Cut Both Ways (15 page)

“But!” I say. Then stop. Because I don't want to explode. I breathe in and out, like my mom taught me. I swallow.

“Don't tell my mom about him,” I say. “She just . . . she won't let up about it. About him.”

Kristin is now looking at me, folding her arms over her chest, looking like she's so concerned and sorry for me. Her own lips trembling like she's trying not to cry, too.

Now it's Garrett's turn to nod. “Okay,” he says. “But you've got to promise not to go there. Stay there.”

“But . . .” I stop. My throat is aching and full of tears. Tears are coming out, anyway. I feel like the biggest loser of all time.
Kristin is now crying, too. I've made her cry. Even after she made me a good dinner and beautiful swirly ice cream for dessert. This makes me feel mad, then. Not at her. Just in general. At myself.

“Won't he . . .” I, clear my throat, take off my glasses, wipe my wrist over my eyes. Pressing my fingers against my eyes like I'm pissed they're being so out of line. “I told him I was staying with him until it was done,” I say. “I promised I'd help him.” I'm practically whispering.

“I'll talk to him,” he says. “He'll get it.”

“But not my mom,” I say. “She'll just . . . she'll call in lawyers. She'll complain about money. That's her thing. How she keeps digging at him. You know?”

I wipe my wrist over my eyes again. I've got to fucking get it together.

“Will, honey, why don't you get some sleep?” Kristin says. She puts her arm around my shoulders, and the next thing I know, she's steering me to a spare bedroom, where the bedspread looks like an old horse blanket but is actually very soft and I'm sitting down on it and she's handing me a folded towel, with a toothbrush and a little bar of soap on it. Like I'm a guest in a hotel. I thank her and she pats my shoulder and then closes the door, so slowly and softly it barely makes a sound. Like she's worried I'll shatter. Like the noise'll set me off like a bomb.

I put my glasses on the nightstand, take off my clothes, and get into the bed. Put the towel, toothbrush, and soap on the floor. I can't handle the idea of going out again, opening that closed door, running into Kristin or Garrett, hearing them move
around. Hearing them talk about me. The room has wallpaper that looks like horseshoes and for a while, I count them. Let all the horseshoes tumble around until I feel a little dizzy. I turn off the light, and realize my phone's still in my jeans when I hear it buzz with a text. I don't get up. Nobody's got anything to say to me about this, and I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I STAY AT
Garrett and Kristin's for the whole next week; Garrett can fix my car but he just needs to find the time. I tell my mom I'm staying at my dad's and I act pissy about it when she pushes for an explanation. I tell her we're working on this, together, and she needs to understand that it's important to me, not just him.

“This is the house I was born in,” I remind her and she shuts up.

Kristin says I can drive their old Toyota, but that the heater is busted, and they only use it in summer. It also gets shit gas mileage, but I can hardly point that out to her when she's being so nice.

It's kind of a normal week. I don't tell anyone that I'm staying at Garrett's, though—it's too hard to explain. And I don't ask one question about my dad or the house or my car; I just go to school and do my stuff and drive the Toyota home (it's also loud and rattly as hell) and Kristin makes really nice dinners and we
all eat and talk about everything besides why I'm there. Most of the time Garrett eats and then leaves right away and I don't ask if he's going to Time to Eat or to see my dad, though I really want to. And every night after that, Kristin always gives me a dish of ice cream with that same chocolate and caramel sauce when he leaves and I still swirl and stare at it like I'm on drugs. I wonder if she thinks I'm going crazy, because she doesn't hover or bug me much, so I think maybe I freak her out. Though it's nice that she doesn't hover or anything. It would be pretty hard for me to think of one thing to say to her, so I eat my ice cream and do my homework and watch television and she just kind of does her thing, then. Cleaning up in the kitchen or dealing with the chickens and goats and whatever else. Kristin is always working, just like Garrett, but she doesn't act busy, like my mom, or stressed out and exhausted, like my dad. She's quieter, for one thing. And I don't know if that's because their farm is loud, just by nature: the chickens are noisy, and so are the goats, and the weather on the edge of the cornfield that Garrett leases out is always whipping up wind. The night's full of crickets and buzzing and probably even coyotes. There's some strange sounds out here in the country. Things you don't hear in Oak Prairie or Minneapolis.

But on Friday, when Brandy comes over to me in Photography, like she does every other day, I just feel like she's looking at me funny. Like Kristin looked at me. About to cry. Sad for me.

“What?” I say, jerking away my arm when she touches the sleeve of my shirt.

“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing at all. Jesus. Fuck you.” And
then she leaves the darkroom, and I can't race after her because people are already looking at us. So that's how easy it is to get in a fight with your girlfriend.

The rest of the day, I'm silent. Jack is hovering around me in Global Society, talking to everyone near me, about stuff he thinks will make me turn around and call him out on it, but I don't.

