Damaged (14 page)

"Awww," she said.

"Hold on," he said. "I'm going to go upstairs to my room, where it's private. My mom's kind of around."

"Yeah, my mom bugs me sometimes, too."

He entered his room, shut the door, switched on the lamp, and jumped into bed. "Speaking of moms," he said, "did you tell your mom about me yet?"

"I did, I did."

Adam froze in terror—
what if her mom doesn't like me? Then what? I lose the best thing that's ever happened to me.

"What'd she say?" he muttered.

"Not too much. I think her exact words were: 'That's nice.' She's a little overprotective. I'm her only baby. I think she thinks I'm too young to date."

"Did she say that?" Adam blurted out.

"No, but I just get that sense."

"Oh. I hope not. Now that we're together, I can't imagine my life without you."

"You're too sweet."

"My mom and I—God, we used to fight every day." To Adam, those days felt like a lifetime ago already, like a bad memory.

"That's what you told me. Over school or something?"

"Yeah, I hate school. It's just a lousy place to be. Kids pick on me."

"Have you ever been in trouble for not going?"

"A lot. I was even sent away for about a week. I broke things here in the house, busted walls and stuff not too awful long ago. I don't know what came over me, but—I better not tell you this—"

"Why not? I promise you I won't be weirded out."

Adam sighed. He really thought she would accept him no matter what he did or said. He strongly believed that nothing could break
this
bond.

I promise I won’t hurt you….
He remembered her saying.

"I was really upset, Erin. I just—I took a knife and cut up my arm pretty bad. I've been suicidal before. I get hurt so easily. I didn't have the guts to go through with it."

Dead silence. Adam figured she'd hung up.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

"Well, if you had done that, then we would never be together, would we?"

Adam chuckled. "I love you."

A little pause, and: "I love you, too."

***

The entire calling card was used up on that conversation. Thirty bucks vanquished in only two quick hours. Adam fell asleep like a baby three hours afterward.

He continued going to school for two whole weeks without refusal and without calling Angela a stupid bitch. He talked to Erin less frequently on the phone since his mom was running low on money to buy him calling cards.

But he assuredly communicated with Erin online.

On the last Friday of April,
Erin called him
.

He was sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of noodles, when the phone rang. Without bothering to check the caller ID, he picked it up and answered it, deciding to be surprised for once. “Hello?”

"Hey, Adam!"

He swallowed down a glob of pasta, nearly choking in the process. This was the first time she had made the approaching telephonic move. And tonight, she had an idea Adam was going to flip over.

"I thought you couldn't call me long distance?" he wondered.

"My mom said just this once. I have some really cool news. Now, even though my mom is the most overprotective mom in the world, and even though I bugged her for the last three days to—well, why don't I get to the point?
Meet you.
In person."

Adam's heart charred his lungs. He'd been waiting for this moment since he’d falled for her, but the distance and the time had kept them separated.

"What about your mom?" Adam said, hand shaking.

"After many, many, many, many talks with her, she said we could meet. That is, if you could come here and meet me at a small restaurant, if that's possible. I mean, could you get a way here?"

Adam could not think. He didn't know if feeling this good was even legal. "Of course!" he said. "Name the time and the place." It didn't cross his mind that he couldn't drive, but if he had to, he would drag his mom to Pennsylvania the same way she'd tried to drag him to school.

"Well, don't you have to ask your mom first?" Erin asked.

"No, don't worry about it. I'll compromise with her."

“
Would this Sunday be okay?"

“
Sure. What time? Where?"

"Say, around three-thirty or four? At Pappies Inn? Bransville Pennsylvania?"

"I'm there."

"Okay. I'll see you day after tomorrow then," she said.

"Okay, Sweetie, I love you."

“
Love you too, bye!" She hung up, as did Adam.

He flew into his bedroom and signed online. "Ohio..." he said to himself. His trembling fingers typed the keys with exceptional accuracy. On the screen, “Mapquest” appeared. When it did, he wrote in the travel destinations and finally hit enter. His eyes narrowed.

327 miles from Weirton, O.H. To Bransville, P.A. 3 hours and twenty minutes.

A pleasant little road trip to meet the girl of his dreams, where neither space nor time could keep them apart. At least not on Sunday.

He let out a growl of victory, flew out of his bedroom, and almost tumbled downstairs to tell his mom the good news. And without too much trouble, he got her permission to take him there. Only forty-eight hours remained.

Sleep evaded him that night, but he slept pretty well the night after that.

***

Not only did Sunday come, but it came warm, sunny, with birds chirping and lawn mowers rumbling. Adam woke up, well rested and prepared to meet
her.
He was so nervous that he felt his knees buckle a few times as he went from one room to the next.

"You almost ready, mom?" he asked her.

"Almost, Adam. About ten minutes." she said, irritated. This was the fifth time he'd asked her that in under twenty minutes.

Angela was sitting at the kitchen table, pouring on so much skin cream she looked like a wax figure. Adam was ready, reeking of Ax Body Spray and dressed up in his finest attire: black Dockers and a gray, button-up dress shirt. His hair was parted directly in the middle, held in place by a dab of gel.

"Well, try to hurry," he told her, "I don't want to be late, and I got to stop at Rite-Aid for something."

"For what?"

"Breath spray." He wasn't about to hope the Listerine would linger around for over three hours. He wanted to make sure he smelled divine.

