Slammed (33 page)

"I'm going with you," she says.

***

When we arrive at the school, I sprint inside. I'm out of breath and on the verge of hysteria when we find the office. Kel and Caulder are both sitting in the lobby.

My feet won’t move fast enough as I run to them and hug them.

"Are y'all okay? What happened?"

They both shrug.

"We don’t know," Kel says. "They just told us we had to sit here until our parents came."

"Ms. Cohen?" someone says from behind me. I turn around and there is a slender woman with red hair looking at me. She's wearing a black pencil skirt and a white dress shirt. She looks more like a librarian than a principal. She gestures her hand toward her office and Eddie and I follow her.

The woman walks into her office and takes a seat at her desk, nodding to the chairs in front of her. Eddie and I both sit.

"I'm Ms. Brill. I'm the principal here at Chapman Elementary. Principal Brill."

The curt way she's speaking to me and her hoity toity posture have immediately turned me off. I already don't like her.

"Are Caulder's parents joining us?" she asks.

"Caulder's parents are dead," I reply.

She gasps, then attempts to control her reaction by sitting up even straighter. "Oh, that's right. I'm sorry," she says. "Is it his brother? He lives with his brother, right?"

I nod. "He's in Detroit, he can't make it. I'm Kel's sister. What's the problem?"

She laughs. "Well, isn't it obvious?" She gestures out her office window to them.

I look at the boys. They're playing rock-paper-scissors and laughing. I know she's referring to their costumes, but she's already lost my respect with her attitude, so I continue to act oblivious.

"Is rock-paper-scissors against school policy?" I ask.

Eddie laughs.

"Ms. Cohen," Principal Brill says. "They're dressed as cancerous lungs!" She shakes her head in disbelief.

"I thought they were rotten kidney beans," Eddie says.

We both laugh.

"I don't think this is funny," Principal Brill says. "They're causing a distraction amongst the students! Those are very offensive and crude costumes! I don't know who thought it was a good idea, but you need to take them home and change their clothes."

My focus returns to Principal Brill as I slowly turn around and lean forward, placing my arms on her desk.

"Principal Brill," I say calmly. "Those costumes were made by my mother. My mother, who has stage four small-cell lung cancer. My mother, who will never watch her little boy celebrate another Halloween again. My mother, who will more than likely experience a year of 'lasts.' Last Christmas. Last birthday. Last Easter. And if God is willing, her last Mother's Day. My mother, who when asked by her nine-year-old son if he could be her cancer for Halloween, had no choice but to make him the best cancerous tumor-ridden lung costume she could. So if you think it's so offensive, I suggest you drive them home yourself and tell my mother to her face. Do you need my address?"

Principal Brill's mouth is gaped open as she shakes her head. She can't respond. I stand up and Eddie follows me out the door. I stop short and spin around and walk back into her office.

"And one more thing. The costume contest? I hope it's
fairly
judged."

Eddie laughs as I shut the door behind us.

"What's going on?" Kel asks.

"Nothing," I say. "Y'all can go back to class. She just wanted to know where we got the materials for your costume so she can be a hemorrhoid next year."

Eddie and I try to contain our laughter as the boys make their way back to class. We head outside and as soon as we open the doors, we explode. We laugh so hard, we cry.

When we get back in the jeep, I have six missed calls from my mother and two from Will. I return their calls and assure them the situation has been resolved without sparing any details.

Later that afternoon when I pick the boys up from school, they sprint to the car.

"We won!" Caulder yells as he climbs in the backseat. "We both won! Fifty dollars each!"

20.

“
Well I've been locking myself up in my house for some time now
Reading and writing and reading and thinking
and searching for reasons and missing the seasons
The Autumn, the Spring, the Summer, the snow
The record will stop and the record will go
Latches latched the windows down,
the dog coming in and the dog going out
Up with caffeine and down with the shot
Constantly worried about what I've got
Distracted by work but I can't make it stop
and my confidence on and my confidence off
And I sink to the bottom I rise to the top
and I think to myself that I do this a lot
World outside just goes it goes it goes it goes it goes it goes...”

-The Avett Brothers,
Talk on Indolence

Chapter Twenty

The next few weeks come and go. Eddie helps out with watching the boys until Will gets home on the days I take my mother to her treatments. Will leaves every morning at six-thirty and doesn't return home until after five-thirty. We don't see each other. I make sure we don't see each other. We've resorted to texting and phone calls when it comes to Kel and Caulder. My mother has been pressing me for information, wanting to know why he doesn't come around anymore. I lie and tell her he's just busy with his new internship.

He's only been to the house once in the past two months. It was the only time we've really spoken since the incident in the laundry room. He came to tell me he was offered a job at a Junior High that starts in January.