After school, DeKalb reminds me that he and Angus are playing a show on Saturday and can I help roadie?

I think it's fucking ridiculous that he uses the word
roadie
—as if they have a
band
and will be playing actual
songs
and anyone will even be
listening
—but I tell him fine and that I've got to get to work but that's a lie. Garrett took me off the schedule. I didn't even fight him on that point, either. I feel stupid about that, but I know it's all I can handle.

After school, I drive the rattly Toyota to Garrett's. Kristin and him aren't around. This is the first time that's happened since I've been here. Usually Kristin's there to greet me when I drive up, but today the place feels like they're both gone. Unless Kristin's in the barn or something. I don't really like the barn; it smells awful and I don't want to step in anything gross. Also, I'm a little bit freaked by the goats, even though Kristin told me they're friendly and they have names like Barney and Cliff and Ginger.

I go inside and drink, like, three glasses of water from this glass pitcher Kristin keeps in the fridge. I like that she's got cold water; I don't know why. The water that comes out of my mom's water dispenser in her fridge is cold, too, but somehow the pitcher water tastes better.

Then, because I don't want to watch TV or sit in my little spare hotel room—it's less like a hotel now, since I've spread some of my junk around more—I go out back on the porch, where Angus and me slept that one night together.

I sit on the sofa, pull off my boots. It's late October and the wind's kicking up, but the storm windows are over the screens so, while they rattle, it's not cold. And it feels good, the last bit of four-o'clock sunlight heating things up just so it's warm. I'm wearing a flannel and jeans; I'm the perfect temperature. I breathe in and out. Just breathe. Thinking about breathing. The whole day kind of slipping off me like ash falling from one of Garrett's cigarettes. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I toss it on the floor, next to my boots. I just want to stop. I just want to sleep. I just want so many things but right now it seems like the most important thing I want is for people to stop wanting anything out of me.

I've never told anyone about this.

It was summer and I was with my mom and she was pregnant with the twins. Only she didn't know it was twins, which is part of why I was with her in the doctor's office that day.

I was bored that day, because she'd dragged me to the fabric store and the office-supply store and the post office, which, if you are a kid, are the most boring stores to visit, because there are no toys or food you like there.

At the doctor, in the first room, I had to sit on this chair in the corner of the exam room and the nurse gave me a kid's magazine,
which was all pictures of tigers and hippos and everything in Africa, except they showed the animals making their kills, like lions with bloody mouths eating antelopes or whatever, which was cool when you thought about it, except then my mom had a blood test and I had to look at the blood in the vial the nurse carried away in her purple gloves and my stomach felt gross. Then we went to the next room and my mom had to lie on her back in a paper shirt and when I asked her for her phone to play games on it, she shushed me and said phones weren't allowed in here because of the special equipment and other rules. So I sat on the floor until the nurse told me to sit on the chair, which was freezing cold on my legs (I was wearing shorts) from the air-conditioning being jacked up.

The nurse came back in and my mom got hooked up to a machine and then the doctor came in and was all between her legs and I thought for a minute that she was going to have the baby, right then, by total accident. Even though her stomach was barely sticking out, even, like a real pregnant lady's.

But then, she just lay there, completely still and calm. Not like ladies having babies on TV acted, which was all screaming and panting. And after a while, the doctor started talking low to her and they were looking at the screen and the nurse was smiling and the doctor was pointing at the screen and she was smiling at my mom, too.

But my mom wasn't smiling. She stopped looking at the screen and said. “Oh my.” Then she said it a bunch more times: “Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.” Not “oh my God” or “oh my goodness” but just:
oh my. Then the doctor said she was printing something out and labeling the head and the feet and the nurse told my mom she could sit up and get dressed and the doctor and nurse left.

My mom didn't look at me. She touched her stomach, lightly. And then she carefully put on her clothes, her back to me, and crumpled up the paper shirt thing. I knew she was upset so I didn't say anything. Even when she told me to go to the bathroom by the waiting room, and I didn't even have to go, because that was one of her things:
Just go to the bathroom, Will, and get it over with!
She hated it when I said I had to go to the bathroom while she was in the middle of something, like at the grocery store or whatever.

So I went to the bathroom and stood there for a minute and then ran my hands under the sink so she'd think I'd gone and she dragged me out of the waiting room, her phone by her ear, her purse flapping behind her. Some people think pregnant ladies are delicate but not my mom. She was pulling me like I was a kite. She seemed stronger than a lion taking down a zebra. Fast like a gazelle about to get its neck snapped by a cheetah.

Once we got to the parking lot, she started crying. Talking to Jay.

“Two of them,” she said, opening the driver door of her car and tossing her purse into the passenger seat. I got into the back, automatically, which was the rule. My dad let me sit up front with him, but my mom was strict about that.

