A Really Awesome Mess (25 page)

Mom said, “I’ll go first,” and her voice broke and tears ran down her face. “I was just so worried about you, Justin. I love—I love you so much. More than you can ever understand until you become a parent. And I was so—” She stopped to cry for a while, then continued. “So worried about you. I just want you to be happy and safe, and I … I hate not having you at home, Justin. It kills me. I cry every single day. And I was so excited to get here, and then you’re missing, and all I could think was that I lost my first little boy because I wanted to help him. I’m trying to do the best I can for you, and I can’t lose you, Justin.” And now she was sobbing.

And if I’d felt like a hero for saving Willy and keeping my big mouth shut about it, I now felt like the lowest, worst piece of
crap in the world. I started crying. “I’m sorry, Mommy,” I said, the little kid name for her out of my mouth before I could stop it. “I’m really sorry. I don’t—I’m just sorry.”

She hugged me, and we both cried for a while, and suddenly there were tissues and water bottles next to us.

Eventually I settled back into my seat, and it was Patrick’s turn. He looked at me and looked at my mom and said, “You know what? I think I’m gonna pass.”

I felt relieved. I looked over at him. I knew he was worried about me and stuff, and he was probably mad at me like everybody else, but he took the chance to spare me some more aggravation. Maybe it was just because I was all messed up from crying and from feeling guilty about being such a shit to everybody who cared about me, but I just felt so grateful that he wasn’t gonna unload on me, too, that I flashed him the heavy metal “I Love You.” I’d never said that to him before. I mean, I guessed I hadn’t said it just now either. I’d signed it.

He smiled and flashed it back to me.

And then it was Dad’s turn.

I found myself getting mad. The hell with this guy and his “Boo hoo I drove ten hours” crap.

And then Dad said, “I was really worried. I wouldn’t have driven ten hours out here today if I didn’t care. Of course I was worried. Of course I care.”

He sounded defensive. I guessed it meant he cared enough
to defend himself against the charges I’d leveled against him before. Which I guess counted as a victory, but it felt kind of hollow. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t explaining himself, and, even though there was this long, awkward silence where everybody stared at him, waiting for the rest, he wasn’t saying anything else.

Max gave me this look that I interpreted as
Now do you get why I’m always trying to get you to talk about him?

And then he said, “Justin, do you have anything to say?”

“Yeah. I do. I guess I just want to say I’m sorry for making everybody worry. This was actually less selfish than it looks, but I can’t really explain that, so I’ll just say I’m sorry. And I guess I want to tell you for when you’re like, talking this over and saying how horrible I am and stuff, that this … little adventure is like the exact opposite of being depressed. I don’t—when I’m really bad, I don’t want to do anything. Going out, breaking the rules, kissing a girl, all this stuff I did today is like … I felt alive. You know?”

Nobody said anything. So maybe they didn’t know.

I headed back to my room. Tracy wasn’t there—I guessed he was off with his parents somewhere. So I sat on my bed, all alone. I felt pretty good about today. But then I started thinking about what would happen next. All my friends would leave, except for Emmy, who I wasn’t allowed to see. I was proud of what we
did, but I didn’t think I realized what it was going to cost me. I guessed if I had to do it all again, I probably would, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

I thought about the next several weeks. How was I going to get through it with nothing at all to look forward to?

For the next two days I had more group therapy stuff with the family. And then they’d leave, and everybody else would leave. Life seemed pretty bleak right now. And then there was a little knock on the door.

“Enter,” I said, and Dad poked his head in.

“Hey,” he said. “So I’ve gotta go. Big meeting tomorrow afternoon, and I just can’t risk the traffic. So I’m gonna drive through the night. Probably shave an hour off the travel time.”

He looked at me like I was actually supposed to give a shit about his travel time. I didn’t say anything.

“I brought you this … a little container of Cincinnati’s best.” He had a Styrofoam cube in his hands. “It’s probably against the rules for some reason, so you’ll probably have to eat it quickly, but somehow I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.”

He set the cube on my bed, and, even though I was trying to keep a sullen face on to show him what an idiot he was, I couldn’t resist peeking inside. I pulled the top off, and dry-ice fog came rolling out. I blew the fog away and saw four pints of Graeter’s mocha chip ice cream … my favorite. Best ice cream in the world. Best thing about three weeks in Cincinnati in the
summer. And yes, I was counting time with the old man.

“So listen,” Dad said. “You do what they tell you, don’t get in any more trouble, don’t get anybody pregnant, stuff like that, you’ll probably get to go home at the end of next term. Or maybe spring term. I talked to your mom, and she said it would be okay if I pick you up and we drive the TT back to Mom’s place in Boston.”

“When you say ‘we,’ does that mean I get some time behind the wheel?”

“As much as you can stand.”

Oh, Dad. Trying to buy my love with material things. Didn’t he get that I’d rather spend time with him than drive his hot-shit car? And then I realized that a road trip to Boston was going to involve at least twenty-four hours of driving in the TT, plus meals and stuff. Probably the most time I’d spent with the guy since he moved out.

“Sounds good, Dad.”

He ruffled my hair like I was some little kid. “Alright, buddy. I’ll see you, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t ask him why he didn’t stay, why he couldn’t put me ahead of whatever stupid meeting he had and why he thought anybody cared about how long he drove. He turned and left. I looked at the ice cream and realized I didn’t have a spoon. I wondered how the hell I was gonna steal one from the cafeteria.

A few minutes later, there was another knock at the door. “Yep!” I said. It was Mom.

“Hey Mom. I’m sorry.”

“I know, sweetie. You don’t have to keep saying it. I forgive you. You lost your off-campus privileges with your little stunt, but they let me bring in some sandwiches.”

“Where’s Patrick?”

