26. Easton
EASTON
By Friday morning, one thing is obvious: I’m going out of my skull. I feel like a caged animal. Pacing around, unable to get very far. Trapped. And every day it gets a little worse. Every morning, I wake up without hearing from Emma.
“What’s up with you two?” Sarah looks up from the bowl she’s putting together for breakfast as we enter the kitchen, slicing up fruit and arranging it on top of yogurt.
“What are you talking about?” I grab a strawberry before she can stop me, popping it in my mouth while she groans and rolls her eyes.
“I was going to use that,” she mutters before going to the fridge. “I need a certain number to make it look the way I want it to.”
“Oh, what, are you going to take pictures and put them online? Like anybody cares about your breakfast?” Preston grabs a few blueberries and ducks the arm she swings in his direction.
“Just pretend I never said a word to you.” She’s shaking her head when she goes back to slicing a banana so carefully, I’m surprised she doesn’t pull out a ruler to make sure each slice is the same thickness. “If you both want to walk around in a crappy mood and act all pissy and grumpy, whatever.”
Is that how we’re acting? Am I even surprised? It hasn’t been easy getting through the week without Emma, as crazy as it seems. She’s been logging in from home, the way we told her to, which is good for her, even if it sucks for us.
But that would be fine if she would answer the texts we’ve been sending. When she makes up her mind to disconnect from the world, she stays that way.
So yeah, maybe we’re a little on edge, wondering about Emma, wrestling with the frustration of missing her. Hoping there’s no deeper reason for her silence.
I’m driving today, and it just so happens everybody on the road decides to drive like complete dickheads. “What is your problem?” I shout with my palm slammed against the horn. “Nice turn signal, asshole!”
“You’re going to get our asses killed if you don’t stop yelling at people.” Preston runs a hand down his face, then lets it drop into his lap. “I kind of like not getting shot by some random psycho on the road.”
The way I’m feeling, I’m the psycho on the road. I’m the one people need to be worried about pissing off. “I don’t even know why I’m bothering going to school today,” I mutter.
“You know me. School isn’t my favorite place. But we do have to go sometimes,” he reminds me. It’s a weak joke, half-hearted.
“I can’t concentrate. What’s the point?”
“Then maybe I should be the one driving if you can’t concentrate.”
“Would you fucking give it up already?” I snap, which shuts his mouth. “Don’t act like you’re not feeling it, too. I know you are.”
He doesn’t bother arguing with me, since what’s the point? We both know I’m right. “So what are we going to do about it?” he asks instead.
The answer is obvious. “Fuck, giving her space. I want to go to the house to see with my own eyes that she’s okay.”
“Same here. But I also have an exam today in American Lit, so it’s going to have to wait.”
Fuck. I’m going to flat-out explode before then. “Then I guess it will have to wait until later.” And I’ll have to find a way to get through until then. I got through it all week, didn’t I? I’m still alive. I’m just not very happy about it.
I’m only happy when we’re on our way later in the day. “Everybody knows something is up,” Preston tells me once we’re pulling out of the lot.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t notice the way they were all looking at each other during lunch?” When I can only shrug, he snickers. “It’s probably better you didn’t notice, I guess. We weren’t really participating in the conversation or anything.”
“Oh, you mean I wasn’t hanging on Maya’s every word or giving my opinion of how Elliana should decorate whatever room she’s still decorating at the house?” It feels like we’re too young to care about shit like that, anyway. “Sorry if I couldn’t pretend to be interested today.”
It’s not right, how much Emma means to us. I know it. I feel it. I care too much. It’s like all of my thoughts center on her. How she is, what she’s doing, if there’s anything she needs that I’m able to give.
The problem is, I don’t know if she wants anything from me. It’s like torture. All I want is to make her life better somehow, and she can’t be bothered to answer a text.
Or maybe she just can’t do it. Maybe there’s another reason. The thought leaves me with my heart in my throat by the time we pull up at the familiar curb, and now I have to stop myself from jogging up the pathway to the porch. What if she hasn’t been ignoring us? What if she’s been too sick?
It doesn’t help when Grandma Lois opens the door, looking sad and hesitant. “I’m afraid she’s not having a very good week, boys.” When she says that, there’s so much sadness in her voice. It makes my chest go tight enough that it’s hard to breathe.
“What’s wrong with her? What happened?” I recognize what I hear in my brother’s voice. I’ve heard it enough times before to know he is going to blow soon. The pressure is building like a volcano about to erupt.
All it takes is a gentle smile from her to ease a little bit of it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like—she’s all right,” she explains, and we both let out a deep breath.
“But it’s been a challenging week, anyway.
She’s been very tired. And worn out. This is the way it goes sometimes.
I’m sure she didn’t want to upset you boys and make you worry about her. ”
Sure, because ignoring us is going to make everything better. That’s definitely the way to make sure we don’t hound the shit out of her. “Can we see her? We won’t be long, I promise.” I even make an X over my chest with one finger. “Scout’s honor.”
“Were you ever really a scout?” She looks at Preston, clearly skeptical.
He shrugs. “Let’s just say we were both scouts. And we both mean it. We won’t stay long. We won’t bother her. We just want her to know we’re here for her, that’s all.”