She sat, turned on the car, which was good, because it was hot in there. The air-conditioning whooshed over me and I put the burning-hot seatbelt over my chest before she could turn her
head and say anything about it. She wouldn't put the car in drive until I was buckled up; we'd only had that kind of standoff once or twice before I gave in.

“I know, but Jay!” she yelled. “You're not hearing me! Two. Two of them. Two of everything. How the hell can we afford that?”

Then she started sobbing and sobbing and I could hear Jay on his end, telling her over and over, “Tess. Tess. Come on, honey. Where are you? Tess. Come home. Just drive home. I'll be there as soon as I can. Tess. Tess.”

I never told anyone about this because when we got home, Jay hugged her and smiled at me and we ordered pizza and he let me drink two cans of Coke and after that everything was happy. Everything was happy and my mom set out to make arrangements for two of everything, all of it pink, because it was girls she was having, both of them would be girls, I would have sisters. I would be their big brother and there would be two of them. Which was what I told my dad when I went to his house for the week and he nodded and told me congratulations, that I had a very important job and I would be very special to my little sisters. That he had a big brother and he loved him very much, even when he died, which was when he was a lot younger, and it was sad, but he would always remember him.

Then Kinney and Taylor were born. Nothing was the same. Everything double. Everything pink. Everything busy and moving and crazy. I was the big brother. Jay gave me a T-shirt that said so, and a paddleboard and a pile of comic books. My mom was in bed for what seemed like months. And Taylor and Kinney
got everything they needed and wanted—everything. Everyone was busy, but everyone was happy. Holding them. Feeding them. Changing their clothes and diapers. Taking their pictures. Tickling their naked, sticky pink feet. Giving them baths in the kitchen sink, then the tub. They both got to stay at my mom's all week; they never went anywhere, like I did. They never had to ask anyone for anything, because it just appeared, in their hands or in their mouths.

And I wasn't mad about that. I wasn't. I was the one putting things into their hands and mouths. Tickling them. Getting them to laugh and smile. Getting them to walk to me before crashing down on their big diaper-padded butts, clapping for them.

I clapped and gave them things, tickled them, because I knew at first that they'd upset my mom. They'd been the wrong thing, like something in a catalog she hadn't meant to order. An extra of something. And I didn't want them to know that I hadn't cared about them that much, either. I didn't want them to worry that someday, there wouldn't be enough. That someday, it could all run out.

I open my eyes. It's like I've been dreaming or sleeping but I haven't. Just remembering. Remembering, because I'm in between places, where it's easier to remember this, when I'm not near either of them.

It's almost dark now, so that's why I see the headlights before I hear the car; it's Garrett pulling up in his truck. I feel more tired than before but I get up, wipe my eyes a little, and meet him at the door.

“Need you back on the road and back on the schedule,” he says. “Everardo's got vacation coming up and Carl's due some time off, too.”

“What's going on with my dad?” I ask. I regret asking the second it comes out.

Garrett shakes his head. “He's not doing what I hoped he would,” he says. “But he's not fighting me as much. He's listening now. A little bit.”

I don't know what that means. I don't know what my dad fighting sounds like. My mom I remember yelling. My dad's side of it was quieter. Even when they told me about the divorce, my dad was quiet. My mom explained to me her side of things, how she wasn't happy, and how she needed other things in life, and how she would be a better mom if she were happy and got those things. That I was the one who mattered most. My dad just nodded, but he didn't look like he agreed.

One time, I tried to talk to my dad about it, before the papers were signed and the lawyers happened, and the moving back and forth started. I tried to say something I'd seen on a TV show, about how it was a misunderstanding: “It's not anybody's fault,” was the thing I remember someone telling the kid in the show. I was trying to be smart. For him to smile and pat me on the head and maybe smile once in a while. I just wanted to make him feel better. For even five minutes.

I said something like, “Dad, you should listen to Mom's side of the story. Then maybe tell her your side? Because it's not anybody's fault.”

But he didn't smile. He barely looked at me. He just shook his head and sighed and said, “Everyone's side of the story is just how they sugarcoat their own fault in it. It's just bullshit, Will. Bullshit.”

Which was when I understood that my dad was right about one thing: being quiet about what bothered you was probably for the best.

Garrett says he's got the stuff to fix my car now and we head out to do that. I try to focus so Garrett doesn't think I'm a total waste of time. He won't let me pay him back for the part and stuff, either. Just wants me to watch and see how it's fixed, in case it happens again. Even though Angus texted me to come hang out while he and DeKalb practice before tomorrow's show, I don't text back, because I want to pay attention to every step. I know Angus must wonder why I'm blowing him off—like with Brandy, I try to answer all of his calls and texts as soon as possible—but we're not done until it's really late. Like ten o'clock. Which isn't late for teenagers, I know, but I don't feel like it's right to just be like, “Great! Thanks! Bye!” to Garrett and then tear off after he basically fixed my car for free.