Chapter 31 Bennett
Bennett
Tex and Julian go easy on me at first. When I arrive on their doorstep—well, technically it’s mine, too—there are no demands to explain or assumptions that I am a fuckup.
I mean … I am. Why else would Clover not want to see this through? Why else would my mom want us to get a divorce?
But they just crack open a bottle of Macallan that one of Tex’s uncles gave him for his graduation. I tell them everything slowly over the course of a few days. I tell them there is a universe in which she loves me, but it can’t be this one, because how can she love me and want this to end?
I miss classes for a week, and that’s when Tex and Julian attempt to stage an intervention.
“We’re not going to let you throw your whole semester away,” Tex says as he takes the Xbox controller out of my hands just as I’m about to walk me and my horse off a cliff in Red Dead Redemption.
You know, for fun. Yesterday was Grand Theft Auto.
I went into public lobbies and wreaked havoc on prepubescent boys until they blew me up.
“The least you could do is leave the horse out of this,” Julian tells me as he hits the power button on my remote. “Besides, this isn’t how you win her back, you dumb fuck.”
They listen to me bitch and moan and eventually they push me into the shower.
It’s the second-to-last week before fall break and I’ve been back to all my classes for the last two days.
I have no idea what the fuck the professors say, but I’m there and Tex assures me that is worth something.
In the evenings, he forces us all to study together despite Julian’s protests.
Something about mirror neurons. We make dinner together—which mostly consists of dino nuggets and pizza rolls.
I usually clean up, and every time I go to throw something away, Tex reminds me of the elaborate recycling and composting system that he has miraculously trained Julian to memorize.
I spend most of my class time scrolling back and forth between two photos.
Both are from the courthouse. One is posed with our judge in the background, likely talking to his court reporter. Neither of us is smiling in the photo. We look like a couple of Victorians who are perfectly still and somber because the old-timey camera’s exposure is too long to hold a smile.
In the second photo, though, Clover is looking away like someone is calling her name and my attention is on her with the ghost of a smile.
I zoom in to see her ring on her left hand, and suddenly the most vital thing to my survival is getting it back.