he’s going crazy.
He’ll have to wait an entire weekend to see if Parker shows up on Monday.
Paige tells him that their parents have taken away Parker’s laptop, phone, and car keys.
The idea of Parker trapped in his doorless room makes Zach’s stomach hurt.
Isaac offers him a ride home, but the stress of the day has settled like needles behind Zach’s eyes.
He waves Isaac off, deciding to walk home alone in the January chill, picking through the freshly fallen snow.
It crunches under his boots, giving him something to focus on other than the mess that he’s caused.
Every day that Parker stays out of school is another day that he could possibly be sent to Vermont. It’s unbearable. During breakfast, Paige had tried to comfort him a little:
“My parents called Dr. Wilson last night,” she told him, picking at her blueberry muffin. She eats it normally, top-down. “She said that sending Parker to Vermont is a really bad idea. So…”
“I’ve heard really awful things about those troubled teen camps,” Bea pointed out, frowning. That wasn’t exactly helpful. It just made Zach worry about the last time Parker got sent to a troubled teen retreat.
Zach had done his best not to have a panic attack right there at the cafeteria table.
No good would have come from him breaking down.
Parker needs him to be strong. So does Paige.
He’s determined to come up with a way to fix this whole mess, to prove to his mom and the Reids that Parker isn’t a bad influence and doesn’t need to be sent to a camp in Vermont.
The house is empty and cold when Zach trudges in through the front door. His mom has left a note on the counter: I love you, Zach. Here’s money for pizza.—Mom
Zach stares at the note, bending it at the edges.
He remembers when Parker had stood in this exact spot, reading a note his mom had left and said, Your mom is cute.
It had been such a sweet thing to say, unprompted.
So unlike the Parker that Zach had thought he’d known at the time. So much like the Parker he knows now.
The evening drags on. Zach curls up on the couch, staring at the television, absorbing nothing. He keeps thinking about calling the Reids’ house, but the idea of Mr. or Mrs. Reid picking up keeps him from doing so.
His new laptop is open on the coffee table to his Facebook messages.
Bea has been messaging him throughout the night, asking for his input on some testimony she’s preparing for the parents.
Zach doesn’t know what to say. He tries to respond a few times but eventually tells her that whatever she decides to say will be good enough.
Isaac even checks in once, but Zach doesn’t have the energy to really engage.
He sends him an I’m fine, like they don’t both know that’s a lie.
Want me to come over? one of Isaac’s messages asks. Need a distraction?
It’s one of the nicest things Isaac has ever suggested. It occurs to Zach that they might actually be real friends now. Not only because of Parker either.
No, Zach taps back. It sounds too mean, so he adds: I’m just going to go to bed. Thanks though.
Midnight hits, and Zach finds himself still on the couch in the dark living room, the blinking television his only source of light.
The lonely feeling, the one that’s followed him his entire childhood and adolescence, claws at him.
It’s so familiar that Zach almost wants to give in—to sink into the depression and let it swallow him whole all over again.
Suddenly, headlights flash through the porch windows.
Startled, Zach sits up, peering through the living room window and out onto the porch.
Maybe his mom is home early? It’s late. Sometimes when she gets off early, she doesn’t call beforehand.
All Zach can see are big, bright lights.
His mom’s headlights are faded and yellow.
Whoever’s in his driveway, it isn’t his mom.
The engine outside cuts, and the headlights turn off. The shadow of the car is immediately familiar. He’s seen it parked in his driveway and in the school parking lot and in the Reids’ long drive. It’s Paige’s car.
Zach throws himself off the couch and scrambles to the porch.
What is Paige doing at his house at midnight?
Why didn’t she call? Is something wrong?
Zach’s thoughts immediately go to Parker and Vermont; maybe Paige is here because their parents are about to ferry Parker away to some troubled teen center in the middle of nowhere, under the cover of night—
Zach flicks on the porchlight. Standing at the top of his driveway is Parker, swallowed up by a heavy winter jacket and looking small and brittle, his hair damp like he’s just taken a shower.
He shivers as the winter air sinks into his uncovered scalp.
Zach throws himself off the porch, socked feet immediately freezing on the iced driveway.
“Parker—”
“Fuck,” Parker says, and they collide.