Adam went back into the living room, sat on the couch, and watched cartoons. He could not stop tugging at his clothes and glancing at his watch every ten seconds. Back by the laundry door, a harsh but beautiful ray of sunlight pierced through the window, brightening the room brilliantly. When Adam saw this, smiling, his mother entered, keys in one hand and a purse in the other.

"You ready?" she asked.

Adam's heart skipped a beat. He felt like a little boy on Christmas, times ten. And he couldn't open the major present until three more hours.

"Yep."

***

Adam was surprised by how warm it was when he stepped outside. It felt like springtime, maybe early summer. The wind that blew was not cold but cool, and the trees were sprouting tiny leaves already.

They got into the car. His mom started it and a mushy song—As I Lay Me Down, by Sophie B. Hawkins, began playing on the radio. Adam had heard it before, had hated it, but was now enjoying it. A mushy song that—Adam McNicols—
liked
. And so many people believed that pigs couldn't fly or that hell couldn't freeze over. He’d proved them wrong.

Every house, car, and person he saw while riding down the street toward Rite-Aid, he saw in a different perspective. Things weren't as bland, old, and dark as they used to be. His mind was finally free.

After stopping to get his favorite—cinnamon Binaca—he and his mother were on the road, headed north, toward Bransville, Pennsylvania. Adam had sprayed about ten squirts of Cinnamon into his mouth by the time they left town. The radio seemed to play nothing but soft, easy melodies, some old, some new. Adam talked to his mother here and there, took some breaks, listened to music, and enjoyed the aquatic scenery of the rippling Ohio River. The blazing sun made it look like an elegant, unsteady sheet of aluminum foil.

***

An hour into their drive, Angela was getting the yawns and Adam was swaying his head to the song, As I Lay Me Down, for the second time. The scenery changed from water and industrial plants to trees and bushes. Adam tried to imagine what Erin looked like. He didn't
really
care. She could have been the spitting female image of Rocky Dennis and he would have still loved her. The only thing that mattered to him was if she felt the way for him as he did for her.

The yellow road lines and digital minutes seemed to pass too slowly for Adam. He could not wait any longer. He wanted to teleport from here to Pappies Inn in as little as three seconds.

Then again, what would be the fun in that? What would be the fun in passing up the changing scenery? Listening to heartwarming music? Actually spending time with his mother, whom he was now sure he loved. Despite all that fighting and all those tears, he did not hate her after all. He’d just hated the situation. He was so high he could barely remember those old, ugly feelings in which he’d spent so much time wallowing. It was as if they'd never existed.

Adam checked his watch again, again, again and again. Sometimes twice a minute. His mother drove with a goofy little smile on her face. The whole time, there was not one sign of rain clouds or bad weather.

When they passed by a REST STOP sign, Angela slowed down, looked up the hill to the right, and pointed. Adam followed her direction.

"Deer," she said.

Three young deer mounted the peak of a hill in a small valley. They were eating grass. Adam watched them closely as they moseyed around, looking at each other as if they were communicating. Their coats were thin, marked with dark spots, their antlers twisted like healthy tree branches. All of them watched as the McNicols' came barreling down the highway.

"Pretty deer," his mother commented, slowing down in case one of them decided to run out into the road. None did.

Adam smiled, watching the three precious animals, wishing he could have gotten out of the car to pet them. The deer, he told himself, was a good omen. Proof that nothing could go wrong during this little journey. They were there for a reason, and that reason had everything to do with him.

But they went back to eating their grass, and, in Adam's mind, they were soon ancient history. He decided to wait a while before looking at his watch again. He hoped that if he thought about something else, the time would go faster.

For the most part, it did.

***

He checked his watch an hour and a half later, almost having given in a hundred times.

There was less than one hour to go.

"We're almost there," his mother told him.

Adam had to pee. He disregarded it and went right back for that Binaca, taking five sprays one after another. "I'm getting—I don't know if I can do this," he said nervously.

She smiled. "You'll be all right. Just don't think about it.”

But he wanted to think—envision. That's what he did best. There was no stopping a mudslide after it began, and there was no stopping Adam's Amtrak mind after it gathered speed.

"Do you know what this girl looks like? Did she send you a picture?"

"No, she described herself, though."

"Blind date."

"I sure hope she likes me."

"What's not to like?"

Adam took that compliment with a smile.

***

The road narrowed as they progressed, becoming windier, bumpier, with just enough space to accommodate two vehicles. Adam fell in love with the scenery on both the left and the right sides of the road. Large yards, some flat, some hilly, sprawled across the Mother Earth like glimpses of Ireland. Every blade of grass had recently been cut or was in the process of being cut by middle-aged men on tractors. The turfs were as green as golf courses in mid July. Picket fences bordered some, but not all, of the properties without taking away beauty from any of the pretty little ranch homes. Trees, close and far, stood tall and slender, their limber branches swaying in a gentle breeze. Adam watched as one old man sitting on a porch waved at him.

In the driveway of a bigger, more elegant country home, two boys Adam's age were playing basketball. The taller boy wearing the Bulls jersey went for a lay-up, while the shorter, fatter kid tried in vain to take the ball from him.

"Nice place to live," Adam said. And only three weeks ago, the Blake County Sewer was his lair.

"They are nice houses," his mother said. "Maybe when you publish your first book you'll buy one like these."

"Yeah. I wish I'd hurry up and finish the dammed story … send it to some publishers. You know that Stephen King got over a hundred thousand bucks for his first novel?"