My dad continues, “You think he might be….” He lowers his head so that it accentuates his double chin, draws his eyebrows together a little, and scrunches up his nose like he’s smelling someone’s farts.
“Might be what?” I ask, feeling hostile and aggressive without even knowing what he’s talking about. My dad can talk shit about me all he wants, but he better leave Chris out of it.
“You know….” Dad leans in closer. “Gay?”
I’m stunned silent. The way he says it, like it’s so repugnant he can’t even say the word. In a parallel universe, someone is laughing their ass off at my situation. But all I want is to find the nearest body of water and drown myself in it.
My sister answers before I can, “Oh my God, Daddy,noooo. Definitely not. He’s got, like, a million girlfriends.”
Dad shrugs, a little smirk on his face. He thinks it’s funny. “You never know,” he says while masticating his meat. “Kids these days.”
I stand up suddenly, dropping my napkin onto the floor.
“Enough,” I declare to the entire restaurant. I practically shout it from the rafters.
“What’s your problem?” Dad asks.
I glance at my sister, who’s giving me a death stare like I’d better not screw this up. I stride away from the table as fast as I can without actually running, make my way blindly to the bathroom, grapple for the sink faucet, and splash some cold water on my face, getting water on my shirtfront and not giving a shit except to wonder if it will stain Chris’s shirt.
“Fuck,” I mutter at my reflection. I’m going to puke. And I’m all dizzy and shit, my stomach cramping into the size of a golf ball. So much rage buzzing through me, I feel like a lunatic. I definitely can’t go back out there. I come out of the bathroom and look for another way out of the restaurant so I don’t have to pass by them. Seems the only way out is through the kitchen. I push through the swinging door, keeping my head down. The staff is too polite to stop me, just kindly tell me I’m going the wrong way. I find the back door and pass through it, loosening my tie along the way. I don’t know how the hell to get it unknotted, so I just end up ripping it off my head and shoving it in my pocket. I take in big gulps of fresh air, trying to calm myself down and work up the nerve to go back in. Right around the time I think I’ve gotten myself under control, I get a text from my sister:
Dad says to get your ass back in here or he’s giving your trust fund to Sabine.
Sabine is my seven-year-old half sister, my dad’s love child with his second wife, the one he cheated on my mom with. I’m being held hostage. Screw him, I think. I don’t need his money. And I don’t need his bullshit.
Instead of texting my sister, I pull up my contacts and call Chris.
“What’s up?” he says, like he already knows something is wrong. I hardly ever call. We usually text.
I should have brought my skateboard, but I didn’t. I could walk home, but this is an area I’m not familiar with, where the houses are all cookie cutter and the streets look the same. I’m not sure I could find my way out if I tried. Oh, and look at that, it’s starting to rain.
“Can you come get me?”
“Sure thing. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“I’m in Todesta.” I glance around, looking for a street sign to give him an address.
“I know where you are,” he says.
That’s right, Find My Friends.
Grilled Cheese
JUST THEsight of Chris’s Volvo coming up the street fills me with a full-body flood of relief. I’m hopping from foot to foot as he approaches, under the bus stop overhang where I’m waiting for him out of the rain.
“What happened?” he asks as I climb into the passenger side. I shake the water from my head like a dog and Chris shields himself from my spray with his hand.
“Dinner with my dad.”
I think back to this one time my dad came and picked me up for the day. One of the rare occasions it was just me because Tabs was busy elsewhere. We watched football at a sports bar and ate chicken wings until we were both uncomfortably full. I asked a lot of questions about the game, and my dad was pretty patient in answering. All in all, it was a good time. Then, when he dropped me off, he picked a fight with my mom about how bad my table manners were, how I didn’t saypleaseorthank youand how he was embarrassed by my behavior while we were out.
It was bullshit—all of it—and he didn’t seem to care that I was standing right there. Their fight escalated, and it made me question everything I thought I knew about my dad. He was using me to get back at her, that much I understood. I was so angry and felt so betrayed, I swore to never let my father use me as a weapon against my mother again.
In Chris’s car, I tell him everything about the night up until the point where my dad said Chris was strange and asked if he was gay. Chris listens and commiserates with me until I start to feel better. What a relief it is to unload on him, knowing he’s one hundred percent on my side, unlike Tabitha and my mom, who are always defending my dad and trying to make me see his point of view. In a way, Chris has suffered through my relationship with my father right alongside me, so the whole feelings part of it is covered without me even having to explain it. This is how it used to be between us before everything got awkward and strained.
“You should stay at my house tonight,” Chris says. “We’ll eat junk food and watch scary movies. Fart on each other’s pillows.”
I smile at that. It actually sounds like fun. Who cares if we have to be up at 6:00 a.m. the next morning to get ready for school? There’s honestly no one in the world I’d rather be with right now.