Zach squeezes his arms around Parker’s thick jacket, pulling him closer.
Parker presses his face against Zach’s hair for a moment, and Zach can hear how damp his breathing is.
When they finally pull back enough to look at each other, Parker dives back in to kiss him, his hands sliding up to grip Zach’s cheeks.
They stand there on the icy driveway, shivering, clinging to one another. Breathing in each other’s air.
Finally, when Zach’s teeth start chattering, Parker herds him back up the porch and into the house. They stand in the living room, looking at one another, shivering as the warmth of the house slowly thaws them.
“How did you…” Zach finally says, stepping back to sit on the couch. “What are you doing here?”
“Paige said I could take her car,” Parker says, breathless. He drops to sit next to Zach on the couch, keeping his jacket on. “To come see you. Rebecca and Henry are already asleep.”
“Are you being sent to Vermont?” Zach asks, frantic. He grabs Parker’s hand, lacing their fingers together. Parker squeezes so hard that Zach feels the bones of his fingers grinding together, but he can’t bring himself to care. All that matters is that Parker is here and safe.
“No, thank god. Dr. Wilson talked Rebecca and Henry down.” Parker sinks into the lumpy excess of his coat, rolling his head against the back of the couch.
Parker looks so tired. The circles under his eyes are deep and purple.
“Remind me to tell Paige that I owe her my entire life,” Zach says. Parker exhales a little laugh. He tilts his head, looking at Zach with soft, hooded eyes.
“She’s already got dibs on mine,” Parker assures.
They laugh together, tired and quiet. The relief Zach feels right now at seeing Parker, having him in his house again, is better than anything even medication can offer. He doesn’t know how long he has Parker here, and he’s determined not to take a single moment of it for granted.
Before Zach can ask when he needs to get back, Parker sits up a little straighter and asks, “Do you want to go somewhere?”
Zach frowns, rubbing his thumb over Parker’s knuckles. He shrugs. “It’s past midnight,” he says. “Where would we go?”
“We could just… drive around,” he says with a sigh. “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve got to move, you know?”
The jittery energy in Parker’s limbs is familiar, and Zach can understand the sentiment.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Parker’s lips.
He stands and shoves on his boots and pulls on his coat.
The idea of his mom coming home early and finding him gone sends unpleasant twitches up and down his spine, but he does his best to ignore it.
He locks the door behind them and they hurry into Paige’s car. As Parker turns the ignition and they wait for the heat to warm up, Zach exhales a slightly hysterical laugh and says, “I miss your seat warmers.”
“Fuck, me too,” Parker laughs.
Parker backs out of the driveway, turning onto the dark, quiet street.
They drive around for a while, silent but for the blasting heat from the vents.
Zach has a million things that he wants to say.
He wants to apologize for how this has all ended up.
He wants to tell Parker that he’ll do whatever it takes to fix this.
But the only thing he can say is: “I missed you.”
Parker glances sidelong at him, making a left-hand turn onto an empty street through a red light without using his signal. Zach has even missed the reckless way Parker drives. When he smiles, Zach’s stomach flutters pleasantly. “Fuck,” Parker laughs. “I missed you, too.”
Eventually, Parker pulls into the parking lot of the nearby 7/ Eleven. The lights are still on in the store, illuminating them both in the front seat of Paige’s car. Zach reaches across the center console, taking Parker’s hand, turning it over in his own.
“What now?” Zach asks quietly. The clock on the dashboard rolls over to 12:58 a.m.
“I don’t want to go back,” Parker says. “Not if they’re going to keep us apart.”
“I tried to tell my mom,” Zach explains. “I tried to tell her that the emails were old, that they didn’t mean anything…”
Parker scoffs. “That’s the problem, Zach,” he says, his brows coming together over his eyes. In the light of the 7/Eleven, his brown eye looks like a blown pupil, swallowed by darkness. “They did mean something.”
The reality of that causes an ache to form deep inside of Zach.
Parker’s right. As much as he wants to, Zach can’t take back the things he said.
He can’t erase those feelings, immortalized now by the damage they’ve caused.
The emails meant something back then, and they mean something now.
He wishes that he could show his mom and Parker’s parents that things aren’t the same as they were when they’d sent those emails.