“He’s back at the hotel with the twins. I told them I wanted some time alone with you.”

“Ah, Mom, does that mean we need to talk about our issues and shit?”

Mom laughed. “No, sweetie, it doesn’t. We’re gonna do that all day tomorrow. I just want to hang out with my boy for a while. Here.” She handed me the bag of food, and I pulled out a sandwich and some fries.

We ate in silence, but it didn’t really feel awkward. I just hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I smelled french fries. Finally, I’d wolfed the whole thing down, and Mom was only about halfway through her sandwich, and she’d eaten like three french fries.

“You gonna eat those?” I asked. Mom laughed and dumped them onto my plate.

I vacuumed them up, and then I remembered we had ice cream. “Hey. Dad brought ice cream. But I don’t have a spoon.”

Mom dug into the takeout bag and pulled out a couple little
plastic bags with a napkin, a spoon, and fork, and little packets of salt and pepper inside.

“Why’d you get cutlery for sandwiches?” I asked.

“You never know,” she said. I tried to dig into the ice cream with one of the plastic spoons, but the ice cream was rock-hard from being in a cooler with dry ice, so the spoon broke. “Let’s wait for it to soften, shall we?” Mom said.

And then the silence got awkward as we stared at the ice cream together. “Mom,” I said.

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Dad’s kind of a tool.”

Mom sighed. “I know, honey. That’s why I divorced him. He really does love you though, you know.”

“I guess. He’s just crappy at showing it.”

“He does the best he can. It’s just that his best isn’t really very good.”

I laughed. “You got
that
right.”

Mom laughed. We killed a pint of mocha chip together, and then she gave me a hug and left. “See you at the epic therapy sesh tomorrow,” she said.

“Can’t wait,” I said.

A few minutes later Tracy came in, patting his stomach. “Steak dinner! I got the it is in a major way! So. Did you get any?”

I smiled and didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” he said. “Keeping quiet. I see how it is. Looks like somebody’s
in love
!”

I punched him, and he laughed. “You’re just proving it now. Look, he’s fighting for the reputation of his lady love.”

I laughed and flopped back on my bed. “Dude, shut up, will you? Or are you just trying to make me happy that you’re leaving?”

Tracy laughed and sat on his bed. “Fine, fine, loverboy. Just tell me about Willy’s big escape. You can skip the sweaty parts.”

I told him the story, and pretty soon after that, I fell asleep.

“MR. AND MRS. MAGNUSSON, EMMY AND I HAVE BEEN WORKING A
lot on communication,” Brittany told my parents when we got back to her office. It was kind of annoying to have her talking about me like I wasn’t even in the room. I mean, she was my therapist—I’d prefer she stayed on my side. “Specifically on learning how to express difficult feelings rather than having them come out in other, unhealthy ways.”

My mom and dad nodded at Brittany, but their eyes were fixed on me like I was some weird museum exhibit:
Sex Crazimus Facebook Murderius Maximus
. I wanted to assure them I was the same kid I’d always been, but I realized maybe that wasn’t true. That maybe I hadn’t been the same since Mason. Since anorexia. Since all that anger and depression had settled into my
life and decided they liked it enough to try and make the move permanent.

“But I’d like to do something a little different today,” Brittany continued. “Emmy, I’d like you to describe how you think your parents are feeling about you right now.”

I opened and shut my mouth a few times. Everything that was racing around my brain was not at all what I wanted my parents to think about me. “I’m sure they feel disappointed,” I finally said, and left it at that. It was pretty self-explanatory. I had been quite the disappointment lately.

My dad looked like he was about to say something but before he could, Brittany jumped right back in. “In what way, Emmy? Can you talk a little more about that?”

I figured I might as well get it all out on the table and finally put into words what I was worried they might have been thinking for the past sixteen years. “Disappointed that they still had to go and get me, even after they found out Joss was on the way. Disappointed that I’m so obviously not like them. And especially that I’m such an embarrassment and I ended up here.” I was practically choking the last few words out.

I stared at my hands. The room had gone completely silent. My parents couldn’t possibly want me back after all this.

When I finally got the guts to look up again, I noted with horror that my dad had tears streaming down his face. My mom, I could handle this from—she cried over tissue commercials. But
my dad? I’d never seen him cry until now. And I was the one causing his pain, which made me feel like the lowest of all life-forms. I didn’t deserve them, or their love.

“Mr. Magnusson, why don’t you tell Emmy how you’re really feeling?”

I curled up my toes in my sneakers and gripped on to the edge of my seat. I hoped these useless and desperate acts would somehow soften the blow of whatever my dad was going to say next.

“I …,” he started shakily. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I just want to tell you, Emmy, I’ve loved you from the second I laid eyes on the picture of you the adoption agency gave us, loved you even more the moment I first held you, and have loved you each and every day since. There are no strings attached to my love, and there’s no way you can break our bond. No matter what you do, you’ll always be my baby girl.”

He stopped and stared into his hands. I let his words wash over me, but I couldn’t quite get myself to believe them.

“Anything else you want to add?” Brittany asked.

He nodded. “It’s really hurtful to know you don’t believe we love you with everything we have, Emmy. We’ve never done anything to make you believe otherwise. We’ve always treated you and Joss the same.”

“Because you
had
to!” I yelled, surprising even myself. “You
had
to treat me the same or else people would know you regretted getting me and it would’ve made you look bad!” Even as I said it,
I realized it sounded kind of lame.

“Em, I think even you know that’s crazy talk,” Joss, who had been totally silent up until now said, a wry little smile on her face.

I looked away, a flush creeping over my cheeks.

“Want to know a secret?” Joss went on without waiting for an answer. “I’ve been jealous of you, like, forever.”

“Now who sounds crazy?” I yelped.