“I’m not. I don’t want to be here,” I said, looking away from my mom. I picked up a stress ball off the table and squeezed it between my fingers.
“Why not?”
I let go, watched the ball return to normal size. “We’re here to fix our family, right?”
She frowned. “Do you think your family is broken?”
“Yes,” I said.
If Dr. Kim was annoyed with my short answers, she didn’t show it. “And to use your word, do you want your family to be ‘fixed’?” she asked.
I sank back into the couch, squeezing the ball harder until my knuckles started to turn white. “Yes.”
Dr. Kim smiled, scribbling again in that notebook. “That’s a good start. What do you think is the first step in making that happen?”
That was easy. “He has to leave.”
My dad covered his head in his hands. My mom began to say my name before Dr. Kim cut her off. “That’s okay, Willa. Let him finish. You think your dad leaving will fix your family, Brett?” she asked, turning back toward me.
“I think it would be a start,” I said.
Satisfied, she wrote that down before turning to my father. “What do you think about that, Thomas?”
I had gotten into the habit of blocking out my dad’s voice whenever he spoke. I focused on the stress ball and watched it expand and collapse. Then I looked around the room, at the dozens of plaques covering the walls. There were plants everywhere too, like someone had read a book on how to make a room feel welcoming. Too bad it wasn’t working. All I wanted was to run out of there at full speed.
Finally, Dr. Kim closed her notebook. “Well, our time is up for today. But we can pick up from here next week.” My parents shook her hand, said they’d schedule another appointment with the receptionist, and we left.
The hour-long drive home was silent. I didn’t know if there were no family counselors in Crestmont or if my dad had just chosen one that was a few towns over. That way, it limited the chance someone would see us going. God forbid another Wells family secret was exposed.
No one said a single word the entire drive. The only sound was my mom sniffling and the low hum of the radio. The tension in the car was thick enough to make it hard to breathe. I opened a window and leaned my head outside, wishing this was a dream. It still didn’t feel real. Any of this. I glanced at my dad’s silhouette and then my mom’s, then the space in the middle where their hands usually rested, intertwined, while driving. Now there was so much space between all three of us.
I could see my mom’s face in the side-view mirror. Her head was resting against the window and her eyes were closed. She hadn’t been sleeping lately. She spent all her time in her bedroom with the door half open, but she never slept. I started setting an alarm on my phone so I’d wake up in the middle of the night to check on her. Sometimes her bed was empty and I’d walk downstairs to find her sitting on the couch, staring at the TV screen. Most nights she was lying in bed crying. Those times, I’d lie beside her. She wouldn’t say a word. She’d just hide the tissue box and hold my hand until the sun rose.
At this point I couldn’t tell the difference between coping and surviving. There was no way our family could go back to normal. I was starting to forget what normal even felt like.
My dad dropped us off at home. I got out of the car and sat on the steps leading to the door. I watched him and my mom sit there for a few minutes, talking. They kept glancing at me. I was scared he’d get out and try to come inside, that he wouldn’t want to go back to the hotel. But when the door opened, only my mom stepped out.
The house was so quiet. Eerie. I followed my mom into the kitchen and watched as she poured herself a mug of coffee. She looked skinnier. When was the last time she ate? I went to the fridge and started to make her a sandwich. That was my job now, to take care of her. She didn’t say a word, just sat at the table and stared into the mug, not even drinking. When I placed the plate in front of her, she looked up at me. “What is this?”
“You need to eat, Mom.”
She picked up half the sandwich and handed it to me, a silent offer. She’d only eat if I did too. Caving, I sat down and took a bite. Then she did.
We ate in silence.
“Your dad wants to come back home,” my mom said.
I took a deep breath, swallowed down the anger. “Do you want that?” I asked.
She reached across the table, grabbed my hand. “I want what’s best for you, Brett. That’s all I ever wanted.”
I read between the lines. “You could have told me, Mom, about the affair. You didn’t have to go through that alone.”
My mom patted my hand. Her face broke into this sad smile. “You love your father so much, Brett. I didn’t want to take that away from you. And I’m your mother; it’s my job to protect you.”
“Do you still love him?”
“I do.”
“Even after what he’s done?” I asked.
“You can’t shut off eighteen years of loving someone because of one mistake, Brett. Love is more complicated than that.” My mom stood up, walked around the table, and hugged me from behind. She kissed my forehead, then walked away.
“Mom?” I called.
She paused at the doorway. “Yes?”
“Can I change the locks on the doors?”
“If you want.”
I don’t think it was that easy, though. Even if I physically removed my father from my life, he’d still be there. That was the worst part.
It was starting to feel like an earthquake had rocked through my life and split it into two. There was the mess waiting for me at home and then school, where I had to hide all the cracks. And now with Becca out of the picture, I wasn’t sure which was worse.
It was my fault. I asked for space. And I wanted space, I really did. But I didn’t realize that asking her to stop being my girlfriend also meant we couldn’t be friends. In hindsight, I may have fucked that up. Because even though I was still trying to sift through my feelings, Becca was the only person I wanted to talk to. She was the only one who really understood. But from the looks of it, she wanted nothing to do with me. What I said that day on the rooftop had driven a wedge between us, because now she wouldn’t even look at me. Not during class. Not during lunch. She even stopped eating at our table outside.
I tried to find her the first few days. I searched the library and the halls but she must have been hiding in some crevice only she knew about. The only time I got to see her was during English. On Thursday, our eyes met when Miss Copper asked me to stay back after class. And even then, Becca only held my gaze for a second before clutching her textbooks to her chest and rushing into the hall.
“Brett,” Miss C said when the class had emptied. I stood before her desk, waiting. “I’m sure you are aware members of the football team need to maintain a B-grade in every class to continue playing.”
I nodded. “I am.”
She placed my recent essay on Romeo and Juliet on her desk. A big red F covered the top right corner. This week was turning into one bad moment after another. I wanted to explain why my paper was so bad. How I’d been so busy caring for my mom that I didn’t have time to write it. That I was spending my weekend in some useless counseling session. How I was getting barely three hours of sleep a night because I wanted to stay awake in case the door opened and my dad tried to come home.