Chapter 32
Roland not only got an A on his tornado project, but also received a special commendation from his teacher for using the video, which nobody had seen until now.
I have to congratulate myself a little here.
Not everything I do is a total step backward, right?
I wanted to do something good, even if it meant opening a door I had been holding shut for years, and it paid off.
When I pick him up from the hospital, he tells me, “I was thinking about the fact that nobody got a warning about the tornado.
The conditions were so ripe for a dangerous situation that even the lack of a tornado watch was unbelievable.
I want to do something to make sure that never happens again to anybody.
Maybe if your parents knew there was a chance for a dangerous tornado, you could have left in time and they'd be alive.”
Maybe.
He asks if I can drive him somewhere instead of home. It's a surprise, he says, and he'll direct me there.
“I think it's best if I take you straight home. Your parents are paying me to get you back safely, not go on side quests.”
“Are you saying this because of Felix?”
“No, of course not,” I say, wondering if he overheard the conversation at Buc-ee's.
“I know Felix hates me,” he says.
“He doesn't hate you. We're all just having a weird year.”
“I would hate me, too, if I was Felix. No, not would. I already do.”
“Roland…” I sigh sympathetically.
“Just keep driving. I have something I need to tell you.”
I drive past his house, down the road to the part of town where the oak trees gather into an endless forest. Around the bend, there's a gated, open space between the trees.
“Stop here,” he says. It's a cemetery—the same one my grandparents are buried in. When I let him out of the van, he leads me to the entrance and past a series of mossy headstones.
“I know who catfished me.”
I stop where I am. He keeps rolling ahead, but doesn't say anything. Maybe he knows it's me and he's got a death trap set up for me somewhere.
He stops and looks for me. “Are you coming?”
“Who was it?”
“Sutter Breedlove.”
“Oh! How do you know?” I catch up with him and we continue down the path until he stops again.
“Not hard to figure out. He's the only person I can think of who's monster enough to do it. He was seeing Aubrey behind my back, so this was the only way he could get her to break up with me. So he pretended to be a hot French guy and here I am.”
“You might be onto something,” I say. “He's even terrible to his own mom, who's like the nicest lady on earth.”
“Have you ever wanted to kill somebody before? I want to kill him. But I already know what it's like to get revenge on somebody who deserves it. It's not good.”
He points to a headstone with a young man's face etched on it, and the words MICK GREENWAY – BELOVED SON.
“My brother was the best at everything he did,” Roland tells me as he rolls up to the grave.
“I was a bad student in middle school and didn't care about anything.
I was always getting in trouble because I wanted to impress my friend Adam, who was also kind of a troublemaker.
He would come over during summers to stay with his grandparents, and we'd get into trouble constantly. My parents would get sick of picking me up when the cops got called on us for skateboarding on private property or smoking cigarettes at the park.”
He looks at Mick's grave as he talks, wiping fallen leaves and sticks off the headstone.
“Sometimes I would think of him when I was going to bed.
And then I'd wake up and think of him again.
I thought I was just being weird when I would think of him when I was trying to admire a hot girl and I could feel this tingling all the way from my belly button to my toes.
It made me think about him even more. Adam came over one day with a joint when my parents weren't home. We lit it up in my bathroom. We were dumb enough not to realize the joint was oregano. We pretended we were high even though we thought the other really was.”
His throat tightens, and he pauses for a moment. He closes his eyes.
“And I kissed him. He didn't stop me. He grabbed my head and started kissing me harder. And then Mick opened the door because he smelled the burning oregano.”
I take a seat on the ground, resting against another grave. The sky is a grim kind of gray, but the wind blowing the dead leaves against our faces is neither cold nor warm. I'm not sure how to process this. It's wild to think Roland was kissing guys before I've kissed even one.
Roland opens his eyes again. “I punched Adam and screamed that he tried to kiss me.
Adam ran out of the house, but Mick saw enough to know that I was enjoying it.
He looked at me with disgust and disappointment.
He said I was twisted and he was going to talk to Mom and Dad about getting me help.
I begged him not to tell them, but he did anyway.
My parents didn't allow me to leave my room the rest of the summer.
A year later, Mick took a bunch of my mom's pills after he got rejected from Stanford.”
I reach out and put my hand on his, but he shrinks back and says, “It's fine, it's fine.”
“I appreciate you telling me this. I know it's hard to talk about.”
“My parents died with him. They could barely look me in the eyes.
I decided that the only way I could make my parents happy was to follow in my brother's footsteps and try to be like him in every way.
That's why I was so hell-bent on getting the musical canceled.
The harder I fought against it, the more I hoped my parents would see me the same way they saw my brother.
And in the end, it didn't even make a difference. No matter how hard I tried, my parents were never happy.”
His mouth quivers like a rabbit's. I wish I had something better to offer than the same old condolences. My parents loved me. Maybe they'd still love me today. What do you do when your own parents don't love you?
“When I was in the hospital after I got catfished, they didn't even act surprised.
Like they know I'm a failure and expected it.
And now they barely tolerate me, as long as I'm in my room and not in their faces.
They know it and I know it. It's not going away.
I like guys the way I like girls. They've made peace with that fact more than I have.
Instead of berating me or slapping me in the face, they push me into the back of their minds and act like I'm a ghost they're forced to live with.” Roland wipes his tears and sniffs, trying to hold it back.
“Like you said, survival feels more like punishment.
So now I'm going to be who I am from now on. No more hiding. Thanks to you.”
I realize now why Roland Greenway is the way he is, and I should have had more sympathy for him from the start. Instead of painting him as a villain, I could have considered that he was a sad, miserable person.
He offers his hand to me. I squeeze it and offer back a warm smile.
I know what I need to do. I can't leave him hanging like this. I'm going to get him a boyfriend. That way he won't be alone, and I can leave Texas with a clear conscience.