Nora
CHAPTER 26
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Ido everything I can to keep myself busy. I pick up a few extra shifts at work, I drop off lunch to my dad a couple of times, I help my mom stuff bulletins and we go see a movie and make plans to do it every Wednesday from now on, even after I start at Bower. I play music in the shower and fall asleep to Netflix on my laptop every night, because whenever I find myself completely alone in the quiet, all I do is think about her. And the more time I spend thinking about her, the harder it gets to keep myself convinced that being with her is a bad idea.
Because the truth is, while I was doing all that other shit this week, the only thing I really wanted to do was go see her.
To ride a four-wheeler.
To fix a fence.
To stick my hand in a disgusting vat of ground meat.
Anythingto just be near her.
She lit something in me that day in the field and despite my best efforts to snuff it out, it’s been burning ever since.
It burns even as I look between my parents in the front seat of my mom’s car while we drive back home from St. Joe’s on Sunday. It was weird being back at Mass after knowing thetruth. My freshman-year theology teacher was just a few pews ahead of us, and I kept replaying the entire stupid class period that he spent explaining why marriage should only take place between a man and a woman.
What would it even feel like to tell my parents?
Mom. Dad. I like Nora Martin.
My dad’s head would probably just explode right here in the car, brain matter and blood all over my mom’s fabric seats.
Kidding.I’m kidding.But it’s an easier image for me to swallow than the truth. In reality, he’d probably just disown me. He didn’t even want “the queers” on his television station, so I highly doubt he’d want one living in his house.
But my mom? She wouldn’t, right? I’m the one who shut her out, she would never do that to me. I mean, I’ve seen her roll her eyes at my dad’s political rants… but I guess she never stops him either. And more than that, there’s the Church, and the truth is her status at St. Joe’s means the world to her. If having a daughter who got an abortion was grounds for Mrs. O’Doyle to step down from her post, certainly having a gay daughter would be catastrophic to my mom’s image and the progress she’s finally making. Not that abortion and sexuality haveanythingto do with each other, but in the eyes of the Church, they’re both basically a one-way ticket to the fiery pits of hell.
But would my momreallychoose the Church over me? It’s hard for me to believe, but I did choose to leave her behind for California… for Nora. So I must’ve really believed that she would.
It’s so hard for me to understand how something that feelssoright could be seen as so wrong. If they could just get into my head for a second to feel how I feel about her, they would understand immediately. And maybe…
“Stevie?” my mom asks, adjusting the rearview mirror so she can see me in the backseat. “I asked if you want to get breakfast at the Dinor.”
“No!” I reply too quickly and too loudly. “I mean, uh… I was actually going to look at my class schedule this morning and see what books I need.”Nice save.
“I’ve gotta get into the garage by eleven, anyway.” My dad wipes a hand down his face. I’m starting to wonder if he looks tired or if he actually just looks older than I remember.
“Do you really have to go into workagain, John? It’s Sunday,” my mom says with an edge to her voice.
“Babe, we talked about this… I have to take every job I can right now,” he replies, then the two of them start talking in hushed tones in the front seat while my attention wanders back out the window, grasping for something else to focus on. Like Ryan.
I haven’t spoken to him since… the incident. He must think I’m actually nuts or something, to jump him like that and then disappear. I know I need to call him. Apologize. I just… don’t know how to explain it.
He’s not just going to settle for anI’m sorry,and really, I could never even ask that of him. He deserves a real explanation, which is the one thing I can’t give him.
I think about that night at the Dinor, though, talking about growing up here, living here. If there’s another human being in this town that I could possibly talk to about Nora… it’s Ryan.Maybe… maybe he might even be able to help me figure out what to do, too.
I just hope he can forgive me first.
I’ve been nervously looking out the front window of my house for the past twenty minutes. I texted Ryan to ask if he could come over today to talk, so now he’s coming, but I still have no idea what the heck to say to him.
Hey, sorry I jumped you at work and made out with you beside a dumpster, but it was only because I actually really wanted to be doing it with a girl and was trying not to want that.
“Oh my God. I can’t tell him that,” I whisper under my breath, shaking my head at myself.
“Who you talkin’ to?” My dad’s voice scares the shit out of me as I whip around to find him directly behind me. He ducks his head to look out the window with me as he takes a big bite of a brownie from the batch my mom made yesterday.