I'm happy for him, but it's bittersweet. I know how much the job means for him and Caulder, but I know what it means for Will and I, too. Deep down there was a part of me silently counting down the days until his last day of internship. It's finally here, and he's already signed another contract. It solidified things for us, really. Solidified that they're over.

We finally put the house up for sale in Texas. Mom has managed to save almost 180,000 dollars from life insurance dad actually
had
. The house isn't paid off yet, but after all is said and done we should get another check from the sale. Mom and I spend the majority of November focusing on our finances. We set aside more for our college funds and she opened a savings account for Kel. She payed off all the outstanding credit cards and charge cards that are in her name, and instructed me to never open any in my own name. Said she would
haunt
me if I did.

***

Today is Thursday. It’s the final day of school for all the districts; including Will’s. We have early release today, so I bring Caulder home with us. He usually spends the night on Thursdays while Will goes to the slam.

I haven't been back to Club N9NE since the night Will read his poem. I understand what Javi meant in class now-about having to relive heartache. That's why I don't go. I've relived it enough for a lifetime.

I feed the boys and send them to their bedroom and then head to my mother's room for what has become our nightly chat.

"Shut the door, these are Kel's," she whispers.

She's wrapping Christmas gifts. I shut the door behind me and sit on the bed with her and help her wrap.

"What are your plans for Christmas break?" she asks.

She's lost all of her hair now. She chose not to go with a wig-said it felt like a ferret was taking a nap on her head. She's still beautiful, nonetheless.

I shrug. "Whatever yours are, I guess."

She frowns. "Are you going to Will's graduation with us tomorrow?"

He sent us an invite two weeks ago. I think each graduate gets a certain number of guests and his grandparents are the only other people he invited besides us.

"I don't know, I haven't decided yet," I say.

She secures a box with a bow and sets it aside. "You should go. Whatever happened between the two of you, you should still go. He’s been there for us, Lake."

I don’t want to admit to her that I don't want to go because I don't know how to be around him anymore. That night in his laundry room when I thought for a brief moment that we could finally be together; I had never felt so elated. It was the most amazing feeling I've ever experienced, to finally be free to love him. But it wasn't real. That one minute of pure happiness I felt and the heartache that came moments later is something I never want to experience again. I'm tired of grieving.

My mother moves the wrapping paper from her lap and reaches out and hugs me. I didn't realize I was wearing my emotions on my sleeve.

"I'm sorry, but I think I may have given you some terrible advice," she says.

I pull away from her and laugh. "That's impossible, Mom. You don't know how to do terrible."

I take a box from the floor and pull it into my lap as I grab a sheet of already cut paper and begin to wrap it.

"I did, though. Your whole life I've been telling you to think with your head, not your heart," she says.

I meticulously fold the edges up and grab the roll of tape. "That's not good advice, Mom. That's
great
advice. That same advice is what has gotten me through these past few months." I tear a piece of tape and secure the edge of the package.

My mother grabs the box out of my hand before I'm finished wrapping it and sets it beside her. She takes my hands and turns me toward her.

"I'm serious. You've been doing so much thinking with your head that you're ignoring your heart completely. There has to be a balance. The fact that both of you are letting other things consume you is about to ruin any chance you'll ever have at being happy."

I shake my head in confusion. "Nothing is consuming me, Mom."

She shakes my hands like I'm not getting it.
"I
am, Lake
. I'm
consuming you. You've got to stop worrying so much about
me
. Go live your life. I'm not dead yet, you know."

I stare down at our hands as her words soak in. I
have
been focusing on her a lot. But that's what she needs. It's what we both need. She doesn't have that much time left, and I want to be there for every second of it.

"Mom, you need me. You need me more than I need Will. Besides, Will has made his choice."

She darts her eyes away and lets go of my hands. "No he hasn't, Lake. He made what he
thought
was the best choice for him, but he's wrong. You're both wrong."

I know she wants to see me happy. I don't have the heart to tell her that it's over between us. He made his choice that night in the laundry room when he let me go. He has his priorities, and right now I'm not one of them.

She takes the box I was wrapping and returns it in front of her and starts wrapping it again. "That night I told you I had cancer, and you ran to Will's house?" Her voice softens. She clears her throat, still avoiding my eyes. "I need to tell you what he said to me, at the door."

I remember the conversation she's referring to but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

"When he answered the door I told him you needed to come home. That we needed to talk about it. He looked at me with heartache in his eyes. He said,
'Let her stay Julia. She needs me right now.'

"Lake, you broke my heart. It broke my heart that you needed
him
more than you needed
me
. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, I realized that you were grown up…that I wasn't your whole life anymore. Will could see that. He saw how bad his words hurt me. When I turned away to walk back to the house he followed me into the yard and hugged me. He told me he would never take you from me. He said he was going to let you go…let you focus on me and on the time I had left."