I was leaving him to his silence and his solitude, and suddenly I wondered how different this moment would have been if my mother was alive. She would have cried, arms looping round my neck as I bent to hug and kiss her goodbye, telling me she was proud of me, making me promise to call, to come home soon, to tell her everything. I would have cried, holding her.
For the sake of the only woman the two of us had ever loved, I reached my arms round my father, and he wordlessly put his arms round me.
I stared into the side mirror, watching the town grow smaller. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Despite an uneasy curiosity, I wouldn’t look back to see if this was true. That bullshit town and the years I lived there would be out of view in five minutes and erased from my conscious mind as soon as I could forget it.
‘Do what you want with the radio,’ Heller said, and I snapped my attention forward. ‘As long as it isn’t any of that screaming crap Cole abuses his ears with. Can’t stand that noise pollution he calls music.’
His oldest kid was fifteen now. Whenever we were together, he’d ape how I dressed and what type of music I was into, following me around and mimicking whatever I said or did – not always a great idea, I’ll admit. His attitude on life seemed to be: if something irritated his parents, he was for it.
I blinked like I was surprised. ‘What, no Bullet for My Valentine? No Slipknot?’
I laughed at Heller’s agitated scowl, sure he didn’t believe or care whether or not those were real band names. That was all the answer I got, besides his usual stoic sigh. I plugged my iPod into the stereo console and dialled it to a playlist I’d made last night titled f**k you and goodbye. The tracks were a lot less violent than the title implied, in deference to my road-trip companion. I might share Cole’s attitude when it came to my own father, but not his.
I didn’t see the Heller kids often – though that was about to change, since I’d be living in their backyard. Literally. My new home would be the room over their garage that had been storage for boxes of books and holiday decorations, exercise equipment and old furniture. My memories of it were vague. When I’d visited the Hellers, I’d slept on an air mattress in Cole’s room. Backing out at the last minute every damned time, Dad would stick me on a bus with my duffle bag and strict instructions not to do anything stupid while I was there.
I wasn’t a kid any more, and this wasn’t a weeklong visit. I was a college student who needed a place to live for four years. A legal adult who couldn’t afford a dorm or an apartment along with tuition. Heller told me I’d be paying him rent, but it wasn’t much. I knew charity when I got it, but for once in my pathetic life, I was grabbing it with both hands, like the knotted end of a rescue rope.
LUCAS
‘I’ll take the first couple hours, and you can take the last two.’ Jacqueline slid her dark sunglasses over her eyes and grinned at me from the driver’s side of her truck. ‘But don’t nap, or we could end up halfway to El Paso. I need you to navigate.’
As she backed her truck down the driveway, I waved goodbye to Carlie and Charles, sliding my sunglasses into place. ‘That’s a completely different highway.’ I chuckled. ‘You aren’t that bad.’
She shook her head and sighed. ‘Seriously. Don’t tempt fate. You’ll be sorry. We could end up lost and driving aimlessly for our entire spring break.’
When I stopped to consider the fact that Jacqueline was coming home to the coast with me, driving aimlessly for a week instead didn’t sound so bad. I shook my head. ‘I guess I should have gotten you a new GPS for your birthday.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘That sounds like a sensible gift.’
‘Ah, right, I forgot – we don’t do sensible gifts.’
She’d told me that her parents had always bought each other (and her) sadly pragmatic gifts, but they’d hit a new low – buying their own gifts. ‘Mom got herself a new StairMaster and Dad got himself a grill,’ she told me when we’d talked Christmas night. ‘It’s a big grill, with side burners and warming drawers and, who cares, because holy cow – buying your own gift for Christmas?’
I didn’t tell her that seemed like a great idea to me. If she believed practical gifts were out, then I was destined for a lifetime of impracticality. Bring it.
We’d each had a birthday in the past two months. My gift from her: driving a Porsche 911 for a day. Massively impractical. Heller and Joseph were both massively jealous. I texted a pic to Boyce and he texted back: Fuck the bro code. I am stealing your woman. You have been warned.
For Jacqueline’s birthday, I’d chosen one of my mother’s watercolours – a rainy Paris skyline – from Dad’s attic stash when I was home over winter break. I had it mounted and framed for her. She went very quiet after she opened it, tears coursing down her face. I was sure my aptitude for gift-giving had just crashed and burned, and I should never be allowed to choose a gift again for anyone.
And then she threw herself into my arms, and an hour later, I shoved my fingers into her hair and kissed her. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘My next birthday is eleven months away. How did that just happen?’
Jacqueline was curled in the passenger seat, asleep, as I confronted the fact that we were fifteen minutes away from the coast. That I was taking my girlfriend home, where she would meet my uncommunicative father and my frequently inappropriate high-school best friend. And oh hell, were we sleeping in the pantry? Shit. I should have reserved a hotel room.