“She is lucky to have friends like you.” When she steps aside, I could kiss her. “I’m sure she could use a reminder that she has friends on her side.”
That’s a nice thought. I have to wonder if she’ll agree. Now that we know she was deliberately ignoring and avoiding us, I’m a little unsure about what we’re going to find when we see her.
When we come to a stop at her bedroom door, I raise a fist to knock, but she’s too quick for me. “You might as well come in,” she calls out before I get the chance.
Easing the door open, I ask, “How did you know we were out here?”
“Because I have ears that work.” She doesn’t look at us, focused on her laptop. Instead of her wig, she’s wearing a knit cap, and she hasn’t bothered getting changed out of her pajamas. Is she too tired to worry about it, or is she depressed?
“We wanted to see if you’re all right. That’s all,” Preston says.
“Congratulations. Now you’ve seen for yourself.
” Her fingers move over the keyboard, not skipping a beat.
How she can type while she’s talking to us, I don’t know.
I guess it helps that she’s not paying much attention.
Because as far as she’s concerned, we’re not worth the slightest pause in her day, for some reason. What did we do this time?
“Could you at least take a break for a minute? For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. I don’t care if Grandma hears us. Maybe she needs to know how impossible her granddaughter can be. “What did we do that was so bad? I thought after we sat together on Tuesday, we got past all that shit.”
“All we’re trying to do is show you we care,” Preston murmurs.
“Could you please not?” she asks with a sigh before swinging around to look up at us.
“Congratulations. You both discovered you have a conscience around the same time you discovered there are people in the world who have it harder than you do. Could you maybe take a break from patting yourselves on the back now? It’s getting old. ”
Jesus Christ. “Maybe you should decide whether you like us or hate us, since this back-and-forth stuff is getting old.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She touches her chest, and I notice she’s not wearing her necklace.
Maybe she doesn’t wear it when she’s at home, kind of like her wig.
“Are my feelings getting old for you? Maybe the way you suddenly show up at my home and act like I need to get on my knees and thank you is getting old, too. Did you ever think of that?” She’s keeping her voice down so her grandma won’t hear, obviously, but she might as well be screaming. She’s that intense.
“You know what?” Preston nudges me with his elbow and scoffs. “Fuck this. We came over here to try and cheer her up, and this is what we get.”
“Poor you,” she mutters nastily.
Preston nudges me again when I’m too stunned to react. “Let’s go. I didn’t come out here to get treated like the shit on the bottom of somebody’s shoe.”
I have to wave him off because, dammit, no fucking way. “That’s not what we wanted at all. I guess you’re not used to having people give a shit about you, but we do, and we wanted to make sure you were okay since we didn’t hear anything from you since Tuesday. That’s it.”
“Wow,” she whispers, wide-eyed. “You actually did something to be nice for once. Not because you wanted to get something out of it.”
“Is that what your problem is?” Preston isn’t in such a hurry to leave now. He sees how stupid this is, like I do, and neither of us has ever handled it well when people deliberately misunderstand us. “That’s what you think? That we wanna get something out of this?”
“Why would I not?” she whispers fiercely. “I mean, let’s be honest. Even the nice things you’ve done for me have all been a way of making up for the vile things you’ve done. And all because you want to make yourselves feel better. That’s all you care about. Yourselves.”
“Oh, yeah,” I mutter, staring her down until she looks away. “Sitting with you during your treatments. We definitely got something out of that.”
“Are you serious?” She blurts out a laugh before adding, “You had to be at the hospital either way. Sitting with me was nicer than cleaning bedpans, remember? Please, don’t break your arms patting yourselves on the back. It’s pretty sad.”
I can’t believe this. How cold she can be. Obviously, she has spent some time thinking about this, too. She had all these thoughts going on in her head, and we didn’t know. There we are, worried about her, dying to be with her, and she was resenting us the whole time.
“Now, go.” Her chair squeaks when she swivels around to face the computer again. “I’m in the middle of actually caring about my coursework. Thanks for the visit.”
It’s like I woke up in some bizarre, parallel universe where nothing makes sense. She wasn’t like this on Tuesday. What changed? “Why are you pushing us away?”
Her hands slap the desk before she lets out a trembling breath. “You know what? I completely understand why your mom pops pills now. It’s because she can’t handle the two of you when she’s sober.”
If the room wasn’t so silent, I might not be able to hear Preston’s soft gasp. I know where he’s coming from, since she might as well have given us both a kick in the balls. That was low, cruel, and not to mention uncalled for.
And if we don’t get out of here now, this could all get a lot worse.
“Let’s go.” I grunt, giving her one last look before turning around to leave. “She can be miserable all by herself.”
“Don’t forget to shut the door behind you,” she snaps.
If Grandma Lois wasn’t here, I would slam the door—hard enough to break it—but she doesn’t deserve that. Her granddaughter does, but not her.
This was a mistake. All of it. Every minute I’ve spent wondering about her, worrying, looking forward to seeing her again. It was all wasted. And I feel that waste with every step I take to the truck, with my fists swinging at my sides and nowhere to vent the ugly, seething rage building in my gut.
“She’s not worth the time,” I decide as I get behind the wheel.
I only wish I meant it.